Horror fans can’t stop talking about Obsession, and Rock Burwell’s haunting musical score has been one of the most celebrated elements of the movie. Made on a reported $750,000 budget with many emerging actors and crew members, Obsession has grossed over $300 million at the box office.
The film’s extraordinary turnout has made it one of the highest-grossing horror movies of all time. Director Curry Barker has even told The Hollywood Reporter that Focus Features plans to launchan Oscars campaign for Obsession, making Burwell’s score a possible awards contender.
In an interview with Digital Trends, Burwell discussed composing his first feature-film score forObsession, his thoughts on possibly winning an Oscar, and his career following the movie’s unexpected success.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Digital Trends: Now, Obsession was your first feature film as a composer, and the reception to the film has been phenomenal. How does it feel to see your work take off with this movie?
Burwell: It’s been incredible.Totally unforeseen. It’s been all a big shock…the [film’s] reception is one thing, but then people messaging me directly about the soundtrack and the score.I didn’t expect to be a part of something so large and wide-scale. So it’s been very surreal to soak it all in.
Digital Trends: Yeah, and now I even hear there’s gonna be an awards campaign for Obsession.Do you think you’ll be nominated for your work composing the film?
Burwell: I mean, I hope so. This is all news to me as well.So, I really have no idea how that goes with the amount of surprises that have come so far. I guess I gotta leave that open expectation-wise. But yeah, it’s really cool to even be considered early on for something like that. We’ll just see how things go.
Digital Trends: Since Obsession was your first feature as a composer, was it particularly challenging coming up with the score for the film?
Burwell: Challenging in the best way, I’d say. I love healthy challenges as far as pushing myself into new areas of expertise or just learning new crafts, and I think it was an intimidating project to take on. But I was very excited to do it, and there was kind of a healthy balance of the respect for something I’m taking on that I’ve never done before, [and] the willingness and ambition to take it head-on.
Digital Trends: Director Curry Barker also had some experience composing his own work for his films. So I was wondering if you could tell me what it was like collaborating with him on developing the score for the movie.
Burwell: For sure. Yeah, Curry, it was pretty much the perfect collaborator, as far as that goes. He had such a vision for what he wanted, and we were able to really see that together, and lock in on the same wavelength, and he’s definitely very [musically] minded.
And I appreciate how much he cared about the music, because I’ve heard it’s not always the case from director to director, or just across the industry, and the music was very important to him.
So, he’d be in here with me. He lives pretty close by, so we kind of pop over to each other’s places, and we’d really dive into these things and explore the nitty gritty…just little things, a lot deeper than I would even expect his involvement to be.So that was really cool.
Digital Trends: Cool. So, were there any specific composers or film scores that inspired you while you were working on Obsession?
Burwell: I have a lot of inspirations and influences…but so much of what inspired the score for the film was really the direction and the emotions that we talked deeply about. So that was almost the biggest influence on the project, but I will say some of my favorite composers.
Angelo Badalamenti is one of my favorites of all time, and I’ll never forget watching and listening to Twin Peaks for the first time, and all of his work is so deeply ingrained in who I am as a composer.
Digital Trends: Yeah. Looking back on the film, I was listening to the score. I was reminded of the music from the horror movies It Follows and Hereditary.
Burwell: Sure, yeah, I see the It Follows comparisons a lot too, just off being almost entirely an electronic-based score, and Hereditary was definitely a big influence, especially when it got into the more horror aspects.
Digital Trends: So what is your favorite piece in Obsession‘s original score?
Burwell: That’s a good question. I think it depends on, maybe, what I’m in the mood for at that particular time. Bear is one of my favorite cues.
I really like R U OK. That’s the one right after the wish is made, and Nikki is, you’re starting to see the effect that the wish has had on her, and it’s very simple, but it was meticulously timed with these moments…and that was a really fun process, and I felt very connected to that scene, and it was just one of the more exciting things to score. And Curry and I really sat there and timed every single hit, and it’s just so dreary, and kind of the precursor to all the dread that is to follow.
