Celebrating the work of up and coming composer Chris Ridenhour - who took his first steps in the film music industry working with such esteemed colleagues as Lalo Schifrin, Mark Isham and Shirley Walker - MovieScore Media releases three CDs of his music. This album focuses on the monster movies that Ridenhour has worked on: Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus; Haunting of Winchester House; Mega Piranha; Sherlock Holmes; Mega Python vs Gateroid; and 2010: Moby Dick...

Of the three Moviescore Media releases of Chris Ridenhour's music this one, for me, was the poorest. Firstly it contains the music from Sherlock Holmes (which is a bad movie with a terribly over the top score), but mainly the music isn't as interesting as the other releases.

'Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus' (17 mins, 18 sec) borrows heavily from both Beethoven and Bach to provide music cues for the Shark and the Octopus. David Arnold's score for Stargate and Independence Day seem to be the main inspiration for the majority of the rest of the music.

'Haunting of Winchester House' (19 mins, 31 sec) is a little quiet and rather bland... until it hits the halfway mark, and then all hell breaks loose. It's only in the final few minutes that Ridenhour delivers anything worthy of your attention - with a quite impressive theme.

'Mega Piranha' (19 mins, 45 sec) has some interesting themes included in its running time. This is probably the strongest track on the album.

Sherlock Holmes (19 mins, 23 sec) just brought back horrible, horrible visions of the movie. The main theme is interesting enough, it's just that there's a bit too much over the top suspense music, which I remember not working very well with the images in the movie.

'Overture from Mega Python vs Gateroid (bonus track)' (1 min, 14 sec) a short, but entertaining snippet of music.

'Theme from 2010 Moby Dick (bonus track)'; (1 min, 41 sec) which reminded me of Alan Silvestri's music for Van Helsing.

On balance there is a lot less of interest here than on the other two Ridenour releases. However, if you're a fan of his music you'll enjoy this.

6

Darren Rea