RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR: SOUNDS LIKE, DIRECTED BY: BRAD ANDERSON

30/6/2021

We are living in a golden age of horror on TV. Shows like ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘Supernatural’ and ‘American Horror Story’ have effectively taken the genre mainstream, offering weekly doses of gore and mayhem to the masses. Go back a decade or two however, and genre fans had far fewer options to choose from. Anthology shows, like ‘Tales From the Crypt’, ‘Monsters’ or ‘Tales From the Darkside’ were king during the horror heyday of the 1980s, providing cheesy and cheerful tongue in cheek horror in half hour bites. It wasn’t until 2005 that the TV horror anthology show got serious, and delivered arguably the most consistent, memorable and scary anthology show to date.

The brainchild of horror legend Mick Garris, the show’s title is no hyperbole. ‘Masters of Horror’ brought together the best horror talent Hollywood (and beyond) had to offer. Episodes directed by undisputed genre luminaries such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento and Stuart Gordon were like hour long movies brought to your TV screen. High production values, A-List talent and a free reign to do whatever they pleased resulted in some truly unforgettable work from a group of horror legends let off their leash. These are stories that have stayed with me in the fifteen years since many initially aired and, in this series, I’ll be revisiting all twenty-six episodes, one at a time, to shine a light on a fondly remembered and undeniably influential moment in horror TV history.
Join me as I take a look back at

Sounds Like
Directed by: Brad Anderson
Starring: Chris Bauer, Laura Margolis, Richard Kahan, Michael Daingerfield
Original Air Date: 17 November 2006
Synopsis: A grieving father finds his hearing becoming increasingly sensitive, impacting his job, his marriage, and gradually breaking his sanity.

RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR: SOUNDS LIKE, DIRECTED BY: BRAD ANDERSON

Putting aside for a second the episodes I ‘enjoyed’ the best when I first watched Masters of Horror, which tended to be the ones that featured the scariest monsters, most blood, or best special effects, there were a handful of episodes I would have singled out as objectively excellent episodes, and ‘Sounds Like’ would have topped that list. It doesn’t feature bloodthirsty creatures or fountains of gore, but it is an unsettling slow-burn that uses sound design to horrifically creative effect. Its story about an ordinary man increasingly unable to deal with the aftermath of unfathomable loss is a far cry from the more outlandish offerings the series often served up, and coming as it does from the director of ‘Session 9’ and ‘The Machinist’, the episode steers more into psychological horror territory than many of the Masters of Horror episodes had before it.

Chris Bauer (‘True Blood’, ‘The Wire’) plays Larry, a supervisor at a call centre offering computer technical support. He is very good at his job, possessing an uncanny ability to hear the subtle changes in a person’s voice to indicate a change in their mood or to suggest they are about to lose their temper, which serves him well when listening into other people’s calls. It is a knack that increasingly turns on him as the episode progresses.

We soon learn that Chris and his wife Brenda (Laura Margolis) recently lost their young son to a rare and untreatable heart condition and it has taken its toll on them both. In fact, one of the things I liked about ‘Sounds Like’ is how, despite not getting near as much screen time, Brenda is shown to be taking things just as hard as Larry is, but her grief is manifesting in completely different ways. While Larry has become withdrawn and largely mute around his wife, Brenda feels the need to fill every second of silence, unable to turn off. She is also desperate to have another child, and her desire borders on delusion at times. This is a stark contrast to Larry, who cannot bear to even go in his son’s bedroom, never mind contemplate replacing him. It’s a fascinating dichotomy and I like to think that there is an equally interesting episode to be had from following Brenda on the same journey that Larry is on.

The sorrow Larry is feeling, coupled with the pressure to move on, coming both from work (who are urging him to attend counselling) and his wife (whose life is now dominated around conceiving another child) begins to manifest through his hearing, which becomes more acute. He can hear dripping taps as if they are drum beats and, in one particularly effective scene in a restaurant while out with Brenda, her conversation is drowned out by the sound of champagne being poured from across the room, or the deafening crunch of a man chewing his dinner at the table across from him. What is especially clever (and especially tragic) is the more these episodes where Larry can hear things at a vastly increased volume occur, the more stress it piles on him, and the worse and more frequent they become. It starts to affect his work, puts further strain on his marriage, and soon gets to the point where he can’t even be out in public.

There is so much about this episode that is worth calling out. The direction is very distinctive, full of close ups and quick edits to keep things disorientating when we, the viewer, are experiencing the world through Larry’s eyes (ears?). Chris Bauer puts in one of the series best performances, as Larry goes from quiet loner and distant husband, to grieving father, tortured by loss and, finally, someone who has descended into a madness he can’t come back from. I think what really works though, is the sound design. It is an oft forgotten part of filmmaking that, when it does its job well, you don’t tend to notice it at all, and I loved how ‘Sounds Like’ gave it centre stage here. The gentle fall of raindrops on his car roof sound like baseball bats hammering from all sides. The whir of the wheel of a passing bike sounds like a chainsaw and the sound of someone turning the page of a newspaper is like an avalanche. It’s easy to imagine how Larry finds himself unable to cope by the episodes end.

To say that these episodes that Larry is having is having an impact on his mental health is an understatement as his life begins to unravel. While we have only seen him happy in the few flashbacks, we’ve had of him spending time with his son (excluding those where we see him at his side is hospital when he passes away) at the opening of the episode, he comes across as struggling and troubled, but effectively managing a difficult situation. At this stage in the episode, he is a very different man. He’s quick to anger, prone to violent outbursts and while you never lose sympathy, you do begin to wonder just what he might be capable of.

After a downturn in his performance at work and a series of complaints about his conduct, he finally snaps and not only begins to hear things more intensely but is now hearing things that aren’t even there, and ends up storming out of work and seeking refuge in the only place that brings him any peace - his son’s grave. Even there, he can’t find respite, as a ravenous chomping sound turns out to be earthworms he pulls up by the fistful right by his son’s tombstone. Racing home, the sounds don’t stop there either but the reasons for that are somewhat more sinister to say the least. I’m reluctant to spoil the ending but after almost an hour of ratcheting up the tension, Anderson lets everything come to a head in a memorable finale. Don’t go expecting a happy ending for poor Larry and Brenda is all I’ll say on the matter.

Wrapping up my re-watch of this episode, I was struck by how rarely I see this named as one of the fan favourites. It certainly deserves to be up there with episodes like ‘Cigarette Burns’ or ‘Jenifer’ but seems to have been largely forgotten. I found it to be a heart-rending and harrowing look at grief, unflinching and, at times, brutal but ultimately a very downbeat and melancholy episode. The sound design is absolutely incredible, and Chris Bauer puts in a superb performance as the episode’s lead. It is a testament to the range that Masters of Horror displayed when this very personal, character driven episode was followed by an all-out action epic about a demon baby just one week later…

Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode five of the second season, John Carpenter’s ‘Pro Life’. See you then!

If you missed any of Richard's previous Revisting The Masters of Horror articles, you can find links to them all here on our handy landing page
THE MASTERS OF HORROR

Richard is an avid reader and fan of all things horror. He supports Indie horror lit via Twitter (@RickReadsHorror) and reviews horror in all its forms for several websites including Horror Oasis and Sci Fi and Scary