Personally, I think the scores for Michael Dudikoff's recent films are excellant, especially "Strategic Command," "Crash Dive," and "The Shooter." (The last two you can find at Hollywood Video if you're interested in hearing them for yourself, but the first film, despite being made in 1997, is already out of print).

For more info on Dudikoff, check out this extremely comprehensive website. His early films (and he made A LOT for the now-defunct Cannon Pictures), like the "American Ninja" ones, "Platoon Leader," and "River of Death," were released in the theaters, but starting in the early 90s, his films were released direct-to-video, despite being fairly well-made films. In the last three years, he's made nearly a dozen films, most of which involve him as a military character involved in behind enemy lines-type of mission. But in some of his other films, "Moving Target" (1996) and "Fugitive Mind" (1999), he portrays an ordinary man who doesn't like to fight, but must resort to it, kind of like Jackie Chan does in his films. One movie he made last year was a huge change of pace. It's a court drama where he plays a lawyer who has an affair with his client (Marlee Matlin), which leads to betrayal and murder. It has NO action at all. Cinemax has been showing it the last couple of months, so perhaps you can catch that one if you have cable.

Anyway, check out the above site for all the information you could need to know about Dudikoff . . . and then some. If you want even MORE info, though, e-mail Dantoris. He's the foremost authority on Dudikoff that I know of. He's even made a compliation CD of music from Dudikoff's films. Check out his thread here to find out more about this impressive CD.

I think I see a pattern here...

Richard Band is another composer who got very little work outside of his brother's films, and whether he wants to admit it or not, was most likely due to his tribute to Bernard Herrmann in Re-Animator. Too many people thought he was "ripping off" the master when it's clear to see that it was intended as a tribute to Herrmann. The recent UP AND DOWN 2CD promo was a let-down for me, with all the hokey cartoon music and not enough of the intense style he's so good at writing. It's hard to pick any favorites, but if I had to, the top of the list would be RESURRECTED, FROM BEYOND and RE-ANIMATOR.

Add to this list the name CONRAD POPE. This is a guy who has orchestrated such films as THE LOST WORLD:JURASSIC PARK 2, AMISTAD, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, ERASER, THE SANTA CLAUSE and SLEEPY HOLLOW. His score for PROJECT:METAL BEAST is absolutley brilliant. His scores for other films such as THE SET-UP, TEMPTATION and UNDER THE MOON are also some great quality orchestral scores.

Some more names:

-DAVID WILLIAMS has also impressed me with his scores for PROPHECY 2, PHANTOMS and WISHMASTER 2.

-SIMON BOSWELL's scores for DUST DEVIL, DELIRIA (with Stefano Mainetti), LORD OF ILLUSIONS, HARDWARE and PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES are all worth checking out.

-STEFANO MAINETTI's score to TALOS THE MUMMY (aka Russell Mulcahy's Tale of the Mummy) impressed me very much, as did the film.

-ECKART SEEBER's score to Bram Stoker's SHADOWBUILDER is first rate.

-COLIN TOWNS' scores for VAMPIRE'S KISS, RAWHEAD REX and THE WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE rank among my favorites by him.

-JOEL GOLDSMITH's (may be too big to be mentioned here) score to Jim Wynorski's VAMPIRELLA shows the talent that Jerry's son has.

-PINO DONAGGIO, after being used almost exclusively by Brian De Palma in the late 70s and early 80s, has seemingly fallen from grace in Hollywood and has certainly written his share of b-movie and horror scores. Favorites by Pino, b-movie or not, would have to be THE HOWLING, TOURIST TRAP, CARRIE, BODY DOUBLE, CRAWLSPACE, PIRANHA and MERIDIAN

I have to take exception with the sentiment about OTTMAN's Halloween score. I don't see how you can go wrong with his PORTRAIT OF TERROR. Maybe it got rejected because it wasn't a redundant Carpenter keyboard theme. Speaking of Ottman - THE USUAL SUSPECTS and INCOGNITO I'd rate as the best of a very good lot of scores he has composed.

I'll bring up an even more insanely obscure name: Joel Derouin, who did a very nice score for the strange Chuck Norris actioner THE HITMAN. (Beautifully shot by Joao Fernandes, and full of weirder stuff than one usually expects from a Norris picture.)

quote:

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Originally posted by majestyx:
-ECKART SEEBER's score to Bram Stoker's SHADOWBUILDER is first rate.

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Oh yes, I loved that score! The movie itself was better than I had expected, too.