Final Rating: 2/5
The Peril at Pincer Point, playing at Fantasia Festival, is a low-budget absurdist throwback to mid-century monster movies and folk horror. The film features inventive sound design, a great score, and a captivating monochrome visual style reminiscent of Ed Wood or Guy Maddin. Peril is a promising debut from directors Jake Kuhn and Noah Stratton-Twine, despite some uneven pacing and lackluster performances.
In Peril, sound designer Jim Baitte (Jack Redmayne) is sent to a remote British island to record a sound “unlike anything that’s ever been heard in a film before.” Failing that, he should at least get a voiceover from a girl the director met there with a nice voice.
Baitte is charismatic, overconfident, and a bit oblivious to his surroundings. As a Londoner in “the (film) industry,” he’s out of place among the folksy islanders, all of whom work in “the (crabbing) industry.” He’s also great at his job and knows it: anytime he sends in a recording, the scene is immediately followed by one of Baitte receiving heaps of praise from his boss and coworkers.
That said, when his coworkers are relaying how amazed his boss is by his work, it’s in reference to sounds of waves, seagulls, the sky, rocks. Surely there are good and bad recordings of each, but nothing that poses any risk to Baitte.
And yet Baitte’s confidence inflates so much that he’s soon hunting ghosts and attempting to sell his soul to get unique sounds. For so long, Baitte feels like a man stumbling into success, only suddenly being challenged as the film nears its end.
While Peril features several fun side characters who appear for one-off jokes, the more prominent members of the supporting cast can’t match Redmayne’s presence. The film’s dialogues are fine, but often less interesting than Baitte simply walking around minding his own business. As a result, much of the story of the island feels significantly less compelling than it should.
At a technical level, Peril is a real treat. The film is shot in full black and white Academy ratio – a once-standard aspect ratio that’s now largely out of use. Many of the backgrounds for larger scenes look like matte paintings, evoking adventure films of the 30s and 40s.
As a movie about a sound designer, Peril features plenty of shots of Baitte performing innocuous little actions and making fun sounds. It’s enormously satisfying to see him rack his brain trying to come up with a way to acquire enough crabs to record them scuttling away. It’s just as satisfying to see Baitte drop a rock and hear the resulting plop.
Peril is relatively short and filled with solid shots and sounds. That said, the inconsistent quality in performances and unexciting story prevent the film from fully coming together.
The Peril at Pincer Point was seen during the 2026 Fantasia Festival. Thank you to the festival for the screener.
