Like the film it supports, Marco Beltrami's original score for John Dahl's on-the-road thriller Joy Ride is lean, suspenseful, and unpretentious. It's also hip to the movie's pitch-black humor, as composition titles like "Children of the Corn," "Route 666," and "Mole Asses" suggest. Lunging strings and brass, abstract percussion, crunchy guitars, and subtle electronics give the score a claustrophobic sense of dread and paranoia that's completely appropriate to the film and fairly listenable outside of its context. "It Wasn't Comely...," "Ice Man Cometh," and "Sitchiation" are some of the other highlights of this effectively spooky score. ~ Heather Phares