Here’s a really interesting watching experience, not just because we had to be evacuated in the middle of it, but because the film is so open to interpretation I wouldn’t even know how to describe it in words. The film is a meta-cinematic horror film that moves very quickly from piece to piece. The difficulty for me was actually trying to put a timeline in place to describe what happens in the film, even just to try to extract meaning from it. This film reminds me of Holy Motors in the way it literally just tries to stop you from drawing conclusions. I’m honestly not even sure if there are conclusions that can be drawn. What the film was amazing at was drawing you into the environment of the sound studio through its unbelievable use of sound elements. The film contains almost exclusively diegetic music. One thing I did notice having been in rooms with that many racks of equipment is that they’re a lot noisier but horror is silence at the end of the day. I love the comments made by the film in terms of sound production and the way the film entirely exists within only the confines of the studio.
The torture underscoring is really apparent. Though the question is why our point of view character has such an aversion to horror as a genre if he appreciates torturing people with sound. I do really love the way this film harkens back to a historic hollywood era. The shot above really encapsulates the intrigue of the film, it would appear to be just a man just playing with his food, but the scene despite the lovely spread in front of him is very dark.