Christopher Young’s rich gothic soundtrack to Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell is the latest project the two have worked together on. Young previously composed the scores for Raimi's The Gift and Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi stated that emphasis was on using the soundtrack to create a world that didn’t exist, a world of the "supernatural"...

The soundtrack to Drag Me to Hell opens with an intense, and memorable theme. But it all goes rapidly downhill after that.

The biggest problem here is that there are just too many weird atmospheric tracks to make this an essential purchase for anyone other than hardcore Christopher Young fans - unless you enjoy listening to a cacophony of the string section or vocal wailing being belted out through your speakers. While these tracks are no doubt atmospheric while watching the movie, they feel a little pointless and empty when listened to in isolation.

'Black Rainbows' is probably the best (or worst) example of this - it just sounds like any one of a thousand other atmospheric horror track. But equally, 'Ode to Ganush' is just more of the same.

'Familiar Familiars' has an interesting piano theme at its core, and I was beginning to think that we were onto something special, but then 'Loose Teeth' confirms that there's very little of merit here - this track has plenty of odd sounds including one which I can only describe as a demon cat being sick.

From this soundtrack there were only three tracks I actually enjoyed: 'Drag Me to Hell'; 'Familiar Familiars'; and 'Concerto to Hell'. Sadly, for the majority of the soundtrack it just felt as though someone had put together every musical horror cliche in the book and then tried to pass it off as an original score. If a cacophony of noise is your thing then you'll be in heaven - everyone else will feel like they've been dragged to hell (see what I did there? I can be cliched too you know).

3

Darren Rea