Belle Composer Matt Orenstein

Episode Transcript
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James Jay Edwards (00:25):
Welcome to Eye On Horror the official
podcast of iHorror.com This isepisode 111 Otherwise known as
season six episode 12. I'm yourhost James Jay Edwards and with
me as always is your other hostJacob Davison. How you doing
Jacob?

Jacob Davidson (00:39):
Fine.

Well all right. Also with us as always is
your other other host JonCorreia, how you doing Correia?

Jonathan Correia (00:49):
Fine

I just want it I just wanted to undercut it for
once.

Jacobs got places to go.

Yeah.
Let's make this quick.

Let's jump right into it. The big release
this week is the last voyage ofthe Demeter have we all seen it?

I was at a spec- I was at a pre screening with
the director André Øvredal andsome of the producers in person.
And you know, it's just wild tome, because I've been waiting
for this movie for damn near 20years. Like this shit was
announced when I was in highschool. Yeah, it's been a long

(01:32):
journey.

Which is interesting, because I did see
someone asked him was this movieoriginally a part of the Dark
Universe? Remember that?
Remember when Universal triedlaunching

Yeah, the Dark Universe

And he was like, nah, this was with
DreamWorks. And I was like,Yeah, I know that they were
trying to do some Dracula shit.
But like, I feel like this ideaof doing an entire movie just
about the Demeter, thats been inthe works for ever.

Yeah.

For if you if you're not familiar with the
original Dracula book. The LastVoyage of the Demeter is based
on one chapter in in the book ofDracula, and it's the Captain's
Log chapter and it basicallycovers Dracula's voyage from
Romania to London, and he hegets shipped there in a crate of

(02:22):
dirt from his hometown, or fromhis home country. And in the
book, the the ship runs agroundwith no crew, and a dog jumps
off of it. And The Last Voyageof the Demeter is what happened
on that voyage. What do you guysthink?

I really loved it. I enjoyed it. At the q&a,
they even said originally, theyhad pitched it as Alien on a
boat with Dracula. And I thinkit delivered on that premise
because

that's pretty much what it is. Yeah. When you
imagine and you read theCaptain's Log chapter of
Dracula, what you imagine islike a slasher, which is
basically what Alien is. But ona boat a slasher on a boat. And
yeah, it does deliver on that.
What about you, Correia?

I loved it.
I'm seeing that a lot ofdiscourse, but I'm seeing a lot
of people like there's the jokesof oh, it's Dracula on a boat
how scary could it be? It'slike, Dude, that's like,
honestly, one of the mostharrowing parts of the actual
book. Like if you read that,

oh, yeah,

because it's all through Captain's log. And
there's all these like, peopleare sick stuff

found footage.

Yeah,

people just go missing. Yeah, he's like,
he's all you know. We're havingto do single watches because we
don't have enough to double upYeah,

dude. It's terrifying and usually like in
the movies because of budget andstuff. They not they allude to
it or they like show likeDracula get packed up and then
him arrive or something. Or inCoppola's Dracula, you know,
there's that great, likemontage-ish and where he's like,
Wolfing out kind of like Monsterso there's always like this

(03:59):
allusion to it, but like it'snever fully explored. So I was I
was stoked about it. Yeah,

it's funny you mentioned that because there is
a slightly expanded upon versionin the unofficial Dracula
adaptation Nosferatu by FWMurnau which at the q&a Øvredal
was even talking about that thatwas a major influence on them
for the movie both in kind ofthe style and also the creature

(04:24):
design for their version Draculawho is not like Francis Ford
Coppola's Dracula or Gary OldmanDracula. He's very he's very Max
Schreck Dracula. Yeah,

he's he's Murnau, he's he's, he's
Nosferatu. Yeah,

I was gonna say and even with that he's much
more primal much more creaturewhich is always like, one of the
best parts of reasons why I likethe Demeter part because this is
just Dracula in pure predatormode. This isn't him like trying
to like suave or trick peoplewith words. This is him like
alright, I am purely huntingthese people but I I'm also

(05:00):
keeping myself away. So no one'saware that it's me for as long
as possible until it's too late.

Here's the thing. I mean, I, I'm not as
high on this movie as you twoare. I loved the first half of
it. You know, the whole likesetup and then it but it gets to
a point where, in my opinion, itkind of jumps the shark. And I
kind of the second half. Firstof all, I don't think this

(05:29):
needed to be a two hour movie.
And the second half for me diddrag. I love the first half. I
also loved the vampire design,but my problem with the vampire
it was played by Javier Botetwho can do a lot cooler shit
than he did in this movie. Theydidn't have the vampire do all
that cool. Javier Botet shit,you know, he was I don't know,

(05:50):
I, like I said, I think maybe Iwas expecting too much. But the
second half of it kind of let medown a little bit. I was
expecting Alien on a boat. Andit pretty much was. But there's
things you know, one thing I didlike about it is, it is a little
bit of a spoiler. But um, if youwatch the trailer or anything,

(06:11):
someone told me was in thetrailer, don't think I've
started watching trailers.
There's a woman on the boat. Andwomen on boats back then were
considered bad luck. So it waslike a bad omen. Well, she was
there. Again, little bit of aspoiler. Fast forward a few
seconds if you don't wanna hear.
She's there for Dracula to feedon during the journey. And she

(06:31):
kind of gets rescued. And soit's kind of a sympathetic
version of Dracula because hedidn't mean to kill all the
people on this boat. But hisfood was taken away so he had to
he had to, and that kind offalls in with the Universal
Monsters to me the UniversalMonsters are sympathetic
characters with the exception ofthe Invisible Man, Invisible Man

(06:54):
is just an asshole.

Well....

