SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (Expanded)

Classic early James Horner score makes a new appearance! With the kind assistance of Simon Rhodes, the composer’s long time scoring mixer of choice, and the generous help of our dear friends at Walt Disney Records, we are happy to bring back this sensational and frightening 1983 score that James Horner composed for Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, released through Walt Disney Productions, and just one of no less than eight films scored by Horner that year. Jack Clayton directs, Ray Bradbury scripts from his own novel, Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Diane Ladd, Pam Grier star. Modestly expanded from our earlier release, this newly remastered release includes the music that Horner and Rhodes opted to delete from that release. This new look at the score includes everything that survives from the now-obsolete 3M digital format masters, made for us by the team at Disney Imagineering, who had preserved a rare working machine for playbacks. While Rhodes was now able to provide just a few more minutes of music, the new material included, a last, the subtle and chilling wordless choral cues associated with “The Dust Witch” and the spooky “Holloway Talks To Dark” as well as the source music recorded at the sessions, composed and arranged by Horner’s orchestrator, Greig McRicthie. Horner had only been scoring films for four years when he tackled this famous horror tale, but his dramatic instincts and emotional approach to composing was already in evidence. This is displayed vividly from the outset with the “Main Title And Prologue”, where the intense, imposing theme for the train with its approaching evil carnival rises in powerful manner for the titles, develops in surging fashion then segues into a warm triple-meter theme that literally soars with rich major chords as the previous scary images now become orange autumnal leaves falling in small town America during October, with two young boys romping with nary a care in the world… until Mr. Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival changes everything. Both themes recur, with Mr. Dark dominating much of the activity, including hypnotic forays into new ideas, terrifying motifs for the tarantula “Spiders”, rising and falling figures throughout the orchestra, demented calliope interjections and numerous other highlights before finally wrapping in sunny warmth with the nostalgic waltz-theme, right down to the wistful appearance of harmonica, as the tale concludes. The entire score is presented in crisp, detailed stereo. Executive producer Roger Feigelson offers detailed descriptions of the film and music cues in his informative notes and provides the original cue titles as indicated on Disney’s scoring session paperwork. James Horner and Simon Rhodes are producers of the original Intrada album with Rhodes remastering, Chris Malone newly assembling for this 2024 edition. Grieg McRitchie orchestrates, James Horner composes, conducts. Intrada Special Collection CD available while quantities and interest remain!

Play all clips

01. Main Title And Prologue (6:48)
02. The Dust Witch (2:03)
03. Jim Buys A Lightning Rod (3:28)
04. Fury And The Dust Witch (2:16)
05. Formation Of The Carnival (4:30)
06. The Peep Show (2:01)
07. On The Merry-Go-Round (4:35)
08. The Chase (3:47)
09. Spiders (3:25)
10. Holloway Talks To Dark (1:38)
11. The Library Pt. 1 (6:52)
12. The Library Pt. 2 (4:49)
13. End Title (2:48)
Total Score Time: 48:59

THE EXTRAS
14. Lottery Look (2:06)
15. Night Dance (1:52)
16. Tetley’s Calliope Waltz (1:07)
17. Clown March No. 1 (2:05)
18. Clown March No. 2 (1:42)
19. Beethoven Dirge (1:48)
Total Extras Time 9:27
Total CD Time: 59:31