Fringe 2018: Goblin to play iconic Suspiria & Dawn of the Dead scores

The Italian prog heroes will be playing live to these two classic 70s horrors at this year’s Fringe

Article by Jamie Dunn | 12 Apr 2018

If you’re at all into horror soundtracks, you’ll probably worship at the feat of Italian prog rockers Goblin. Claudio Simonetti's outfit are responsible for some of the most iconic horror scores of the 70s and 80s, and the band are heading to Edinburgh this summer to perform live to a pair of their finest works: the scores to Dario Argento’s Suspiria and George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

Goblin are to Argento what John Williams is to Steven Spielberg. All their scores for the Italian horror director are fantastic, but their wild sound and Argento’s bravura images never worked together better than on 1977 chiller Suspiria. The film follows a young American ballerina who travels to a prestigious European dance school only to discover that her new home is the front for a witches' coven, and the resulting hallucinatory film features the most wildly experimental work by either Argento or Goblin.

When George A Romero asked Argento to help produce his zombie epic Dawn of the Dead the following year, the Italian suggested his countrymen for the score. A gripping siege movie following a group of zombie apocalypse survivors holed up in the roof of an abandoned shopping mall surrounded by the living dead, there's plenty of anti-consumerist black comedy mixed in with the zombie horror. Goblin's echoing drums and synth bass provide the perfect soundtrack for the undead as they plod around the shopping mall trying to reconnect with the materialistic lifestyles they enjoyed when they had a pulse. These Fringe shows will mark the 40th anniversary of Romero's film.

Goblin's four Fringe dates:

Suspiria: 5 Aug, Summerhall, 5.30pm
Dawn of the Dead: 5 Aug, Summerhall, 8.20pm
Dawn of the Dead, 6 Aug, Summerhall, 5.30pm
Suspiria: 6 Aug, Edinburgh, Summerhall, 8.50pm


Tickets go on sale at 9am on Fri 13 Apr. For more information and to buy tickets, go to www.summerhall.co.uk