Having made a name for himself on the strength of his previous shorts “The Rope Maiden” and “Difficulty Breathing,” British-born but Japanese-based exploitation maestro Guy has taken up the mantle laid down from underground filmmaker Shozin Fukui as the new name to watch for extreme experimental horror. Trying his hand at a long-form feature film following those acclaimed shorts, Guy's first film “The Sound of Summer” is now available to the masses from Unearthed Films.
Follow us on YouTube by clicking on the image below
In the relentless heat of the grueling summer, temperatures soar to blistering levels as cicadas emerge to sing their ear-shattering song. Months of continued exposure is enough to make anyone start to feel a little off. Anyone, that is, except that oddity the locals call ‘The Cicada Man'. Who is that strange man (Shinya Hakawa) and why is he always walking around with boxes full of live cicadas? More importantly, what does he do with them? As the heat starts to get to our heroine (Kaori Hoshina) and her sanity depletes, real life and delusion begin to mix. Her darkest nightmares seep into our world and she fears the Cicada Man has planted his swarm of insects inside her. She must get them out – at all costs. Thus begins her downward spiral into extreme paranoia and self-mutilation. She just needs to make it through the summer.
Overall, “The Sound of Summer” was a rather solid extreme exploitation effort. One of the more likable aspects of this one is the creepy setup from writer/director Guy that lets everything play out in a fantastic playground. As so much of the first half relies on the protagonist trying to get through life while dealing with several intriguing issues surrounding it all, the psychological breakdown that occurs feels earned and logical. From the endless conversations with her friend about how the heat is getting to her, the normal stress of her job and everyday life, we get a clear idea of what the protagonist's going through, which all puts her quite close to the edge. This lowered sense of sanity and reality is pushed by The Cicada Man's arrival since her slipping sanity also coincides with her hate having a physical manifestation.
The end result of this building ground is a fine series of brutal and excessively graphic sequences courtesy of effects artist Susumu Nakatani. Slowly starting with the idea that the insects are crawling over her, the protagonist begins clawing and scratching at her arms, shoulders, and back which produces unsightly marks due to the intensity and severity displayed. The further it goes along, the protagonist switches tactics to forcefully remove what she believes to be insect parts inside of her. This requires even more gnarly sequences of prying open her skin to have access to the bugs inside her. This is capped off with the final confrontation that takes place between the protagonist and The Cicada Man in his apartment, bringing about a grisly transformation and rather effective work on the constant wounds and sores that emerge as a result of the battle that takes place.
There are some drawbacks that hold it down. Its few issues are mainly centered on a bizarre narrative ploy that leaves a lot of this somewhat confusing. Introducing a backstory for who The Cicada Man is and his connection to the protagonist through a shared past is a fine touch, but this brings about an unnecessary mudding of the story. We've seen her slicing herself up and going crazy psychologically due to no one else believing her story, yet this setup implies he's been controlling everything from the start to torment the protagonist with genuine bugs that were really there. Attempting to explain everything as being in her head only to then say the bugs were genuinely there is a missed opportunity by not being clear about what's happening. As well, there's also the somewhat overlong battle that takes quite a while to play out taking the fight through several exaggerated sequences.
Featuring plenty of likable elements and bringing up some gruesome body-horror elements to cap it all off, “The Sound of Summer” is a wholly enjoyable movie that doesn't get much wrong. Those that appreciate this type of psychological approach to the genre, enjoy extreme horror in general, or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here.