Nah the Invisible Man is that you can
not defend the Invisible Manfrom being an asshole

not the not the Invisible Man. Oh, that's
one of the reasons why I loveit. He's just a deliciously
villainous character. And that'swhy he's my favorite. But I
would disagree on thesympathetic part of Dracula. I
feel like his food was takenaway. And so it was kind of
like, Oh, you took my food away?
Well fuck you. You know, like,

that is like there's a little bit of
vengeance in there. Yeah,

he was siphoning off of her and keeping
her alive to take a little bitto go from that to just like,
eating like a six man crew andall the animals on board like
that. That's a bit overkill.
That's a that's a bit of athat's a bit of a petty revenge,
which I love a petty villain. Soand I agree, I think

it's nuclear revenge. What he did not petty.
Yeah.

Yeah, I would say the movie does not really
paint him in a sympathetic lightin any sense. Especially because
I mean, even if he was he justhad that girl. Like, he was
still draining life from thispoor girl for an entire you
know, voyage like that. So youknow, fuck Dracula.

Yeah, fuck Dracula. That's, that's, uh, you
know, the thesis of all this.
But I agree, I think it couldhave been like, 10-15 minutes
shorter. You know,

I think 40 minutes shorter. This could have
been an 80 minute movie.

Nah

It's one chapter in the book!

Although I think they did a pretty decent job
expanding on it. But I do thinkthey probably could have been
shortened a little bit. Yeah.

Another one of my issues is with the
exception of the captain and thedoctor. You don't really care
about any of these characters.
You know, you care about thelittle kid because he's a little
kid. But you know, you don'teven care about the girl that
much. You know, um, so in there,I guess for a movie that long. I
think they should have developedthe characters more so you care

(08:50):
about them? Besides the firstmate, the captain, the doctor,
you know, and the girl the othercrew members. They were
interchangeable. I didn't evenknow who was who, you know.

Well, David Dastmalchian's character stood
out.

He was the first mate. Yeah, yeah, he was
the first mate so you knew whohe was? Yeah. Oh, he

was awesome.
As always, like, he was like,Anytime he's in something. He's
like the standout. But

there was a little bit of character there
because this is the equivalentof the of the cop who's retiring
in two days. This is thecaptain's last journey

And it's Liam Cunningham from like, Dog
Soldiers.

Yeah. And he says at the beginning, he's
like, this is gonna be my lastvoyage. And I'm recommending you
to be captain. So it's like,yeah, the first mate is going to
get the ship so he wants thisjourney to go well, and the
captain wants this journey to gowell, because he doesn't want
his last journey to be thisdisaster. So

And they want the bonus pay.

The rest of the crew wants the bonus pay to
Yes. So there are reasons whythey didn't just pull into a
port and say not kill thatthing. You know?

There was a lot of really good because you
got to you got to work the logiclike how was he able to hide us
a lot before they realized howwas Dracula able to get all
these people and I think theydid a really good job with the
logistics of all that untilthere's one scene where someone
is behind a door and a hole isbroken through the door. It's

(10:17):
kind of a Shining moment right?
And then he kind of sticks hisarm through but that does it but
that doesn't open the door andthen others come up and they're
like banging on the door beinglike open the door open the door
and I'm just sitting there Goingput your arm through the hole
Put your arm through the holeand no one's putting their arm
through the hole and thensomeone tries to put their arm
to the hole but they don't tryhard enough and they're like oh
I can't reach the door handlemake the hole bigger make the

(10:37):
hole bigger pull your arm to dothat was my that's my one
frustration with the movie isjust sitting there going put
your arm through the hole. Butyeah, I still had a lot of fun
with it. You know it's a it wasa great take on it. I would
watch a sequel to it to behonest, like The Devil of the
Demeter or something like I wantto see that Dracula unleashed on
London

It's funny at the q&a and Øvredal even
mentioned that remember Draculatakes the boat back to
Transylvania later on in thebook. So

how with how it landed?

It was wrecked? Yeah.

Well, no, he takes a different he takes a
different boat because remember,he goes back to Transylvania at
the end of the book

in the book The the ship just kind of goes
into port with no one on it. Inthe movie, it gets wreck

out and I mean, like he it's a different boat
like at the end he takes hetakes another boat in order to
get back to Transylvania becauseremember, loose air sorry.
Jonathan and Van Helsing arechasing after him. He goes back
Transylvania.

But speaking of the cast of the Demeter the
little the young boy in thatmovie was also an another horror
movie that came out this summerCobweb

Oh, yeah, I saw that.
Did you guys see Cobweb?
Yeah, I just watched it a coupledays ago. I rented it. Yeah,

you know why?
It's because they released itthe same weekend as Barbie and
Oppenheimer in like, the mostlimited amount like I'm in LA
and there was three theatersplaying it here. All like 11pm
Showings, thats it. It was sucha limited release. And what a
travesty to do that because itwas a fun movie. Like very
atmospheric very, it's, I think,Jacob you and I talked about a

(12:19):
little bit earlier and it's it'sa Halloween movie. So like I
released in the middle of July?

Yeah, it's the same with the Haunted Mansion.
Why would you release this inJuly? It's a Halloween movie.

I don't get that about Haunted Mansion. I
don't know why they they did it.
It's a Halloween movie.

It's ridiculous.
Like they're both even setaround Halloween for God's sake
Yeah,

it's weird but like Cobweb though at this movie
I'd say go in as blind aspossible so Jays whole thing
about not watching trailers.
Honestly like the trailerdoesn't give away a whole lot
which is which is good. But likethere's there's enough of like,
it's just going in blank. Sothere's a lot of weirdness going
on. But Woody Norman is thechild actor who was in Last of
the Demeter, this, and he wasalso in C'mon Cmon with Joaquin

(13:03):
Phoenix, so that kids blowing upright now. But it's also got
Lizzie Kaplan and Anthony Starand I don't know if it's just
because of Anthony Star'sperformance in the boys. But
like, immediately, like seeinghim in like pop up on the
screen. It's like red flag. Allright, that guy here to do some
weird shit.

That was a good casting choice in that regard.
And also, it looked to be verypractical effects oriented.
Because again, not going intospoilers, but there is some
pretty cool and creepy effectsthroughout the movie, and it is
like genuinely very eerie typeof movie because it kind of has

(13:46):
this sort of Guillermo del Torodark fantasy horror vibe to it.
But, ya know, it's it'sunfortunate that, you know, it
was so limited and it's releasedin theaters. Because yeah, I
mean, it's fine seeing it athome, but I do wish I had the
chance to have seen it on a bigscreen.

