Sleepwalkers

Starring: Brian Krause, Madchen Amick, Alice Krige, Jim Haynie, Cindy Pickett, Ron Perlman, John Landis (cameo), Joe Dante (cameo), Stephen King (cameo), Clive Barker (cameo), Tobe Hooper (cameo), Mark Hamill (uncredited)
Directed by: Mick Garris
Rating: R
Genre: Horror
1992
Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A mother (Alice Krige) and son (Brian Krause) supernatural beings stalk a young virgin (Madchen Amick) with plans to steal her lifeforce so they might live.

Review:

Tim: There are some worthwhile ideas in Sleepwalkers, but the execution of this supernatural horror movie is severely lacking. It's certainly not without the occasional bright spot, but as a whole, this entire movie is a letdown.

The idea of a mother-son duo of supernatural vampire-like monsters is a cool one. I still am not sure why they are called sleepwalkers. It felt like that was a cool name, but didn't have a whole lot to do with what they actually were. I legitimately enjoyed this aspect of the film. The kind of relationship between mother and son was beyond disturbing, but it achieved what it set out to do. It makes you cringe at the inhumanity of these creatures. The special effects were fine for 1992- not great, but not terrible, either. The story is simple, but memorable. This mother-son combo of creatures need virgins to feed on. They focus on one in a small town. The story is predictable and you know it'll end in a big climax, but there's still some enjoyment to be had out of following alone. I thought the addition of the cats as guardians was an interesting one. I certainly wouldn't have expected to see a movie where cats can be a menacing presence, but I kind of liked this off-the-wall detail.

The biggest problem is that while there might have been some solid nuggets of ideas here, the execution is pathetic. Mick Garris simply doesn't have enough talent to pull this movie off. The film is filled with cliches and plot holes. The acting is bad and made even worse by some of the dialogue. It's just hard to take anything here seriously because so much of the film is lackluster. It's a poorly made movie and that hurts it more than anything else.

Alice Krige and Brian Krause both appeared to be cardboard cutouts of actual characters. They are weak actors and give cringe-worthy performances. Talent matters in films like this and neither one of them is up to snuff. They over-act and under-act. They're kind of all over the place, which greatly hurts the film. I thought Madchen Amick really did put effort into the role. She has some solid moments, but she has quite a few scenes where her performance falls flat. While she is certainly better than her costars, she felt like C-level talent at best. It was fun to see Mark Hamill in an uncredited role (but the dude actually has talent, so why didn't they use him more!) and Ron Perlman in a small part as well. I don't even want to mention the cameos, because it felt like more work went into those than actually making this a good movie. As much as I was disappointed in the quality of Sleepwalkers, it's not a truly terrible movie. While it has its moments (the dialogue about the wind made me laugh), it does suffer from bad direction, cheesy dialogue, and a general feeling that it's all a generic, low-quality production. I like Stephen King and think he had a few worthwhile ideas in the script he wrote, but you can't look at this as anything besides a failure. There are some mildly entertaining and creepy moments, but the movie simply does not work.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5.5



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