Movie Review: Sounds Like

Sounds Like takes you into the horror entertainment dimension via the sense of sound. No, it is not like one of those Halloween sound effects Cds with cackles and the Monster Mash.

Sounds Like is from the Masters of Horror television movie series and was directed by Brad Anderson. Anderson's previous works include The Machinist and Session 9. This time he brings us a story based on a short by Mike O'Driscoll, about a man with an enhanced sense of hearing who tries to cope with the horrors of such a power and the death of his young son.

Chris Bauer is the main star of this movie, an actor I will always remember from the dark Nicolas Cage film 8MM; Bauer played Machine in that film, your everyday psychopath snuff film star and murderer.
In this Bauer plays a character that is more in depth than most television fodder, balancing between being an uptight supervisor and a grieving family man who has lost his kid to some disease and alienated his wife. Give the man an Emmy! Or whatever other award he is eligible for in television acting or horror acting. Bauer's performance is off the charts good.

The supporting cast all get an A Plus as well.

The story relies on your sense of hearing to a great degree which is a creative change of pace for a film. The horror centers around an intelligent "what if" sort of plot, what if you had this kind of amplified hearing? How long until you would go insane from it? How would it affect your life? Mix into that the drama of a dead child and a broken family and you've got not just an exploration into the horror genre worthy of entertainment, but also an emotion packed experience overall.

The movie winds around to an ending that is both horrific and beautiful all at once, for those who crave a little blood it is brought in. The imagery right before the finale is a site that while watching you can feel is coming, you know is coming, and yet when it finally comes you are still in awe at the intensity of the situation.

Sounds Like, at the time of this review stands as the best episode of Masters of Horror that I have seen. The acting is phenomenal, the story is interesting, and the work overall is powerful and deserving of your attention.