Yeah, so like, I mean, it's out on Blu Ray,
what's on VOD right now for likeseven bucks. It's well worth it.
It's an on Blu ray in September,but I mean, I'm going to add it
to my Halloween rotation. And IYeah, I'd love to hear from
Samuel Bodin on what happenedwith the release because it was
announced in 2020 too that itwas going to be made so it's
been like worked on for threeyears and Samuel Bodin did the

(14:29):
Marianne show for Netflix a fewyears back if you ever watched
that horror series that wasreally good too. But yeah,
Cobweb is awesome. You know, I'mgonna champion it I think that's
this year's Empty Man where it'sjust like whoa, this is good.
Why is this getting just kind oflike, Bleh out there you know,
like lions get I get itLionsgate is trying to you know
save room for Saw X in Octoberso maybe that's why they're

Horror fans got enough love for both,

Yeah dude, like

they didn't.
They I don't think that hiredany PR for Cobweb either, They
did it themselves so?

Yeah, no I mean like most of what I heard about
it was either secondhand or fortrailers. It was not very
marketed.

Yeah.
Speaking of 2020 You like thatsegue? There's a couple of
movies from 2020 that I caughtup with that I'm not sure if you
guys have seen the first is TheStylist either you guys see The
Stylist?

Oh I saw that!

Yeah. Okay.
This movie is pretty freakinawesome. It's kind of like
Maniac but with a with a femaleantihero. I guess it's about
it's about a hairstylist who iskind of it she's kind of like an
American Psycho kind of killer.

(15:45):
It's

I've never heard of Maniac being the story
of an antihero

Joe Joe palot Err, sorry Joe Spinell. Yeah, it
wasn't exactly what I would callan anti hero in that one

it's actually more the the the girl in The
Stylist is an antihero more thanthen Spinel. And she's played by
i I'm gonna butcher this nameMajora Townsend, who was also in
Contracted. She's the one whowho plays The Stylist, and she's
more of an antihero, but not somuch Spinel. But um, this movie,

(16:25):
it's crazy. And Bria Grant playsa woman who's getting married
and so she she asked thestylists to do her hair for the
wedding. And the stylist islike, at first she's like, I
don't do weddings. And you know,that puts up like a little flag
in your you're like, Well, whydoesn't she do weddings? It's
Oh, it's it's so much fun. It'sso much under slashers. And the

(16:45):
other one that I caught up withthis a little older. Don't Tell
a Soul. Yeah, generic title,Have you seen it?

That's the one with Rainn Wilson.

Yeah, yes, yeah, it's real, total generic
sounding title. But what it is,is these two teenagers go they
break into a house, it's beingtermite tented and they steal a
bunch of money, and they getchased away by security guard.
And as they're running throughthe woods, the security guard
falls into a well, that is asealed off. Well, that is
covered with leaves. And he'splayed by Rainn Wilson. So he's

(17:17):
now at the bottom as well, andhe can't get out. And one of the
kids feels kind of guilty aboutthis. But the other one is, is
like well, now let him Let himfrickin starve. Let them freeze.
If

he gets out, then we'll be in trouble. So
we're fine. Like just Yeah.

And the other kid starts like bringing in
water and a blanket. And youknow, and it's a really
interesting and it goessomewhere that I did not expect
it to. But yeah, it's anotherone of those little crazy movies
that I just happen to catch upwith.

I think that was one of those ones, kind of
similar to Cobweb, where I waslike, Why is no one talking
about this? Like, it's a solid,It's a solid little movie with
like, some very good atmosphere.
Very good. Like Rainn Wilson.
His character is veryinteresting. And like,
especially it has, like,develops and like the
relationship between the withhim and the kids. It's like,
it's very, yeah, it's a solidlittle thrill. I think it's on

(18:10):
like, Hulu or something. But

it has it's a real generic name. So that too.
Yeah. Don't Tell a Soul is kindof you know, it is, you know, I
think what if they had I don'tknow what you would name it
other than that. But if it had adifferent title that might have
done, you know, gotten a littlemore attention at the time.

It's no Hider in the House, you know?

Yeah. You hear Hider in the House, you know
what you're getting. Yeah. Andconversely, on underscored
movies, but oppositely this hada very interesting title. I
revisited a movie that I was abig fan of in high school that
got a Blu ray release fromTerrorvision, called Some Guy
Who Kills People by Jack Perez.
Have you seen it?

No. What's it about?

Is it about a bear on cocaine?

But no, no, it's okay. Yeah, it's some guy who
kills people. That's the title.
And it's, it's actually veryinteresting because it's about
a, it's it's kind of a moregrounded slasher, kind of
mystery thriller. dark comedyvideo. So basically, it's about
this guy that's been in a mentalasylum for years because he was
horribly traumatized in abeating by the local basketball

(19:23):
team in this small town. And hewas a former comic book artist,
and he has to resort to workingat an ice cream store. And when
he comes back, he's like tryingto rebuild his life, I guess to
move back in with his mom wasplayed by Karen Black and is
verbally abusive to him and thepeople that beat him so badly
end up having a mentalbreakdown, start getting killed

(19:47):
off one by one, but it seemslike it could be him, but
there's like a lot more to it.
And also, Barry Bostwick has agreat role as the locals Sheriff
investigating the murders. Andyet it's it's it's very
interesting because it goes doeskind of take a closer look at

(20:08):
kind of the revenge slasherkilling type of plot but kind of
puts it over its head and I it'sreally funny. It's got some
great kills. And yeah, I wasjust one of those like indie
independent horror comedies fromlike the 2010s came out 2011
That I feel like didn't getenough attention.

I've never heard of it. I mean, at least,
at least not that I remember. Imean, the guy who kills people
is just

Some Guy Who Kills People guy. Some Guy Who
Kills People. That's it. That isone of my favorite horror movie
titles, though.

Did you guys see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Mutant Mayhem?

