His reimagining of the song "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" is currently haunting gamers playing Resident Evil 7, and in our latest Q&A, we caught up with composer Michael A. Levine to discuss his key contribution to the game. In today's Horror Highlights, we also have a COMET network contest, an excerpt from Stuart R. West's Demon with a Comb-Over, and a Q&A with Bloodlands writer/director Steven Kastrissios.
Q&A with Composer Michael A. Levine: Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, Michael. How did you get involved with creating the theme song “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” for Resident Evil 7?
Michael A. Levine: The makers of the game, Capcom, were familiar with a track I produced (with Lucas Cantor) for Lorde: a dark and mysterious reimagining of the ’80s classic "Everybody Wants to Rule The World," which was used in Hunger Games: Catching Fire and on the trailer for Assassin's Creed Unity.
Did you have any guidelines right off the bat for the music? How much creative freedom did you have while working with Capcom?
Michael A. Levine: They wanted me to find an existing song that people around the world would know and transform it into something menacing. The catch was, unlike the Lorde song, it had to be something in the public domain. I knew that the melody to the traditional song, "Go Tell Aunt Rhody," was known in Europe and the US, but also in Japan with different lyrics. The clients encouraged me to get as weird as possible.
What types of instruments and sounds did you utilize to create the theme song?
Michael A. Levine: Anything I could get my hands on, including the ciola, a viola-like instrument I have that plays in the register of a cello. But the main instrument was the computer—LOTS of audio abuse!
Did any other musicians, video games, or movies influence the tone and style of your music for Resident Evil 7?
Michael A. Levine: I have always been a fan of the eeriness and starkness of traditional vocal music, so the lead vocals, by the wonderful Jordan Reyne, is as exposed as possible, in between a bunch of really scary sounds, of course!
Do you think that this game’s VR mode will enhance the music and make it play an even larger role in creating an eerie, interactive atmosphere for gamers?
Michael A. Levine: I think it will contribute a lot. The future of VR remains a question mark in straightforward narratives like feature films. But it’s here to stay for games, especially when it’s as well done as it is here.
Do you have a favorite musical moment that you’re excited for fans to experience in Resident Evil 7?
Michael A. Levine: Lots of them. I love how when Jordan sings “He’ll be torn apart”, the accompaniment is sliding down in pitch so it sounds hideously, beautifully, out of tune. The strangeness of the “children’s choir” in the fade out, which is actually my daughter, Mariana Barreto (who also sang all the background vocals) and me with electronic processing. But one of the best moments was as a result of a misunderstanding: the exposed piano just before the last chorus. The clients asked to hear the piano there soloed—they meant featured, not all by itself. But we all liked the result so we kept it!
Were you a fan of the Resident Evil franchise before coming on board this project?
Michael A. Levine: No. Of course, I had heard of it, but it always seemed too scary for me. I was right!
With Resident Evil 7 out now from Capcom, what projects do you have on deck that you can tease, and where can our readers find you online?
Michael A. Levine: I have a bunch of things they can check out:
The album I produced featuring Mariana called Samira & The Wind.
https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/samirathewind
City 40 (Netflix) – documentary - Insanely Brave or just insane film director sneaks into secret Russian nuclear weapons building city and makes a documentary about the most nuclear-polluted city on earth. A true story!
Landfill Harmonic (HBO) – documentary - Underprivileged kids from Paraguay form an orchestra using instruments built from recycled materials.
The Summerland Project – upcoming feature film – Science fiction with a philosophical twist. A woman dies and her brain is put into a robot that looks—and feels—just like her. Is it her?
Could Hitler Happen Here? – upcoming feature film – An unreliable narrator story in which an elderly woman’s neighbors are plotting to steal her home. Or are they?
Served Like A Girl – Upcoming feature documentary about women veterans.
Lego/DC Super Girls: A Case of The Mondays - Upcoming feature film – About as far away in tone from Resident Evil as possible, except for the part involving the end of life on Earth.
More of my music can be found at www.MichaelLevineMusic.com
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Read an Excerpt from Demon with a Comb-Over: Press Release: "New York, NY: (February 9, 2017)--The innovative, hybrid book publisher, Riverdale Avenue Books is re-releasing the comedic horror novel, Demon With A Comb-Over by Stuart R. West. This book launches Riverdale Avenue Books’ Afraid horror imprint and upcoming podcast.
