I find low-budget movies with interesting premises endearing, as it tells me the filmmakers behind a movie have a clear pᴀssion for the story they’re trying to tell. Despite my misgivings with The Sound, a new sci-fi thriller from writer and director Brendan Devane, the beginning of the film provided a compelling hook. Starting in the mid-1900s, the first scene shows a climber being attacked by a mysterious creature from the shadows, ending with him careening off the face of the natural stone wall. It’s revealed his climb was part of a government operation investigating the “Forbidden Wall.”

The film then cuts to 63 years later, where a present-day climber, Sean (Marc Hills), becomes a top candidate to climb the Forbidden Wall after it’s re-opened to the public. His reason for going is personal: the climber from the opening scene was his grandfather, whose life and death inspired him to become a climber. However, as he and a team become embroiled in the climb, a dangerous myth about the wall comes to life. Unfortunately, while it’s considered a new horror movie for 2025, The Sound fails to deliver on its initial, scary promises.

The Sound’s Story Is Marred By What Feels Like Filler

The Runtime Seems Like It’s Padded By Unnecessary Additions

It’s unfair to say this movie didn’t have me interested within the first half hour, especially because of the way it was building its premise. Experienced climbers are gathered to scale the Forbidden Wall, with an elongated introductory scene offering a general glimpse into their personalities and how they interact with each other. Although their characters don’t develop much past this, their archetypes offer an expectation for how the movie will play out, something I appreciated even if it sometimes telegraphed too much.

However, the sci-fi movie struggles to maintain interest after the climb begins. While the movie informs the audience about the dangers of the Forbidden Wall, there’s much more telling than there is showing. This works to the film’s detriment, as the mysteries on the wall are no longer very mysterious quite early into the film. While the movie attempts to drum up complexity with a storyline related to its тιтle, this doesn’t have the same impact it would have if I’d been left in the dark. Knowing so much so early makes what should be intense moments feel less compelling.

The movie’s pacing doesn’t help either, something that was apparent even early into the film. Before departing, Sean has a conversation with his father, Conner (William Fitchner), about his decision to climb. Their discussion lasts much longer than necessary, with circular dialogue that establishes the same point over and over again. It’s not the only scene that feels like this, with a mulтιтude of conversations that could have been much shorter, especially in the first hour. While performances ranging from decent to good made these scenes flow well, I couldn’t help but feel like my time was being toyed with.

This was especially the case when things inevitably went wrong on the Wall. After some very good cinematography displaying some of the true nature of the terrors set to unfold, the movie only features a few moments where it feels like they’re an actual threat. The horror movie monster has very little presence in the film where it matters most, sometimes even becoming part of the background as more human events unfold. While the story eventually circles back around, it takes so long with so many drawn-out scenes that it’s a trudge just to get to its promised horrors.

As The Sound Progresses, Its Interesting Ideas Become Less Serious

The Story Feels Downright Silly By The Third Act

Some scenes lacing the supernatural horrors together try to emphasize a race-against-time danger for the team. This allows some of the more charming characters a chance to shine, but it’s also a needless complication to the movie’s simple premise. When this particular storyline finally tied back into the main plot on the Wall, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, given the loosely established rules from earlier in the film. It felt tacked onto the premise for little reason other than wanting a cutaway story that wasn’t really needed.

The third act itself leaned too far into the goofier side of things, too, taking what seemed like a serious premise up to that point and adding elements that made very little sense to be there. It felt like the film didn’t know how to properly end without expanding the scope of its conflict at the last minute, doing so in the silliest way possible. The way it did so killed all tension for me, turning what could have been a genuinely interesting horror movie into an unenjoyable slog with very little payoff by the end.

Although The Sound offered a generally interesting initial premise, the more the movie went on, the less I wanted to watch it. Some alright performances helped carry the movie, but its plodding pacing, shoddy storytelling, and lackluster third act were big detriments to my enjoyment of it. There were some elements here that carried interest, but the need to fill time rather than tell a succinct, streamlined story dampened its more intriguing elements.

The Sound arrives in theaters and on VOD on June 27, 2025.