Clearly one of the most original horror film scores in recent time, Daniel Alcheh’s The Man Who Collected Food is a two-fold listening experience where a traditional genre underscore is juxtaposed by energetic baroque-style compositions performed with precision and elegance by The Lyris Quartet. It was the director’s idea to use baroque music for certain scenes in this acclaimed, multiple award-winning horror comedy about an avid food collector who resorts to the questionable act of cannibalism, and the composer wrote several neo-baroque pieces that injects large amounts of energy, drive, sophistication, elegance and originality into this score. Holding the different elements of the soundtrack together is a strong thematic and harmonic idea. We are proud to work for the first time with the very talented Daniel Alcheh and hope that we will do many more albums with him!

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ABOUT THE SCORE

Resulting in one of the most unusual and refreshing approaches to horror film scoring in recent time, composer Daniel Alcheh and director Matthew Roth decided to give The Man Who Collected Food a twofold score: one part neo-baroque, the other traditional horror underscore. A quirky horror comedy, the multiple award-winning film tells the story of a man who is an obsessive food collector, and resorts to the atrocious act of cannibalism. Daniel Alcheh responded enthusiastically to the director’s idea of having several scenes scored with newly written baroque-style music. “The main cue of that group, ‘The Dagger,’ was a long, bloody, multi-person murder scene, all with a wink, of course. It was completely shot in slow motion, with no sound or dialogue. It was all to be carried by this very fast, vicious baroque cue juxtaposed against the visuals,” Daniel Alcheh explains. “We took it to the next level by scoring the scene to picture so that every musical twist and turn goes perfectly together with the action. The string players were working really hard – it was not an easy piece to play in a short recording session. But when these things work, they really work! You have to give a big kudos to the director for coming up with the initial brilliant idea.”

While the score may come across as disparate in terms of stylistic idioms, it actually holds together strongly on a thematic and harmonic level. “Once we knew we would have these disparate musical styles, I wanted to use every tool a composer has, to give the score cohesiveness, to help it all gel together for the listener’s ear, even if it is almost subliminal,” Alcheh said. “I came up with a short motif, namely a falling interval of a fifth followed by a rising three-note scale that makes up the opening credits theme. Then I infused practically every cue with this motif. Sometimes it is out in the open – you can hear it as the clarinet melody in ‘Kelvin’s Confession,’ the motif in ‘La Caccia,’ the Oboe d’Amore in ‘Visitation Rights,’ the piano in ‘Miguel’s Lucky Day,’ the violin solo in ‘Last Food Convention’… And then sometimes, it hides in counter melodies and inner voices where it is hard to notice it unless you’re really listening for it. I think together with a few other themes that are repeating, this helps hold everything together much more cohesively than if each cue would be a totally distinct, separate piece melodically and harmonically.”

Scoring dark comedy can be a tricky task for a composer. How much of the comedy can be signaled without ruining the darkness of the scene, and the other way around: how much of the darkness can be addressed without killing the comedy effect? Daniel Alcheh: “The film is definitely a dark comedy – if you’re a fan of blood and guts, this is a horror film for you! – so even the comedic elements have some underlying edge to them, but in many scenes, while the visual and dialogue had the humorous twist, the music kept the serious tone underneath, and exactly that contrast added to the absurdist, gory, horror-comedy impact. Some cues are totally on the comedic side, like ‘Kelvin’s Story’ and ‘First Food Convention,’ which is a light and happy romp through a supermarket.”

Winning the Best Feature Film and Best Actor awards at the Chicago Horror Film Festival and Eerie Horror Film Festival as well as the Best Director award at the Indy Horror Film Festival, “The Man Who Collected Food” stars Mike Kelly and is written and directed by Matthew Roth.

TRACK LISTING
  1. The Dagger: Theme from “The Man Who Collected Food” 2.49
  2. Opening Credits 1.49
  3. First Food Convention 1.11
  4. Dinner Home Alone 3.24
  5. Kelvin’s Story 1.39
  6. Group Therapy 1.14
  7. Alien’s Escape 1.10
  8. La Caccia 2.15
  9. The Chair 2.32
  10. Kelvin’s Confession 1.41
  11. Sneaking In & Anamnesis 3.48
  12. Miguel’s Lucky Day 2.34
  13. Indecision 1.34
  14. Visitation Rights 1.14
  15. Finishing Off Mother 2.14
  16. Last Food Convention 1.12
  17. You Can’t Eat Us 1.11
  18. Miguel’s Worst Nightmare 1.56
  19. The Breakout 3.35
  20. The Dagger: Reprise 2.25
  21. New Food Fridays 0.07
ALBUM INFO
  • Title: The Man Who Collected Food (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
  • Composer: Daniel Alcheh
  • Catalogue no: Screamworks SWR-11004
  • Release date: June 28, 2011 (CD/online)