In this humorous horror novel described as “Seinfeld meets Paradise Lost,” Charlie Broadmoor, a struggling stand-up comedian, decides to single out someone in the audience with a particularly bad hair-do–who turns out to actually be a demon who makes his life a living hell. Charlie has a hard time coming up with new material while terrorized at every waking moment by a poorly-coiffed, thin-skilled eldritch evil whose appreciation of humor is dwarfed by his monumental pettiness. Charlie quickly learns that making light of the supernatural is no joke.
The new edition will feature The Book of Kobal, which will give previous fans of the book a new glimpse into the origin of the short-tempered demon.
“We are thrilled to be publishing this in sync with the presidential inauguration. It’s a funny look at the consequences of pissing off the very powerful wrong person,” said Publisher, Lori Perkins. “The timing couldn’t be better.”
Downloads of the series will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles Nook, iTunes, Kobo and wherever e-books are downloaded.
About the Author
Stuart R. West writes thrillers, horror and mysteries usually tinged with humor. Demon with a Comb-Over/The Book of Kobal is his fifteenth title. Stuart spent 25 years in the corporate sector and now writes full time.
About Riverdale Avenue Books
Riverdale Avenue Books is an award winning, innovative hybrid publisher at the leading edge of the changes in the publishing industry. We publish e-books, print, and audio books under 10 imprints: Desire, an erotica/erotic romance imprint; Riverdale/Magnus the award-winning imprint of LGBT titles; Pop featuring pop culture titles; Afraid, a horror line; SFF, a science fiction fantasy line; Truth, an erotic memoir line; Dagger, a mystery thriller imprint; Sports and Gaming featuring sports and gaming titles; and VerVe featuring lifestyle titles. Started in 2012 by industry veteran Lori Perkins, Riverdale is a full service publisher, with a foreign rights and film agency department. Visit us at www.RiverdaleAveBooks.com."
To read the excerpt from Demon with a Comb-Over, press the cover image below:
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Win a Prize Pack from COMET TV: "Grab your silver bullets and wooden stakes because it’s the Beasts of February on COMET!
Full moons can be frightening and this month on COMET TV there are enough beasties to send a shiver down your spine and make you smile at the same time!
Whether you love the 1980’s classics Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Too or prefer your beasts a little more out of this world with Species and Strange Invaders, COMET TV has you covered!
COMET, the newest & obviously coolest Sci-Fi Network has been showing the best in fun cult classic films and television shows! If you haven’t checked it out, you’re missing all the fun!
Prize Details: (1) Grand Prize Winner will receive (1) prize pack from COMET, including:
How to Enter: For a chance to win, email contest@dailydead.com with the subject “COMET February Prize Pack Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.
Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am EST on February 27th. This contest is only open to those who are eighteen years of age or older that live in the United States. Only one entry per household will be accepted.
"Each household is only eligible to win 1 COMET Insider's Prize Pack to Giveaway via blog reviews and giveaways. Only one entrant per mailing address per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you will not be eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification."
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Q&A with Bloodlands Writer/Director Steven Kastrissios: "Ahead of the World Premiere of his latest film BLOODLANDS at Horror Channel FrightFest Glasgow, Steven Kastrissios discusses the challenges of making the world’s first Albanian / Australian horror film.
So what have you been doing in the eight years since making your amazing debut with THE HORSEMAN, a FrightFest favourite?
Steven Kastrissios: Writing. I was just 24 when I shot ‘The Horseman’ and it was only my second feature script, so I wanted to expand my horizons and I wrote many scripts in completely different genres and styles. I developed other little projects and came close to doing other features with other people’s scripts but for various reasons they fell through, usually over the script. I also stumbled into music and that bled into my film work too.
How did BLOODLANDS come about as the first Australian/Albanian collaboration?
Steven Kastrissios: Coffee with my Albanian-Australian friend, Dritan Arbana. He told me about the blood-feuds and I instantly saw an idea for a story and also importantly, how to make it a viable production with limited means. Dritan is an actor with no experience or desire to be a film producer, but I trusted him and anointed him as my producing-partner and two or three months after that coffee, we were in Albania prepping the shoot.
Why have the Albanians shied away from the genre up to now? Because their own history is so frightening?
