Released to the Shudder platform on March 31st, 2023, The Unheard follows a young woman called Chloe who heads back home after an experimental procedure. Chloe was right when she contracted meningitis leaving her completely deaf. To rub salt into her devastation her mother went missing while she lay in hospital in a coma. When she finally awoke her life was completely upside down.
The dynamic duo writer team behind films like Crawl and The Ward, Michael, and Shawn Rasmussen splice the narrative into select pieces. Just enough so that you never really know which way the story will lead.
The film opens with Chloe at the doctor mid clinical trial. There is a brief scientific explanation about how an operation could very well see the return of her hearing. Like some sort of magic, an overnight visit with a scalpel will make her one of the hearing again. After the disappearance of her mother her father was never the same so after many years the two decide it’s finally time to sell the house. Chloe is optimistic and plans to spend her recovery back at her childhood home getting it ready.
The Unheard Is On Shudder
For the first quarter of The Unheard, the sound design moves back and forth between the hearing world and Chloe’s silent one. Like an episode of Snoopy, voices are warped and gloopy.
She communicates with a program kept on her phone that translates voice to text. The audience is given tiny glimpses of a small town with a dark past. Missing women, including her mother, have vanished without a trace.
Chloe is plagued by voices in her head both before and after her procedure. The decision to make when watching The Unheard is whether you believe the film is taking a supernatural angle or whether her doctor is right. Her doctor thinks auditory hallucinations are made up of the memories of sound. These sounds are known to plague many in the deaf community. A common side effect of those who were born with hearing and had it ripped from them later in life.
Director of 2019’s The Beach House Jeffrey A. Brown brings his A-Game here. In The Unheard, everything is steeped in skepticism and lined with events that are actually happening.
Chloe’s paranoia while alone in the house is soon overtaken by a growing fear that somebody is watching her. She begins sleeping with a knife beside her bed. In a scene to follow, another woman is shown to be brutally murdered. Are any of these things connected? The news that a member of the community has vanished into thin air once again just makes the small town suddenly feel smaller.
Between the writers creating this concoction of mystery and giving the impression that everyone could be a suspect, the tension is nicely built into a riveting watch.
Chucky Series Star Lachlan Watson
By the last act, questions are answered. A mixture of all of the elements built up for The Unheard is splayed out like bodies on a floor. This ending feels deliberately sudden and The Unheard’s final act will be the most divisive part for some. Overall, you can’t be disappointed, it’s a great film with plenty to offer most audiences. The title reminded me a little of if “Come True” and “I See You” had a Baby.
Lead actress Lachlan Watson who plays Chloe is brilliantly cast in her role and was a joy to watch unravel while her character remained one step ahead of what was happening on screen. The title is overtly sinister with the way it handles Chloe’s hearing being restored. A pleasant uncertainty in the is she unhinged or is there something supernatural at play
The Unheard is rated
4 twisted ghost stories out of 5
Follow this link to JustWatch.com for where to watch The Unheard 2023. It’s streaming in most countries on Shudder and AMC+.
