After a young deaf woman undergoes experimental treatment to regain her hearing, she fears she is not alone while recovering at her family’s beach home – all while uncovering family secrets and experiencing psychological strife and auditory hallucinations.
Lachlan Watson in The Unheard. Photo Credit: Steven Branda/Shudder
A creeping, spiralling descent into apparent psychosis, The Unheard is a slow-burn horror that leaves the viewer with more questions than it answers for the majority of the film’s runtime.
Lachlan Watson and Brendan Meyer in The Unheard. Photo Credit: Steven Branda/Shudder
The Unheard follows Chloe (Lachlan Watson) as she struggles to slowly regain her hearing after a slew of tragic events in her past that left her both physically and emotionally impaired. Watson does a wonderful job bringing Chloe to life, giving us a masterful performance of a troubled young woman dealing with layers of emotional trauma while trying to reintegrate herself into society as a whole.
Lachlan Watson and Nick Sandow in The Unheard. Photo Credit: Steven Branda/Shudder
The film kind of floats between genres, being a little this and a little that without pigeonholing itself. This is a double-edged sword though as viewers will definitely have to curtail expectations when it comes to suspense, horror, and the paranormal. Being a bit of everything means that The Unheard never really does more than dip its toes into any of the aforementioned.
Lachlan Watson in The Unheard. Photo Credit: Steven Branda/Shudder
With a nearly two-hour runtime, the film only really picks up its pace in the last thirty minutes of the final act. All of the odd happenings coalesce into a semi-coherent mystery-solved moment that brings the film’s antagonistic characters together in a tangled web of hallucinogenic VHS footage that may or may not be a fever dream. To call the story itself chaotic would not be an understatement.
Lachlan Watson in The Unheard. Photo Credit: Steven Branda/Shudder
While the plot may ebb and flow from fanciful to fallible, one cannot deny that the film’s larger elements hold strong. The acting was great, as were the editing and the general production value. It’s a well-produced, well-structured piece of cinema but it takes a long time to tell its tale. A little too long.
Brendan Meyer in The Unheard. Photo Credit: Steven Branda/Shudder
Thanks for reading and as always, stay sordid. The Unheard premieres on Friday, the 31st of March only on Shudder. The trailer and poster art are below.