Yes. Yes. Yes, Jay? I loved that movie.

I did not.

You got to see it. It's

Oh, yeah, you gotta see it.

Good. It's, uh, it's the new TMNT movie.
Right? This one, they go backand they really go back to the
teenage aspect of it. Which

Like they even have teenage actors play the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles foronce

These are actually like, 13-14 year old
kids. Yeah. And they did.
There's so much good.

Is it claymation? Or is it

No, no, it's actually CG animation, but it's
kind of like that spider versething where like, they really
stylize it. So yeah, looks likeit's a week kind of a weird cel
shaded claymation type of style.
But it's also got this kind ofad like 80s comic book style,
where like, the people are kindof weird looking. And like
everything's kind of stylized.

The animation is phenomenal. And yeah, and
it's not just like the characterdesign but the story and the
vibe everything is it reallydoes feel like the perfect blend
of like the original Eastman andLord comics that were black and
white, very brutal. And the 90scartoon which was very comical
and vibrant.

Oh, and also the anime influences of the 2003
version.

Yeah, yeah, I thought this was like a great
like, Alright, we're gonna takeeverything that's been done
before and like reworking intoour own voice and it was
phenomenally done they made somefew changes to the origin that I
thought worked really well youknow, and
It's got Jackie Chan as MasterSplinter
Which was great so it's great. Imean, if you have an old mentor

(22:23):
it's got to be Jack Chan but I'malso in part of the origin they
kind of took away all the stuffabout clans and how like you
know their descendants in thisclan and with the ninjas and
like, you know, ultimately goingto get Shredder instead it's a
they lean more into now theywere just these animals that
were mutated and like theylearned all their ninja skills
through like YouTube videos ofVHS tapes, so it's really goofy,

(22:46):
the montage. You see MasterSplinter with like a moustache
and big hair and stuff, but andthe soundtrack is like all 90s
New York hip hop for the mostpart there's like some Old Dirty
Bastard in there some De LaSoul. They got Ante Up and of
course they included the ninjaRap from Teenage Ninja Turtles
2.

Go ninja Go ninja go.

But that wasn't even the best needle drop
the best needle drop. They havean entire chase sequence set to
the internet version ofheeeeeya, you know like the old
he-man one from early internet?
Oh,

yeah. Nice

it. Yeah.
What's great is they work it inthe chase starts and then like
all of a sudden, it was thechameleon. I can't remember.

Mondo Gecko play by Paul Rudd.

Yeah, Mondo, Gecko who's like a surfer stoner
character played by Paul Rudd.
Great. He the song basicallykicks off with him go. Hey,
whats going on? It's so good

I also like, I was really like this fight scene
they have set to No Diggity.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like they havefour different fights, but
integrate them into one. Fightanimation set to no diggity. And
it is incredibly animated. Yeah,

I'm just so excited for like children to
leave the theater and go I wantto listen to the soundtrack and
because like there's a playliston Amazon, and the first song on
is Ante up. And so I could justimagine just like a bunch of
little kids leaving the theatergo. Ante up, yap that fool. Ante
up, kidnap that fool. It's theperfect time it, oh man, it's

(24:26):
just that fills my heart withjoy.

Yeah. Also, I was at yet another revivals
screening of Dude Bro PartyMassacre III at Alamo
Drafthouse, which makes it mysecond this year

Of just that one movie?

Yes.

How many times have you seen it now?

Eh probably like,

Check your letterboxd

Well, that's the thing. I saw it before I had
letterboxd. So it's probablymore like 10 or 12 times maybe

is that more than Mandy, wasn't it Eight?

You know, honestly, I can't I can't keep
track that Uh, but you know,it's just such a fun movie to
see with the crowd though. Andalso like all the five second
films guys were there. And Ieven got a VHS copy of Dude Bro
Party Massacre III that theyjust struck. So now I've got it
on Blu ray and VHS as it wasmeant to be because you know,
the whole shtick is that it'slike in a VHS kind of style with

like, 4 (25:18):
3 and like, the crappy quality. And yeah, no, it's just
still one of my favorite kind ofcrowd horror comedies as of
recent is like, every time Isee, you know, especially at
Alamo, like, just big laughsfrom the audience. A lot of
shocktastic, like the crazyshit. It's just such a fun

(25:39):
movie.

I could see that be going working well with
a crowd. You know, there's somemovies where it's like, yeah,
that's pretty good. And then yousee it a second time with like
the crowd here, like, oh, wow,that's so much better than I
thought it was, you know?

Yeah, no, it definitely works better with a
crowd. It's like, yeah, justthat kind of effect.

I'll go to the next one with you, hows that. If
there's another one of thesescreenings. Apparently, there's
multiple happening in a year.

Oh yeah the last one was in January, so who
knows? But either way, wheneverit plays, I gotta be there.

Going back to animation. I've been kind of
I've been binging my there was adeal on on iTunes a few months
back with the DC animateduniverse for a ridiculous price
like eight bucks for like 20movies. So

You messaging me about the continuity with
that, hahahaha

Yeah, well, that's another thing but Correia
gave me the order that I shouldwatch these and so I started
watching them like that. AndI'll tell you, the funnest ones.
So far, I'm about halfwaythrough a little more than
halfway through the list thatyou gave me. The funnest ones
are the Teen Titans ones. Ithink they're like, you know,

(26:49):
this isn't the Teen Titans. Iremember from my youth with like
Aqua lad and Kid Flash andspeedy. These are like Blue
Beetle is one of them. Raven, ofcourse Robin is there but it's
like different Robins. But myfavorite is Beast Boy. My
favorite thing that he does,he's fighting a demon

(27:16):
he turns into a kangaroo. And hejumps up in the air and then
turns into an elephant.

And just plops on him

That's one way to settle on that.

So awesome.
My second favorite thing thatBeast Boy does is turn into a
goat it just start rammingpeople. Yeah.

You gotta love the randomness of Beast Boy. And
like, you gotta have a littlebit of camp with that, because
he just turns into animals, youknow?

