J.R. Bookwalter is a real jack-of-all-trades of indy filmmaking. When he shot his first feature film, the zombie classic “The Dead Next Door”, at the age of 19, he did not only work as writer, director, editor, special effects artist and actor, but also as composer. Yeah, that’s right, as if all the other duties didn’t keep J.R. occupied enough, he also took place behind his keyboard and wrote and recorded the cool score of the flick in good ol’ John Carpenter-style.
And now, 20 years later, J.R. has finally released this score as limited edition CD on his own label Tempe Sound, so that all “fans of bad synthie music”, as J.R. himself calls his target audience, can listen to the creepy tunes day after day on their stereo.
And while the film “The Dead Next Door” is a truely fucked up and tremendously entertaining ride with the splatter-roller coaster, the corresponding soundtrack is just as freaky as the movie. It’s atmospheric and creepy, furious and freaky, classical, vanguard and just about everything that lies in between... believe me, it’s really not that easy to find the right words to describe this spince-chilling syntheziser orgy.
So instead of readin’ this review, all fans of tumultuous trash sounds should rather go ahead and order this CD right away, cause as long as you’ve got a weak spot for truely demented horror music, you’ll definitely enjoy this record just as much as a ravenous zombie enjoys a tasty feast of freshly butchered guts and gallons of bloodred gore.

Homepage: www.tempevideo.com (Label)

--- by Tobi (18.09.2008)