Track Listing

1. Main Titles
2. Evacuating Philadelphia
3. Vice Principal
4. Central Park
5. We Lost Contact
6. You Can't Just Leave Us Here
7. Rittenhouse Square
8. Five Miles Back
9. Princeton
10. Jess Comforts Elliot
11. My Firearm Is My Friend
12. Abandoned House
13. Shotgun
14. You Eyin' My Lemon Drink?
15. Mrs. Jones
16. Voices
17. Be with You
18. End Title Suite

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142355 in Music
• Brand: Score
• Released on: 2008-06-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Customer Reviews

Hauntingly Lovely!
Someone wrote in a soundtrack forum once, "Shyamalan's movies have become increasingly bad while Howard's music has become increasingly better." Well, it went something like that.

After seeing the gross Red Band trailer for The Happening, I was wondering what JNH was composing for such a dark, bloody, gory movie. Safe to say, he sticked to what he's done for past Shyamalan films: conveying emotion. James Newton Howard (JNH) downplays the horrors of this film by scoring to the human emotion rather than the unseen, frightening element. That doesn't mean he doesn't underscore the scary moments. You'll find his signature orchestral clusters aplenty here.

The highlights of the album are the cello solos by Maya Beiser, and what I term "the plague" theme. (The "plague" being the thing that attacks people. I don't know what else to call it since the film is yet to come out as of this writing.) "The plague march" (listen on CENTRAL PARK and MRS. JONES) is much like the monster themes of old when the creature or unseen assailant would creep upon the victim before striking. This theme took me back to another great monster theme: "Cloverfield" by Michael Giacchino. The "Main Titles" gives a great intro to the score as its comprised of the major themes of the score. And of course my favorite track has to be "End Title Suite."

My complaint for recent JNH releases for Shyamalan films has been the short running time on the album. This score release from Varese Sarabande is nearly 50 minutes long making it perhaps the longest release for a Shyamalan film. The film is reportedly 90 minutes long so I'm sure we get a near full representation of the score as it will be heard on film.

Haunting. Original. Beautiful. And spooky. This is JNH doing what he does best! Just don't compare it to Lady in the Water. Apples and Oranges.

Since Amazon doesn't have the track listing up yet, here it is:

1. Main Titles (2:18)
2. Evacuating Philadelphia (2:21)
3. Vice Principal (1:56)
4. Central Park (2:58)
5. We Lost Contact (:59)
6. You Can't Just Leave Us Here (1:43)
7. Rittenhouse Square (1:59)
8. Five Miles Back (1:13)
9. Princeton (3:06)
10. Jess Comforts Elliot (2:31)
11. My Firearm Is My Friend (2:59)
12. Abandoned House (1:32)
13. Shotgun (4:27)
14. You Eyin' My Lemon Drink? (4:28)
15. Mrs. Jones (1:44)
16. Voices (1:36)
17. Be With You (3:41)
18. End Title Suite (8:36)
TOTAL: 49:59

Also check out
Signs
The Village

"The Happening" soundtrack
After seeing M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening", I was overall very pleased. The film definitely had a strong Hitchcock feel to it, and the best part was that the "scary" scenes never took place at night. Sure, some of it was disturbing, but it was a realm that Shyamalan had to try - and he did excellently with it. However, the movie wouldn't have been half as good without James Newton Howard's score. Three of the tracks stand out especially in my mind.
The main titles appeared against a background of time-lapse white cloud against bright blue sky, which grew steadily darker - very unexpected, much like the titles of "Signs." Howard's music for this was brilliantly done, and made it all the more unsettling. The theme for "Central Park" made it so the graphic suicides weren't scary, but bizarre and unnerving. Then, there's "Be With You", a tragic and emotional aspect to the score - Elliott (Mark Wahlberg) says that if they're going to die, he wants to be with his wife. The music as they walk out through the wind to each other was a defined climax and most definitely the strongest point in both the film and the score. Second to that is "Jess Comforts Elliott", where Elliot loses it in realization that Jess's father is dead.
The score for this movie is fantastic.

The soundtrack to "The Happening" is excellent!
The soundtrack to "The Happening" is excellent! Another excellent M. Night Shyamalan and James Newton Howard collaboration. This is an excellent score from Howard. All of the tracks are excellent.

Track Listing
1. Main Titles
2. Evacuating Philadelphia
3. Vice Principal
4. Central Park
5. We Lost Contact
6. You Can't Just Leave Us Here
7. Rittenhouse Square
8. Five Miles Back
9. Princeton
10. Jess Comforts Elliot
11. My Firearm Is My Friend
12. Abandoned House
13. Shotgun
14. You Eyin' My Lemon Drink?
15. Mrs. Jones
16. Voices
17. Be With You
18. End Title Suite