But it was it was funny, because like Correia
said, I messaged you about aboutthe continuity. All of a sudden,
it's like, I got to JusticeLeague Dark, and all of a sudden
Hawkman is there. And it's nothow Jordan it's Jon Stewart as
the Green Lantern. I'm like, oh,did I miss a movie or something?
He's like, Oh, no.

Continuity isn't the the best, but there's
still a lot of fun. And those,those animated ones are based
off of like the New 52 When theyrebooted DC, like two or three
reboots ago. So the lineups areand character design. And
especially when you get to likethe death and Death of Superman
and Reign of Superman. It's morebased off of that, which is

(28:24):
good. It's much better than thefirst animated Death of
Superman. Superman Doomsday. Butyeah, if honestly, if you really
liked the Teen Titan movies, andin that series when you're done
going through the movies, checkout Young Justice. That's a it's
an animated show that they didthe first season is a lot more
kid friendly. But it gets darkerwith each season and more adult

(28:48):
and like the themes and thingsthat they cover because it's not
exactly Teen Titans. It'sbasically the Young Justice
group is all the sidekicks gettogether and they kind of become
the Justice League's like secretpsyops group so like they're the
ones that go on the unofficialmissions and stuff and
especially like second season onthey get real real dark with

(29:12):
like, what that meanss and whatthat what comes with that you
know, and they incorporate a lotof cool stuff they have a I
think it was third season theyincorporate the Batman
Incorporated plot where Batmanis basically like fuck the
Justice League I'm starting myown you know thing and it's just
all the bat family and it's gotBatman Inc because of course you
know he asked to write off thetaxes on it that's what

(29:35):
billionaires do they find somebullshit reason to not pay taxes

Bruce Wayne and his loopholes

You know that fucker ain't paying taxes!

Oh, no, he ain't in fact in. It's funny in that
this is a spoiler for the HarleyQuinn animated series, but okay,
spoiler alert for season three.
Basically, Bruce Wayne getsarrested for tax evasion because
he was allocating so much of hismoney into Batman stuff.

Didn't Harley call him out too when like when
she found out he was Batman.
Couldn't you have put this moneyinto public programs and health
care? And he's just like, getsit I get Batman to total him
himbo in that right.

Kinda, I mean, he's still Batman and pretty
effective. But you know, they dokind of poke fun at him.

Man, I they dropped the fourth season of
Harley Quinn on max with like,no fanfare at all.

Yeah, I saw some ads for it. But it was and I
hope more people are watching ittoo, because like this shows
just been getting better andbetter. And this new season is
really good where Harley Quinnactually joins the bat family
and poison ivy is in charge ofthe Legion of Doom. And
shenanigans ensue.

Yeah, the Valentine's Day special was

oh, man, that was that was something silly.
Yeah, I still love Jamesadamian. As Bane.
Yeah, that's Lindsey's favoritepart.
of course,

like the only animated show I've been able to
get her into.

And now let's bring in this episode's guest.
We've got Matt Orenstein, thecomposer of the upcoming movie,
Belle, how you doing, Matt?

Matt Orenstein (31:14):
I'm doing great.
Jay. Great to be here.

Thanks for joining us this morning. The
question I like to start with,with everybody is how did you
get started? In your in yourcomposing career?

How did I get started, um, I've been I've been
playing music since I was four.
I started violin, I hated it.
One day, I said to my teacher,this will be my last lesson. And
so it was I think I was also afour when that happened. I took
piano but you know, from thetime I was six to the time I was
13, picked up the bass somewherein there and from there on, and

(31:48):
I've been smitten with the basswent to school as a bass player.
My in with music is being a bassplayer. You know, in orchestra
rehearsals, I would always payextra attention when we would
stop the orchestra and listen towhat when the when the conductor
When you say bass you're talkingto orchestral bass though now.
would rehearse the differentsections. I would try and pay

(32:08):
attention to think okay, how isthis put together? Because I've
always been fascinated by I'vealways been listening to music
as far as movie scores. When Isaw The Sixth Sense, it kept me
up for two weeks. Notparticularly because the visuals
those were pretty crazy to a 12year old or however old I was
think it was 10, it was themusic that did it. I remember

(32:31):
that sort of buzzing scorewhenever whenever the main
character whenever Cole wouldsee a dead whenever Cole would
see dead people. And then thefeeling of that jumpscare and
that never really left me. And Iguess I'd sort of been chasing
that for most of my life. When Igot to college. I I went in as a
performance major. But Irealized I wanted to do a little

(32:54):
something a little different. SoI I talked to the I talked to
the Conservatory where I went.
And they allowed me to scorethey allowed me to do a score
for the Cabinet of Dr. Caligarias my final project. So I scored
that. And then when I moved toChicago, I was working as a
theater composer, record storeclerk, music teacher,
moonlighting as a bass player.

(33:18):
And then I got a couple of filmgigs that I really liked. And my
work in theater with theatercompanies with dance companies.
The more I did it, the more Irealized I really liked
composing for for something thatyou can see. And I had to move
out to LA. So I moved out herein 2016. And within a year I was
I reconnected with my old friendMax Gold, who is the director of

(33:41):
Belle and he and I have beenworking together ever since.
Yeah, punk rock bass guitar.
Okay.
I mean, I started as a punk rockbass guitarist, I love it. Yeah,
but yeah, I'm trained as an I'mtrained as a as an upright bass
player in classical and jazz.
Yeah,

Get one that can do both, you know, both the
classical upstanding bass andthe punk rock.

Oh, yeah. Fun.

And what was your first project with Max? Or
how did he first approach you onit?

We, we work together on his first feature
called Silicon Beach. We, youknow, we reconnected when I
moved here. We had sort of, youknow, we kept track of each
other, but hadn't really talkedas much in the years between
high school and us moving outhere. But we reconnected and he
showed me a script, and the nextthing you know, I'm working on

(34:33):
this feature that he's makingand it was awesome. It was so
fun. Yeah. Not really much of astory there. We just, you know,
kind of reconnected at the righttime and started working
together.