Steven Kastrissios: I’m not Albanian, so I can’t answer this exactly, but from what the crew told me, they had a solid industry decades ago with the USSR influenced propaganda films, but their local industry has had limited opportunities since. They tend to like local comedies more and deal with the issue of blood-feuds as straight dramas, which there has been plenty. There were no stunt-coordinators, armourers, special-effects make-up artists we could find there, so limitations like that would make it difficult for any budding local genre filmmakers. I have a post-production background so I had the advantage of knowing how to design shots where we only had to do certain minimal things on-set, like very simple make-up, and the rest would be completed in post. We could do things safely too, like have real guns but no ammunition on set. Not even dummy cartridges. No explosive squibs too. All this stuff would be done through a subtle use of VFX.
When did you come across the legend of the Shtriga?
Steven Kastrissios: During my initial research. There’s various types of witches in the Albanian and Balkan cultures. There’s even a witch that will maim you if you waste bread, so they have a witch for everything there! And fortunately the Shtriga myth fitted perfectly with the backstory I had in mind for my witch.
Directing the movie in a foreign language? Much more difficult surely because you need to understand the performance shadings?
Steven Kastrissios: This was just another hurdle we had to jump through collectively, but people learn fast and adapt so it wasn’t a big problem and most of the cast/crew spoke English, so I had a team of translators around me at all times for when someone needed help understanding me and vice versa. Whilst I don’t have an ear for Albanian, I did have the advantage of being the writer and the fact that I’d based the main characters on my own family, meant that I knew these characters inside and out.
How did you go about tackling the portrayal of Albanian people and their culture, which to outsiders still carries a lot of negative clichés.
Steven Kastrissios: I was not aware of the clichés so much, coming from Australia. Dritan filled me in on countless tales of Albania, but what we were exploring was at the end of the day, a horror story with fantasy elements. So we weren’t necessarily tied down to absolute reality all the time and the film is lens in a way that embraces the ominous horror elements, wherever we found them. And the story is set in the mountains of a rural village, so we weren’t exploring modern city life with local crime figures, which may be the clichés people speak of.
The Albania I saw, mainly when we were location scouting, knocking on doors and seeing into people’s home lives, gave me confidence to know that the story I’d written in Sydney felt authentic to Albania. Anything that didn’t fit we re-wrote with either the actors or with Dritan’s consultation beforehand, who translated the script for me. I’m half Greek and Albania and Greece share a border, so there was that familiarity for me as well. Although the two countries certainly have significant cultural differences, there is still a Mediterranean through-line that is similar.
What will Albanian audiences make of it do you think? When will it be released there? Will the film kickstart a genre industry in Albania do you think? Or hope?
Steven Kastrissios: I have no idea. I made the film for a global audience. The Albanian sensibilities in the arts is unique to itself, so it could go either way. There was certainly a lot of interest in the project when we were there shooting, so I would imagine there would be a natural curiosity about the country’s first horror film.
Are the Albanian cast stars in their own right, or did you discover them?
Steven Kastrissios: They are all stars in my eyes. Gëzim Rudi who plays the father is one the most recognisable actors in Albania. Ilire Vinca who plays the Shtriga was in The Forgiveness of Blood and Suela Bako, playing the mother, has had a lot of experience too and is a filmmaker herself. But it’s the feature debut for most of the cast I believe.
Bearing in mind how difficult it is to get indie genre films released, was it a conscious decision to not make the film in the English language?
Steven Kastrissios: Certainly having non-English language does hurt sales internationally, but what’s the alternative? Having Albanians speak English instead? People have suggested that, but I think that’s a terrible decision long-term that would seriously compromise this project. Albanian is an ancient language rarely heard outside of the region and it’s one of the few that has no root in other languages, so we should preserve it. Global audiences obviously do find foreign cultures of interest so we have that on our side and people so far do seem to be genuinely intrigued in a horror film about an Albanian witch!
And finally, what next?
Steven Kastrissios: I’m developing another little project while I make my first serious attempts to go to USA with a script I’ve been developing. In the past I only sent one script out to a handful of people in USA, and I wasn’t even there to do the pitch meetings, as I was based in Sydney and focusing on Australian projects mainly, with no desire to move. But after the fun I had in Albania and the speed of which it came together, I’m all for working internationally.
BLOODLANDS is showing at the Glasgow Film Theatre on Sat 25 Feb, 2.20pm as part of Horror Channel FrightFest Glasgow 2017."
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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