With horror films, there is almost always something that redeems even the worst of them. Pearry Reginald Teo’s recent direct-to-video potboiler NECROMENTIA is far from the worst, but it’s deeply flawed, cribbing wholesale from both SAW and the HELLRAISER films to mediocre returns. And yet even at its lowest, if you keep your ears open and your senses keen, you’ll notice that the defining element of the picture is the way it sounds. As the camera prowls down low-budget corridors and mazeways, a suffocating blanket of drones, melancholy washes and chattering noises threaten to turn NECROMENTIA into something it wouldn’t otherwise be…scary.

NECROMENTIA’s score was composed by KILLER PAD’s Timothy Andrew Edwards, a musician who has spent his life loving and analyzing not only horror films, but the pulse, the music, that often gives them their secret power. His work here—available as a digital release through iTunes and Amazon.com—is near-brilliant, an almost unbearably oppressive meltdown of aural darkness, but one filtered through a very clear and profound warmth, a humanity that NECROMENTIA the film otherwise lacks.

It’s clear that due to NECROMENTIA’s obvious creative blueprint, Edwards is channeling Christopher Young here, but—as much as I adore Young’s work on the first two HELLRAISER films—Edwards betters it, adding doses of experimentalism that echoes the “lost” score from HELLRAISER by British art/noise collective Coil. The digital soundtrack features full-length suites like “The Claw” that are very much like mini-operatic movies in themselves, and even the stings and cues that pad out the 23-track collection have vitality and soul.

Edwards’ NECROMENTIA score ultimately does what every great soundtrack release needs to do: It exists as a stand-alone listen separate from its onscreen showcase. Fans of jet-black ambient horror should check this stuff out. For more information on the score and how to order, go to  www.timothyandrewedwardsmusic.com.

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