‎Berberian Sound Studio (2012) directed by Peter Strickland • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Berberian Sound Studio

2012 Directed by Peter Strickland

In the 1970s, a British sound technician is brought to Italy to work on the sound effects for a gruesome horror film. His nightmarish task slowly takes over his psyche, driving him to confront his own past.

Toby Jones Tonia Sotiropoulou Susanna Capellaro Cosimo Fusco Hilda Péter Layla Amir Eugenia Caruso Antonio Mancino Fatma Mohamed Chiara D'Anna Kata Bartsch Lara Parmiani Suzy Kendall Salvatore LI Causi Guido Adorni

92 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Mark Cunliffe ★★★★½ 15

My word.

What an amazing film.

Firstly if you're a nerd for the aesthetics of film, you'll love it. The 70s setting, the Giallo references are all perfect that you don't think of it as a present day film set in the 70s, this could be a lost forgotten 70s film.

Secondly, if you're a nerd for the mechanics of film, the technology, you'll REALLY love it.

I belong in the former camp really but this film has really given me a greater appreciation of the use of sound in movies. It certainly makes you think.

Sound as alchemy. Sound as tangible. Sound as something that can distort you, take over your mind and lose reality.

But what the hell…
Review by Todd Gaines ★★★ 9

A tall Leprechaun goes to work at an Italian giallo sound studio. A proper greeting. A Gallagher moment. Acting all Enya like. Yummy chocolate! Reimbursement. Language barriers. Fuckin' dubbing. Spiders are icky. Demonic moaning. A cool-as-fuck doggy. Silenzo. A thing-a-ma-jig. Mario's brother. A red-hot poker. Blowing bubbles. Always swallow the seeds. Twigs. Sometimes you just need to scream. A lit candle. Fuckin' curses. Reelz of film. Tickling is fun. The line-up. Ding-dong. Lights, camera, action! Cows like to graze. The letter from Mum. Serpent semen. Unending screams. Eerie, without a money-shot. Unique, with fuckin' fantastic audio stimulation of the mind. However, a film I couldn't quite become fully invested in and therefore I can't fully recommend it.
Review by Adam Cook ★★★ 3

Having greatly admired Peter Strickland’s debut feature, Katalin Varga, and been intrigued by the synopsis for this unusual follow-up I’m sad to say I left feeling a little disappointed by Berberian Sound Studio. It is undoubtedly clever and meticulously crafted but it is also frustratingly boring for large passages as it aimlessly shuffles towards a perplexing, but not all that interesting, climax.

Toby Jones stars as Gilderoy, a stuffy and uptight English sound engineer who is hired to edit the audio for a giallo horror film in Italy. Working in a claustrophobic and windowless studio (the studio of the title) the placid Englishman succumbs to the horrifying violence he is paid to work on. Although steeped in gialli references from…
Review by Steve G ★★★★½ 17

Ever since I saw a review of it in Empire and Sight & Sound and was enticed by adverts for screenings of it at the fabulous Cornerhouse every time I went by on the 50 bus for a couple of weeks, I have been counting down the days until I saw Berberian Sound Studio.

It's odd, really. I've not seen Peter Strickland's previous film, Katalin Varga. I'm not especially knowledgeable about Toby Jones' work. Plus, I'm not someone who has a massive amount of background knowledge about giallo and Italian horror films. So as I started to watch it, I was trying to figure out exactly what about it had pulled me in to wanting to see it as much as…
Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 42

Lise and Jonnie's What A Wonderful World 2015

30, 15, maybe 7 and a half IPS, but no slower. Quarter inch; at least half track, but probably full track, save for that narrow band reserved for the almighty pilottone.

The grand Revox turning over the split-flange NAB hub reels hypnotically; the silent Nagra with its always naked head stack; its glowing VU eye dances, visualizing the sound of a macheted melon as a decapitated head drops; the Nagra, appreciatively, gobbles it all up.

Are the reels turning slower, or am I just moving farther and farther away?

