Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Jasmin Savoy Brown, Lili Simmons, James Jagger
Remember back in 2013 when Canada introduced to us Discopathe? That trippy slasher movie where a guy is somehow triggered into mad serial killings whenever he hears disco music? Well, this Finnish-American production explores a similar aspect of musical madness, albeit on a more psychodrama approach with a small taste of exploitative murders ala SAW sequel-inspired machinations and sonic-based body horror.
The scene begins in 2002, as we watch ten-year old deaf girl Alexis finds her PTSD-suffering, Vietnam vet father in the middle of butchering her mother and brother with a meat cleaver. She strikes him dead with a vengeful swing of a meat tenderizer, an act that not only miraculously restores her hearing, but also makes her experience a euphoric sensation unlike any other.
Now as an adult, Alexis works as a music teacher’s aide and is deeply interested (or, rather, obsessed) with experimental music. She hides her past well enough, though she still longs to feel that same sensation she felt during the night she murdered her father and, with her deafness apparently making a haunting comeback, Alexis sees herself growing desperate to replicate that high. She soon piece things together that the sound of pain is what sparked both her hearing and the otherworldly euphoria, thus setting her plan to explore the joy of pain-based music and create an orchestral masterpiece out of the suffering of others.
Less of your typical paint-by-number bodycounter and closer to a descent-to-madness character study, Sound of Violence (2021) tackles the meaty subjects of re-occurring childhood trauma and creative addiction behind the sympathetic eyes of a troubled individual slowly being consumed by her commitment to an unexplainable elation. It is an idea that's handled in a manner that gives our main character an intriguingly solid motivation and, with the source of her needed jubilation stemming from torture and death, this ingeniously gives the film ways to ensure the finesse of the narrative doesn't overshadow the horror-tainted entertainment value of the film.
Working well with this approach is Jasmin Savoy Brown's performance as our disturbed yet inspired murderous musician Alexis Reeves, giving the role a sense of normalcy at first rather than overworking the brooding psychopathy head on. This hands us a window to look into and understand the situation our soon-to-be killer finds herself in and what she's going through because of it, as everything she built for herself gets threatened to be taken away by fate unless she does something drastic about it. This, of course, does not excuse her for the murders, but we see her plight and genuine remorse after each deed done, thus we couldn't completely paint her as a monster but, instead, as someone who is sincerely losing control of her own life and is willing to do the extreme to keep whatever good left she sees in her life.
Said extremes are the horror aspects of the plot, wherein Alexis pushes the boundaries of her mental stability, as well as the warm living flesh of her victims, just to feel a sensation of color and lights that's never really explained. People, in turn, gets kidnapped, tricked and/or drugged into participating in her symphony of pain and torment, resulting to outlandish deaths and murder scenarios including a chair rigged with moving knives and hammers that syncs up to a synthesizer keyboard and a plot involving drugging a harpist into playing a harp with razor-thin strings. At times, the extravagance of these murder scenes clashes with the implied seriousness and drama of the story (wait til' you see the beach finale. The cheese levels were a little high there), but it does help put Sound of Violence on a more memorable light as a horror feature and it doesn't stray away too much from the tone of the movie.
If there will be anything I could nitpick about this film is that the fact it felt lacking on some parts introduced, like the police procedural that's more of a red herring than an actual plot point with how little time we get to spend with these scenes and how flat they are whenever we do get them. I do get much of the focus is supposed to be through Alexis' perspective, but these procedurals had enough appearances to warrant some form of conflict, but alas they're just there to imply somebody is made aware of the bloody mess our killer's leaving behind and that's it.
Still, I see a lot of potential from this movie to be a B-flick favorite for those who love their horror weird. It's undeniably posh in some parts, but it has enough madness and bloodshed to satisfy a horror hound's craving for a modern psychodrama!
Bodycount:
1 female and 1 boy found hacked to death with a meat cleaver
1 male brained with a meat tenderizer
1 male hit by an incoming car (flashback)
1 male stabbed and beaten to death in a weaponized chair
1 male had his head cooked with electric shocks through theremin-rigged electrodes, explodes
1 male bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer
1 female had speakers ran through her body via impromptu surgery, dies from her wounds
Total: 7
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