[NOW ON SHUDDER]: ‘THE UNHEARD’ PLAYS WITH REALITY

I have often thought about what it might be like to correct my disability. I’ve even written about it in the past. If the opportunity arose, would I be willing and take it, or would it be too overwhelming a change? Would I lose a part of me I would never have had without my experience as I have lived it thus far? No two experiences among disabled people are ever the same, and there is no one right answer to that particular will-they-won’t-they. In fact, it often gets more muddled than even the most dedicated planner could imagine.

Disability occupies an odd space in horror. In most cases it is either being used as a cue to distinguish a villain from a hero, to signify an outcast doomed either to die early or almost make it to the end, or to be eradicated entirely from a character. The last of these, if played right, is not always necessarily a Bad Thing, particularly if dealt with in the hands of a character who was formerly able-bodied and seeking a return from their foreign state to one that is more comfortable and well known to them. The trick is, in true and constant monkey’s paw fashion, return to normalcy comes at a price.

Written by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen and directed by Jeffrey A. Brown, Shudder’s latest release, THE UNHEARD, explores the dark and unexpected price of an experimental medical procedure gone too right, just this side of the veil. Chloe Grayden (Lachlan Watson, CHUCKY SEASON 2, THE CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA) lost her hearing to meningitis at eight years old. She woke from its resultant coma into a world muffled by silence and absence alike—in addition to her hearing loss, her mother had gone missing. Twelve years later, when she learns of an experimental procedure designed to restore her hearing as completely as possible, she jumps at the opportunity to reenter the audible world she misses so much. As she heals, Chloe begins to experience auditory hallucinations that quickly turn to threatening territory. As she fights to get them to stop, she will uncover secrets around the truth of her still-missing mother’s fate.

The proposed premise is strong enough, and anything that bends the worlds of medical horror and reality manipulation into one big nightmare is enough to get at least one watch from me, but the results are, ultimately, a mixed bag. Lachlan Watson’s strength in the lead performance does much to lift and push the story forward and deeper, even when the ideas we’re given to grapple with don’t fully play out. When the procedure presents as a success, we are brought along in the wave of her joy in two of the film’s most poignant scenes. The technical elements behind the sound design, led by Colin Alexander, are necessarily and almost too well done. The soundscape is immersive from the start—almost painfully so as Chloe’s hallucinations become more aggressive and intense. The tool of using her slowly degrading home videos as a portal into her mind and memories has strong, though confusingly fleshed potential. We’re tied to her in a way that fights to save the movie from itself.

When the atmosphere works, it works wonders, but there are elements of THE UNHEARD that feel like they actively work against the film. The just-over-2-hour runtime would fly if not for some pacing issues resultant from one or two too many ideas not fully realized. Toward the middle of the film we begin to feel it slow down, and the climactic reveal consequently loses some of its impact. There is a reliance on visually glitching media to fuel the scares—particularly relating to the videotapes and the film’s climax—that become almost too disorienting. There is a flash warning at the film’s opening, giving all photosensitive viewers a moment of pause, but the intensity of it when it is heavily used is near enough to take you out of the film altogether. It’s almost as if, in giving Chloe the opportunity to regain her lost sense, it seeks to rob us of one of our own in a kind of sinister switch.

While it eventually slows and feels more confused than terrifying, I do think THE UNHEARD’s approach is a creative one. It is trying for originality even when its pieces don’t quite fit. Lachlan Watson’s standout performance is the greatest muscle the film has to flex, and enough reason for me to comfortably recommend giving THE UNHEARD a shot on your next cold, dark night. Just be prepared to feel unmoored by plot elements and visuals alike.

 

THE UNHEARD is now on Shudder from Untapped.

 

 

 

 

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Katelyn Nelson
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