Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

[H.P. Pufncraft]

Synopsis:

Set in 1976, Toby Jones plays a documentary sound engineer who finds himself employed by a notorious low-budget Italian horror studio. Uneasy in his new environment and surrounded by a world he finds alien, he throws himself into his work, failing to notice how life is slowly beginning to imitate art.

I just read about this today and it sounds really interesting. The film is clearly paying homage to the Giallo era. The different plot descriptions I've read also remind me of Brian De Palma's Blow Out and John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns. The film is currently at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes but there are plenty of mixed reviews online. What's really interesting is that some critics are calling it a meta-horror film while others are saying it's simply a film about horror films. Either way, I definitely want to check this out.

[H.P. Pufncraft]

Another synopsis:

Berberian Sound Studio is one of the cheapest, sleaziest post-production studios in Italy. Only the most sordid horror films have their sound processed and sharpened in this studio. Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a shy and nondescript sound engineer from the UK is hired to mix the latest giallo film by horror maestro, Santini (Antonio Mancino) and he soon finds himself caught up in a forbidding world of bitter actors, capricious foley artists and confounding bureaucracy. The longer Gilderoy spends mixing screams and the bloodcurdling sounds of hacked vegetables, the more homesick he becomes for his garden shed studio in Dorking. His mother’s letters alternate between banal gossip and an ominous hysteria, which gradually mirrors the black magic of Santini’s film that Gilderoy is responsible for orchestrating. As both time and realities shift, Gilderoy finds himself lost in an otherworldly spiral of sonic and personal mayhem.

[ladynos]

Actually, it sounds pretty interesting. Is it out on dvd yet?

[H.P. Pufncraft]

Originally Posted by ladynos

Actually, it sounds pretty interesting. Is it out on dvd yet?

I believe it's still playing at film festivals. I'm not even sure if it's had a U.S. release yet.

[ladynos]

Guess I'll have to, hopefully, catch it next year. I'm always looking for different and unusal horror, so thanks for posting about it.

[H.P. Pufncraft]

Originally Posted by ladynos

Guess I'll have to, hopefully, catch it next year. I'm always looking for different and unusal horror, so thanks for posting about it.

Welcome.

It definitely looks different, which is what interested me in the first place.

I also like the poster homage:

[H.P. Pufncraft]

Here are the opening credits of the film within the film:

[Heathen]

This looks almost as exciting as watching a radio talkshow host talk about zombies.

[klownz666]

I was going to watch this last night but got put off by bad reviews