This horror/thriller film is co-directed by Steven Craig (Running with Fear), and Brian Farmer (Blue Call). It examines the idea of sleep paralysis, otherwise known as waking nightmares, which may cause hypnopompic hallucinations. I would like to make a clarification before you readers walk off like sleepwalkers. In this story, the main character is a somnambulist, which is not synonymous with the notion of stepping out in a waking nightmare.
For you to better understand to the concept of sleep paralysis, let me define it as not being able to move while you are asleep.
Cheyne (2003) refers to the phenomenon of dreadfully vivid hallucinations that accompany terrifying sleep paralysis and are unable to move while still being horrifically aware of your surroundings. This content is a waking nightmare (w-nightmare) REM phenomenon, hence the reason for the term “nightmare.” Some hallucinations regarding a waking nightmare consist of three factors namely, the notion of intruders, physical abuse, and auditory bodily feelings.
Reading about sleep paralysis is slightly more interesting than watching Waking Nightmare. When the end credits concluded, I found myself wondering if I received a test screening version of this film that was hacked together from the directors’ film school capstone project.
The version I viewed seems like a movie released in 2010 because of its production aesthetics, but as I already mentioned, its prominent cast definitely messed with my head Shelley Regner (Pitch Perfect), Stephen Wu (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), alien Yan Birch (The People Under The Stairs), Monique from Better Off Dead Diane Franklin, and American Werewolf David Naughton as well as other notable 80s icons. Not to forget the one from The Lost Boys, Jamison Newlander, who played the other frog brother.
The singles are weird because the plot seems to only be missing a voice-over narration by Anthony Bourdain accompanied by new footage of Ukraine courtesy of whatever NGO is sponsoring his trips. The whole vibe is just ‘off’. There is also the questionable addition of Yan Birch jerking off to vintage cartoons at the same time as these bizarre animated segments play on his television.
The sleepwalking-murder-machine Jordan is played by Shelley Regner while Diane Franklin portrays the mother with constant paranoia who’s also non-French. The father, who loves bagels and drinks beer indifferently becomes Jamison Newlander, the other frog brother from Lost Boys.
Regner suffers severe PTSD nightmares from the suicide of her friend Jamie. This trauma causes sleepwalking and the uncontrollable urge to stab strangers in their sleep. (Still not 100% sure if Jamie is her friend or her sister (them).
During the first twenty minutes, the scenes feel a bit too real not in an enjoyable way, but in a rather mundane one, as if you are watching the lives of ordinary middle-aged parents commonly dealing with their sleepwalking daughter. Awkward encounters with Jordan’s friends that contribute nothing to the plot of the film are excessively included, and every time they show up, they disregard the only captivating part of this film the young woman viciously killing people in her sleep!
A lot of the emotional action is also snooze inducing, and it is difficult to discern whether it is because of the childish dialogue in the mundane scenes that add nothing to the plot, or if it is due to the contrived smiles and crude, simian mockery of a human expression in place of acting. Even visiting David “Dr. Pepper” Naughton comes across as a mundane, boring visit to the doctor.
The tagline for Waking Nightmare is, How far would you go for the ones you love? In a nutshell, the core of this idea is [SPOILER ALERT] a gruesome story of a mother and father trying to save their sleepwalking daughter from being charged with murder. The “twist,” and I use that term loosely, is that Jordan’s mother (Diane Franklin) and father (Frog Brother #2) are the ones who have been murdering people in attempts to cover up their daughter’s murders, by murdering police officers and other witnesses. This little tidbit of the story does not get revealed until approximately 50 minutes into the movie.
The highlight of the film is Diane Franklin’s great and gory performance of a woman trying to escape while she is being chased by a murder detective who is doing his utmost best to box her in. If anything, this is the best part of Waking Nightmare. These types of murder scenes should have been the bulk of the movie, instead of friends awkwardly smiling at each other, or going for hikes interspersed with the mother and father murdering everyone who so much as come close to their sleepwalking daughter.
Between The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921) and Waking Nightmare (2023), the first somnambulism cult horror film, I found both of them painfully uninteresting. For this assignment, I had to prepare a report on both films. The fascinating part of it is that I had to analyze The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari during my freshman English class (rather dull), and now I’m preparing a review for Waking Nightmare as a part of my freshman blog writing class (not a real class, but still, rather dull). Anything changed? How much time has flown by? Have I been wandering this globe aimlessly all this while in a quasi-state? What’s with the blood all over my hands?
If only all this work were actually restful so I could sit back and get some deep sleep sleep perhaps a dream I should track down the mysterious Dutchman I encountered years back at Catskill Mountains, and drink his liquor. This is the route I can take that would allow me to drift off into a 20-year slumber, and allow me to sleepwalk into a time period where all we do is watch somnambulist movies in a state of trance while forgetting the fact that we ever had to critique them. OR I’ll just go to bed and put Waking Nightmare on. That should help me drift off right away.
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