Press Release from Dragon's Domain:Dragon’s Domain Records presents the world premiere release of the original motion picture soundtrack for THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS, featuring music composed by Ken Thorne (A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, JUGGERNAUT, HANNIE CAULDER) for the 1982 horror film directed by Kevin Connor (FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, MOTEL HELL), written by Robert Suhosky from the novel by James Hardiman, starring Edward Albert, Susan George, Doug McClure, Amy Barrett, Henry Mitowa, Tsuiyuki Sasaki, Toshiya Maruyama and introducing Mako Hattori.
1840, Kushiata region, Kyoto, Japan... Shigero, a samurai, returns to his home to find his wife, Otami, in bed with his friend, Masanori, another samurai. Enraged, Shigero maims and kills Masanori, next Otami and finally commits seppuku, taking his own life. The wind blows through the house and time passes...
In present day Japan, American writer Ted Fletcher (Edward Albert) arrives with his wife Laura (Susan George) and their young daughter, Amy. They are greeted at the airport by Ted’s best friend, Alex (Doug McClure), a U.S. diplomat. Alex takes the Fletchers to a home he has secured for their stay in Japan. By chance, this is the still-standing home of Shigero and Otami... Alex tells them he got a great deal on the rental of the house because it has a history of being haunted.
Even as the family has barely moved in, they start to experience incidents of hauntings and possession... The ghosts of Shigero, Otami and Masanori still haunt the house and begin to subject each member of the family to episodes of harassment and mischief that begin to increase with frequency each day and ultimately become malicious... Through the actions of the ghosts taking turns to possess Ted and Laura, it is revealed that they seek to recreate the savage act that ended their lives so that their souls can be released from the confines of the house...
Ken Thorne (1924-2014) was a veteran English composer for motion pictures since the mid-1960s. He gained a successful career as a big band pianist during the 1940s, and later took up studying composition at Cambridge, which led to scoring films, starting out with a 1948 musical but began earnestly in the early 1960s. Thorne so impressed director Richard Lester on one of his early films that he became Lester’s composer of choice, writing the instrumental underscore for HELP!, starring The Beatles, then winning an Oscar for best adapted music for Lester’s film A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, and reworked the music of John Williams from SUPERMAN for Lester’s two sequels, SUPERMAN II and III. Over his career, Thorne composed, orchestrated or conducted more than 100 feature and television movies.
Director Kevin Connor collaborated with composer Ken Thorne many times over the course of their careers, on films such as ARABIAN ADVENTURE, THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, the mini-series GREAT EXPECTATIONS, SUNSET GRILL, the mini-series RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE, LETHAL EXPOSURE, AGE OF TREASON, THE ELIZABETH TAYLOR STORY, THE APOCALYPSE WATCH, MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS, IN THE BEGINNING, SANTA, JR and MARCO POLO.
Dragon’s Domain Records presents THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS, featuring music composed by Ken Thorne, conducted by Richard S. Kaufman, appearing for the very first time on compact disc. The music has been mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland and the liner notes have been written by Mike Joffe.