Let's talk a little bit about Belle. Yes, the
score for Belle. What is yourprocess? Like? It sounds to me
like it's like, like most of itssynthesized. Is it actually a
synthesizer or did you use anorchestra for it?

No orchestra also. That's an analog synth.
That's

even now the violin parts were those
synthesizer. Did you play thosebecause you started with the
violin? No,

I didn't play the violin parts. There's a
viola solo in the middle of themovie that my friend my friend
Yvette played. And I played alot of the upright bass parts,
some of which you can't reallytell are upright bass parts.
There's some weird upright basstechniques that I'm using to
sort of sweeten the score alittle bit. And then on the
suete at the very end, duringthe end credits, Max's dad plays

(35:28):
the Jazz Bass Solo. Max's dadwas one of my first teachers.
And he's, he's great. Yeah.

So what is your process? Like when, when
you're from script to finalscore? How do you compose? How

Yeah. I read the script. I get some initial
do you do it?
impressions. And I talked to thedirector. And then the big thing
about my process for this onewas I actually went to Iceland,
because when I was talking toMax, he said, If you really want
to do this movie, there's afeeling that Iceland has the I'm

(36:03):
trying to convey, and you can't,you can't convey it unless
you've got it in your bones. SoI don't care if you I don't care
if you like get off the planeand then get right back on as
long as you just like, and, youknow, breathe in the air. I want
you to have that feeling. So Iwent to Iceland my process was I
walked around with an iPhone,like, recording wind sounds

(36:29):
because apparently there wasn't,you know, I talked to the sound
recordist and I said I'd like torecord some nature sounds
incorporated into the score. Andhe just said, you know, it's
mostly wind out here. So, I, I,I went through a couple of shoot
days where my directive wasmostly to stay hidden and
explore and so I did I, youknow, when we were in the cave,

(36:51):
where we're Belle and Beast,where, you know, there's some
action that happens with there'ssome stuff that happens with
Belle and Beast, where beastlives. And so it's where she's
for a bit. I went to that cave.
The cave was like, built intothe side of a mountain. So I
walked up that mountain, and thesun was out at 10pm was crazy. I
walked there was like a, whatlooked like an undisturbed druid

(37:16):
prayer circle. It was these veryunnaturally flat stones at the
top was crazy. But just likeseeing stuff like that it wasn't
an ethno musicological missionby a longshot. It was just, I
wanted to go to Iceland. Iwanted to see what it felt like.
And I wanted to convey thatthrough score. And then once I
did that, I didn't write a noteuntil I got footage. You know,
and after I talked temp with Maxand our editor, Patrick, you

(37:41):
know, then, you know, took us afew drafts of the score to
really get it. But at the end,we really dialed it down.

And it was very successful in capturing
that I It wasn't until I didlooking into it after the movie
that I realized, oh, this was anAmerican production that shot in
Iceland. It really felt likethat that feeling of
authenticity. There we go of theYeah, movies

that shoot in Iceland always look to me almost
like tourism advertisements forIceland, because it's such a
beautiful country like, likeglam or Boca or

Oh yeah that Viking boat tour? Viking boat
tours.
Yeah, remember that?

Valhalla Rising?

There was like an infomercial that was floating
around for a while.

Oh, I thought you're talking about a movie
about a Viking boat tour

no, I was talking about like, there was an
actual infomercial for likeViking cruise boat tours around
Iceland and Norway.

I don't know why I thought Viking boat tour.
Yeah, Valhalla Rising. That'sthat's definitely the plot of
that movie.

I love that.
Movie is great. It's so the allof that. It kind of feeds into
figured.

Yeah. And, and on the subject. How did Max
pitch you on the idea of, ofthis version of Beauty and
Beast.

Max had been working on some version of this
movie for a very long time. Andso I knew it was in the
pipeline. For him, I knew it wassomething he really, really,
really wanted to do, even as weworked on Silicon Beach. And
then there was a pilot. There'sa project called Surfers
Paradise that we worked ontogether. Some more sci fi, but

(39:23):
I always knew that I think weboth knew that beast was, that
Belle was something that thatwas, that was a big dream. That
was something that he reallywanted. And I didn't think I
thought he was going to go withan Icelandic composer. So I read
a bunch of drafts of the scriptsand I weighed in, as you know, a
friend and collaborator, andthen one day I was like, so who

(39:46):
are you getting in Iceland? Whodo you have your eye on? And he
was like, well I was thinkingyou would do it? So that was the
pitch just like you would do it?
And then when you know, when Maxsays that I say okay, I'm doing
it Yeah,

going back to what you're saying about
incorporating the wind or thenatural sound into the score. I
noticed some of that in thescore. And I was wondering if
that was sound design or score,because it's the whole score was
kind of ethereal. You know,it's, and, and there were times
and I was like, Okay, wait, isthat sound effect? Or is that

(40:21):
part of this? Because there islike a pitch to it, there's a
note to it. But it's almost likethis ambient buzz more than it
is an actual van. So was thatthe point of that, you know, of
incorporating the, the naturalsounds into it, just to kind of
make it almost almost sounddesign instead of score?

Yeah, I mean, I think ideally, they sort of
meld. You know, it's, it's allit's all of a piece score,
picture. Sound design, like, thescore is just a part of, it's
just a piece of the puzzle.
Every synth patch I had, Iwould, you know, throw a little
bit of noise on there, everystring, every string patch, I
would design or every sampleinstrument, I would try to, if

(41:02):
there was a way to make it soundlike there was just a little bit
more bow hair, I would do that.
When I would play my bass parts,whether it was the artificial
harmonic drones that you hearthroughout the score, or the
bass solos, I would loosen thebow hair, when I bowed, and the
effect that that has, is youhear that kind of grit. It
sounds more like a viola dagamba, or something like that,

(41:25):
which is a, you know, an early,you know, an earlier Baroque
instrument, where you controlthe at least the Basecamp, I
don't know about the viola, youcontrol the tension of the bow
with your hand. And theroughness as a roughness, the
sort of layer of white noiseabove it is a kind of dynamic in
and of itself.

Most people know Beauty and the Beast,
obviously from the Disneymusical. Was there pressure to
how do I say this? The musicfrom that is so well known? Did
you consciously step away? It'sa very different movie. So you
may not have had to do this. Butdid you consciously step away
from that, you know, to, to makesure that it sounded completely

(42:09):
different. Or it was justbecause the movie called for
something completely different

The movie called for something completely
different. So I didn't have tostep. I didn't really have to
step anywhere that anywhere thatI wasn't being kind of direct
anywhere that A I wasn't beingdirected to go and B that I
didn't think I needed to go. Imean, we were all on the same
page, I think. Yeah, I think Idon't know if the Disney version

(42:35):
came up. I mean, it's just sortof one of those things like
we've all seen it. We all livedit. We all know Be Our Guest.

We're not doing that.

We're not doing that. Okay, talk more. Talk more
about La Belle et la Bête. TheCocteau version?

That's what I was gonna ask.

Yeah, yeah, we're huge fans of that. I've
only seen it the one time I sawit in high school. My dad and my
uncle went have these on thatold Janus box set of 50 movies.
You remember that? Oh, yeah. Andso we just had that in the house
when I was a senior in highschool. And when I would come
home from college, and I justpopped that in one day. And I

(43:16):
was like, Well, this is this isfreaky. I like this. Yeah, Max
and I are both Bergman fans. Sothat was more I mean, the tone
of that was the tone of hisstuff was something that he and
I talked about. And I don't knowif it really made it into. I
don't know how much of aninfluence it was directly on
Belle. But it was something thatit was a common ground for both

(43:36):
of us. So something that atleast I was thinking about a
little bit.

This is definitely not the Disney Beauty
and the Beast.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

One of the things I really liked about
Belle is that it it doesn't likeflip flop between genres, but
it's not afraid to one moment gointo like a horror and then the
next kind of be more of aromance. And then there's even
like, some comedic was, was, wasthat a fun challenge? To be
bouncing around between thosemoods and settings and kind of

(44:07):
feels with that while alsokeeping the consistency of the
of the piece?

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I didn't really, I
wasn't really thinking too hardabout it. When I when I when I
was writing the score, I think Iwas really what I really wanted
to do was have a kind of musicallanguage that could accommodate
both, you know, I mean, becauseactors, actors can do both
actors can do great actors cando anything. And oftentimes, you

(44:34):
know, in a lot of movies, you'llsee them kind of go go back and
forth and be a little moredynamic. So once we sort of
figured out once we sort offigured out what could what what
tonal what instruments whatgenres what, what musical
conventions could have room forboth romance and, and and

(44:54):
horror, and that horror, horrorcomedy is not much of a stretch

The it's the same setup just different punch
line.

Yeah, we discussed that a lot.

Yeah. Have you seen? I mean, just as an aside,
have you seen the recut trailerto The Shining as a comedy? Oh,
yeah. Yeah. A horror Mrs.
Doubtfire? Yeah. Yeah. We wantedsomething that was that was
pretty limber and could movebetween romance or romance and
horror on a dime. I think a lotof room I think there's

(45:25):
emotionally there's a lot ofcarryover too. I mean, just look
at Wuthering Heights, you know.
I mean, that goes from romanceto straight up like grave
robbing very, you know, in thematter of pages.

So, or something like Bones and All

right. Oh, god, that was that was that was a
crazy movie. Yeah, I Yeah. Wow.

Especially for Jay. He didn't know anything
going into that. So yeah.

Well, I do I purposely avoid any kind of
trailers or anything. So thatfirst scene, I was just like, Oh
my God. This movie?

Yeah. You could almost see the you could almost
see the smell rising.

Oh, yeah.

That's a horrible way to describe, but
very accurate

No, worse way would be finger licking good.
Which I took from Shocker withHorace pinker. Remember he did
that did?

Yeah, that's

Wes really tried to create another Freddy
with Shocker didn't he?

Yep. Can you imagine seven Shocker movies?

I kind of wish that did happen to be honest.

Don't we all?
Back at it with Belle, How didyou approach the music when it
came to the characters.

So Papa was I kind of when I work on a score,
this is probably you know,something that is true to my
process. A lot of the times I'llsort of start where out wherever
I can get a foothold. And inthis case, I was chipping away
at the edges. Before I reallygot into Belles theme before
that was the last thing thatcompose. The first character

(47:10):
that I composed for was Papa,Papa I felt was pretty easy to
was pretty clear cut. He's verytraditional, you know, an old
you know, an aging war. Youknow, an aging. An aging man has
his kind of ideas about what hisdaughter should be what he
should be there as daughter. Ifelt like a sort of regal
traditionally regal sounding,sounding proud sounding

(47:32):
soundscape was what he deserved.
Beast, beast I went about I justthe theme just sort of came out.
I was making a bunch of kinds ofbeastial sounds with all the
string patches, you know, allthe sample instruments and
synthesizers. And then I justplayed this. I just played this
kind of this, this melody on theprophet, which is a pretty cool

(47:54):
synth. And it sounded, you know,I hung out with I hung out with
Andy on the way to the cave, hedrove me. So we spent a couple
hours in the car together. Wegot to know each other a little
bit. And I feel like that kindof I played that theme. And
immediately Max was like that.

(48:14):
That's it that that's beast.
It's this melancholy sort ofregal theme. Again, Regal
because beast is a, you know, aprince. Yeah. Who gets cursed
and falls very far. So I feltlike I think we both felt like
the theme adequately capturedthat Belle was a struggle,
because rebel was a challenge, Ishould say. We tried a bunch of
stuff. And, you know, what wesettled on was something that

(48:39):
was kind of like a lullaby. Iguess, sort of, it happens in
her private moments when youhear the voice of her and you
hear the voice of her mother.
And then finally the themecrystallizes. And I feel like
the way that the way that wetreat it sort of sums up Belle's
journey. It's one of I don'twant to get too much into what

(49:02):
her journey is. But I feel likeI feel like the theme tracks her
progress the times that itappears. But we you know, we
listened to a bunch of Ilistened to a bunch of stuff. I
mean, I was listening a lot tothe Bulgarian women's choir. I
was listening to that Bjorkrecord Medulla, which is
awesome. You know that one?

