Back catalogue: Modern Classical

Review: Bruce Campbell's character in The Evil Dead is up there with cinema's finest anti (or, possibly just accidental) heroes. Sam Raimi's landmark comedy horror movie about college students who accidentally open a portal to a terrifying underworld, with four out of five becoming possessed by demonic forces leaving one, our main man, to fend for himself, with or without two working hands, was exceptionally well written, combining genuine frights with visual and script gags, hitting all bullseyes in the sub genre. Evil Dead II was a high quality sequel, essentially telling the same story, only with a few tweaks. Again, it was laugh-out-loud funny and also pretty scary. A huge part of its impact comes down to the incredible music by Joseph Loduca. A Detroit jazz guitarist turned film and TV composer, here he combines fantastical instrumental movements, with surreal romantic piano phrases, knife-edge refrains and eerie reversed strings, creating a blueprint from which many others have looked to when trying to come up with an original horror score.