Soundtrack!: Henry... Portrait.

If Fabio Frizzi’s soundtrack to Fulci’s Gates of Hell is the score of nightmares, then this is the score to the nightmares that fuckin’ nightmares have! And you better believe that shit, too. You want to feel something crawling under your skin, creeping up your back and giving you that “I need a shower” sensation? Hell, that sounds dirty as shit! Uh. Listening to this could quite possibly have you rocking back and forth in the corner of a dark room, not blinking…

…then again, it could have you dancing with your best friend’s sister in the kitchen while pounding down teh brews. Because not only is this CD filled with some of the grimmest, most frightening, low-droning sounds set to women being violently slaughtered and slashed... it’s also got some pretty neat, upbeat jazzy tunes. Alright, baby! And I’m not talking about the joyful little track that is “Adios, Motherfucker” either.

I’m sure the first track anyone would fondly recall is Enuff Z Nuff’s “Fingers On It”… now, the tunes on this CD aren’t really my thing, but this one is definitely the best of them all. It’s pretty solid and enjoyable all over, plus, kinda kickass. Kid Tater & The Cheaters come with four tracks, “Too Young For These Blues”, “La Lania”, “Callin’ Colleen” and “Jukin’”. They’re all old fashioned bluesy-rock tracks that are easy goin’ and honestly aren’t that bad, with the exception of “Jukin”, because really, that annoying terminology alone makes the Docs want to mash Grill. Plus the song sounds different than their others, and sucks way harder. I did a search online for these dudes and all I came up with is a picture from a 45, and that’s it. Anyone know the year they recorded? 1862? No matter. The last song on the album is “My Mistake” from Lynne and the Lizards. It’s a song about a girl whose mistake was loving a guy, and loving that guy was her mistake. Yeah, but it fits at least, for the first part anyways.

Rob McNaughton (Director, Synth, Piano), Ken Hale (Synth, Piano), Steven A. Jones (Synth, Drums) and Paul Petraitis (Guitar) really came up with some sickening stuff here. Incorporating the random screams, gunshots, and array of strange sounds into collages throughout the score  takes an already unnerving feeling to otherworldly dimensions of terror. When you think of films where the soundtrack becomes the aura, it’s in cases like these ones. When listening to this, first of all, you can’t ever forget the film or try to not think of it… and secondly, they don’t let you since they incorporate a lot of the dialogue onto the track introductions. The main theme itself, “Henry’s Theme”, is damn near indescribable in how awesome it is at getting you that out of body and mind experience. The other score tracks are follow-ups in this style that all get you going down that crazy ass road. “Kill Hookers”, “The Stalk”, “Dead Body Drones”, “Home Invasion”, ect… no matter which dark and dank corner you go down, it’s all red sauce.

Well, except for the track, “Becky Downtown”. This light and fluffy 80’s stroll muzak is perhaps the most generic on the record, sounding like something ripped out of Mannequin or some shit. WTF, guys?

For the dialogue only(for the most part) tracks, there’s the “Yeah, I killed my momma” speech, Henry arguing to Otis not to do that because “She’s your sister!”, the late night “Let’s go shopping” for TVs scene, and of course, “It’s always the same… and it’s always different.” All certified classics! “Adios Mother****er” is pretty much all score, unless you count the following horrified screams and squishy stabbing sounds as “dialogue”. Heh.

I liken this Soundtrack to both from The Gates of Hell and Last House on the Left. On one hand, it’s Gates of Hellish in its score, in which you can picture horrifying deadness, decay and agony. Like the Last House soundtrack (with pure sweeeeetness from David Hess) it’s something you wouldn’t expect (in that case Folk-ish, this one Blues-ish) and there’s a track in there that has you shaking your head, but you’ll probably still listen to it for the suck. They do make a great Trio though, and I guess that means I’m going to have to do Last House’s disc next. The booklet for HENRY is filled with 40(!) small but detailed and not to mention cool photos from the set and behind the scenes. Make no mistake, I love this movie – Gave it Full Rank! – and this soundtrack is bomb, but a couple tracks blow like the coke in my nose. That’s 9/10 for the CD (docking points minorly), and Highly Recommended.