The Sleeping Room

I believe this movie was very well received at Frighfest and can be seen why. It was well scripted and camera play was very good. The direction of the movie, looking into taboos and delving in the past and how it could affect the future was an interesting concept.

Action sequences were good and Christopher Adamson was a delight (as always) to see as Fiskin. The film can quite easily be followed but will get you wondering as to what will happen next throughout the movie which is a real plus since its quite easy for me to predict how the movie will turn out and i was pleasantly surprised with this movie

This movie could hugely benefit with a much bigger budget which could bring out an even terrifying experience. Nonetheless a very well directed movie and its great to see our independent movie production companies like Movie Mogul coming to the foray.

This is a very steadily building thriller that has some great twists in it. Plus, to be honest, it's nice to not watch a movie like this set in an empty insane asylum or a cabin in the woods!

Anyway, I found myself definitely rooting for the "good" people and against the "bad". It is a worthwhile story!

The idea behind this film has real promise to be a good movie. Some of the pieces that show the past were excellently done and some of the acting was quite believable.

Sadly these good parts are let down by a bad script for most of the film, bad acting from key members of the past and direction/photography that is more suited to a soap opera.

Id like to see this remade with a more experienced team on board and a script rewrite.

Leila's performance was convincing. The premise was promising. The script was doleful. The plot got completely and utterly lost. The penultimate scene on the beach made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Amateurish at best.

"The Sleeping Room" is the type of film for which I honestly regret only being able to give a mediocre rating 5/10. Not out of malice or just to be different, but because it sadly doesn't deserve any better. The basic plot idea is good and original, the filming locations and set-pieces are terrific and it does contain a handful genuine moments of fright, but overall speaking the film doesn't have a proper pacing and the screenplay severely lacks coherence and logic (particularly towards the ending). I specifically regret my rather low rating because I absolutely love British horror movies set in the Victorian era or referring to the Victorian era, and because director/co-writer John Shackleton is a very sympathetic guy! He was present at the Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films and explained that the inspiration for "The Sleeping Room" came almost spontaneously when he was walking around in Brighton and witnessed the entire authentically creepy Victorian legacy. He's definitely right about that! Whilst renovating an old Victorian brothel, the timed handyman Bill and the troubled prostitute Blue find an antique movie projector that shows an unorthodox little home video made by the original brother owner Fiskin. When exploring the mansion further, because sex didn't work out anyway, they find more sinister things like a double-sized mirror and a secret sleeping room, which was used by the prostitutes to rest in between shifts and where the pioneer snuff-movies where shot. Blue discovers there's a blood link with her own macabre family history, while Bill gradually gets absorbed by the powerful influence of Fiskin's ghost. Oh, and in the meantime they also have to fight off Blue's loathsome pimp Freddie! The mystery Fiskin mansion truly had me captivated and focused, even though it unfolds terribly slow, but then suddenly everything nearly gets ruined because the script reverts to dreadful clichés, like shape-shifting and hallucinations. The primitive snuff footage is unsettling and the killer wears a horrifying mask (although it's just a simple cloth bag, like Jason Vorhees wore in "Friday the 13th Part II") and I counted two or three noteworthy "jump"-moments, but still "The Sleeping Room" left me behind unsatisfied and slightly disappointed. The acting performances are more than adequate, with a strong performance of the ravishing Leila Mimmack and a joyously sleazy part for David Sibley.