Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about, never recovering. It even gets the worst out of Cary Elwes, an actor who to me is generally watchable. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting. Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. Especially the best friend who is just as annoying as that squeaking door mentioned previously. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Unfortunately, it is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. There is next to nothing to recommend and it is a sleeper. 'Don't Sleep' is terrible, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small.
It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws are here present in those films, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with.
That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.
'Don't Sleep' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an slightly intriguing but very derivative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. Then the movie ends, with its end credits overlaid with some incredibly awful romance pop songs after the movie spent about 95% of its run time being the exact opposite of a romantic movie. That story suddenly comes back as it's revealed the main character guy was that fisherman crusader, and his girlfriend was the wife who got raped, and apparently she got raped by some manner of demon thing that turned her immortal, and she spent the next millennium either waiting for him to be reborn, or trying to find him after he wandered off or something. At some point early in the movie, completely out of nowhere, they bring up a story about a fisherman who went on Crusade in medieval times, and when he came back, his wife killed herself because she was raped repeatedly. None of this makes any sense, and by the time we reach the end, they throw in a wacky, screwball-esque twist. He's just running around screaming and cursing at nobody and nothing while overly dramatic music tries to tie this to the demon kid who beats people up, or maybe he's being re-haunted by the demon, or maybe he is the demon kid. He then also starts arbitrarily harassing his girlfriend and acting needlessly paranoid about. Then a whole lot of basically nothing happens, and the main character guy has an irrational freakout at his old doctor on learning that he still contacts his mother to discuss him and his case. Then the main character guy gets beat up by the demon kid. He beats up an old man so badly the old man starts freaking out and jibbering incoherently, then commits suicide while angrily defying the demon kid who watches him. Except he's a complete and utter asshole and douchebag, which this seems to be unrelated to his demon problems.ĭrifting drearily along this boring slog, a random demon kid in a hoodie appears and. The main character guy whose name I completely forgot it was so forgettable was apparently demon possessed or something as a child, and had to rely on extreme therapy from a doctor guy and now he's a supposedly well adjusted adult. You see everything coming, and they kill the dog, so that's an immediate strike against this film. It doesn't even try to be original for much of its run time, relying on every Smalltown, USA hot young couple moving to a new house horror movie cliché so blatantly that every single jump scare is laughable. Of all the wacky ideas put forth by this movie, its greatest flaw is that it is insufferably boring.