Inside we've posted our third review from this year's Masters of Horror: Season 2 (all reviews), which airs every Friday on Showtime. Inside you'll find Tex Massacre's review of "Sounds Like", which was written and directed by Brad Anderson. The film tells the story of Larry Pearce - an ordinary man blessed with a gift of extraordinary supernatural hearing that drives him to the brink of insanity and forces him to take violent action to silence the horrific cacophony in his head.
Sounds Like (MoH 2.4)
Reviewed By: Tex Massacre
3/10 or 1 ½ Skulls
In director Brad (SESSION 9) Anderson’s 2004 masterpiece of Hitchcockian suspense THE MACHINIST, Christian Bale’s character of Trevor Reznick suffered from an all-consuming obsession. Something inside Reznick’s life was literally eating away at him. In this week’s episode of Masters of Horror, Anderson once again revisits the psychological themes that have driven both of his prior films—the effect of exterior and interior stimuli on ones fragile psyche.
Chris Bauer (THE WIRE) is Larry Pierce, a mild mannered upper management crony at a local computer tech service center. His whole life exists to monitor the “customer service” taking place one floor down. And he presides over his charges from a glass prison like an excited child examining his ant farm. But Pierce has a past—a historical tragedy that has been slowly picking at his addled mind. Now the sounds of happy employees solving twisted software problems, the click of phones and the tapping of keyboards is beginning to drive him mad—slowly and resolutely building to an ear shattering disharmony of symphonic destruction.
Anderson’s take on the collapse of the human spirit is an eerie slow burn of a film that is unfortunately saddled with a shockingly unsympathetic leading man. Pierce is creepy. What’s going on in his head is creepy. His colleagues find him creepy. So, subsequently the audience finds him creepy. It’s really hard to get inside the self-destruction of your main character if no one is particularly interested in what happens to him—or better yet—if their actively rooting for him to lose it. Anderson’s supreme failure with the episode is simple—everyone’s annoying. To top it off, in some David Lynch-like paranoia scheme, Anderson seems determined to utilize the accompanying soundtrack of scratches and thumps to utterly unnerve the viewer. This might serve to affect some, but I found it grating—which I concede is likely the point—but never the less vastly adds to the excruciatingly measured running time.
Like all maximum build-up plot devices, ultimately the film must reach its appropriate climax. In Anderson’s film this flash is in the final chilling moments, as Larry Pierce’s life comes crashing around the realization that the end is inevitable. It’s in this, long in the wings instant, that the resolution of the story works wonderfully. It’s also exactly the ending the viewer hopes and prays for and it’s shot beautifully. It is also equally tragic that such a gratifying conclusion be attached to such a disappointing project. To say that culmination is all worth it in the end is a gross misrepresentation of the unqualified boredom that lead to the moment.
Clearly Anderson knows how to do a mood film but SOUNDS LIKE is everything that worked in THE MACHINIST done wrong. Whether that comes of Anderson adapting source material that is not his own (having been based on the short story by Mike O’Driscoll) or from a lapse in judgment regarding pace and soundtrack, one thing remains certain, the filmmaker’s past performances more than make up for, but still do not dismiss, a dreadfully mediocre addition to the Masters oeuvre.
I loved it, one of the best M.O.H episodes that I've seen.
I thought the use of sound in it was brilliant, really made you feel for the guy despite him being creepy. Like the interaction between him and the younger guy that works for him. Very Todd solondz type stuff.
The ending was haunting, for sure. Like I said though, I thought this was a pretty kickass episode, and Season 2 has so far been more consistant than Season 1.
In my opinion, anyway
Tex Massacre's review on Sounds Like is completely lame. God only knows what kind of shit this reviewer likes, if indeed, he even knows squat about horror. He's one of those guys that has a constantly bouncing knee because he can't sit in one place long enough let alone watch a film without jonesing for a hit of Crystal Meth. He probably likes Vin Diesel movies.
This episode (like nearly all moh episodes) sucked beyond belief. However, i disagree with the reviewer that its the fault of the director, it was shot great and the various techniques used to simulate/convey the man's loss of sanity was well done. The problem with this is again the godawful story, which was boring as hell, illogical, arbitrary, and was not even a "horror" story period. Firstly, what the hell does a persons senses becoming enhanced have to do with tragedy or insanity? i dont see the connection there. That just seems like randomness, and boring randomness at that. Secondly, theres almost no progression to the story whatsoever until the final scene. I think the audience understood that he was going insane 10-15 mins into the ep. and it felt like this was being dragged out for another 40 minutes, unnecesarily and unentertaining. And finally, after all that build up, the payoff was a load of crap. He cuts his ears off to stop hearing, well genius, that wont stop your hearing, you'll have to destory your eardrums to do that. and second, if hes so miserable without his son (and eventually wife) he shouldve already killed himself. why would he want to live when his love ones are dead, his job is boring as hell, everyone looks at him like hes nuts (which he is)....just a stupid stupid, boring episode. damn you masters of horror for another slap in the face to the horror genre
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In director Brad (SESSION 9) Anderson’s 2004 masterpiece of Hitchcockian suspense THE MACHINIST, Christian Bale’s character of Trevor Reznick suffered from an all-consuming obsession. Something inside Reznick’s life was literally eating away at him. In this week’s episode of Masters of Horror, Anderson once again revisits the psychological themes that have driven both of his prior films—the effect of exterior and interior stimuli on ones fragile psyche.
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