• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Great Movies with Terrible Soundtracks

Status
Not open for further replies.
F

Flying_Phoenix

Banned
There had to be a time when you were watching a great film. You are engaged in the story, the script, the events, the atmosphere. When suddenly you say to yourself "What the hell is up with this music!?!?"

I'll nominate The Killing Fields.

I think the movie is great, it even won a few awards back in they day. But man is the soundtrack terrible.

I mean seriously just listen to this shit.
Seriously.
 
LadyHawke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bugi35v1CKk

My best friend lent Ladyhawke to me in 2001-2002 I believe and told me it was a great film. He said to specifially keep an ear out for the soundtrack. Well, the film itself is a lot of fun and I love the look of it but man, when that 80's ost kicks in. Me and him just had a great time laughing about it.
 
Flying_Phoenix said:
There had to be a time when you were watching a great film. You are engaged in the story, the script, the events, the atmosphere. When suddenly you say to yourself "What the hell is up with this music!?!?"

I'll nominate The Killing Fields.

I think the movie is great, it even won a few awards back in they day. But man is the soundtrack terrible.

I mean seriously just listen to this shit.
Seriously.
Click to expand...

Hm...

I loved the Killing Fields so I har to check the score out that you linked, and it seems very appropriate to me. A lot of the music was chaotic and disorienting, with a lot of violent clashes in it. I had no issue with what you linked in the proper context.

I can't think of any movie specifically that I enjoyed with a bad score. More generically I would say a lot of those 80s movies with the heavy synth scores, and always a forced pop "hit" by a group nobody heard of, usually occurring during a montage. While I enjoy these scores for the nostalgia of them, they generally suck from an objective standpoint.
 
That is a tough question. I honestly don't think I can like a movie if the music is bad.

Now bad movies with great soundtracks I can go on forever....
 
I liked Watchmen's soundtrack quite a bit with two easily guessable, terrible exceptions.

Seriously that one scene. It tells you what song to play in that scene in the novel. What happened.
 
Every Shrek ever. While not great movies, but quite entertaining the soundtracks have always been the worst point of any Shrek movie. Do not stand the test of time.
 
dofry said:
Every Shrek ever. While not great movies, but quite entertaining the soundtracks have always been the worst point of any Shrek movie. Do not stand the test of time.
Click to expand...

0703_smash_mouth_e.jpg


The first one is the worst thanks to these D-bags, never saw 3 or Fover after.
 
Flying_Phoenix said:
There had to be a time when you were watching a great film. You are engaged in the story, the script, the events, the atmosphere. When suddenly you say to yourself "What the hell is up with this music!?!?"

I'll nominate The Killing Fields.

I think the movie is great, it even won a few awards back in they day. But man is the soundtrack terrible.

I mean seriously just listen to this shit.
Seriously.
Click to expand...

At the time, it was pretty avante garde and well liked. It hasn't aged well, but in a snapshot, it was excellent.

Of course, the greatest movie soundtrack of all time, The Last Dragon, has aged perfectly.
 
Well, it's not exactly compositionally bad, but I always thought the music in The Princess Bride sounded too... well, MIDI. I suppose you could argue that's part of the film's charm, but it always kind of annoyed me.
 
Edmond Dantès;36711270 said:
Not exactly what you're looking for because it is a pretty difficult to come up with many examples, but Ridley Scott's Legend courts controversy because of the two scores composed for it.

There are people who think Tangerine Dream's score is not particularly befitting of the film and champion the score composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

Jerry - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7CF3eVfcn4

TD - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WBhyLGDViE
Click to expand...

I'm one of those who's torn.

I grew up with the Tangerine Dream soundtrack and I fucking love 80s synth music in sci-fi/fantasy. But then again, I fell in love with Jerry's soundtrack after watching the Director's Cut and it's what Ridley originally intended to be in the film.

Neither is shitty. At all.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8mreW0sQ70

How can you hate this? It's fucking impossible.
 
Jimothy said:
The movie sucked just as bad.
Click to expand...
It was ok.

I don't know that you can have a great movie with an awful soundtrack, honestly. I hate to beg the question but I feel like the soundtrack is such an integral part of the film that its failing to be great should inflict that lack of greatness on the rest of the film.

If I must, though: Juno.
 
Draconian said:
Seriously?
Click to expand...
Yes, especially the in the beginning
where the store is blown up only for the movie to cut to a scene of Ness' home and it has sentimental music attached to it. Having a little girl get blown up only to immediately cut to that music is just awful editing.
The score as a whole really gets in the way and brings the movie down and sometimes makes it laughable.
 
Hawkian said:
I liked Watchmen's soundtrack quite a bit with two easily guessable, terrible exceptions.

Seriously that one scene. It tells you what song to play in that scene in the novel. What happened.
Click to expand...

The trailers actually had better music than the movie did.
 
icarus-daedelus said:
Opera is my favorite Dario Argento movie, but damn if that 80s metal used in the kill scenes isn't cheesy and jarring as hell. It's oddly mixed with opera music (obviously) and it never quite works as it was intended to.
Click to expand...

I think Phenomena was worse. Random 80's hair metal kicking in at really odd moments. As much as I love Iron Maiden, it didn't fit.
 
Inglorious Bastards (forgot how to spell it wrong)

Don't even try to argue, it wasn't good. He should have had someone compose an entire original score for the film. Could have been some great music created for that film.
 
Clerks

I just didn't jive with the weak rock, grunge, and punk overtones in the soundtrack. It didn't seem to fit the personal charm that the film had through the story and characters. There are tons of other jams and tunes that may have been better-suited. Or maybe it's just me.
 
disappeared said:
Clerks

I just didn't jive with the weak rock, grunge, and punk overtones in the soundtrack. It didn't seem to fit the personal charm that the film had through the story and characters. There are tons of other jams and tunes that may have been better-suited. Or maybe it's just me.
Click to expand...

I kinda liked the music in Clerks, but I think Kevin really nailed the music in Clerks 2. The ending still kinda chokes me up.
 
On the opposite side of this topic, I've been buying songs on iTunes that I hear on Pandora and fall in love with.

I think one of every two songs I buy I learn was on a Twilight soundtrack.

ReconYoda said:
I kinda liked the music in Clerks, but I think Kevin really nailed the music in Clerks 2. The ending still kinda chokes me up.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Maybe it was because I bought the soundtracks in 1997, but Clerks and Mallrat were just a sign of their times and not something timeless.
 
Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It's a great theme but completely overused within the film. Understandable, as that's how scores used to be written, but these days it's jarring.

Come at me GAF.
 
Edmond Dantès;36711270 said:
Not exactly what you're looking for because it is a pretty difficult to come up with many examples, but Ridley Scott's Legend courts controversy because of the two scores composed for it.

There are people who think Tangerine Dream's score is not particularly befitting of the film and champion the score composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

Jerry - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7CF3eVfcn4

TD - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WBhyLGDViE
Click to expand...

Always felt the darker edge to the TD score fit the tone of the movie perfectly
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

What's With This Whispering Trend In Movies?
28
215
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt replied
Greenland Movies
4
404
saintjules replied
Underrated movies that are good.
43
1K
Itchy.Tasty. replied
Recommendations for really good medieval movies with a lot of combat
42
3K
Disciple of MSSP replied
How to Live Through a Great Decline
16
629
Unknown Soldier replied
Top Bottom