Thanks to the recent success of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, a whole new group of people have been introduced to the body horror subgenre. While the physical transformations in the genre are often what is talked about, it’s the deeper emotional battle raging inside the characters that far outshines the shocking imagery.
A new addition to the long list of films in this genre (notable gems worth mentioning are The Fly and The Thing) is Sasha Rainbow’s Grafted, which some critics have compared to Mean Girls and Face/ Off. The official description is: Chinese scholarship student Wei, who travels to New Zealand to study medical research at a prestigious university. Shy, introverted, and hiding a genetic facial birthmark, Wei is shunned by her social butterfly cousin Angela and her glamorous friends. Determined to change her fate, Wei immerses herself in her late father’s research, working on a revolutionary skin grafting procedure that could cure her deformity. As her experiments take a dark turn, she becomes more dangerous and unhinged, willing to eliminate anyone who threatens her secret.
Sasha tasked composer Lachlan Anderson with bringing the Grafted story to life, musically. Lachlan did this with not only high-octane synths but also found objects such as the fan in the opening scene, which he distorted. He also leaned into using organic sources such as vocal/body sounds.
When discussing this topic he says, “I recorded lots of different mouth sounds like popping, breathing, whispers and screaming which were processed beyond recognition. These sounds can be heard in the science experiment montage and when Wei is frantically looking for her notebook”. Lachlan talks more in-depth about how he crafted the Grafted score below. You can also listen to his full Grafted score here.
No Film School: What did you do to prepare for the task of scoring Grafted?
Lachlan Anderson: Well, it always starts with reading the script, then Sasha and I met up and had a lot of conversations on where we would take the score. I think my preparation really was coming up with how the score would sound, I made a lot of early demos before we started putting anything to picture.
NFS: Body horror often contains a lot of physical elements surrounding violations of the human form. How did you highlight those physical elements with your score?
Anderson: This was something that influenced us to use vocal/body sounds with the score, voices were used and often stretched to create some surreal sounds. I recorded lots of different mouth sounds like popping, breathing, whispers, and screaming which were processed beyond recognition. These sounds can be heard in the science experiment montage and when Wei is frantically looking for her notebook.
NFS: How would you say your music progresses with the film?
Anderson: I like to think the music evolves from a quite hopeful sound to rather unhinged following the flow of the movie and Wei’s journey. It also starts off organic and gets more electronic/ abstract as the story evolves.
NFS: There is a chase scene in the film between Eve and Wei. Can you talk about your approach to this scene in particular? What is the best way to build intensity, musically, in a scene like this?
Anderson: Perspective was something we had to consider, we were going between the hunter and the hunted, so we had to match the right mood. Silence was also important in building tension and creating intense dynamics where needed. I think it’s important to be able to keep building/ modulating and not get stuck on one sound for too long in these types of scenes.
‘Grafted’CREDIT: Shudder
NFS: Did the film’s director, Sasha Rainbow, have a pretty clear idea of how she wanted the score to sound? Or did you have a lot of freedom to experiment?
Anderson: Sasha had a really clear vision for how she wanted the score to make you feel, but she also gave me a lot of room for experimentation. I was lucky enough to be a part of the editing process, so we threw a lot of ideas back and forth before things were locked in.
NFS: Were there certain instruments that you were continuously drawn to for the Grafted score?
Anderson: I think the voice was a sound that I kept coming back to in the score. Double bass/ cellos in reverse also made things sound really wonky and highlighted Wei trying to keep everything together.
NFS: The body horror subgenre is currently having a moment with the success of The Substance.
Would you say there are signature sounds that make up a score for this subgenre?
Anderson: It’s an exciting time for body horror! It really depends on the story you’re trying to tell, the type of instruments/ tones you use can reveal a lot about the story. In Grafted for example, from when Wei lands in New Zealand the score starts organic and slowly evolves into an electronic score as we follow her metamorphosis through the story.
NFS: There are a lot of electronic elements to the score, did you use synths for these? If so, which ones?
Anderson: Yes, I used modular synths for the wild stuff, a Mini Moog and 303 for basses, Prophet and Juno for the rest! I also used The Pipe, which is a vocal synth that gave the vocals a surreal detuned sound.
NFS: What was the hardest scene for you to score? Why was it so challenging?
Anderson: I think we took the most time on the opening sequence because I wanted to time the vocals/ instruments with the same bpm of the fan in the room of Wei’s Father’s lab. The version I was working on was temp VFX and it was eventually replaced by the final sound, we had to do some juggling. I actually incorporated the fan sound into the score and distorted and warped it until the scene came to a head. It’s very satisfying when you can work with the sound design on these scenes.
Composer Lachlan Anderson Credit: Projection PR
NFS: What did you enjoy most about working on this film?
Anderson: I really enjoyed the whole process of this film, a personal highlight was mixing the final score with the final sound design. Things got really exciting when we matched all the elements together as we were having discussions and theorizing about how score and sound design would work alongside each other. It was brilliant hearing the final mix. Also, I love the opening credits and post credits. If you’ve seen the film, you know what I mean!
NFS: What are you working on next?
Anderson: I have just finished working on Dood Spoor (Dead End) which is a dark comedy thriller about Ed, a man who can taste the history of objects, he gets wrapped up in a crime investigation then chaos ensues in his personal and professional life. The series is from showrunner/ director Malin-Sarah Gozin (Tabula Rasa, Clan/ Bad Sisters) and co-directed with Hans Vercauter, I’m very excited for it to get released.
Author: Jason Hellerman
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
