The Movie:

From the director of The Machinist and Session Nine comes a very different entry in the ongoing Masters Of Horror series. While director Brad Anderson hasn't been around long enough to quality as a true 'master of horror' he's certainly off to a strong start with the two aforementioned features and this clever and well directed offering, Sounds Like.

Larry Pearce (Chris Bauer of The Notorious Betty Page) spends his days toiling away at a software company where he's employed as a call monitor, meaning his job is to listen in on the tech support calls and make sure that the employees are handling things professionally and not spending any more time on each call than absolutely necessary. When his days are over, he goes home to his wife, Brenda (Laura Margolis), who is obsessed with having another baby. Sadly, Larry and Brenda lost their son to a freak heart condition not too long ago and ever since then, all Brenda seems to want to think or talk about is pregnancy. If Larry's life weren't tough enough as it is, he has a unique condition wherein his hearing tends to be very acute. He seems to zone in on background noises that most of us wouldn't pay attention to, to the point where they become deafening. A woman stirring her coffee cup, a librarian typing on her computer, a fly rubbing its legs together - sounds like these, normal everyday sounds, can and do cause Larry serious stress and pain.

When Larry gets into trouble at work his boss makes him go see a therapist, figuring it'll do him some good to talk about what happened with his son and in turn, hopefully turn his performance at the office around for the better. This doesn't work though and soon the sounds get louder and louder and louder until Larry has no choice but to silence every one and every thing around him.

Unlike other episodes of Masters Of Horror, Sounds Like is not particularly gory or bloody save for a few minutes towards the end of the film. That said, it's probably one of the most disturbing entries in the series and it manages to accomplish this not with visuals so much as with sound. Add to that strong performances from Bauer and Margolis, who fashion the Pearce's into a fairly sympathetic if obviously very trouble couple, and you've got a strong, character driven piece that not only makes us feel for the central characters but which also brings us along for the male leads rather rapid descent into madness. As the sounds envelope and eventually bombard Larry, so to do they envelope and bombard the viewer which makes his predicament all the more unsettling.

The film is well paced, it builds very nicely to a slightly predictable ending but one which definitely fits well within the context of what has come before it, and there's enough style and craftsmanship behind the cinematography to ensure that the film also looks quite good. The result is a very original take on what a horror movie can and should be and while those looking for monsters, jump scares or gore galore might not find much here, fans of more subtle, character driven psychological horror should find the feature quite rewarding.

Video:

Sounds Like is, like every episode in the series so far, presented in an anamorphic 1.78.1 widescreen transfer. Overall this is a strong transfer despite some softness in a few scenes that look to be more related to the photography than to the transfer itself. Color reproduction is good, check out the outdoor scenes and the scenes near the lake for evidence of that, while the indoor scenes and office scenes maintain an appropriately cool look. Black levels are strong and there are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts. A little bit of edge enhancement and some aliasing is present, but thankfully it's minor and doesn't detract much from the picture.