What do you get when you cross Gerald's Game with a particularly hardcore version of Home Alone? The answer to a question you’ve probably never asked presented itself this year with survival thriller Till Death, starring Megan Fox as Emma, who wakes up in a secluded lakehouse, handcuffed to her husband’s dead body.
Trapped and isolated in the dead of winter, Emma learns this is only the beginning of her husband’s twisted plan, and to survive, she must fight off hired killers.
“From the moment I found out the plot, I thought that this could be very interesting, but it could go either way,” admits Ivor Novello-nominated and Telly Award-winning composer, Walter Mair, who’s no stranger to tackling a psychological horror, having recently scored the 2020 film The Unfamiliar.
“I knew it could be very cliché or it could be very different. What I really loved was that the director, Scott Dale [he goes by S.K], told the story in a different way. So for me, it was super engaging and there was a lot of emotional scope.
"The music became very dark, with elements of thriller and horror at times, combined with some beautiful, bright, light and positive elements with themes in there for motifs. I was totally in love with the concept; I definitely wanted to score it and try to provide a voice for the film through music.”
Dale was drawn to Mair as a composer because he is known for his atmospheric soundscapes to create one-of-a-kind music for his scores, with Till Death being no exception.
“We really honed in on the darkness and the landscape – the cold and the frost, and knowing that people wouldn't survive if they were exposed out there for too long,” he explains. “All of that had to come into consideration when creating the music.”