Ruckus From The Movies: Come And Dance With The Dead, Baby!

Time to revive another series gone dormant. In this case, the long break was almost normal, as I had planned out the first three volumes, but nothing beyond that. So, with this fourth volume, we go in a bit of a different direction. After having featured three veteran hard rock acts, Dance With The Dead are a different proposition. About three years ago or so I had a little summer fling with the music subgenre they call synthwave. And I stumbled onto Tony Kim and Justin Pointer a.k.a. Dance With The Dead. These two childhood friends love two thing: 80s music and horror movies. From these two loves was born Dance With The Dead, whose original songs are mainly horror-themes pastiches of mid-80s synth and AOR rock, with a dash of heavy metal, including big synth riffs (usually by Pointer) and even bigger guitar riffs (usually by Kim). Their proper compositions are fn, if sometimes a little redundant, but they would occasionally remix known rock songs and film themes. Remixing is almost an understantement, as they would add tons of additional instrumentation.  

For this volume of Ruckus At The Movies, the focus of the compilation has changed a tiny bit, from songs that were featured in movies to (note the subtle title change) songs that come from movie soundtracks or were used in movies . John Carpenter's theme from "Assault On Precinct 13" and Carles Bernstein's theme from "a Nightmare On Elm Street" are total classics and so close to what the synthwave sound wants to capture (especially Carpenter's synth scores, obviously), that Dance With The Dead's re-imaginings don't have to go very far. And yet they do, as Kim adds some monster guitar solos that obviously aren't in the originals. 

Maybe these weirdos loving another weirdo explains their cover of Lindsey Buckingham's "Holiday Road", that was written for National Lampoon's Holiday. Then we have a cover of Luniz' hip hop classic "I Got 5 On It", that was used so effectively to spooky effect in Jordan Peele's Us. Now, while Us wasn't perfect - and neither were Get Out or Nope - it sure was a big, bold swing and in today's almost entirely I.P.-driven climate in Hollywood that is an achievement by itself. "Paint It Black" has of course been used in more than half a dozen movies, scoring the end credits of Full Metal Jacket and The Devil's Advocate and most recently featured in The Rock's flop comic book adaptation Black Adam. And finally, these two synthwave pranksters end proceedings with their take on the Theme from Gremlins. 

So, in order to appreciate today's modest One Buck Record - more of an Ep than a full-length album - you would need to have an appreciation for big chunky'n'cheesy 80s production. If you do, I guarantee a good time with some Ruckus At From The Movies...