I grew up watching Tales from the Crypt on HBO and, to a lesser extent, syndicated programs like Monsters and Tales from the Darkside. I knew back then that this could never be considered quality TV (or even particularly scary, for that matter), but at thirteen, spending late weekend nights watching bad television with friends was just about as subversive and fun as it got. And what made these old shows so much fun to watch? Was it their acting, plotting, camera work, or special effects? Hell no. It was that they knew damned well that they were nothing more than pulpy, gratuitous schlock – and instead of hiding it, they reveled in it.
As I watched Alex Noyer’s Sound of Violence, my mind often wandered back to those childhood guilty pleasures, but not for the reasons I’d hoped. While it does share similarities with the kind of oddball stories cooked up for those erstwhile anthologies, Sound of Violence lacks the necessary commitment to absurdity to pull off such a messy, inconsistent narrative. If it were possible to shave an hour, travel back 25 years or so, and submit it to HBO, I can say with confidence that the climax alone would have made a marvelous ending for an episode of Tales from the Crypt. Unfortunately, we’re stuck where we are.
Perhaps more frustrating, though, is that Sound of Violence is full of great ideas with plenty of potential, but from the outset, these ideas are handled in completely the wrong way. Instead of drawing mystery and tension from the origin story, we’re given it all at once, thus negating any weight it may have held as a point of sympathy or as an explanation of future actions. And because we’re never given a true sense of the motives or character behind the strange path that Alexis (Jasmin Savoy Brown) takes, it’s nearly impossible to root for or against her. This lack of caring one way or the other sucks the life out of Sound of Violence, and tanks anything of promise.
In addition, we’re led to believe we may be in for an intriguing sort of Blow Out meets American Psycho story, but instead, wind up with a low-rent mishmash of Dexter and Saw (and unconvincingly so, by the way). The idea that the sound of murder can cause physical pleasure is certainly an interesting concept to explore, and the way Noyer demonstrates this is one of the film’s plusses (not to mention one truly horrific soundscape created by the lead, who plays it for a group of disgusted students), but this achievement is consistently undone by the ludicrous ways in which we are asked to suspend our disbelief. There is a decent story buried somewhere in Sound of Violence. It’s too bad the one we’re given isn’t it.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.