Digital Trends: Yeah, that was one of my favorite pieces from the film, because, at certain times, the music just stops when Nikki seems to be…still figuring things out, right after the wish is made, and it’s just really disorienting. It’s also really haunting.
Burwell: For sure, yeah. Those are definitely some of the big feelings we were going for.
Digital Trends: I read in one of your previous interviews that your goal for composing Obsession was to explore the “uncanny valley, where emotions are warped into something disorienting.” Could you expand upon how you created that feeling through your music?
Burwell: Yeah. That was definitely a focus early on, like Curry led with that when we were first starting to explore what the score was gonna look like. And I think we cracked the code early on with writing things that are kind of, on paper, more sweet and major sounding, and then experimenting with pitch bending and just modulation to…take something that is romantic or happy sounding and warp it over time.
It’s kind of lands you in a spot that’s not super familiar, at least emotionally, of where you should be, what you should be experiencing. Things like the chords and notes are happy or romantic or loving relative to each other.
But overall, the whole piece is moving in a direction, or there’s one line that’s standing out, that is driving some eeriness, and I think that really adds to this uncanny feeling…putting you in a space [where] you’re not sure what to feel.
Digital Trends: Yeah, I definitely got that feeling listening to that two-parter piece from the album, Love is in the Air. At first, it plays with the dating montage. It sounds so warm and enchanting.
But when the second part comes up in the ending, first it sounds uplifting, but it’s then twisted into something completely chilling that it contrasts really well with what’s going on in the final scene…It really gave me huge Hereditary vibes with that ending.
Burwell: Yeah, I think there’s a reason that that piece is resonating with people a lot more than I ever thought it would.And Pt. 2, actually, was made first, originally, and it was always in that scene. We had tried some other stuff for the earlier montage, but towards the end of the process, [we] realized that is the theme that needs to be used early on, and I made Pt. 1 after the fact.
Digital Trends: Now you’re working with Curry again on his next film, Anything but Ghosts. I know it’s still really early, but could you share what we can expect to hear from your score?
Burwell: Yeah, I am just beginning to work on that.Over the next couple weeks, I’m going to officially be locked in and on schedule, so it’s still very early. I’m anxiously awaiting what the first cut I’m gonna see is gonna look like.
I’m a lot more in the dark on this one.I read one early version of the script, and that’s it. But I know we’ve talked about keeping it in the same universe as Obsession, sound-wise, and I think with Obsession being my first feature score that I’ve done, it gives a cool opportunity.
I feel like I put everything I had into it. And then when I listen back, I get excited about, “Oh, I could have gone here with it, or I could have taken things in a different direction.”
So I’m just excited to explore now, having the experience of working on Obsession…just expanding on what’s already the framework that’s kind of been laid for Obsession, and I think there’s gonna be less of the romantic, love kind of intertangled stuff.
But…like I said, I’m still trying to figure it out, but I have a good idea.And I’ve sent Curry some early ideas, and he is connecting with them. So I’m going to definitely be exploring a lot more of that in the coming weeks and months.
Digital Trends: Cool.And it’s funny that you mentioned the sound being in the same universe as Obsession, because from what I hear, Anything but Ghosts is supposed to be set in the same universe as Obsession…So I think it’s pretty fitting that they’re both kind of like on the same wavelength.
Burwell: Yeah, I think it’s very loosely kept in the same general world. I don’t know if there’s gonna be many connections between the movies other than an Easter egg here and there.
But it seems like Curry has found his voice in the score[I] found a voice, and so we want to keep it up and explore that a little bit…I think the idea is just the expansion piece of it, and that’s really exciting. [It’s] taking something that worked, and now twisting it in a different way, but keeping a lot of those same roots.
Digital Trends: I’m really looking forward to seeing what you have to create for the film.
Burwell: As am I.
