Ghost Rider (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Album Review

Horror and drama soundtracks are old hat for Christopher Young — having wielded the manuscript paper for such films as The Fly II, Copycat, and Rounders — and he's back on the scene, with a sweepingly dramatic (and sentimental?) chip on his shoulder, for 2007's Ghost Rider. Soaring French horns and ominous, low-register male choral bits provide the meat for the theme, while heavy metal guitars and drums punctuate the action sequences. When he lightens up, Young gets quite melodramatic, but that's par for the course in these comic-book-adapted films. All in all, even with the occasional detuned "chunk-chunk-chunking" in place, the score feels lighter than the subject matter. For a film concerning demonic pacts, treachery, and an antihero who cripples evildoers by inflicting them with the pain and suffering of their own victims, the soundtrack doesn't quite match up to the doom and gloom as much as it should. ~ J. Scott McClintock, Rovi