Horrorfest 2016: Berberian Sound Studio

I've watched enough Italian horror over the years during Horrorfest, naturally I'd eventually get to a movie ABOUT Italian horror films: BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO, a UK production directed by Peter Strickland and starring the great Toby Jones as a quiet and unassuming British sound engineer who travels to Italy to work on a film soundtrack – doing sound effects, mixing, recording, that kinda stuff.

The film is clearly an Italian horror flick in the vein of something Dario Argento might make, but the film's director (Antonio Mancino) won't call it "horror." He has loftier ideas for his film, which is ironic, considering BERBERIAN is, itself, a horror movie, and also, a great art film.

I've heard BERBERIAN compared to the works of David Lynch and I'd say that's an apt comparison. We've got a fairly meek main character, in exaggerated surroundings, conflicting with aggressive characters, beset on all sides by confusion. Of course a film about a sound studio has to have great sound design, so music, vocals and sound effects are used to great effect to ratchet up the uneasy and surreal qualities of the story. For most of the movie, I was just as out of sorts as the main character was, and that's clearly what Strickland wanted.

This is the kind of film it is hard to describe because so much of it is a sensory experience. The plot is not what's important, and even to an extent, the characters are not really what's important, either. It's all about how the movie makes you feel, how the editing and sound and images come together to just put you on edge the entire running time. It's not horror in the classic sense, but it is horrifying.