Movie Review: The Sound

Whether or not they’re explicitly afraid of heights, most people feel at least a little trepidation about looking over the edge of a steep cliff. It would seem reasonable to then assume that setting a horror film on a mountain climbing expedition would be a surefire recipe for thrills and chills. Alas, writer / director Brendan Devane’s The Sound reminds us why we should never assume, eliciting only minimal frights from its seemingly surefire setup.

Sean (Marc Hills) is thrilled to learn he has been selected to join a small group of mountain climbers who have been granted permission to scale the long-closed “Forbidden Wall”. The Native American tribe who controls it hasn’t allowed anyone near it since the last attempt to climb it decades ago ended in disaster, claiming several lives including that of Sean’s grandfather.

Now, as the group prepares to ascend, tribal leader Guyustees (Wayne Charles Baker) tells him that he was specifically selected to reach the peak in order to try and finish what his grandfather started. A mysterious evil resides there that uses sound to possess its victims and the chief believes only Sean is capable of stopping it. He is understandably skeptical, but as his fellow climbers begin exhibiting violent behavior, he begins to believe that there is at least a little truth to it.

It’s actually not a bad premise but, whether it’s due to a weak script or a lack of funding, it falls almost completely flat here. The pacing is way off, often moving glacially slow with several conversations dragging on far longer than necessary. DP Ryan Galvan’s nature photography is stunning, and he does a spectacular job capturing the cast as they ascend (or descend), but the pretty imagery isn’t enough to sustain audience interest on its own.

The performances are a bit of a mixed bag, though no one outright embarrasses themselves and the main cast do good work. William Fichtner is the only one who is asked to deliver any sort of nuance however in what sadly amounts to a throwaway role as Sean’s father (who is constantly referring to or communicating with his comically never-seen-or-heard wife).

The pace picks up at the finale, perhaps too much so, but what should have been a terrifying showdown atop a towering peak that allegedly took inspiration from John Carpenter’s The Thing instead looks like a cheesy fight scene from The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. There really is the germ of a good idea here as well as a decent amount of talent on display both in front of and behind the camera, but in the end it doesn’t feel like a trip worth taking. ★½