Mark McKenzie

[thestat 348]

Thought I'd give a shout out to Mark Mckenzie, one of the greatest orchestrators out there and a brilliant composer. I first encountered his name in a Fangoria review of Son of Darkness 2: To Die For where Fangoria referenced his music as Elfmanesque - this was 1991, so Elfman was a big thing. Since then, I followed his career through Warlock 2 (another brilliant orchestral score) to this Frank and Jesse Paxton/Lowe madhouse:

 

He has a brilliant Hunt score bit in To Die For 2 35:40 onwards: the film is terrible

 

[Stark 316]

His Dragonheart sequel scores are all wonderful!

[Thor 7,515]

You love those YouTube vids, thestat, don't you?

 

Well, there have been four threads about him before, as far as I can tell. This one, for example.

 

McKenzie is good, but also a bit too on-the-nose sometimes. He's the quintessential Hallmark composer. And when he ventures into scores for films that touch on his beloved Christian faith, it gets overbearing. But by all means, he's done some fine scores over the years. Personal favs include DURANGO and BLIZZARD.

[thestat 348]

I do love illustrating the greatness of these composers through examples. Why not? And yes, his personal posts are a bit, shall we say, problematic.

 

But he still composes this, and he is not exactly fucking Jon Voight is he: