Berberian Sound Studio Film & Soundtrack Out Now

Berberian Sound Studio  One of Love Horror’s Best Films of 2012 Berberian Sound Studio is finally out on Blu-Ray and DVD with the awsomely spooky soundtrack coming early January 2013.

Written and directed by Peter Strickland (Katalin Varga) the film stars Toby Jones (The Girl; Snow White And The Huntsman; The Hunger Games; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Tonia Sotiropoulou (Skyfall) and Cosimo Fusco (Angels And Demons; The Card Player).

It’s 1976 and timid, Dorking-based sound engineer, Gilderoy, has been transplanted to Italy’s run-down Berberian Sound Studio to work on “The Equestrian Vortex”, the latest low-budget horror movie by notorious exploitation maestro Giancarlo Santini. Gilderoy’s task is a seemingly simple one: to create, record and mix the sounds of bloodcurdling screams, limbs being severed and the insertion of red hot pokers into human orifices, mostly using a variety of everyday household items such as old vegetables and a hammer. But Gilderoy is totally unprepared for the graphically grotesque images on show, the effect they have on him and for the unusual working practices of his employers. As he becomes more deeply involved in his work, the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred and, very subtly, Gilderoy’s life begins to imitate art in a nightmare scenario from which he may never escape.Berberian Sound Studio

Winner of the Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor awards at the 2012 Film 4 Frightfest, Peter Strickland’s disturbing, eerie chiller is a must-see for fans of the work of Dario Argento, Roman Polanski and David Lynch and features a revelatory central performance by Toby Jones and a superb soundtrack by British indie electronic band, Broadcast.

The soundtrack to Berberian Sound Studio, composed by renowned Warp-signed band Broadcast (aka Trish Keenan and James Cargill) is released a week later, on Jan 7th 2013. Time Out said of the film that the “stylistically ambitious, morally radical, thematically complex work…deserves the highest praise”. This turns out to also be an apt description of the film’s sublime soundtrack.

Initially conceived as the soundtrack to The Equestrian Vortex, the film-within-a-film around which Berberian Sound Studio unfolds, it would eventually spill outwards to encapsulate the entire world Strickland had created and populated with eccentric, magnetic characters. On it’s own, the music sets a sinister and atmospheric tone that still exists well within Broadcast’s sonic universe.

Berberian Sound Studio is out on Blu-Ray and DVD now and you can watch the opening credits here:

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Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

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