Born Free

Delightfully demented Dexter dispatched dearly dapper Andy Williams.

As etched in entrails by Jeff Lindsay with 2004’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter and 2005’s Dearly Devoted Dexter – and brought to humorous, albeit grisly black light last year by Showtime – the Miami PD blood-splatter “lab geek” turned vigilante descends from a serial-killing landmark in contemporary cinematic dismemberment.

Thomas Harris’ terrifying Red Dragon became Michael Mann’s terrific Manhunter in 1986, still the best Hannibal Lecter film of the lot, but better yet, ground zero for forensic sleuthery going mano-a-mano with sociopathic sushi chefs. At least one college-age cable poacher who found himself delightfully bloodied by the teaming thought to himself, “You could milk that forensic stuff forever.” A millennium later, Manhunter’s FBI profiler, actor William L. Peterson, pounds CBS’ CSI beat into syndication. Call my lawyer!

No one but me remembers Manhunter’s end credits rolling Red 7’s “Heartbeat” – as opposed to Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” at the climax – but the film’s jolted blue chill and the song’s synthetic rigor mortis have fused in my audio-visual cortex no less than “Gimme Shelter” dropping in GoodFellas. Now, Dexter has skinned “Born Free.”

Dexter: Music from the Showtime Original Series, sealed in a red CD jewel case, appears otherwise normal. Rolfe Kent’s main title juices the show’s opening vivisection, warming up the soundtrack’s Afro-Cuban FLA-voring. A delicious big band ballad from Beny Moré and seven saucy minutes of dance floor intoxication from Ray Armando anchor a flourish of electro-flamenco (“Flores Para Ti”), mambo (“Perfida”), and blood-pumping “Uruapan Breaks” from Monterrey’s Kinky, who reprise the Dexter theme in a neon buzz.

Michael C. Hall, making a devilishly lateral move from the Fisher family mortuary in Sixth Feet Under, doesn’t quite have John Houseman down in his murderous Dexter voiceovers, but 35 additional minutes of tainted score sets a full-moon mood, sometimes recalling two seasons of Showtime’s under adored Dead Like Me. For a proper spoken word tingler try another Milan Records black box, Rescue Dawn, wherein its director Werner Herzog finishes the disc with his free-verse remembrance of real-life folk hero Dieter Dengler. Pan’s Labyrinth, dripping, pooling, coagulating “A Book of Blood,” crowns Milan’s recent film arias.

Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

As emoted by Branson-loving crooner Andy Williams, the Academy Award-winning title song to the 1966 film sways straight Out of Africa, strings and brass unable to strangle the tune’s quicksand sentiment. As Dexter Morgan’s musical statement of liberation, however, in the series’ first season finale, it’s decidedly and deliciously diabolical. Dastardly. Deeply deluded Dexter, how does your garden grow?

Live free and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

Lindsay’s third novel, Dexter in the Dark, already in my rubber-gloved hands, trickles into bookstores Sept. 18, although BookPeople's 7% Solution Club was still clucking over the author's first go-round – upon which Dexter's televised debut was based - during its Labor Day sit-down. Season two of Showtime's crime scene gets taped off beginning Sept. 30. The first 12 episodes just splattered onto DVD.

Stay free, where no walls divide you
You’re free as the roaring tide
So there’s no need to hide

Dutifully distorted Dexter.