RED EYE – Music From The Motion Picture

Composed by MARCO BELTRAMI

Catch a flight to terror with premiere release of exciting Marco Beltrami soundtrack from Wes Craven air travel thriller! Rachel McAdams is the passenger, Cillian Murphy is her seatmate, terror is the name of the game. Beltrami sets both mood and pulse from the outset with lean, suspenseful ideas for strings and French horn over steady rhythm in percussion & keyboards, with low brass outbursts slashing through all. As the suspense increases, so do the above musical devices, culminating in aggressive, dynamic action music for the entire orchestra. Interestingly, Beltrami relies heavily on French horn, bass trombone to bring intensity to his score but omits trumpet. Resulting action sequences are grim, darker-edged, powerful! Crisp recording, dynamic performances create vibrant audio, lengthy cues create coherency. Another exciting asset: generous maxed-out CD playing time. Film itself is scored nearly wall-to-wall with numerous cues playing front and center. All of them (plus two “extras”) are presented in stereo from pristine condition digital scoring session mixes courtesy Paramount Pictures. Marco Beltrami composes, Pete Anthony conducts.

Composer Marco Beltrami is one of the most prolific composers currently working in Hollywood.  While many of his scores have been released, his score for the 2005 Paramount thriller Red Eye seemed to get passed over.  For this Wes Craven film, Beltrami ’s score was essential in creating a rhythm that begins with a thematic alert, seguing to intimately dark suspense and vulnerability, finally and amping up into intense action — musical transformations driven by the film’s tight editing. Beltrami presents his exhilarating e-ticket flight with nearly all of Red Eye’s themes on display within the main title, severing the function of a well-structured overture.  He sets up the hybrid nature of his score with dark electronics and scraping metal in its menacing start, then bursts onto the scene in a throttling symphonic drive.  Beltrami lets us know that some unknown conspiracy involving the government is underway.

This long-overdue album was mastered directly from the two-track digital session mixes vaulted at Paramount Pictures. Recorded by John Kurlander at the scoring stages for both Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox, the audio is crisp and vibrant.

Red Eye is mainly set aboard an overnight flight from Dallas to Miami. Pressed against the coach window is Lisa Reisert, a hotel manager returning from her grandmother’s funeral. She expects to be back at work just in time for the check-in of Charles Keefe, the Homeland Security deputy director. Sitting next to her is the seemingly pleasant, Jackson Rippner.  Charmed by a chance encounter with Rippner in the terminal,  Jack tells her his seat location is no accident; his charm melts away to unmask his identity as a “terrorist facilitator” whose job is to make Lisa change her guest’s suite to a more “stinger missile-friendly” location. Lisa’s refusal will mean the assassination of her father, whose home is being watched by Jack’s accomplice. Now Lisa must figure out how to troubleshoot a situation she never imagined.