The latest to drop from the great Library of the Occult is a sweet treat for all you lovers of 80s slashers, sleaze, and sweaty exploitative art. Canadian filmmaker and composer Chris Alexander has offered up Body Double, a sweat-drenched slab of sleazy 80s film score work. While not a re-imagining of DePalma’s great 80s cinematic classic, he does give Pino Donaggio a run for his money.
Alexander gives us anxiety-fueled synth passages, tension-filled ambient, and swaths of melody that give everything a sense of urgency and claustrophobia. Body Double is reminiscent of classic Carpenter and Goblin scores, while also bringing to mind artists like Antoni Maiovvi, Witchboard, Slasher Film Festival Strategy, and Umberto. Like-minded contemporaries that came up on classic 70s and 80s sleaze and have built a steady career of bringing nightmares to life via cold, steely synths and nightmarish intent.
Drop the needle on side A and you instantly walk through the portal into Alexander’s world. “Circus of Horrors” welcomes you with dread and tension as mournful synths build melancholy melodies that are Gothic in intent. It leads us right into “Shock Waves”, which feels like the perfect opening credit theme. Low, menacing synth carries us through into Alexander’s cinematic world. Like with many horror scores of the 80s, there’s a rhythmic undercurrent that brings to mind that end of the era disco drive, but it never delves straight into dance floor intentions. This is meant to form beads of sweat on your flesh as you realize things aren’t what they seem.
Elsewhere “Love Butcher” is a bit of menacing work, is if walking into a situation that is dire and over your head. “Wandering Girl” is subdued but tense, as if walking into something you can’t comprehend(or survive). “Truck Stop Killer” seethes in dread and has the mood of impending doom around every corner. “I am the Apocalypse” is the epic stunner here. At nearly 10 minutes, Alexander pulls out all the stops here. We’ve passed through fear and into existential dread, “I am the Apocalypse” is led by menacing drums, synths waning like sirens, and an undercurrent that the genie can no longer be put back in the bottle. Pure sonic dread at its finest.
You can’t go wrong with Chris Alexander’s Body Double. It’s a slow-churning musical dread fest. If you grew up in the late 70s and early 80s and can appreciate Betamax and VHS sleaze, then Body Double will be your jam. From the writer/director of films like Female Werewolf, Space Vampire, and Girl With A Straight Razor would you expect anything less?
Out now via Library of the Occult.
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