Elmer Bernstein - The Good Son FLAC

Elmer Bernstein's wonderful music was the best thing about this otherwise mediocre movie. The innocent yet haunting piano cue that opens the movie reflects the mysterious evil behind Macaulay Culkin's apparent innocence. It really is a beautiful tune that provokes images of lost childhood and sadness, emotions that were (and still are) beyond Mac's ability to exhibit.

It's not all bittersweet emotion however, Bernstein delivers two ferociously powerful suspense tracks with "Skating and Drowning" and "The Cliff", both of them percussion-led cues of raw, fierce power that he later attempted to re-use in Last Man Standing but his score was rejected by Walter Hill. You can still hear them in more fitting context in The Good Son.

The CD is long out of print but it is still worth hunting down, and perhaps a contemporary label will give it a re-release and a better presentation in the future.