The Music of Candyman by Philip Glass [CD]

In 1990 Philip Glass was asked by director Bernard Rose to compose a score for his film Candyman. Rose, a young director had an intriguing film, Paperhouse to his credit and the Candyman story, (written by Clive Barker), was a tale of contemporary myth and horror that possessed a truly frightening psychological plot. Glass accepted this task and wrote a “gothic” score for chorus and pipe organ. Somewhere down the line the film’s producers and Clive Barker became dissatisfied with Rose’s work, probably because he wasn’t creating enough overt gore and horror and relieved him of the job of finishing the film.

The final version of the film was a disappointment to Glass. He felt that he had been manipulated. What was presented to him as a low budget independent project with creative integrity indeed became a low budget Hollywood slasher flick. The film had its merits and unsurprisingly, the studio called for a sequel. Glass agreed to let the studio use his original score for the new project. At this point I began the remixing and editing of the original score to create new cues for the sequel and Glass graciously contributed 4 new cues to supplement the original music.

Since the release of the Candyman films there has been interest from the fans for a soundtrack album and, indeed there have been a number of bootlegs and cover versions offered for sale on the internet and at record fairs. Initially, Philip Glass’ ambivalence about the films and the fact that there wasn’t enough music to merit a whole CD prevented a release, but with the inclusion of the Candyman II material and the obvious interest in this music, there seemed be an appropriate rationale for bringing this music to the fans.

The recordings found on this CD are the original score recordings for the films Candyman and the sequel, Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh. The cues have been remixed to better suit home stereo playback. The score for Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh was built from the original Candyman cues plus the extra music represented on this disk.

~Don Christensen, June, 2001.