Interview: Werewolves Within, Fear Street composer Anna Drubich
By Carla Davis
Werewolves Within is a new comedy/horror film, and the horror elements are definitely emphasized by Anna Drubich’s creepy, jumpy musical score. The charming and talented Anna took some time to talk to 1428 Elm recently.
Werewolves Within had its debut at Tribeca in June before opening in theaters on June 25, and is now available to watch on demand (and this writer definitely recommends watching it, it’s a fun flick). It’s directed by Josh Ruben, who brought us Shudder’s Scare Me last year.
Anna hails from Moscow, where she studied at Moscow Chopin Music College before completing her Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Munich. Her first work on film music was on About Love, which won the Russian National Film Festival’s Best Music Award in 2002.
MORE: Werewolves Within is a hilarious take on the whodunnit genre
After that, she studied Film Composition at the Munich School for the Performing Arts, and later worked with Hollywood composers David Newman, Jeff Rona and Jack Smalley. After graduating from the University of Southern California, Anna went on to win the Russian equivalent of an Academy Award for scoring Bolshoy.
Werewolves Within is only one of the films Anna has worked on recently.
1428 Elm: Anna, I took a look at your resume, and it includes several horror films. You worked on Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the upcoming Fear Street trilogy coming up on Netflix very soon, and of course, Werewolves Within. Are you especially drawn to horror, or did you just happen to land these particular projects?
Anna: Well, no, actually not. I have to say, because I am having careers both here and in Russia, because I’m originally from Russia. And Russia is filled with entirely different types of composers. I guess the horror stuff somehow appeared because I’m working a lot with Marco Beltrami, who’s also kind of a horror composer. His first movie was Scream, and somehow it happened that once he called me to work on Scary Stories with him, it was my first big studio movie in the US.
And so then I’m doing more thriller/horror stuff, but I have to say that Werewolves Within is kind of more a horror/comedy. The movies that are coming out now are more connected to the horror world.
MORE: Fear Street 1994’s biggest strength is its lovable characters
1428 Elm: I have a screener for Werewolves Within, but I wasn’t able to watch it before our interview. What I did do was go on your website, and I was able to listen to one of your tracks for it. It’s really good, and it definitely sounds like a horror track, so you did a great job with that. I can’t wait to see the actual film.
Anna: The film is actually very charming, it will have a lot of success.
1428 Elm: I think it will! Everything I have read about it so far has been very positive, and one of the other writers for my site reviewed it, and she actually really liked it.
You can watch the rest of our interview with Anna Drubich here:
Interview: Too Late composer Mikel Hurwitz on balancing giggles and gore. dark. Next
What do you think are the best horror film scores? Give us your opinion in the comments section.