EDITOR’S NOTE: Cinematic Void will be playing this film on January 20 at 7:00 PM MT at Sie FilmCenter in Denver, CO. You can get tickets here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

Between the giallo elements of this movie and the Jess Franco-indebted The Duke of Burgundy, Peter Strickland seems like someone who has watched the same movies as me. I just sit around and watch a hundred gialli in a month while he actually makes movies like this, Flux Gourmet and In Fabric.

British sound engineer Gilderoy (Toby Jones) has come to work at Italy’s Berberian film studio to work on a movie about horses. He didn’t realize that it was a giallo, The Equestrian Vortex — ah, the waves of Argento-style animal-themed movie titles — and how deep he would get into it, making disgusting noises on a Foley stage for the film’s murder set pieces. Director Santini (Antonio Mancino) has made a film about an aroused goblin — Goblin? — beneath a girl’s riding school that sounds more Suspiria than Deep Red. Yet the real terror comes from the sounds created by Gilderoy and the two actresses he’s working with, Silvia (Fatma Mohamed) and Claudia (Eugenia Caruso).

Strickland was inspired by the fact that Bruno Maderna could work with John Cage and score Death Laid an Egg, which he saw as a juxtaposition between high art and violent trash.

The sound artist loses all touch with reality, as Santini won’t admit that he made a horror movie while he also assaults Silvia, who destroys the audio they’ve made, meaning that Elisa (Tonia Sotiropoulou) is hired and is more abused by sound as the story continues. Like Blow Out, he needs the perfect scream but how far will he go to get it? And is he losing touch with his mother and real life at home?

Speaking of Gilderoy’s mother, that’s Suzy Kendall, who to many Americans was the first giallo queen with her appearance in The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. This was her first movie in 35 years.

I loved this movie while others may find it obtuse. It’s similar to The Editor but instead of tributes to the greatest moments of the giallo, this looks for the horror within making art.