As soon as we begin to chat, Oldman is eager to share his love of music, enthusiasm for the horror genre and also the film industry in general (and it is clear he is a man who has a passion for all three). Specifically, his work on "Babysitter Wanted" which is now shocking U.S. theaters and doing its rounds in the UK on DVD.

"When I first started to talk with Michael [Manasseri], the director ... I mainly worked with him ... very early on we knew it would be an organic score," he told Rabid Doll's Alan Stanley Blair in an exclusive interview. "We didn’t want to use too much electronic instruments so that's something we knew we wanted to do. We start off with a Babysitter theme that was something of a lullaby. We had a rough cut with music from 'Hellraiser' in it. I've known Michal for a long while now so when we done this film he felt really bad cause †it's not like you can go on an recreate a score like 'Hellraiser.' We did a couple of crazy things like we spent three days in studio playing piano and came up with some really interesting stuff with the boys choir so that was interesting. It went pretty smooth on this film. It was great working with Michael and he had a strong understanding of the genre. It was smooth ride which doesn’t always happen."

Focusing on a young girl named Angie (Sarah Thompson), "Babysitter Wanted" can be viewed in two distinct installments: the first half of the film primarily deals with Angie's very Earthly troubles (roommates, drugs, etc) before she inadvertently takes on a job babysitting the Devil in child-form. The concept itself isn't exactly original, however the movie manages to show a fresh perspective to the whole idea and makes heavy use of Oldman's score to create a series of thrilling false reveals.

"These kind of moments are tricky because you don’t want the audience to feel stupid in any way and you are dealing with a very intelligent audience," Oldman explained. "You don’t want to overdo these kind of false moments either. I remember having a conversation with Michael where we said 'we're gonna have to hold back a little here.' I'm trying to be careful sometimes and not hitting things over the head but both are equally effective."

And one of the ways Oldman obtained the correct balance was by having multiple variations of the score †one bigger and one far more subtle. Does he have any regrets or feelings that he chose the wrong variation for the movie? None what so ever, and since its premiere at numerous film festivals around the world, "Babysitter Wanted" has received very positive feedback from horror-lovers everywhere ... particularly for the music.

"It's always nice to know that we succeeded in what we tried to do and the audience enjoyed it," Oldman said. "There's nothing worse than saying 'the movie was great but the music sucked, man.' Michael wanted to keep audience engaged in the film and I'm very happy audience responded the way they did."

Above: Kurt Oldman hard at work.

So what is the secret to writing a score that the audience will respond to? Well, it's all about having fun. And horror work is nothing but fun for Oldman.

"On a horror film you can have tons of fun writing and you don’t need to be too subtle. On a drama a lot of things are very internal and need to be approached differently," he said. "You need to tip-toe around and get to know character more.

"In dramas, not too many times a bad guy jumps out of corner with hatchet," he said with a laugh. "I have done some dramas that go pretty far, almost to horrors, and these days you can go pretty far. When you look at movies from the 1980s it goes farther than they did then. I've been a fan of the genre for a long while †the first Freddy films are at the root of it actually."

For music though, it was a very different film that inspired the composer to begin working with the horror genre.

"The first movie I saw and thought 'I didn’t know you can do that stuff was 'Hellraiser.' The second was 'Hellbound.'"

Don't expect his name to be attached to any future remakes for those films however, as Oldman himself admits he would be too afraid for taking on those movies out of sheer respect for the original score.

"I don't think I'd try my hands at that one," Oldman revealed, referring to the "Hellraiser" film. "It'd be way too scary. I'd like to do some Hitchock films. That kind of stuff was so provocative and revolutionary in its time. Today we don’t have those kind of films anymore where we go, 'Wow, that's not been done before.' That's if I could go back. 'Vertigo' is a film master piece, and also 'North By Northwest.' How good is the music of Bernard Herrmann?"

But it's not all doom, gloom, hatchets and kitchen knives †Oldman is always expanding his work to include new techniques for completely different genres.

"There is a film I just did couple of months ago called 'Callous' where I tried a new approach and stayed away from thematic writing. It's all very scattered and it's a new approach for me and complete different. I liked that very much and I like trying new things and i think that's going to happen more and more as I push the envelope a little bit."

In that respect, Oldman has several projects in post-production that show his many music talents, including "Killer By Nature," "The Divided" and "King Of Paper Chasin.'"

"'Killer' is a psycho thriller with Ron Perlman, Hellboy, and Lin Shaye - you may remember her as Teacher on 'Nightmare [On Em Street]' the original film," he revealed. "I came on to this project very late and that was rushed. It's very atmosphere and introvertic with dreams, nightmare, psychosis, that sort of stuff, so very much into the horror genre. 'Paper' is an urban drama set in new York documenting the life of a rap artist which is something I haven't done. It's a standard score with a very urban influence. Personally love thrillers and dark influence films. Comedy I've done but my heart goes into dark films."

To find out more about Kurt Oldman, please visit his official website.

To read Rabid Doll's review of "Babysitter Wanted," please click here.

Express yourself and be part of the news! Leave a comment below or join our rabid discussions on the AlphaBoards.