THE SOUND OF SUMMER (2023)

New on DVD/Blu-ray from Unearthed Films!
Directed/Written by Guy.
Starring Shinya Hankawa, Kaori Hoshinol, Kiyomi Kametanil, Shiori Kawai, Kuromi Kirishima, Keita Kusaka, Yuina Nagai

The dog days of summer seem endless for a young barista, but when she makes fun of an odd man who comes into her coffee shop, she believes her skin is breaking out with bug bites. Though her doctor says it’s all in her head, the young woman begins scratching her body uncontrollably, leading to very gory results. Meanwhile, the odd man, dubbed the Cicada Man, may actually be behind the woman’s psychosis and has devious plans of his own.

THE SOUND OF SUMMER is a strange descent into madness from Japan. I guess I can say I learned a little something here; namely that like everywhere else I’ve lived in the Midwest, Japan seems to have an abundance of cicadas singing their screechy song in the latter days of summer. Nice to know the non-stop annoyance of the cicada or locusts as I called them as a kid, isn’t just a regional thing. I wouldn’t call THE SOUND OF SUMMER one of the most sophisticated of stories. It takes great leaps in logic in order to get to its gory climax and really has very little reasoning beyond the fact that the barista made fun of the wrong eccentric man. The lead, Shinya Hankawa isn’t very fleshed out as a character and the psychosis she experiences isn’t delved into much at all, mainly because the doctor she visits is by far, the worst doctor I’ve ever seen portrayed in film as he seems to not notice that his patient is literally tearing her skin off in clumps. But when she says she is having trouble sleeping, he has no issue doling out some sleeping pills.

But THE SOUND OF SUMMER isn’t a movie bothered by realism, it’s a film for the gore-hounds out there. It’s not about deep meaning, though there might be a little moral messaging going on about making fun of people. It’s about the gore and how realistic it looks. Unearthed Films is a company specializing in this type of film. It’s for those who miss the days of practical effects and how far they can go while still looking pretty real. And in THE SOUND OF SUMMER, the effects sure do look authentic as the barista tears her skin off, probes her orifices and pulls out chunks of flesh that she believes to be cicada particles, and eventually just tears herself apart. A while back, films like CONTRACTED, CONTRANCTED II, and THANATOMORPHOSE were released as a comment about the crisis in health care where people refuse to go to the doctor because they don’t have the money or don’t want to spend the money on whatever ails them. I don’t think THE SOUND OF SUMMER is about all of that though. I think THE SOUND OF SUMMER is much more literal than that, illustrating a specific psychosis and taking it to an extreme end.

Other than that, there’s not much to this over-the-top gory movie. The plot plods along. The acting is not great. The sounds of the cicadas and all of the tearing of flesh is creepy as all get out, but the dialog sound is barely audible. I will say that the director, someone named Guy, captures close up shots of the cicada with a lot of skill and there are some sequences where vines begin growing throughout the barista’s apartment walls that make for some fun DIY special effects. Still, I just can’t give THE SOUND OF SUMMER much of a recommendation as I want more to a movie than realistic and gory effects.
Check out the trailer here!!