Acclaimed 2010s Horror Film Now Available for Free Streaming

The film follows Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a soft-spoken sound engineer from the UK, who arrives at the Berberian Sound Studio expecting to work on a film about horses. However, upon meeting the producer Francesco (Cosimo Fusco), he quickly discovers that “The Equestrian Vortex” is actually a gruesome horror film featuring witches, priests, and satanic rituals. Despite these revelations, Gilderoy decides to stay, but his patience is tested by a delayed flight reimbursement, a demanding director (Antonio Mancino), and the film’s soundscape that starts to invade his own reality.

Strickland makes a bold choice by never showing the film Gilderoy is working on. The only glimpse of “The Equestrian Vortex,” a nod to the peculiar titles of Italian horror films, is a jarring opening credits sequence that reveals just enough about the project. Instead, “Berberian Sound Studio” teaches viewers to listen closely, achieving this goal with remarkable success.

Italian horror inherently possesses a surreal quality. The dubbing in Dario Argento’s classic “Suspiria,” which redefined the cinematic portrayal of witches, gives the impression that characters are controlled by external forces, especially during their screams. In “Berberian Sound Studio,” audiences get a behind-the-scenes look at voice actors delivering those visceral screams from the confines of a sound booth. Additionally, the film showcases the creative techniques used to generate the sounds of gore and violence, like tearing lettuce to mimic flesh being ripped or using a meat cleaver on a watermelon to suggest a bloody impact.

There’s an inherently surreal nature to the makeup of Italian horror. The dubbing in Dario Argento’s “Suspiria,” the horror classic that reinvented the cinematic witch, makes the characters feel possessed by forces outside of their control, especially when they start screaming. In “Berberian Sound Studio,” we witness the process of vocal performers providing the guttural shrieks that convey legitimate terror despite doing it all from a sound booth. You also get to see the interesting methods behind the sounds for gore and violence. Ripping shreds of lettuce emulates being torn apart, while a meat cleaver to a watermelon provides the mental image of being pummeled to a bloody pulp.

Peter Strickland gives insight into what the in-universe film looks like without having to show a single frame, relying on the power of suggestion. “Berberian Sound Studio” is almost a 4-D ultra sensory experience in that there’s such an emphasis on how “The Equestrian Vortex” is made that it compels you to interrogate the other non-diegetic sounds of the film you’re currently watching. It’s an ode to the ’70s era of sound mixing through analog equipment, which itself carries an otherworldly power when compared to digital.

On a narrative level, “Berberian Sound Studio” doesn’t follow the traditional hallmarks of a genre flick. But it’s most definitely a horror movie, albeit in a much more subversive way.

“Berberian Sound Studio” purposefully breaks the illusion of what you would hear in an Italian horror picture, while associating its soundscapes with another kind of horror. We’re witness to voice over actresses such as Silvia (Fatma Mohammed), Claudia (Eugenia Caruso), and Elisa (Chiara D’Anna) constantly being belittled by the crew. Their screams echo the internal frustrations they have for the people who take advantage of their vocal chords. Nobody is actually getting stabbed or ripped apart, but they are being emotionally terrorized by men in powerful positions.

Toby Jones is excellent at conveying how lost Gilderoy is working on the film, and how that puts a strain on the experience. An illuminating conversation between him and Silvia compels him to stick up for himself regarding his flight payment. It bleeds into the third act where fiction and reality start to blur with Gilderoy being an almost entirely different person. Much like one of David Lynch’s best movies, “Mulholland Drive,” one portion of the film informs the other.

“Berberian Sound Studio” leaves the “The Equestrian Vortex” for us to imagine, while presenting a different tale of “witches” being tormented by the “holy” figures of the production. To see — and hear — what it’s all about, be sure to check out the film now on Tubi.