Producer: Brendan Devane Director: Brendan Devane Screenplay: Brendan Devane Cast: Marc Hills, Rachel Finninger, Nicholas Baroudi, Gabe Greenspan, Christina Kirkman, Jolene Kay, Michael Chen, Christian Howard, Elise Greene, Wayne Charles Baker, Scott Bennett, Adrian Ballinger, Jocelyn Hudon, David Clennon, Kyle Gass, Alex Honnold, Brette Harrington, Hazel Findlay, Kevin Caliber, Ashley Undercuffler, Yanni Walker, Benjamin Rawls and William Fichtner Distributor: Blue Harbor Entertainment
Grade: D
The sound you’re likely to be hearing by the time Brendan Devane’s horror movie, about a malevolent force attacking a group of rock climbers, reaches its big finale is that of your own laughter, or perhaps of your palm striking your forehead. Devane claims that his goal was to create a nail-biting mixture of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and “Free Solo,” the remarkable documentary about Alex Honnold. A charitable way of putting it is that he’s failed.
Honnold (along with some other notables of the sport) has a cameo in “The Sound,” proving that he’s no actor. But then none of the professionals in the cast are appreciably better, including veteran William Fichtner, who has a couple of flat scenes as Conner, the father of Sean (Marc Hills), one of the climbers chosen by Kurt (David Clennon) to join the team he’s assembling to ascend the formation known as the Forbidden Wall. A site in British Columbia sacred to the tribe of indigenous people led by Chief Guyustees (Wayne Charles Baker), it’s been closed to climbers since a disastrous expedition in 1959. One of the climbers was Conner’s father, so he’s understandably concerned about his son scaling the wall that cost his father his life. But Sean jumps at the invitation, so Conner reluctantly accepts his decision.
From the beginning we know something mysterious is going on here. A prologue has shown us Sean’s grandfather (Adrian Ballinger) desperately trying to descend from the summit in 1959, and a shadowy agency man in Washington (Yanni Walker) talking about the expedition’s failure. The tribe’s agreement to reopen the wall for a single climb after sixty-three years might be explained by renewed pressure from Washington, where another government guy (Kevin Caliber), apparently inhabiting the same closet-sized office as his counterpart did in 1959 (and apparently using the same rotary phone!), is shown overseeing things. And when Sean gets to the site, Guyustees warns him about tribal legends concerning a sinister force at the wall’s summit that governments are concerned about; it is his mission, the Chief says, to complete his grandfather’s effort to seal it away forever. To do that, he will have to embrace “the quiet” and resist the force’s ability to invade his mind and bend it to its will.
As the climb begins, it quickly becomes apparent that the tribal legends are true. Almost immediately problems begin to infect the communications trailer overseen by Kristen (Rachel Finninger) and the radio controller (Gabe Greenspan, intended to provide comic relief but merely annoying, though a Zoom conversation he has with an old expert played with laid-back disinterest by Kyle Gass is funny, in a deadpan way). Strange things begin to afflict the six initial climbers, operating in groups of two; some are affected by strange voices in their heads (cue montages of their distorted faces as they struggle to set the messages aside), while others act as though they’re possessed, crawling about the rock wall like spiders before falling to their deaths. Replacements are sent up to rescue the stranded or locate bodies.
But through it all, team leader Colton (Nicholas Baroudi) refuses to turn back, insisting that the climb continue despite the mounting casualties. Eventually he and a few other survivors reach the summit, where glowing circles of animation—sub-rudimentary special effects if ever such existed—indicate the force within a prominent rock. Sean will have to prove his mettle and complete his grandfather’s mission to prevent the force from escaping and doing untold damage to humanity. But he’ll have some help, including a couple of indigenous warriors, presumably spectral figures, who abruptly spring out of nowhere to do battle against the malignant entity.
Sean survives, of course, and returns home to talk to Conner about the experience. “It’s a long story, and it’s kind of crazy,” he says, and truer words were never spoken. The movie lumbers along for nearly two hours, and the plot makes very little sense; the laughably inept special effects only accentuate the poverty-row nature of the production.
As modest compensation there is some fine cinematography on display in the climbing scenes, which Ryan Galvan, shooting on actual rock walls and well as a simulacrum built on set, captures to nice effect. But his camerawork in other sequences is simply dull, and not helped by the lethargic editing of Alex Russek, the chintzy production design by Nancy Foster (the fake-looking boulders on the summit are really unconscionable, even when draped in darkness), and the groaning synth score by James Iha of The Smashing Pumpkins. One appreciates that the cast had to be chosen for their climbing ability as well as acting talent, but that’s really no excuse for the bland, often amateurish work of Hills, Finninger, Baroudi, Greenspan, Baker and their colleagues Christina Kirkman, Jolene Kay, Michael Chen, Christian Howard, Elise Greene, Scott Bennett and Jocelyn Hudon. Of course, they all have to deal with dialogue by Devane that sounds like it was written by some AI apparatus as well as his lackadaisical direction.
One can forgive the flaws in a low-budget horror movie if it’s imaginative enough to make up for them. “The Sound” isn’t.