After a successful world premiere at London’s FrightFest, Dark Sky Films has officially released their action horror flick, Herd, in select U.S. theaters and on VOD. The Herd synopsis reads: Jamie and her wife, Alex, try to save their failing marriage by taking an isolated canoe trip in rural Missouri. After Alex breaks her leg, the women find themselves trapped in Jamie’s small hometown overrun by virus-infected ‘Heps’. Worse, Alex gets scratched by one of the afflicted. After witnessing personal and gruesome horrors, she attempts to sneak away with Alex, only to be betrayed by one of her only connections. Now caught between the group that saved her, a competing militia, and the growing ‘Hep’ threat, is there any chance she can save Alex and finally escape?
The person responsible for the film’s chilling score is composer Alexander Arntzen. Alexander is no stranger to the horror genre, he has also scored Saban Films’ Initiation among many other titles. In the below interview, we spoke to Alexander below about how he brought Herd to life, musically.
Herd is now available on VOD and Alexander’s soundtrack album is also available.
-What did you do to prepare for your work on Herd?
The preparation on Herd involved doing an initial demo to a key scene in the film. Gratefully the filmmakers loved what I did which created the initial soundscape that I grew the score from. After that, it was all about an evolving dialogue around what we wanted the score to sound like. Much of the prep was searching and auditioning new, unique, and specific sounds that fit the rustic, rural, and raw country vibe mixed with horror that we wanted to create for the Score.
-What did your collaboration with director Steven Pierce look like?
Collaborating with Steven was wonderful! It was a very close working relationship despite scoring most of it remotely in LA while he was back in NY. I would send passes of the score, and then he would send me back timecode labeled notes with feedback. Then if I had any particular questions about a note, I’d hop on the phone and we’d go through it and maybe even have new ideas I’d offer based on his suggestion to make it even better. We did get to have one in person session while he was visiting, and that allowed me to write and edit some of the Score on the fly which is always a really fun and exciting session to be a part of and the most collaborative like we’re writing the music together with an energy you can’t quite replicate being apart.
–Herd is a zombie film. How would you say this film is different from some of the other zombie films out there?
Well, I don’t want to dive into spoilers, but by the time the film ends, you’ll clearly see how this film separates itself from other zombie films of the past. In general though, I think the film more closely aligns with The Walking Dead & The Last of Us, in the sense that, while the zombies are a significant threat, it’s the people around you and how they react to such a calamity, that you really have to worry about the most. A very close friend of mine even commented while we were watching it near the start of the film that he enjoyed how the zombies were in some ways getting introduced to the film in an almost casual way while our protagonists are doing their own thing. It’s probably a more honest depiction of how an outbreak would actually be occurring and some people wouldn’t even notice it happening till it’s too late.
-Congrats on releasing the score album for the film. I know they are all your babies, but do you have a few favorites on the album?
Thank you! It’s always an exciting time to release an album and finally being able to show off all the work that went into creating it. There’s 18 tracks, so forgive me if I list a few more than usual. I’d have to say my favorites would have to be Same Thing You Do, Loveseat, Everything Will Be Fine, RV, & Photo.
–Herd isn’t your first horror film to score. Was your approach different than your other horror film, Initiation?
This isn’t my first rodeo with horror, that’s for sure! Although I’m always learning and growing from the last one. I also don’t like to repeat myself, so in some ways you’re always starting from scratch. With Herd, considering the environment and the more traditional “monster” element of the zombies vs. Initiation’s slasher killer, the approach was totally different. Not to mention the difference between the lack of technology being used rather than it being fully immersed with social media in the latter. So, the goal was to creating a Score that was authentic to the story that was being told, while also being cognizant of the location as well. A far more acoustic sound was used throughout Herd with strings and guitar. Even when there was some more industrial sounds used for the villain character, they still have a more grounded character to them, rather than too synth driven.
-What was the hardest scene for you to score? Why?
The hardest scene to score was a long monologue spoken by the main protagonist Jamie. Me & Steve had to go through it a number of times to make sure I wasn’t stepping on their lines. We gratefully worked on that cue at one point in person, which allowed us to have the most in real time ability to adjust and fix the spots that needed the most massaging to get it where it needed to be. You want to support the emotion without distracting from the performance Ellen was giving.
-Did you look to any other films for inspiration?
I can’t say that I did too much. By the time I started scoring Herd, the film was already locked and we hadn’t had too many initial meetings before I was hired. Typically, if I am brought in early on to a project, the filmmaker will mention films that are inspiration for them, but in this case we just dove in. I think both ways have their pros & cons. If you know what they liked about other movies it gives you a clue and insight into what kind of music they might react well to. But, if you go in with more of a “Void” to fill, I think that gives an opportunity to create something truly original since it wasn’t as influenced by other works, rather was a reaction to just the film they made and nothing else.
-Anything else you would like to mention about Herd?
Overall, I was just really happy with how it turned out! I hadn’t listened to the Score in quite some time after writing it last year, so to hear it again mixed into the film, I was very happy with how it all came together in the end. I also want to thank Gretchen Bloom for lending her cello talents onto a number of tracks in the OST. There’s just nothing like having live players on a Score that brings it to life! -Are there any horror films you have watched lately that you have been particularly impressed with? The irony is that despite scoring a lot of horror films, I myself am the kind of person that needs to watch most horror movies with the lights on haha. I am going to be scoring the 2nd feature film of my longest collaborator John Berardo called The Mannequin. He suggested that I watch Hereditary which to that point I hadn’t seen. Well, I watched it during the day, and my goodness it is so tense, disturbing, & scary. I didn’t sleep well for a week! Hopefully I’ve gleamed what I needed from it, and now I can pass along a few sleepless nights to someone else once we finish scoring it!
