The coming of age genre received a supernatural twist this winter. Hulu’s Darby and the Dead, which boasts a star-studded young ensemble, follows Darby Harper, a quiet high schooler that is very matter-of-fact about her ability to talk to dead people. This ability is not just for fun though, as Darby is tasked with helping the deceased pass into the afterlife. While this plot reads like a dark tale on the surface, the story itself is executed with an upbeat vibe and overall youthful exuberance, largely due to the performances from leading women Riele Downs and Auli’i Cravalho but also thanks to the score that beats throughout Darby and the Dead.
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Speaking to ComicBook.com’s Liam Crowley, Darby and the Dead composer Roger Neill revealed that the film’s sound initially began orchestral.
“When I came onto the project, there was this intention by the filmmakers, by the director, and the studio and the music supervisor to make it a quasi orchestral score,” Neill explained. “I pretty much wrote the entire score with that in mind and completed it, let’s say two thirds done, which took weeks and weeks and weeks to do. And then we tried it out and we were at this crossroads where we decided well this is exactly what we intended to do.”
Despite meeting their expectations, the original Darby and the Dead score felt off.
“It didn’t quite feel like it fit these characters or the situation,” Neill continued. “It was sort of a magical orchestral sound, what I scored. [It] just didn’t seem like the right voice to tell their stories.”
The team ultimately decided to pivot, which posed new and unforeseen challenges.
“When we decided we’re going to abandon that sound, then we are like, it’s rerouting an ocean liner, it’s really hard,” Neill added. “Because we have all this music, but we have to find a way to make it not orchestral. Everyone agreed, the music works great, let’s just change all the sounds. That was really, really difficult and took a long time. That was probably a good six weeks of effort just trying to rewrite stuff and get the right voice.
“Now many of the pieces of music within the movie, particularly the ones that are more magical sounding and more supernatural, they started as orchestral pieces and then they just were re-transformed into these really interesting sort of hybrid of acoustic sounds and hip-hop beats and other things. It was the same exact same music as existed earlier but completely transformed.”
Despite the obstacles that Neill and company faced, he noted that Darby and the Dead was a project he always wanted to be involved with.
“I enjoyed working with the director before, Silas Howard, we’re good friends now. He’s this really interesting director with an interesting point of view,” Neill said. “It’s great to work with friends. Once you work on a project with somebody, you develop a sort of a shorthand and trust and that’s just always attractive.
Even outside of the talent involved, Neill particularly enjoyed the film’s story.
“The story just was really cool because it has some familiar tropes. It’s teenage ghost story, but then there’s just some very fresh elements,” Neill continued. “The idea being that most ghosts are reluctant to go [into the afterlife] in some ways is sort of a metaphor for transitioning into adulthood. It’s about high school, high school kids, high school drama and high school relationships, but there’s just a reluctance to move on.”
The musical elements of Darby and the Dead are not exclusive to Neill’s composition either. Star Asher Angel wrote and sang an original song, “One on One,” created for the film.
“The song that he sings is book ended by score, so I felt in some ways I was helping it along,” Neill said of Angel’s song. “There’s a scene going on and there’s music, then we see him singing, and then he stops, and go back to music. It was fun giving him his play on and his playoff.”
Darby and the Dead is now streaming on Hulu.
