Dragon’s Domain Records presents CHUCK CIRINO: EROTIC THRILLERS, featuring music composed by Chuck Cirino (CHOPPING MALL, NOT OF THIS EARTH, DEATHSTALKER II and RETURN OF SWAMP THING ) for two films from his filmography, SINS OF DESIRE and HAUNTING FEAR.
The success of BASIC INSTINCT in 1992 saw an incredible boom of like-minded erotic thrillers in the home video market. Released almost a year later, SINS OF DESIRE was directed by Jim Wynorski (CHOPPING MALL, NOT OF THIS EARTH, DEATHSTALKER II and RETURN OF SWAMP THING), written by Peter Liapis and Mark Thomas McGee, starring Gail Thackray, John Henry Richardson, Delia Sheppard, Tanya Roberts, Carrie Stevens, Nick Cassavetes, Jan-Michael Vincent, Becky LeBeau, Monique Parent and Ace Mask.
SINS OF DESIRE begins with Monica (Thackray), who is a patient of Dr. Callister (Richardson), a sex therapist. While she’s unconscious, Callister takes advantage of her and she panics, forcing him to kill her by accident. Callister and his wife, Jessica (Sheppard), also a doctor, bury Monica. Unknown to them, Monic was investigating their clinic for her boss, Mitchum (Cassavettes), a private detective. The Callisters hire a hitman (Vincent) to kill Mitchum. When he fails, they kill the hitman. After a former patient of Callister’s kills herself, her sister, Kay (Roberts) goes undercover as a nurse at the clinic to find out what happened. As Kay gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to Mitchum.
Based on the classic Edgar Allan Poe story ‘Premature Burial’, HAUNTING FEAR was written and directed Fred Olen Ray, starring Brinke Steven, Jan-Michael Vincent, John Henry Richardson, Delia Sheppard, Karen Black, Robert Clarke, Robert Quarry, Michael Berryman and Hoke Howell. Released in 1990, the film follows Victoria (Stevens), who has an irrational fear of being buried alive. Victoria consults her doctor (Clarke) and is given medication to help her sleep but this only amplifies her fears. Unable to help her, Dr. Carlton refers her to another doctor, Harcourt (Black), who begins using hypnotism to deal with Victoria’s mental block. Victoria’s husband, Terry (Richardson) has been secretly having an affair with his secretary, Lisa (Sheppard) and has racked up some serious debt. Terry conceives of a plan to kill Victoria and use the inheritance to pay off his debt. Terry and Lisa decide to bury Victoria alive in order to scare her to death but their plan backfires and Victoria returns for some bloody vengeance.
Chuck Cirino did not start his career as a composer, but rather as a programmer in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania for a Public Access cable TV station, where he learned how to create TV shows by himself, without a crew. In his spare time, he experimented with the station’s video equipment and created a series of genre productions that allowed him the opportunity to learn how to incorporate special effects into his work. After relocating to California, Cirino transitioned into directing high-end special effects television commercials. His first work as composer was for the 1980 cult film GYPSY ANGELS, which starred Vanna White and Richard Roundtree. Since then he has scored films for Roger Corman, directed music videos for bands like Earth, Wind & Fire and The Dickies’ KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, and has recorded over 40 music soundtracks for feature films including SORCERESS, HARD TO DIE, TRANSYLVANIA TWIST, and many others. Most recently, he has scored A DOGGONE CHRISTMAS, A DOGGONE HOLLYWOOD and A DOGGONE ADVENTURE.
Chuck has worked as a producer, director, filmmaker, videographer, animator, special effects technician, editor, and composer. He executive produces and directs WEIRD TV, a television series featuring weird Americans, bizarre news, unbelievable events and outlandish skits. Chuck’s credits also include executive producer and director of the Sci Fi Channel projects, WORLDWIDE WEIRD and WARPED IN SPACE, and BABERELLAS, an independent Sci Fi feature distributed by Xenon Pictures.
Chuck also produced BURNING MAN 1994, the very first documentary on the subject. Chuck works and resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Flordilyn and a cat, Too Too. His spare time is spent growing an experimental back-yard, permaculture food forest. The music has been mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland and the liner notes have been written by noted author Randall Larson, with the participation of the composer.
Also from Dragon’s Domain CRAIG SAFAN: HORROR MACABRE VOLUME 2, featuring music composed by Craig Safan for two projects from his extensive filmography. CRAIG SAFAN: HORROR MACABRE VOLUME 2 includes music from NIGHTMARES, the 1983 horror anthology, along with SEDUCED BY MADNESS: THE DIANE BORCHARDT STORY, a 1996 television film.
Released in 1983, NIGHTMARES had its origins in a short-lived weekly television series titled DARKROOM on ABC hosted by James Coburn in which two horrific tales unfolded back-to-back within its hour-long time slot. The show was conceived in the vein of other short horror-thriller programs such as ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THRILLER, THE OUTER LIMITS, and NIGHT GALLERY.
In the year following the success of DARKROOM, rival network NBC moved to capitalize on anthology storytelling by commissioning Christopher Crowe and Jeffrey Bloom, who had written and directed a handful of episodes of DARKROOM, to write four short scripts to be assembled into a two-hour unnamed pilot directed by Joseph Sargent. Bolstered by distinguished acting talent including Emilio Estevez, Lance Henriksen, Christina Raines, William Sanderson, Veronica Cartwright, and Richard Masur, the completed pilot demonstrated genuine potential for the network. However, there was a small problem. The executives at NBC deemed the episodes too intense for television audiences. The television pilot was summarily scrapped in favor of resurrecting the anthology as a theatrical motion picture called NIGHTMARES released by Universal Pictures.
The music for NIGHTMARES was composed by Craig Safan, who had also composed most of the episodic music for DARKROOM. Safan had already made a name for himself scoring THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE and FADE TO BLACK and would further his career by authoring beloved scores for THE LAST STARFIGHTER, REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN and all two-hundred and seventy-one episodes of the hit television series CHEERS. Safan had just come off a particularly heartbreaking project when his entire score for WOLFEN was rejected and replaced by a score from another composer. Safan’s music for NIGHTMARES is a calculated blend of aleatoric orchestral music coupled with a heavy dose of synthesizers during one of the film’s most memorable segments.
SEDUCED BY MADNESS aired on the NBC network in 1996, presented in two episodes and starred the legendary Ann-Margret along with Peter Coyote, Leslie Hope, Christian Campbell, Hedy Burress, Tobey Maguire, Freddy Rodriguez, Cliff De Young, Dean Norris, Tomas Arana and Kurt Fuller. Ann-Margret plays Diane Kay Borchardt, a Wisconsin teacher’s aide convicted of hiring her students to spy on and eventually kill her estranged husband. SEDUCED BY MADNESS dramatizes the events leading to Borchardt’s conviction, life in prison without the possibility of parole until she has served forty-five years in prison. For SEDUCED BY MADNESS, Safan composed a chamber score—comprised primarily of strings, winds, and percussion.
Emmy-nominated and eight-time ASCAP award-winning composer Craig Safan has scored more than one hundred feature films, television and documentaries, has had more than 50 soundtrack albums of his music produced, as well as having three original albums of his own impressionistic music released. He’s been commissioned to compose for ballet as well as for live performance of silent films and was given the Poledouris Film Music Legend Award at the 2014 International Film Music Festival in Cordoba, Spain.
Mastered by James Nelson of Digital Outland. The booklet contains liner notes written by author and composer Brian Satterwhite and includes comments from the composer.
MOVIE MUSIC INTERNATIONAL. (MMI) . 