Leave it to Dee Snider - he of the eggbeatered locks, Tammy Faye visage, filed teeth and hot pink spandex who fought for rockers everywhere agains the Parents Music Resource Center in 1985 - to be the one to educate us once again, this time with music. Utilizing an 18-piece orchestra, a haunting choir, plenty of metallic crunch and his own unique rumble as a narrator, Snider weaves the music world's most ominous strains with his tale of an unnamed malevolence and it's sudden, unabated killing spree on earth. Only an orphaned boy and an elderly descendent of vampire slayer Abraham Van Helsing stand in it's way and, if they fail, humankind is the main course. Segments of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" (as heard in THE EXORCIST) and Jerry Goldsmith's "Ave Satani" (from THE OMEN) gel perfectly with the likes of Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald Mountain", Grieg's "In The Hall Of The Mountain King", Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", Chopin's "Funeral March" and - the highpoint for metalheads - an orchestral crack at the perennial "Black Sabbath", making OCULUS INFERNUM every bit the "soundtrack for Halloween" that it's being plugged as. Completely magnificent stuff and the first time I've hoped for a sequel in years.