I’m on the tape; I’m in the board; I’m gone.
Review by Hollie Horror ★★★★★ 11

"Sound is alchemy." -Peter Strickland, director/writer.

For the longest time there was so much praise given to the French film Amer which is supposedly a homage to gialli of the 1970s (specifically the third segment). What Amer attempted aesthetically, Berberian Sound Studio achieved audibly AND aesthetically.

"The world of sound awaits you."

Really, it goes without saying that I have a strong connection with Italian gialli and horror cinema. In ways, sometimes it feels as though it is my lifeblood. While the stories have almost always lacked something (something being cohesive, sensical plots), it was because we were being blown away by the imagery and the sound. It isn't all in the [fantastic] music either, from the sound of the…

Recent reviews

Review by DayaveM ★★★★

Hooptober 4.0 Film #6

6 Countries (UK)

At a disadvantage going in as I haven't seen a Argento film or any other giallo film that this is a homage to (unless Black Sabbath counts). However, for the most part I found this to be very engaging psychological thriller. Wonderful performance by Toby Jones who feels out of place working on the film, but who is mainly concerned with being reimbursed for his flight. I loved the strange and hostile atmosphere the film has, as the other people working on the film are unwelcoming to the timid Jones.

The ending was deeply unsatisfying but perhaps after I see the films it is references it will come to have more meaning. As for now the ending's dreamlike/nightmarish nature didn't interest me.
Review by harden ★★★★

uh.... that scream lit af~

err seriously
Review by James Loone ★

Nobody has seen this horror before.

I don't really have all that much to say about Berberian Sound Studio. The film failed to grab me in any way, and I found myself pretty bored and uninterested throughout. I didn't feel like anything was happening at all in regards to the plot, or lack thereof, and as the film reached it's climax, it seemed to dive into complete nonsense territory and it lost me altogether.

Despite only lasting an hour a half, the film felt incredibly long and dull to me. None of the characters were interesting and the story went nowhere whatsoever. It felt like it was trying extremely hard to be artful and intelligent, but failed to capture or engage me on any level.

1/5.
Review by ArizonaJim ★★½

This is Atmospheric. Toby Jones is the English sound effects man hired by an Italian studio to add sound to a giallo. Jones is a stereotyped shy, uncertain Englishman caught in an alien world. He never seems to leave the sound studio, sleeping as well as working there. The film is not what he expected, a sexually explicit horror movie. (We don't see the film - other than the credits - but constantly hear it.) Jones's supervisor (Cosimo Fusco) goes from ingratiating to bullying. The film director is full of enthusiasm about Jones's skills, but also full of bullshit. There are intrigues abounding, e.g., the director's sexual intimidation of the sound performers. There's a lot of detail showing the techniques…
Review by Jon Hillman ★★★★½

Exactly the kind of movie I needed in my life, something that goes behind the curtain of everything that's always fascinated me about Italian horror films. Of course, I now want to watch the movie they were making. Priests drowning witches, stabbing them with red hot poker, and horny goblins roaming through a dormitory sounds like the best thing ever.
Review by trudistafford ★★★

British sound engineer gets movie job in 70s Italy. Lynch-like weirdness ensues. The actual "sound" experience of Berberian Sound Studio is something else, but the overall execution and strange waters of this one just isn't my cuppa.
Review by OmegaThrone ★★★★

I barely understood half of what I watched but this was an experience that was much too enjoyable for that to really matter. The whole film starts off slowly and gradually builds until it's a full on anxiety inducing descent into the annals of ones own personal hell. The cast was fantastic, the atmosphere builds and wanes in a beautiful way until the payoff and I really enjoyed the loose plot and undefinitive ending.
Review by omalleyguit ★★★

Étrange exercice de style cinématographique.
Review by Marlaz1985 ★★★★

The study of a fractured psyche, this superb thriller has a distinctly ethereal quality. Dream sequences are interspersed with the mundane meaning that as a viewer you're never quite sure what is real. Also, a terrific and layered performance from Toby Jones really complements the film.