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MASTERS OF HORROR: SOUNDS LIKE (2006) Director: Brad Anderson. Hacktors: Chris Bauer, Laura Margolis. Rating/5: The lowdown: Here at Slasherama, we regularly enjoy the Masters Of Horror series, and love the fact that the genre has more of a profile as a result. We especially wanted to take a look at the 60-minute episode Sounds Like, however, as it was directed by Brad Anderson. For the uninitiated, he's the man who brought us the brilliant supernatural chiller Session 9 and The Machinist, a similarly powerful piece starring Christian Bale. Sounds Like sees Anderson pursuing his pet topic once again - people who seem to be going insane. Call centre supervisor Larry Pearce (Bauer) is both blessed and cursed with a supremely sensitive pair of ears. He can hear a fly moving about on a window, or knitting needles clacking away in a nearby room. He's also skilled in detecting when call centre operators are about to lose their cool, which seems to make him ideal for his job. That is, until the death of his young son starts to, quite understandably, unravel him... Good points: As expected, Anderson's direction is superb, managing to visually tell us what it's like to be in Bauer's head - and specifically, what it's like to hear what he hears. Macro shots give us an idea of the detail which he has to absorb on a daily basis. Bauer's performance is also excellent, ably treading the tricky tightrope between horror and comedy (there is, after all, a humourous element to a man who is driven mad by the tiniest noise). As usual, Anderson (who also wrote the script, based on a short story) is disturbingly skillful in showing one man's terrible mental decline. Bad points: Somewhere around the two-thirds mark, Sounds Like somehow starts to tread just a little water. It might perhaps have better suited a 45-minute slot, but there's no real harm done - we just get to see Larry's descent into insanity in slightly more detail than perhaps we should. Also, the ending seems designed to surprise, but doesn't quite manage the job - especially after the oh-my-God climax to The Machinist. Ah well, we shouldn't criticise Brad for having been so brilliant with other endeavours, right? DVD Details: A behind-the-scenes featurette, Aural Madness: The Making Of Sounds Like is a nice little piece, interestingly painting Anderson as a pretty dictatorial guy who knows exactly what he wants. No harm in that. There's also a featurette centring on Sounds Like's remarkable sound design, an audio commentary with Anderson, a photo gallery and the screenplay in DVD-ROM format. Not a bad little package. Overall: It's not out of this world, like some of Anderson's other works. But it's a nice change of gear for the Masters Of Horror series, featuring as little gore as it does. Anderson continues to prove himself as the king of modern-day psychological horror... Release Date: Masters Of Horror: Sounds Like is out on DVD now in the US. Meanwhile, Vol 1 of Masters Of Horror's Season Two hits UK shelves on October 15, 2007. [Check it out at Amazon US] [Reviews Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present