WaterTower Music is pleased to announce the release
of the Soundtrack to ‘Evil Dead Rise’, New Line Cinema and Renaissance Pictures’ return to the iconic horror franchise, which features the music of composer Stephen McKeon.The film opened in theaters in North America on April 21, 2023 and began opening internationally on 19 April.
The 20-track Evil Dead Rise (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), featuring the music of composer Stephen McKeon is now available for streaming and digital purchase. A vinyl configuration will be released by Waxwork Records and is now available for preorder.
To create the music for the film, ‘Evil Dead Rise’ director Lee Cronin turned to composer Stephen McKeon, who previously worked with the filmmaker on “The Hole in the Ground.” McKeon, an admitted ‘huge horror fan,’ discussed his approach to the film’s soundtrack. “Lee liked the idea of something offscreen laughing and delighting at the suffering and terror of the characters, so I recorded two female vocalists performing ‘taunting’ sounds and vocal effects.
(Lee) wanted a score that was visceral, immersive and confrontational, while still leaving room for an emotional theme. So, I began to create sounds and textures based on guitar feedback; guitar strings stretching and breaking; strings being ripped with knives and scissors; and many other weird effects. Many of these made it into the score as part of the texture and tapestry. But ultimately, for the signature, we hit upon an idea we called ‘the meat grinder.’ I spent a week creating lots of sounds using a variety of methods, but eventually, the one that worked was the result of me dragging carving knives along the strings of my beautiful grand piano and then chopping and stretching the audio into something that eventually sounded like a demonic meat grinder being revved up.”
The composer also used a decidedly non-traditional approach when writing for the orchestra and female chorus that provided the music for the main body of the score. For example, one instruction for the 50-plus string players read simply, ‘Rage for 15 seconds.’
McKeon also recorded various stringed and percussion instruments, “being tortured, broken and slowly dismembered. Then, these recordings were chopped up, bent and stretched before being fed, screaming for mercy, into the score.”
The 20-track Evil Dead Rise (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) featuring the music of composer Stephen McKeon is now available for streaming, digital purchase, and on vinyl through Waxwork Records via preorder. The track list is as follows:
- Main Titles (Evil Dead Rise)
- Meat Puppet
- Swimming Headless
- Los Diablos
- Underground Carpark
- The Vault
- Christ’s Head
- Opening the Book of the Dead
- Incantation
- Pulled Apart
- Mommy’s Home
- Eeny Meeny Miney DIE!
- Psycho Bitch
- Say Cheese!
- Beth and Kassie
- Burning Your Bridget
- Dead by Dawn
- Final Confrontation
- Two Souls
- Another Meat Puppet
New Line Cinema and Renaissance Pictures present a return to the iconic horror franchise, “Evil Dead Rise,” written and directed by Lee Cronin (“The Hole in the Ground”). The movie stars Lily Sullivan (“I Met a Girl,” “Barkskins”), Alyssa Sutherland (“New Gold Mountain,” “Vikings”), Morgan Davies (“The End,” “Storm Boy”), Gabrielle Echols (“Reminiscence”) and introducing Nell Fisher (“Northspur”).
Moving the action out of the woods and into the city, “Evil Dead Rise” tells a twisted tale of two estranged sisters, played by Sullivan and Sutherland, whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
“Evil Dead Rise” is produced by longtime franchise producer Rob Tapert (“Ash vs Evil Dead,” “Don’t Breathe”) and executive produced by series creator and horror icon Sam Raimi and cult legend and “Ash” himself, Bruce Campbell, along with John Keville, Macdara Kelleher, Richard Brener, Dave Neustadter, Romel Adam and Victoria Palmeri.
Cronin is joined behind the camera by director of photography Dave Garbett (“Z for Zachariah,” “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans”), production designer Nick Bassett (“Guns Akimbo,” “Sweet Tooth”), editor Bryan Shaw (“Ash vs Evil Dead,” “Spartacus”) and costume designer Sarah Voon (“Chasing Great,” “Inside”), with a score by Stephen McKeon (“The Hole in the Ground,” “Pilgrimage”).
ABOUT STEPHEN MCKEON
Stephen McKeon has been composing music for film and television for more than 30 years. A highly versatile multi-instrumentalist, he has scored over 100 feature films and numerous award-winning international television drama series and documentaries, including BLACK MIRROR (“Fifteen Million Merits”).
McKeon has been nominated for several international awards and is the recipient of three Irish Film & Television Academy awards for Best Original Score: 2017’s PILGRIMAGE, and 2006’s THE TIGER’S TAIL and 2014’s QUEEN & COUNTRY (the follow-up to HOPE AND GLORY), the latter two for legendary director John Boorman. He is currently scoring the second series of the crime drama KIN for Bron Studios and AMC. McKeon lives and works from his Moonflower Studios in County Wicklow, Ireland and Myshkin Studios, London.
ABOUT WATERTOWER MUSIC
WaterTower Music, the in-house label for the Warner Bros Discovery companies, releases recorded music as rich and diverse as the companies themselves. It has been the soundtrack home to many of the world’s most iconic films, television shows and games since 2001.
