Movie Review: THE SOUND

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: June 27th, 2025 / 04:43 PM

THE SOUND movie poster | ©2025 Blue Harbor Entertainment

Rating: R
Stars: Marc Hills, Nicholas Baroudi, Rachel Finninger, Jolene Kay, Gabe Greenspan, Christina Kirkman, Michael Chen, Christian Howard, Elise Greene, Wayne Charles Baker, William Fichtner, Scott Bennett, Adrian Ballinger, Jocelyn Hudon, David Clennon, Kyle Gass
Writer: Brendan Devane
Director: Brendan Devane
Distributor: Blue Harbor Entertainment
Release Date: June 27, 2025 (theatrical, VOD)

It doesn’t take long for one aspect of THE SOUND to become plain: writer/director Brendan Devane really loves climbing. It’s evident in his impressive framing of shots of characters going up and down tall, sheer rock faces, in their war stories, and in the way they don’t feel the need to explain their passion to one another.

This gives THE SOUND a unique setting and dynamic. (In a switch from Canada pretending to be the U.S., here we have Nevada standing in for Canadian British Columbia.)

The plot outline is relatively familiar. While it is never stated outright, it seems that a malevolent extraterrestrial force has been trapped for centuries on a high mountaintop.

The Native American tribe in the area used their powers to keep the entity from descending, but the spell has been fading for some time. A U.S. government expedition up the mountain in 1959 ended with the deaths of all the climbers involved.

In the present day, Sean (Marc Hills), the grandson of one of the climbers, dreams of conquering the peak, unaware of its specific dangers. However, after keeping the region off-limits since the 1959 disaster, the tribe has finally agreed to allow a new expedition to attempt the ascent.

Sean finds himself on the backup team. Leader Colton (Nicholas Baroudi) is one of the three pairs tackling the summit from different angles, so Sean understands that he may not get the chance to climb at all.

But while Sean is still earthbound, he is approached by Chief Guyustees (Wayne Charles Baker), who tells the young man all about the evil presence, the tribe’s efforts to contain it, and the need for someone to go up there and prevent the thing from escaping.

While this is quite the lapful of exposition, at least it is not repeated throughout – every time Sean is about to relay the information to someone else, or that person is going to pass it along, THE SOUND cuts away.

There is something at once refreshing and absurd in how quickly most of the characters accept this mythology. It’s a huge time-saver, and by the time they hear it, many of the team have been through some weird experiences; on the other hand, it gets to be a somewhat humorous convention.

The cast is good and physically adept. William Fichtner makes a strong, endearing impression as Sean’s understandably worried father, and THE THING veteran David Clennon has a small role as the expedition’s organizer.

Devane gets some thrilling images of climbing, and there is at least one sequence of someone moving unnaturally across the rock face that is truly eerie.

But there are a few matters that THE SOUND can’t overcome. One big one is that the further we get, the less discernible it is how the “evil” operates or what Sean is meant to do to combat it – the advice he gets doesn’t seem to have much bearing on his actions.

There’s an unanswered question as to why the tribe doesn’t just train some mountain climbers of their own, instead of waiting for outsiders.

Finally, we get to visual effects and the title element. THE SOUND looks as though it was made on a tight budget. It also looks like great care and expense went into the excellent cinematography by Ryan Galvan and the safety of everyone on the rock faces. It makes sense that these were the priorities.

Even taking this into consideration, though, the effects depicting the mountain’s infestation are substandard. The sound itself, while certainly alarming coming over the communications radio, won’t be very frightening to anybody who has listened to THE EXORCIST.

THE SOUND is a combination of uncommon virtues and standard missteps. Potential viewers may gauge whether they want to see this based on the level of their enthusiasm for mountaineering with their horror.

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