I looked into this movie and what I saw intrigued me. Music and horror are an interesting combination. The first time I encountered it was in Young Frankenstein when the violin is being played to calm the Monster. (Also there was the dance number to Puttin on the Ritz, but that is a bit different.) I recently watched a movie about two cello players, oddly not called Cello (that is a different horror movie that I want to watch now!) The Perfection though is the one I was referring to, and makes me excited for musically inclined spookiness.

And yet…

I absolutely hated the opening of this. Imagine the typical spooky first person pc game from 1998. We are given the perspective of only seeing our hand awkwardly extended before us. Holding a candle as we walk in a herky jerky manner. Seeing the rooms and scenery that seem poorly rendered. Finding a gas can waiting for us on the coffee table, because in those games the random things you needed were always surprisingly out in the open like that. Stepping outside and dousing ourselves with the gasoline before dramatically taking the candle and dropping it to ignite ourselves… Nevermind that the candle would have gone out as soon as it was dropped.

But that is just the first 2 minutes or so. Rutger Hauer plays the suicidal opener. Getting to the movie proper though. A young talented violinist named Rose is then given the information that her father had died (see the two minute intro for more on him. Or less really. ) The following day she goes to see an attorney where she is given the keys to the massive estate she has now inherited.

While there, she finds sheet music for a Sonata her father was writing. And had completed. His final masterpiece completed before he killed himself. But the sheet music is a mixture of brilliance and madness and mystery. Rose begins trying to decipher the mystery of the music.

This is very much a slow burn sort of horror movie. A mystery about the music that Rose and her mentor Charles try and unravel. IT isn’t really until after about an hour that we begin truly delving into the horror aspects. A few minor moments occur, but there is clearly a defining moment when the tone shifts.

It is interesting that classical music has at times been utilized as a plot point for a horror story. I think it has to do with the amount of devotion needed to become a master of a musical instrument. That dedication is akin to the immersion often seen in religious zealotry. A primal drive that seems to shut out the rest of the world. Great musicians appear to lose themselves in the moment of their music. When a darker religious element invades the world and mind of an individual, they also become lost within it. Drawn deeper into the darkness to a point where they may not return.

Rose’s father wrote his final Sonata specifically for her. But it was infused with a dark mystery that drew her in. Once she began to walk the spiral of the music, she was doomed to discover the darkness her father had laid out for her.

This movie took me on a deeper journey than most horror movies attempt. Slicing open the darkness and baring it out for all to see. And hear.

I’m giving this movie 8 stars. I don’t know that I feel it is an 8 star movie, perhaps lingering around 6.5-7. But this movie is calling to me and demanding that I watch it again. It’s also pushing me to rewatch The Perfection. And to find Cello. The dark world of music is reverberating from the rafters of the church. And I shall close my eyes and listen intently to it.