Berberian Sound Studio

Released Jun 4, 2013

1 hr. 28 min.

Horror

List

86%

97 Reviews

Tomatometer

53%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

A sound engineer tortures people to get the sounds he needs for his work in an Italian horror studio.

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Critics Consensus

Its reach may exceed its grasp, but with Berberian Sound Studio, director Peter Strickland assembles a suitably twisted, creepy tribute to the Italian Giallo horror movies of the '70s that benefits from a strong central performance by Toby Jones.

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Miguel M

Esta pelicula me demuestra la dedicación que hay para ser un actor de post producción.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/30/24

Full Review

Nina E

If watching pretty brunettes screaming their heads off turns you on then you'll love this movie. If raw Italian machismo turns you on then there's something in this for you too. We experience it from the point of view of a meek Englishman who inadvertently landed himself in the raunchy world of B rated horror films, ahem, Santini films. The meek man is pretty much beating lettuce for sound effects until he is pushed into a Milgram experiment like task of torturing a scream actress with high pitch noise, but the actress walks out, so nothing much really happens but the general discomfort and awkwardness of watching a small man be bullied by his alpha bosses and pushed to madness is telling of how we end up with so much workplace violence. Please don't be a jerk at work.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

11/28/23

Full Review

isla s

This is undoubtedly a spooky and mildly sinister film, although it didn't really ourtright scare me but its certainly got a bit of an edge to it. The plot is slow and a bit low on the ground, so to speak. Its quite disorientating at times, with video footage thats distorted and continous long screams recorded. It just didn't quite equate to a great deal. I could understand the main characters discomfort in being involved with the production of a horror film (although the director/staff disagree on categorising the film their working on as such). The way that certain sound effects are created does seem perhaps a little distasteful at times, although there's nothing genuinely gorey shown. This is very much a visual film, in as much as there is some imagery which somewhat stands out but overall it seemed to me to be nothing more than an overly quirky, very arty type of a film, which I don't think necessarily said a great to me as such and so I wouldn't specifically recommend it as such, no.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Interesting for awhile only to become frustrating waiting for something more to happen. Where's the torture?

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I have a deep affinity for bizarre films, ones that defy conventional norms and use their strange nature to tell a compelling story. When it's done right, it can be an absolute trip, and that's exactly what Berberian Sound Studio is. Toby Jones makes a convincingly put-upon lead, due in no small part to his being shorter than every other member of the cast, a decision I'm absolutely positive was intentional. He's surrounded by a mob of cast and crew members who go from treating him with either respect or indifference to outright disdain, and slowly we see this mild-mannered man lose his mind to his point where his life and his work are indistinguishable from one another. It's a tribute to the Italian Giallo films of the 70s, in all their blood drenched, sex-filled, psychotic glory. We see the sound mixing for the film taking place, and all the props and accessories films back then used to get the most effective sountrack, with watermelons being smashed, tomato stalks being ripped off and oil being boiled in a pan. It creates a very vivid picture of what it would have been like to make a film like the one featured, and as things progress the line between fiction and reality begin to blur until only 1 is left. Rather than just poking fun at Giallo films and their undeniable schlockiness, Berberian Sound Studio demonstrates that, even though they might be nothing more than cheap thrills to some, they can still be made with passion and determination. If this sounds like your kind of film, then see it when you get the chance.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

Full Review

Cave W

The critics might have loved it, but it was boring and bailed on it halfway through. Maybe I missed out on something brilliant - but I doubt it.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

09/03/21

Full Review

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Peter Strickland

Director

Toby Jones

Gilderoy

Cosimo Fusco

Francesco

Hilda Péter

Auditionee

Tonia Sotiropoulou

Elena

Susanna Cappellaro

Veronica

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Deborah Ross

The Spectator

I have never encountered anything quite so auditorily menacing... I promise you have never seen, or heard, anything like it, and Toby Jones's performance is fantastically gripping.

Sep 1, 2018

Full Review

Jonathan Romney

Independent (UK)

If you're open to films that fearlessly twist the conventions, and that mine the language of sound and image for their own strange potential, you'll get a kick from this rivetingly inventive, abrasively un-British piece of nightmare cinema.

Dec 31, 2013

Full Review

Sam Davies

Sight & Sound

Berberian Sound Studio refuses such a climax: it at once celebrates giallo and takes it apart, disassembling it like Derren Brown explaining an illusion.

Dec 31, 2013

Full Review

Erick Estrada

Cinegarage

Satanism, blood and bewitched screams... We are in the sonorous heart of a horror movie where nothing is what it seems. [Full review in Spanish]

Jul 26, 2023

Full Review

C.J. Prince

Way Too Indie

Berberian Sound Studio is definitely unique with some wonderful moments that nail what Strickland is going for, but it's too uneven to be something truly great.

Rated: 7/10

Jul 2, 2019

Full Review

Naila Scargill

Exquisite Terror

Strangely accessible for a giallo come art-house film; a pleasure from beginning to end, with lavish attention to detail.

Feb 28, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

A sound engineer tortures people to get the sounds he needs for his work in an Italian horror studio.

Director: Peter Strickland
Executive Producer: Katherine Butler, Robin Gutch, Hugo Heppell
Screenwriter: Peter Strickland
Distributor: IFC Films
Production Co: Illumination Films, Film4, Warp X
Genre: Horror
Original Language: English (United Kingdom)
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 4, 2013, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 29, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $24.3K

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