In a world where no one speaks, a devout female-led community hunts down a young woman who has escaped imprisonment. Recaptured, Azrael is due to be sacrificed to an ancient evil in the wilderness but fights for her own survival.
If you’re going to make a movie with no dialogue, you better have a badass sound mix. I mean, if you’re going to make a movie, it better have a badass sound mix in general, but ESPECIALLY if you’re going to do this movie thing. It’s always the last step, and it gets the least amount of attention. For people who think I’m griping about nothing, do you remember when we all watched “Tenet” and couldn’t understand a whole mess of words? That’s sound mixing. Have you ever seen a “Transformers” film and wondered how they get the noises for transforming alien robots? That’s sound design. Blockbuster movies command millions of dollars and often skimp on the design and mix of their sound, much to my chagrin. I mean, c’mon! Theaters are equipped for 5.1 surround sound – which means literally the sound surrounds you. It creates a more immersive experience.
Imagine how much more terrifying “Jurassic Park” could be if the raptors’ claws CLICKED on the ground – coming out of the speaker behind you. Sound can be a filmmaker’s best friend, often conjuring entire scenes using purely ADR, foley, and some well-mixed effects (like this scene in “Stranger Things” – starting at 00:58.) It can do a lot of heavy lifting and spare your budget quite a bit. In this way it especially endears itself to horror, the notoriously low-budget horror movie. So often, I find myself disappointed by an unimaginative mix – some bone crunches, a door creak, another monster growl. Enter “Azrael.” This movie boils down its compelling plot and really hones in on some incredibly practical sound. By mastering the most highlighted element of the entire film and combining it with some incredible performing by Samara Weaving, it makes up for the bare outlines of a story we’re left to surmise. I will be singing this movie’s praises for a large part of this year to educate people on what a good sound mix can really do for a film.
“Azrael” follows a world after the rapture. Those left behind (or at least some of them) chose never to speak again and so ruptured their vocal cords in an effort never to sin again. Now, up in what could be the Estonian wilderness, Samara Weaving and her partner stumble into a cult’s territory. She must battle mute vagabond cultists by day and by night. That’s when the monsters come out.
Told in three parts with ominous maybe-Bible quotes, the story itself kind of works like a videogame. Clear objectives drive each section: escape the cultists, liberate her partner, and infiltrate their camp. Obviously, things go a little awry from time to time, but on the whole, it reminded me of small sections from “The Last of Us 2,” throwing bottles to distract the monsters or brawling bloodily in groves of gorgeous pine woods. There really is no dialogue to this thing. We’re left with an inkling of a plot to put together. Its bare essentials approach leans heavily on simple, tangible empathy for Weaving’s character as she rescues her lover. Its thin, but its enough to keep this film going.
For her part, Weaving deserves her spot in the horror canon as this generation’s scream queen. The blood, guts, viscera, punches, stabs, and more feel like an assault on our senses. She grunts, groans, sighs, shrieks, gasps, and glares her way through every bit, and if you’re worried, it’s completely brutal. Rest assured, the movie leavens its harsh violence with tiny bits of beauty and human connection. Through it all, Weaving communicates enough for us to catch on. Across from her is cultist gang leader Rea Lest, whose bravado similarly matches Weaving’s vulnerability. She can play a wide range of emotions despite being our antagonist.
The film itself looks fairly beautiful, perhaps because the Estonian forest they shot it in feels pristine. The garbage and drainage ditches they shot in gussied up just a little for production’s sake add to the overall flavor of this film. Cinematographer Mart Taniel’s vision for this spooky woodland comes through in eerie fall-colored day, but even more so at night. Admittedly, the night scenes felt particularly dark, brooding sure, but sometimes I had to squint, but when they do light them up, there’s a practicality to it that supplies believability but also edges towards more aesthetically interesting choices. I’d never seen a shot of the forest lit up the way it was when a car’s headlights simply drifted along the trees.
But enough about the technicality, you want to know about the monsters. The slow-moving burnt people function pretty much like zombies in their story appeal, but much like “The Last of Us,” people can forget they’re being hunted occasionally, and even a slow-moving zombie can get ahead in the deep wilderness. The creature performances truly unmanned me, and I thought they couldn’t get any more eerie. Then they opened their mouths. That guttural howl/shriek stuck in my brain, and I couldn’t let go of such a vicious monstrosity. The design of these creatures felt fully realized, from makeup down to sound.
Now, here we are at the holy grail of filmmaking for me: Good sound. “Azrael” clearly understands that if you’re not going to let characters talk, then the noises made in the film must carry everything. From how the wind shakes the trees (sending individual pops and clicks throughout different speakers) to how the water flows around stones, every element in this mix felt perfectly tuned for the movie theater. My favorite moment came when they came dollied through a waterfall to focus on our heroine. As the waterfall splashed over the camera, it passed from the front speakers to the side speakers to the back as if we ourselves were splashing under the waterfall. It doesn’t bash you over the head with constant noises, too. Its content is to let an undercurrent of silence play or to let the ambiance linger simply. There’s a score, sure, but the low droning only serves to bridge gaps between sections, and the one song set in the middle of the script doesn’t distract but intensify the scene its based on. Footsteps bounce from the left. Monsters shriek over your shoulder. If you want to know what a good sound experience can be like, close your eyes and tilt your head to one side for a good fifteen seconds. Listen to see where different sounds are coming out of. “Azrael” is a perfect example of this. By treating this element especially carefully, I am waxing poetic about a movie I had never heard of until now.
This movie deserves a wide theatrical release with studio-level marketing. It’s the kind of original horror film with just the right amount of marketable elements and flawless execution that doesn’t have to blow away box office numbers but can safely land itself in the green. Its mix is designed for a theatrical experience, and the darkness of specific frames makes me feel like you have to be in a pitch-black room to enjoy this. If you can, run, don’t walk, to see this in movie theaters. That’s not to say don’t watch it at all if you can’t see it in theaters, but when you wonder why I loved it so much, I will ask how you watched it. So much of the technical nuance is lost on your computer screen or TV. This movie belongs in theaters, and you do, too. Go check it out. “Azrael.” Total banger.
In Select Theaters on Friday, September 27th
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