If you were to experience true bliss, if you could see heaven- what would you be willing to do to replicate the experience? Ten-year-old Alexis regains her hearing during the brutal murder of her family. Not only is her hearing recovered, but she experiences the sounds visually in gorgeous psychedelic color. The phenomenon is addicting and Alexis spends her life chasing that dragon, so to speak, through her studies in sound and the conducting of violent experiments. Collecting sounds of violence in the hopes of replicating the phenomenon and retaining her hearing, Alexis is willing to go to any length and sacrifice anything in pursuit of her gruesome endeavors. A Marquis De Sade for the digital age.

Sound Of Violence is such a fresh, cool concept and it truly delivers. This movie also has one of my favorite kill scenes in recent memory. Without spoiling it, Alexis is something of a genius, able to create intricate devices and contraptions for use in her sound experiments. One scene in particular centers on a choreographed gorefest that is so wholly original, and true to the movie’s title- the sound is what makes it so highly effective. Alexis is a maestro of violence, completely in the zone, creating through destruction with absolutely unhinged pleasure.

Through these various sound experiments, Alexis gathers these violent clips and incorporates them into experimental music tracks. Thus making the music a very important part of this movie. “What would that possibly sound like?” We get to hear explicitly what that would be, and it would have been easy to cop out on this part, but luckily Alex Noyer opted to take it all the way, fleshing it out and truly brings us into Alexis’ world.

Written and directed by Alex Noyer, starring Jasmin Savoy Brown (Scream 2022), Lili Simmons (Bone Tomahawk), James Jagger (Vinyl) and Tessa Munro (S.W.A.T.)

Sound of Violence makes its world premiere @ SXSW March 18th
Also available in theaters and on demand May 21st.