SUPERCELL.

New film music composers come onto the scene more or less every day, but there are only a few that make an impression straight away. One of the more recent composers to emerge is Corey Wallace who has written a wonderfully sweeping and commanding score for the 2023 movie Supercell. Which sees a teenage boy runs away to follow his father’s footsteps, legendary storm chaser Bill Brody.

COREY WALLACE

The film is said to have impressed Steven Spielberg and made him think about maybe making a sequel to Twister. The music is in a word superb, it’s a score that is obviously inspired by the greats of Hollywood film scoring, with the styles of Williams, Horner and Goldsmith having the upper hand. It’s about time that the true sound of Hollywood returned to the big screen and composer Corey Wallace has created a soundtrack that commands that you listen and has to it a powerful and dominant presence.  

This is a work that I hope will galvanise other composers into returning to the lush, lavish, and expressive style and sound that we all as film music collectors know and adore.

This is a sweeping descriptive and affecting work, laden with rich and tantalising thematic material, overflowing with emotion,  filled with driving action cues and dripping in romantically laced themes and sensitive tone poems., such as Mother and Son which is a beautiful and affecting piece, evoking the glorious thematic presence of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and has shades of Cocoon within it.  

As well as the homage to John Williams which is overwhelmingly evident, there is also a unique and inventive style present, it’s a score you should own and already its on the list for the awards season next year. Corey Wallace has produced a soundtrack that salutes both the golden and silver age of movie music. Recommended and available on digital platforms.

THE INNSMOUTH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.

The Innsmouth School for Girls is I think a fair adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s The Shadow over Innsmouth. Hilda Sofia Bautista, gets the introducing credit, in this her debut movie in the role of Roberta Olmstead who decides to stay at the school.  When she arrives she very quickly realizes that there is something odd with the staff at the school and also with the people who live in Innsmouth. Her fellow students also begin to notice a number of oddities and certain indiscretions. Writer/director Joshua Kennedy serves up a surprisingly entertaining and absorbing storyline and has more than just a passing understanding of the source material that his story is based upon.  With the main protagonist in the movie being named Roberto Olmstead, which is a homage to Lovecraft as his narrator was named Robert Olmstead,  for a low budget affair this is a pretty solid movie, with all the actors giving good and credible performances, which is in some part due to the way they are directed, as the majority of them are new to movies. 

The musical score is by composer Reber Clark, who once again steps up to the plate and delivers a soundtrack that is superbly thematic and wonderfully inventive. This is a haunting and driving soundtrack, with the composer interweaving uncanny sounds that could be straight out of 1950’s B movies into the fabric of what is for the most part a powerful and commanding work.  There are gentle nods to the style of Bernard Herrmann as well as little interludes that sound as if they are inspired by the likes of Jerry Goldsmith and Christopher Young.  Reber, has written several scores for low budget movies and every single one of them has been a delight to listen to and appreciate, his music has the ability to not just accompany the action on screen but also to become an entertainment in its own right away from any storyline or images.  

He is a talented and versatile composer, and this his most recent assignment is no exception.  The score is a pulsating and effective fusion of darkness and light with virulent passages of chilling and sinister sounds being mixed with lighter and less apprehensive moments, the composer getting the balance just right,  as he successfully adds a sense of the foreboding to the proceedings which from time to time is slightly diluted with music that is filled with melody and colour. I long for the day when Reber Clark is given a big movie, then stand back and prepare to be astounded. Available on Bandcamp, go check it out an awesome score that you should own ASAP.