Scream 2 (soundtrack)

The music to the 1997 slasher film Scream 2, the second instalment in the Scream franchise and a sequel to Scream (1996) featured an original soundtrack album consists of 15 songs by various artists from the R&B, rap and rock genres; excluding two ("One More Chance" and "The Race") only 13 of them appear in the film. Released as Scream 2: Music from the Dimension Motion Picture by Capitol Records on November 18, 1997, the soundtrack achieved commercial success, charting at number 50 on the Billboard 200 charts, and spent there for over ten weeks. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, signifying that the album achieved sales in excess of 500,000 units.

Scream 2 is scored by Marco Beltrami, who also composed the predecessor, although Danny Elfman would write a choral piece titled "Cassandra Aria" which would be reprised as the finale track of the album. Excerpts from Hans Zimmer's score for the 1996 film Broken Arrow, in particular guitar work by Duane Eddy, for the character Dewey Riley, replaced the original themes that have developed for the character. Beltrami would explain in an interview that Zimmer's piece was used as a placeholder for his incomplete score during the test screening, but as the test audience were more receptive to it, the studio influenced to keep Zimmer's piece, reducing his composition "Dewey's Theme" to minor use during more serious scenes involving the character.

The score was also influenced by several other composers such as Elliot Goldenthal, Ennio Morricone and Christopher Young. Initially, the score was released along with its predecessor in a dual album in July 1998, and a complete score was released in a limited edition format in October 2016.

Reception
AllMusic's Stephen Erlewine was highly critical of the album, believing the content was an attempt to compensate for the previous film's lack of a hit soundtrack, but the attempt had failed, creating an "uneven" album of songs not "good enough to make [the artists'] own albums", awarding it only 2 stars out of 5.

Release history
Scream 2 's score was released on July 14, 1998, by Varèse Sarabande on a dual album CD which also contained tracks from the predecessor's score, also composed by Beltrami. The first release of the album had several pieces as heard in the film, had been omitted and consisted only nine tracks with a duration of 17 minutes, in contrast to the hour-long score composed for the film. Elfman's composition for the film, "Cassandra Aria" had also been omitted from the film. Several reviews were concerned with the restricted runtime and track omissions, as a result of the high fees required to be paid to composers in order to release their music commercially as did the label's unwillingness to pay. The score for both the films would be re-issued in bone white and splatter-colored vinyl editions on September 16, 2016 and a red vinyl edition followed on July 19, 2019.

On October 10, 2016, the complete score was released as a "deluxe edition" up to 2,000 copies. The album consisted of 32 tracks, running for 77 minutes, and also included the "Cassandra Theme" composed by Elfman. It was again re-issued in a limited edition box set, along with the scores from the Scream franchise, developed by Beltrami on January 7, 2022. A vinyl box set also followed on June 10.

Track listing

 * Note
 * undefined composed by Danny Elfman

Reception
Writing for Filmtracks.com, Christian Clemmensen was complimentary to the score, appreciating Beltrami's evolution of his work in Scream but remarked that the most memorable music of the film would be from other composers, Elfman's contribution "Cassandra Aria" and the samples from Zimmer's score, finding the replacement of Beltrami's work for the Dewey character with Zimmer's work "effective". Ultimately, the album was called unsatisfying without Elfman's piece but better than the score for the first movie and it was awarded 3 stars out of 5.