Scored to Death 2: More Conversations With Some of Horror's Greatest Composers

by J Blake Fichera

Following in the spirit and style of Scored to Death (2016), his popular first book of interviews with horror music greats, J. Blake Fichera s Scored to Death 2 collects 16 brand-new, info-packed, terrifyingly entertaining interviews with renowned composers who have provided the music for some of horror s most revered films, film franchises, and TV shows, including Get Out, Us, Martin, Re-Animator, The Walking Dead, Puppet Master, Saw, Creepshow, Day of the Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Dark Shadows, Burnt Offerings, The Terminator, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Ring, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Audition, Ghoulies, Happy Death Day, It Follows, Gretel & Hansel, and many more! Interviewed are composer-director-producer John Harrison and eminent scary-good composers Michael Abels, Richard Band, Charlie Clouser, Brad Fiedel, Joe LoDuca, Donald Rubinstein, John Massari, Bear McCreary, Craig Safan, Kenji Kawai, Holly Amber Church, Koji Endo, Robert Cobert, Rob, and Disasterpeace, all bookended by a Foreword by writer-director Eli Roth and an Afterword by composer Christopher Young.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

494 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2020

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a stellar follow up to an already awesome collection of interviews in the first book. Between this book and vol.1 you have an incredible amount of real world information about film scoring, some of which would take you decades to learn on your own. This is absolutely required reading if you're interested in writing music for film or tv. Or if you're just a huge fan of horror film soundtracks. Blake tends to ask questions you don't often hear asked in interviews. And you really get awesome stories, ideas, and advice from some of the best film composers because of it. Pick this up now, and enjoy.

[Jose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's say you read the first Scored to Death and really dug the interviews but you wanted more...then pick this up. Let's say you didn't read it but are interested in reading interviews with horror's greatest composers...then pick this up. Either way, you're going to enjoy it. Blake gets the most interesting stories out of people. When you read this, you don't feel like you're reading an interview; you feel like you're listening in on an interesting conversation. That makes this a page turner.

[Scott Delgado · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you liked the first book, Scored To Death, you're going to like this one. Excellent interviews with composers from a wide range of backgorunds. Some did it their entire lives. Some were still a bit new in the field. Some even got disillusioned with the field and got out of it, but not without leaving a mark. For the casual music fan like me, it was fascinating. For people who are more into the mechanics of music, you'll enjoy it even more than I did!

[Chris Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid follow up to the first Scored to Death. This one delves even deeper into the technical side of things when it comes to how composers make music for films. I kind of wish this one followed the same formula as the first book. In the first book, we got a nice rundown on the filmographies of composers and I loved reading about each experience the composers had. Scored to Death 2 didn’t do that quite as much and it was a shame. I really wanted more of that with Brad Fiedel and Richard Band especially! However, what we get is an even deeper dive into the technical side of the composing and it is fascinating. Highly recommend both Scored to Death 1&2 for anyone who is all about horror film composers and what it is like in the business.