Between the Twilight series, The Vampire’s Assistant, The
Vampire Diaries and True Blood, immortal bloodsuckers are
hotter than hell’s hinges right now. And the first rule in making a hot
thing into a hotter thing is to cross-pollinate it with something that
matches or exceeds the original thing’s already blistering heat
potential. So naturally, writer/director Jordan Galland decided to amp
up the BTUs of the current vampire craze by pairing it with …
Shakespeare? In Galland’s new film, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are
Undead, a vampire playwright crafts a twisted Hamlet adaptation,
and the action in the movie is mingled with the play within the
film.
To set the musical mood for his film, Galland made the inspired
decision to turn to longtime friend and collaborator Sean Lennon to
create an instrumental score. Lennon’s moody accompaniment is the
musical reflection of the film: quirky and campy and riding the tension
between subtlety and histrionics. Taking cues from Danny Elfman, Ennio
Morricone, Randy Newman and the wildly evocative music for the ’70
vampire TV show Dark Shadows, Lennon creates the right balance
between the stagecrafted bombast of the film’s play and the genuinely
creepy pace of the film. — Brian Baker
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2009.
