The original Blair Witch Project, the gothic Z-budget horror film that became the 1990"s most unlikely blockbuster, was so impoverished it literally didn"t have a score. Its soundtrack ultimately became one of those suspicious, quickly produced "Music inspired by" collections of motley rock tracks. The inevitable sequel was well-funded, though only a fraction as financially successful. Arguably, one of the producer"s wisest investments the second time around was hiring Carter Burwell to produce the music. The musician has risen to the occasion here with one of his most experimental scores, an exercise in dark atmospherics using samples of falling water and rustling wind coupled with a relentless rhythmic thrust. The effect is an eerie, all too compelling soundscape of the mysterious forest and its impending terror; nary a recognizable melody surfaces until halfway through, by then suffused in a tense stand-off between the organic and the electronic. Although subtly reminiscent of The Shining, this is Burwell at his most distinct and inventive. --Jerry McCulley