DEAD SOUND **** USA 2017 Dir: Tony Glazer. 84 mins
Every so often a film that is ‘based on true events’ comes along and when it does your level of interest is very high and this excellent film will not let you down if you try it.
A group of four somewhat smartass and raucous rich city kids are determined to get themselves to a debauched party at their friend’s house on Block Island off the coast of the quiet enclave of New London where the air of mistrust and suspicion of strangers comes across as truly palpable in what is a very able psychological thriller from the pen of Jon Adler with some great scenic photography by Matthew A.Nardone and a high intensity soundtrack by Ali Dee Theodore and Anthony Mirabella that underpinned my immense enjoyment of this film.
The motto here is, ‘beware of who you trust in your naive determination to achieve your ends’ and there is some terrific acting on display here from the likes of Noah Gaynor, who plays Jake Harley, the kids’ leader who has his own tortured backstory that fits well into the main where Bobby the deranged ex-jailbird is fantastically portrayed by John Behlmann with his father Captain Stone who is at once the distrustful and malevolent skipper of the Seeker that the kids hire when they miss the last ferry to Block Island.
Throughout the piece there is a great sense of impending doom that carried me along on a dark riptide of fearful suspense and exciting action and I found I really enjoyed the style of a film that gave a good mix of very different personalities and mini-stories that blended together seamlessly to make a captivating psychological thriller where life itself may be truly at stake. There were many dark life lessons and tales of injured morality here that were largely centred around the hate and division that sadly still exists between the rich and the poor in modern day America and that shine a rueful torch over what is a tale of dark iniquity and lurking, breeding human evil. This is a story where the vengeance and hatred of the poorer locals for their more wealthy neighbours forms a nice undercurrent of destructive jealousy that will really mix your emotions to the hilt as it did mine.
Who do you feel more sympathy towards? The rich or the poor? A crucial life question that still lays unanswered for many humans, but it is a choice that is laid out in front of you here in a film where the kids end up scared out of their wits on a ship with a strange and demented crew and you will certainly feel the fears and weaknesses of everybody on board in a story that WILL make your skin taut and your nerves tingle.
Enjoy the party guys.
If you ever get there……
Review by Nathan Sandiford