Silva Screen Records release Benjamin Wallfisch's score for Annabelle: Creation. Following on from the worldwide success of 2014's horror blockbuster Annabelle, a chilling story of a possessed vintage doll, comes a prequel directed by David F. Sandberg (Annabelle, Lights Out)...

Composer Benjamin Wallfisch (Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain; Pressure; Conquest 1453; Desert Dancer; The Escapist; Gamba; Hammer of the Gods, The Thirteenth Tale) delivers a score that is packed with a mix of beautiful, intricate themes and more standard horror fare.

I've started to associate Wallfisch's name with outstanding horror scores of late. He also composed the music for the 2017 movie adaptation of Stephen King's IT (a soundtrack that recently landed in my inbox and I'm getting a lot of pleasure out of listening to it). While the music for Annabelle: Creation isn't quite as enjoyable, it's still head and shoulders above the normal Horror cues that you normally associate with the genre.

Here Wallfisch approaches the subject with a tenderness and attention to detail that is like a breath of fresh air. It would have been so easy to deliver a collection of jumpy music cues, but instead he makes the music an extra, integral, character of the movie.

Of the score's 24 tracks (48 min, 30 sec) personal highlights include 'Creation'; 'A New Home'; 'Bee's Photo'; and 'The House is Blessed'. For atmosphere and overall feeling, it reminded me of Jerry Goldsmith's work on Poltergeist (1982). Wallfisch's music is much more interesting and has more emotive, melancholic moments, but it's the general ambiance that both give to their respective movies that had me drawing parallels between them.

If you're not already a follower of Wallfisch's output, then this is as good a place as any to get acquainted with his work.

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Darren Rea