Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

Dir: Peter Strickland

Starring: Toby Jones, Cosimo Fusco, Susanna Cappellaro

                Gilderoy (Toby Jones) is a sheltered English sound engineer who is brought over to Italy to work on a horror film. He arrives into the hostile environment of the sound studio and slowly becomes affected by the violent images of the film, The Equestrian Vortex.

                Berberian Sound Studio isn’t your usual horror film. It features no violent or gory images but still manages to create an unsettling atmosphere. It uses sound to create this. Gilderoy is working on the sound effects and sound track for a typically violent and gory Italian Giallo film. Though we don’t see them, we hear all the sounds, the screams, the squelch and mash of vegetables being chopped to recreate the sound of bodies, of the violent images in the film they are sound tracking. Instead of bodily gore we get close up shots of the mashed and rotting vegetables in the studio. We don’t see anyone get killed but we get close up shots of the actor’s faces and eyes as they recreate the screams of their characters in the soundbooth for the soundtrack to the fake film. We see the images through Gilderoy’s disturbed facial expressions. It’s left to us to imagine what’s happening on screen. Berberian Sound Studio deserves the Oscar for best sound which unfortunately it will never win.

                Gilderoy is our guide through the film. We are as confused about the Italian characters around him as he is. They are hostile towards him without clear reason and it’s only slowly through the film do we understand the difficulties and tensions surrounding the creation of The Equestrian Vortex. Toby Jones gives a great performance, brilliantly conveying the sheltered Gilderoy slowly changing whilst having to watch violence over and over.

                Though it’s at heart a horror film, Berberian Sound Studio is also partly a documentary of a Foley studio, one of the most important yet mostly overlooked and misunderstood aspects of film making. Set almost entirely in the fake sound studio of the film’s title, in the 70’s, it gives you an interesting insight into what went in to creating the right sounds for a film and also makes for an interesting and original setting.

                Unfortunately the film never quite does anything with the unsettling atmosphere and the tension it builds. Its third act goes a bit too far, folding in on itself. This doesn’t spoil your experience of the film; it just doesn’t push it to the next level.

                Part documentary, part historical horror film, Berberian Sound Studio is an unusual, original and very unsettling film with some great performances. The antidote to over the top gore horror.

4 out of 5 Buttons