- Composed by Trevor Jones
- La-La Land Records / 2011 / 38:17
Euphemistically described as a “cult classic”, The Sender was a 1982 supernatural chiller which marked the first leading role for Zeljko Ivanek, who has gone on to have a recurring guest starring role in every television series which has been made since. Director Roger Christian was still almost two decades away from making his undoubted masterpiece, Battlefield Earth; for the music he turned to then-up-and-coming composer Trevor Jones, for whom the film was sandwiched in between his early breakthrough scores Excalibur and The Dark Crystal. Jones’s score is a strong one, dominated by an excellent main theme which plays as an interesting contrast between sweetness and chills.
It’s a simple melody, but Jones throws it through so many variations, some elegantly classical, others heavily featuring (somewhat primitive-sounding) synths, it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Slightly less appealing are the more overt “horror movie” moments, where the cheap synths sound rather like cheap synths and are likely to have somewhat limited appeal. Still, at its best this is very impressive stuff, marred only by the archival mono sound (this is from 1982!) which was apparently the only surviving source. The liner notes from John Takis could only be described as “in-depth” (I’ve seen shorter Yellow Pages). Shame about the sound, but it’s still a nice release for fans of this composer who seems to have completely dropped out of the limelight in recent years. ***
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