150 Words About . . .BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2012)

by James Newman

Berberian Sound Studio isn’t a film that I can recommend to every horror fan.  Why?  Because it’s not really a horror film at all.  But it is about giallo films, those lurid tales of black-gloved killers made by directors like Dario Argento and Mario Bava.  Toby Jones (The Mist) plays a sound designer who’s hired to work on an Italian production called The Equestrian Vortex.  While we never see said movie ourselves (no more than a few frames of it, anyway), we do hear it.  And based on the stuff we hear, Jones’s character is working on the most terrifying film ever made.  So begins a downward spiral into insanity.  Berberian Sound Studio is for genre fans looking for something different.  If nothing else, I guarantee you’ve never seen – or heard – anything like it.  Oh, yeah . . . and I really want to see The Equestrian Vortex, the film-within-a-film.