Review: Slumber


Maggie Q is a doctor specialising in sleep issues, who is still haunted by past trauma in her own sleep, revisiting the night her brother died whilst sleepwalking. She’s currently helping out a troubled family who seem plagued by some kind of sinister force in their dreams. William Hope plays a professional colleague of Q’s, whilst Sylvester McCoy plays an important part in the plot as a deeply disturbed old man with his own sleep issues.



If this 2018 horror pic from writer-director Jonathan Hopkins (a former production assistant making his feature-length directing debut) could’ve stayed on the level of creepiness and quality in its opening scene, we’d have a winner here. Even the credits are genuinely creepy, with unsettling illustrations of demonic figures playing over them. Yikes. Unfortunately, the film never really reaches that level again, aside from a pretty neat little twist in the end.



The main problem here is that every time Hopkins tries to drum up some atmosphere and tension, a few truly dreadful performances keep preventing you from really buying it. Old pro William Hope fares best of the cast and he’s given a pretty stock-standard supporting role. Lead actress Maggie Q is not a good fit in anything outside of the action realm, and former “Dr. Who” Sylvester McCoy appears to be doing a third-rate Donald Pleasance impersonation, chewing the scenery for too many scenes. It’s a bizarre and ultimately completely unhelpful performance. The lesser known cast members are tedious and amateurish, so it’s tough to care. It really fizzles out at the climax before that ending, too.



This film really has something in conception, but amateurish performances and an inability to top its opening scene stop this one from being effective overall. It’s a shame, because there’s a lot of potential in the concept and creepy imagery/atmosphere. If you don’t buy the actors, you won’t buy the characters, and if you don’t buy the characters, how will you buy into their situation? Swing and a miss, I’m afraid.



Rating: C+

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