Film Review: Sound of Falling (2025): Mascha Schilinski’s German Tale of Terror is the Most Frightening (and Frustrating) Movie of the Year

Sound of Falling Review

Sound of Falling (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by Mascha Schilinski, written by Louise Peter and Mascha Schilinski and starring Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Susanne Wuest, Luise Heyer, Laeni Geiseler, Lea Drinda, Bärbel Schwarz, Lucas Prisor, Konstantin Lindhorst, Filip Schnack and Luzia Oppermann.

Filmmaker Mascha Schilinski’s long (approximately 2 1/2 hours) horror film, Sound of Falling, is a German movie that’s absolutely harrowing with a capital ‘H’ and it creates unnerving creepiness through its very existence. This film’s ghastly images portray over 100 years worth of characters who inhabit a farm, but the film is closer in vein to something far more frightening than a story of what’s “become” of some dead people over the years. It’s frustrating to watch, at times, because it’s not told chronologically which could be a deal-breaker for some more mainstream viewers. Still, this is very intense material that is portrayed bravely.

In The Sixth Sense, Haley Joel Osment’s character saw dead people. In Sound of Falling, we do, too, thanks to a non-linear approach to storytelling that will not be everybody’s cup of tea. Consider the little girl, Alma (Hanna Heckt), to be the Haley Joel Osment of Sound of Falling as poor Alma sees so many disturbing images, she may even be witnessing her deceased former self. Sound of Falling is way more abstract than the way I’m describing it, but some things are derived from the images on-screen that will get under the viewer’s skin and could stay there permanently.

While watching this new non-linear fright fest, one can be immersed in the 1910’s (around the time of World War I), the 1940’s, the 1980’s and the 2020’s, sometimes within consecutive minutes of the movie. Sound of Falling sugarcoats nothing. Kids wickedly place a nail in one of the house’s worker’s shoes. A young girl imitates an amputated man by walking as if she has one leg and one poor little girl is left in a tree all by herself as she yells for help and her peers ignore her cries for help. If ever you needed a movie more horrific than this one, it would be unlikely to be found anywhere. Watch for a scene where a young woman’s eyes are sewn open for a reason that is absolutely frightening in its excesses.

In a 1980’s segment, a girl, Angelika (an amazingly complex Lena Urzendowsky in a strongly rendered performance) is photographed with her family with one of those Polaroid-type cameras and doesn’t appear in a normal way within the photo, begging the question of why. Why does she come out blurred? Keep this fact in mind when watching the 1980’s scenes because this particular plot development may make more sense knowing this scenario before it arrives to determine the official “why” behind it. I’m already planning a re-watch of the film.

In the 2020’s, we center on Lenka (Laeni Geiseler) who often imitates others and the story parallels her life to her sister, Nelly (Zoë Baier)’s. You won’t know much about the reasoning behind all the psychology of it, but apparently strawberry ice cream is more popular than vanilla nowadays as a scenario within this picture proves. Those 1940’s sequences, particularly, are the most ambiguous, but it’s clear with the focus on the character, Erika (the terrific Lea Drinda), that history seems to repeat itself in obscure ways that lead to a quite creepy resolve.

There are those 1910 scenes which rise Sound of Falling to another, more profound, level of terror. I’ll leave it to you to see what becomes of the poor maid Trudi (a well-cast Luzia Oppermann). Most of the men are horrific or appalling to watch whether they’re being sincere in the story line or not. Rising above the over-the-top nature of some of this grotesque material is a masterful turn by Hanna Heckt as the unfortunate young (living) soul, Alma. One can see the sadness in her character’s eyes and Heckt has a strong grasp of this character (or these characters if you count her other incarnation). Heckt will make you feel for her tragic circumstances as the movie goes so far into the depths of hell on earth that some of the images will shake the viewer to the core and wonder what’s become of Alma and her family in this life, the previous one or the next one.

Sound of Falling isn’t going to be able to be interpreted on a clear, objective level by most. That’s because the ghosts and apparitions make the material jump far into supernatural territory. Some of the scenes that aren’t supernatural hit harder than the ones that are, though, and that makes the director deserve a lot of credit for bringing such a brave and daring story to the screen. There are also sound effects employed here which are among the most terrifying ones ever showcased in a movie before and speak volumes as to telling the viewer what is happening on and off-screen.

Jane Campion fans take note, but remember that Schilinski’s Sound of Falling is a purely horrific story told in a sophisticated and, perhaps groundbreaking, way. Campion’s films could certainly have helped inspire it, but Sound of Falling stands on its own merits as a spooky tale of the ghosts that haunt a particular home and the people living in it throughout the time span of roughly one century. It’s a thoughtful (although frustrating) tale of terror, but still a tale of terror nevertheless. An unforgettable one at that.

Rating: 7/10

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