Berberian Sound Studio (Watch While It's In Theatres)

"Forget the reel. I just need to scream. All right?"
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)

I saw Berberian Sound Studio in a 110-seat theatre. It was a Wednesday matinee, so I expected a light crowd, but I was one of four people in the seats. The conclusion I had reached by the end of the film was that there were one hundred six people who had had the chance to catch a Wednesday afternoon matinee of Berberian Sound Studio and didn't, and there are one hundred six people in this world who are worse for the experience. To make it short: if you are at all a fan of movies, even a casual fan, you can simply forget the actual plot of the film: this is a study in fascination, an endlessly-interesting look at film composition during the golden age of giallo.

It's obvious that everyone involved in the making of this movie eats, sleeps, and breathes giallo, which is one of the things that makes it so effective. It also means that people who are already familiar with the genre may find the movie a little more...

Giallo-esque? No. A good flick nonetheless.
Evacuative of Polanski's "The Tenant" more than any TRUE giallo. I guess it depends on your definition of "giallo" though.

It's a visually beautiful flick with great acting, GORGEOUS sound and a bit of an abstract story. A breath of fresh air in todays remake/rehash horror/thriller genre.

Vegetables, Horror and Sound Effects in Genuinely Disturbing Indie Film.
This is many ways is paying homage to those seventies horror films that are really in a genre all of their own. The studio of the title is where unassuming sound engineer, Gilderoy (Toby Jones `Harry Potter') arrives. He has only done nature films and children's television before but as this is called `The Equestrian Vortex' he assumes it is a horsey thing. When he questions the enigmatic director Santini (Antonio Mancino) he is told `this is not a horror film, it is a Santini film! So he gets on with the job in hand.

The problem is that the men helping him are at most barely cognisant or one is totally hostile. He decides to plod on and the cast are far from fan boys themselves. We see an array of vegetables getting smashed, dropped, ripped apart or stabbed to the flickering reflection coming from the studio screen. Our senses are heightened still further by the use of the sound board, so we know what is taking place on the unseen screen as say a witch is having her hair...

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