The Dark Side of Light (El Lado Oscuro De La Luz) is a powerful psychological thriller based on the true story of a serial killer who was sentenced to an electric chair execution and survived it. This criminal justifies his murderers in the belief he is doing God’s work. Using a symbolic language this story exposes, “actions that prove killing in God’s name is an excuse to cover atrocious crimes..."

Gus Reyes score for The Dark Side of Light represents an interesting collection of 20 tracks (1 hr, 05 min, 40 sec). This is a much more beautiful collection than I was expecting given the subject matter of the film.

One of the main highlights is the beautiful 'Suite de Concierto (Bonus Track)' which comes in at 11 min, 44 sec. This cherry picks some of the main highlights from the score and collects them together as a single track.

'El Lado Oscuro de la Luz' reminded me of Danny Elfman's score for Batman (1989), as did the opening of 'Agua que Limpia' (which, incidentally, was one of this album's strongest tracks). There's also a beautiful requiem, 'Requiem del Lado Oscuro', that is incredibly powerful.

In fact, the only real flaw I can find with this beautiful collection is that there are only really a handful of themes and the composer revisits them time and time again with very little variation. Other than that minor quibble, this is an essential purchase for lovers of beautiful scores.

8

Darren Rea