Review: Chasing Sleep


Jeff Daniels’ wife is missing, he can’t sleep (though he seems to have trouble keeping track of the time), the police (led by Gil Bellows) are possibly suspicious of him, and oh yeah...he’s starting to lose his freaking mind. Did I mention the severed finger that just won’t flush down the toilet? Well there’s that, too. Meanwhile, college professor Daniels is also being tempted by one of his lovely students (Emily Bergl) who makes a home visit when he fails to turn up for work. Julian McMahon plays one of his wife’s colleagues, whom she may be having an affair with, whilst Zach Grenier plays a not very helpful police shrink.

 

Written and directed by debutant Mike Walker, this 2000 horror/thriller is one of those films that you feel like you’ve seen a bunch of times before. It’s typical “Twilight Zone” or Stephen King stuff about insomnia, missing persons, holes in the wall, old drain pipes and so forth. Nothing you really need to see again. And that’s a shame, because it features a perfectly fine performance by the generally reliable Jeff Daniels. He’s an interesting actor who generally plays losers and spineless guys, and yet there’s always something innately decent and well-meaning that Daniels tries to bring to the characters. He’s interesting and on edge early here, but without going bug-eyed Nic Cage crazy from the get-go.

 

The mediocre supporting cast featuring TV actors Gil Bellows and Aussie ex-pat Julian McMahon don’t help, nor does the most confusingly lensed sex scene I’ve ever seen. Emily Bergl looks perfectly lovely naked, but it almost feels as if they need to move the camera around and change angles to compensate for how crap she and Daniels are in bed. Which is weird because it’s simulated. Huh? Meanwhile, things really only turn to horror when the weird overgrown baby turns up. Seriously, what the hell is that?

 

It’s a clichéd film with a terrible ending, but Daniels should be commended, he looks seriously frazzled by the end. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s just that it’s been done to death already. Watch “Repulsion” instead, that’s a masterpiece.

 

Rating: C

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more