A dark magic enchanted me during Evil Dead in Concert last Monday evening.
As I watched Joseph LoDuca’s score performed live by a handful of musicians (violinists, cellist, an upright bassist, and percussionist with tympanies, cymbals, and even egg shakers) there was a deeper dynamism to the experience than one typically gets in the cinema or at home. That much is clear.
But at some point, these flourishes faded and I found myself entranced in the darkness, absorbed so deeply into the film that I started to not notice the stage, musicians, moody lights, or foreboding fog. And that’s a compliment to their performance.
In short, the experience demonstrated an interesting insight: how essential—yet effectively invisible—great horror film scoring should be.
Said differently, the evening’s most fascinating revelation was the dual consciousness it created. Watching musicians perform mere feet away made every screeching violin string and thunderous mallet hit viscerally immediate. And in this sensory stimulation, the film itself swallowed up the audience whole for a uniquely immersive experience.
Horror, more than other genres, lives and dies by its soundscape. Music must build dread without always telegraphing scares and know when silence speaks louder than crescendos.
Monday’s performance succeeded precisely because the musicians understood this. During the film’s quieter, tension-building sequences, the score held restraint. And when demonic possessions kicked into high gear, the music became chaotic without overpowering anguished screams and squelching grotesquery.
In lesser hands, live instrumentation can drown out dialogue and sound effects—fatal errors when horror relies on creaking floorboards and whispered incantations. Here, the balance distilled the experience with chilling clarity and emotional architecture, making it almost impossible not to get wrapped up in the film’s dark spell, still shocking after almost 45 years.
But even when I would forget I was in a large concert venue watching a film, what always brought me back was the evening’s secret ingredient: the crowd itself. Like cult audiences of The Room or Rocky Horror Picture Show, attendees knew Evil Dead so intimately that they shouted warnings at characters and dropped hilarious one-liners, communally celebrating a film with over four decades of terror in its story.
This participatory energy enhanced the musical experience, even cracking up the musicians, trying to keep a straight face as they played. Their performances even felt looser and playful as the evening progressed. The laughter and callbacks created rhythms between the score’s movements, making it feel like everyone played a part in the performance.
Evil Dead in Concert proved that the best horror music serves the story first, the audience second, and the ego never. When 90 minutes passes with an orchestra sometimes commanding your attention and sometimes disappearing entirely, all while a crowd taps into the comedy of horror, you’ve witnessed something special. Groovy, even. | Zach K. Johnson
