Silva Screen Records releases the soundtrack music to the horror-thriller film The Boy Behind the Door, by Emmy award-winning composer Anton Sanko. In the movie, directed by David Charbonier and Justin Powell, two boys attempt to escape their kidnapper’s house. The film was streamed to glowing reviews. Sanko was trained in classical guitar, piano and composition, and has scored music for film and TV for over thirty years – including those for Rabbit Hole, Ouija, The Possession and Fractured. For this one from Shudder, Sanko explores innocence and depravity with an essentially Electronic soundscape...

Track List: 'Boy Behind the Door'; 'Six Hours Earlier'; 'The Wrist Watch'; 'Stabbed Creep/Fingernail'; 'Oh No'; 'Eyeball/Here’s Johnny'; 'The Safe'; 'Kevin Braves the Shocks'; 'Body Drag'; 'Ms. Burton'; 'Redroom'; 'The Basement'; 'Resolution'.

We begin with a dark emptiness with rumblings of foreboding and a creeping malaise which gradually builds to a high-point. It’s followed by an plaintive, lazy semi-acoustic guitar piece echoed by touches of fully electric guitar. A slightly fast ticking grandfather clock sound is accompanied by an electronic warbling, almost to be point of a helicopter rotor, with a little more urgency towards the end. A Scrabbling, shrieking accompanies electronic peripheral noises and a higher sense of menace. A warm bassline is intruded upon by atmospheric sounds and a certain creepiness. A slamming and Pagan clattering percussion has a juddering beat added. The whole thing becomes more dramatic in the climax. This track ('Eyeball/Here’s Johnny') is the most inventive example of the soundtrack so far.

More Pagan beats are added, and the ticking clock returns accompanied by some sinister sounds. A deep rumbling synth and a heartbeat gently introduces us to the first proper melody courtesy of strings. A sense of movement with scraping turns to a galloping, throbbing beat and macabre vibrations. The Electronica is stepped-up at this point, becoming an eclectic mix of effects coming and going. Some of these short tracks are very similar, creating a macabre atmosphere of almost otherworldliness that reaches for the psyche.

'Resolution' – at just under four minutes, the longest track – is a combination of elements from the opening piece and 'Six Hours Earlier', only ramped-up a little. It is by far the best offering and enlightens the listener as to what might have been. This collection suitably befits and enhances the genre piece, but shows little variation and no suites of combined music for the avid soundtrack collector to feast upon.

5

Ty Power