The Sleeper

The Sleeper is an homage to those slasher films of the 1980s. I attended a screening of the film at the Grandview Theater in Columbus, OH a couple nights ago and a large crowd had showed up for the Ohio film makers who shot this thing in Springfield, OH. Set in 1981, the film follows a sorority house whose pretty young members and telephoned, stalked and killed by a maniac who likes to sit in the basement, drawing things on their photographs and muttering incoherently to himself. He calls up the house from time to time to let those on the other end who is next victim will be. For a very low budget movie ( the campus is virtually deserted and there are few extras in the film), this came out pretty well. The acting is not cringe worthy and The Sleeper's kills are pretty effective and gruesome in some cases. Full of all the clichés and lapses in character logic that the 80s slashers were infamous for....right up to the not-so-shocking final scene, which makes no sense plot wise, but is tacked on because that is what's expected from these films. During the Q&A after the film, the director said there was distribution deal at the moment, but hopefully some DVD label will pick this up.

The grainy atmosphere of some nicely shot locations is completely undone when the 'guys' turn up. Horny teens are one thing, it seems obligatory for films like this, but the two gate-crashing twenty-something adolescents arrive at a sorority party and the viewer - or this viewer at least - is aching for the film's antagonist to graphically wipe the smug grin off the faces of these cretins. The girls, by comparison, are more concerned with semesters and exams and that kind of thing - before mild sex is introduced to fill in more time before anything interesting happens.

One of the freedoms of low budget films like this is that they don't have to go down the same predictable routes as more mainstream horrors. Many exercise the freedom they have by producing something different and interesting - this one doesn't.

The kills are arbitrary, we know nothing about the murderer, and characters are tepid. Against that, it's nicely directed and the moments of gore are fairly convincing. My score is 4 out of 10.

This movie is everything I read in the review I read here. It is an80's style slasher film. Acting is not that bad,filming,lighting, sound, not bad. Especiallyconsideringthe budget. Make you kind of wonder what this crew could do with a budget of a million or more and very much more what did some directors do with the millions they had for their work and ended up a lot worst than this here. I actually liked this movie. Of course there is nothing new here, it has all been said and done several times over. That being said it has been 30 years since so it was kind of a trip to go down this lane again. If I was to compare the quality overall of this film vs the budget that did it with I would truly have to say great job. I have seen too many million dollar films that were just so awful and to have this quality for so little its just surprising.

this had all the elements to be a great homage to the 80's but it fails because the acting is god awful and the effects couldn't touch what they did in the 80's with movies like The Prowler and The Burning don't get me wrong i really wanted to love this movie and couldn't wait to see it especially the old school VHS/DVD packaging the movie came in but i was disappointed on so many levels i think it was trying to copy the same element as Slumber Party Massacre but at least those movies had semi decent acting as opposed to the horrible stiff acting in The Sleeper,i'm still very interested to see what the director will offer in the future he had a decent grindhouse homage with Deathstop Holocaust that wasn't bad at all

Slasher throwbacks are tricky. Very few people can get it right, but The Sleeper just about succeeds. In some ways, it really does feel a lot like an 80's slasher flick. The acting is a mixed bag, the cinematography isn't too bad, and the synth score is great.

The story is nothing special, but it's told fairly well and there's a few attempts at suspense. If I was going to compare it to the other classic horror films, I'd say it's a mix of Black Christmas, He Knows You're Alone, and Final Exam. If you liked those, you might like this one.