I rarely notice a film score. I think that’s the point. It’s supposed to manipulate you without you knowing about it. When you go back and look at something with a John Williams score and focus on the music during a second or third viewing, you can really see how brilliant he is. On the other hand, a bad score is very noticeable. Not only does it fail to manipulate you, it points itself out and takes away from the scene.

This happened to us last night when we decided to watch The Mean Season (1985) starring Kurt Russell, Mariel Hemingway, and the imitable Richard Jordan. The movie is a taut thriller about Kurt Russell’s newspaper journalist who is contacted by Richard Jordan’s serial killer before or just after each murder he commits. As Russell gets pulled deeper and deeper into the abyss of the madman’s exploits his marriage and job fall apart and, eventually, his and his wife’s lives are put in danger.

But during the entire movie, we kept looking at each other with amusement at how awful the music cues were. For instance, after Russell saves Hemingway from Jordan during a raging storm on the everglades, the music swells to a romantic theme which is exactly the wrong cue. This isn’t a romantic moment, it’s a thrilling moment, a denouement. They’re not about to make out. They’re just glad to be alive.

The whole movie is filled with glaringly offbeat music choices that are the only flaw in an otherwise great thriller. Lalo Schifren did the score. He has a long history in IMDB though most of it seems to be from 1960s/70s television. He did create the iconic Mission: Impossible theme music from the original show. But he either didn’t know what the movie was about or just didn’t get it and, somehow, the director didn’t notice his taut, serial killer movie was being scored like an episode of Mr. Ed.

The only good thing about this score is how it allowed me to see how important music is to a movie. You can watch anything from Stephen Spielberg and you’ll understand he doesn’t take the music for granted at all.