It's so good.
Yeah,

It's one of my favorites. One of my favorites,
but just a lot of choral music,a lot of you know a few you
know, Icelandic melodies hereand there. And that's what came
out at the very end. I think wegod I don't remember it was
very, very close to the finishline. It was wasn't quite at the

(49:43):
one yard line, but it wasn'tthat far off. And then which,
you know, the the witchessoundscape is more feral. But
it's it's, it's still, you know,it's still sensual, still
alluring, because the witch hasthis sort of animal magnetism to
her this pole But there's awildness and I wanted to I
wanted to convey that. So a lotof handled sophomore instruments

(50:05):
a lot of weird percussion issort of off kilter vocals, you
know? Yeah. Alright, that's toogranular.

Never too granular. We love getting into
the nitty gritty, especially theinspiration. So like, yeah, love
a good Bjork reference.

Can't have too much Bjork.

She's all her influence is all over the score.

That's awesome. I still say that she
wasn't casted in the Northman.
She just showed up one day, theywere like, Yeah, go ahead. Like

Robert Eggers is just like, hey,

oh, yeah.
Cool. We've been needing thispart filled. And you're ready
and costume costume? You'reright. You're right. Yeah.

Yeah, she's one of my heroes. I love her.

I especially like interviews, like the famous
one where she's talking abouther TV and like going through
like the circuits and stuff.
It's just like, it's so so it'sgenius. It's just I love when
artists talk about like theintricacies of just like, the
simple everyday life out items.
Her and David Byrne are reallygood at that.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so, Belle comes out. Actually, tomorrow.
Well, when this episode comesout on the 22nd, which is
tomorrow on VOD, but you haveanother project that's coming
out soon as well.

Yeah, I scored a movie very different movie
called Daddy, that's going to beat Cinequest. It's going to be
at the hammer theater indowntown San Jose as part of
Cinequest. Very different movie.
But I am proud of this one aswell. Yeah. And then other than
that, you know, I'm just mixingartists records and producing
artists records and playing onother people's records. And

(51:46):
there's a couple of films, youknow, couple, you know, there's
one or two film things in thepipeline, but not much happening
right now. So

whose records are you playing on?

I'm mixing, I'm producing my friend Sarah
do you do a lot of session work?
And is it? Is it the bass thatNelson's record. And she's done
some cool stuff. And we'reworking on something really cool
right now. But yeah, I mean,other than that, just people
around LA, you play? Or whatBass part play

Okay, I do a lot of session work around there

Trying to do more. Yeah, always trying to do
more. I mean, composing is thefirst love for sure, but are
composing is the main thing. ButI love playing bass. And I love
I mean, being a bass player isnot much different than being a
film composer, you show up youyou're a part of a you're a part
of a team. You try to make theproject better and not outsize.

(52:37):
Whatever it is you're doing. Andlike a good bass player, if
you're missing a good filmscore, you really miss it.

It's one of those things that you don't
notice it's not there until it'snot there. It's like you may not
notice it when it is there. Butwhen it's gone, you're like I
remember hearing about testscreenings of Halloween. Without
the score. People thought it wasa comedy. And then you add the
score. And you're like, holycrap, this is terrifying. Yeah.

Yeah, those make all the difference.

Yeah, yeah.

That's completely understandable. I'm
giving notes right now and adocumentary piece supposed to
cut 20 minutes and I'm sittingthere and there's no score. And
I'm like, everything feels soboring. It's just talking heads.
There's no action. All right,that's just got to remember the
music will be added later. It'llbe more interesting with music.
Just focus on what's being said.
Yeah.

Thanks for joining us here today. Matt. Is
there anything else you gotcoming up that that you can talk
about? Or just have you wealready covered what you got

You covered what I've got covered.
coming up?

Yeah. Where can people find you on the
socials to to kind of keep upwith what you've got coming up
as it comes up?

My website is Mattornstein.com. Twitter is
@Matt0renstein. But the O iszero. And Instagram,
Matt_Orenstein.

Did somebody have Matt Orenstein with a
regular Oh or did you do that?
Just on purpose?

Yeah, no, there's another there are many
Matt Orenstein There's like ahockey player and all hockey
player from Hofstra. I thinkthere's another Matt Orenstein
in Hollywood. Who does somethingslightly who does something
different than I do? Yeah,there's, it's, you know, there's
definitely Matt Orensteinaround.

There's a Jay Edwards who worked on Adult Swim
I think it is. So there areother people with your names,
unfortunately. Yeah.

Well, there's I follow the Minnesota
Timberwolves, the basketballteam that's been sort of
woefully mismanaged as long asI've been you know, as long as
they've been in existence andthe the beat writer for I think
the athletic for the wolves isJohn Krasinski. So, that's
confusing,

but not that John Krasinski not

not yet not not Jim. Yeah.

Well, thanks for joining us this morning,
everybody. Go see Belle on, gosee Belle. I mean, see Belle
it's VOD. Starting tomorrow. Ifyou listen to this today, it's
released, hopefully all VODplatforms. You know, I'm sure
you'll be able to find itsomewhere, too if you want to
find us Eye On Horror, we're onall the socials at @EyeOnHorror.

(55:20):
Or you can go to iHorror.comwhich is the site we all call
home. Our theme song is byRestless Spirit. So go give them
a listen. Hey, Restless Spiritis coming to the West Coast.
That is exciting. They're comingto LA. It's a Tuesday. I'm
hoping I can come up for it.

You're going to come up to LA for it?

I'm gonna try shit. But I mean, it's a
Tuesday, which is traditionallya pretty light Workday for me.
So it might be looking good. Ourartwork is by Chris Fisher. So
give him a like, and we will seeyou again in a couple of weeks.
So for me, James Jay Edwards.

I'm Jacob Davison.

I'm Jonathan Correia.

I'm Matt Orenstein.

Keep your Eye On Horror.

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