RG
Roberto Giacomelli
•Larry Pearce works as a switchboard operator, has a beautiful house in a residential neighborhood and a hearing beyond the ordinary. But Larry's life is deeply sad because he lost his son due to a heart disease; specifically, Larry feels partly responsible for the child's death because he failed to use his "gift" by hearing the abnormal heartbeat of his son in time. Little by little, Larry's exceptional hearing begins to become a burden for the man who can no longer control his ability, now unbearable.
"Masters of Horror" is a unique project born from the mind of Mick Garris, a director known in the horror field especially for the adaptations of Stephen King's novels. Garris thought of bringing together the most representative horror film directors in a project destined for cable TV Showtime and home video, the result is "Masters of Horror", a series of 13 half-hour films of 60 minutes each, each directed by a great name in genre cinema; each episode has a budget of 1.8 million dollars, the location set in the Canadian city of Vancouver and total creative freedom was granted to each director. The names involved in the second season of this project are: Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento, Stuart Gordon, Joe Dante, John Carpenter, John Landis, Ernest Dickerson, Brand Anderson, Tom Holland, Peter Medak, Rob Schmidt, Norio Tsuruta and Mick Garris himself.
In the fourth episode, the second season of "Masters of Horror" falters.
To tell us about a man's obsession with the loss of his son, Bard Anderson, the acclaimed director of the excellent thrillers "Session 9" and "The Man Without Sleep" is called to direct.
Anderson seemed the right man to narrate through images the obsession, paranoia, and pain, and yet "Rumori e tenebre" is not convincing at all, starting with the screenplay signed by the director himself and adapted from a story by Mike O'Driscoll. A weak story, capable of deeply boring despite the short duration (the usual 55 minutes) and lacking a real bite.
"Rumori e tenebre" does not give the possibility to understand where its main flaw lies; in fact, it is not clear whether the film struggles to start or if it starts so fast that it fires all its shots immediately. Larry's power is unmotivated, a man who places himself halfway between an X-Man and Lee Majors of "The Six Million Dollar Man"; he possesses this super hearing that he can use to his advantage but which at the same time is a serious condemnation. Given the lack of logic
in his property, the viewer is led to think according to the language of metaphor, surely in line with Anderson's canons. The emphasis on "hearing" connected to the amplification of the protagonist's madness. However, the metaphorical discourse still seems ragged and unrefined, making one think that perhaps this was not even the author's true goal, since this "power" concretely represents an attante element within the narration: the noise really bothers Larry, his hearing really could have saved the child, etc. Moreover, as I said, the story suffers greatly from the lack of a real trigger, which is difficult to place in a position prior to the narration or otherwise it would suffer from concerning lateness.
The television actor Chris Bauer does very well in the role of the tormented protagonist and is certainly one of the best choices of the entire project, although it must be said that the writing of his character remains annoyingly rarefied, like everything else.
Very telegraphed ending dedicated to grand guignol.
We prefer to remember Anderson for his beautiful cinematic achievements and here the perplexity of those who considered his annexation to "Masters of Horror" reckless is clearly confirmed; after all, his thrillers have much more human drama than horror tout court.