La pesadilla

The Nightmare is a genuinely scary look into the real life experiences of people suffering with sleep paralysis. It's fascinating to hear first hand what it is that the victims are experiencing, particularly when you see how their stories overlap with shared or similar visions. The reconstructions that play also draw you into the experience yourself, so it almost plays out more like a horror film than a documentary.

Therein lies my biggest gripe about this film, it's not really an examination of the phenomenon, just a retelling of a group of peoples night terrors. At no point is there a medical or scientific point of view on the subject; all the "evidence" presented is anecdotal. Not only this, the editing almost tries to lean toward a spiritual viewpoint, which is disappointing as instead of getting to learn about this condition it tends to feel more like a religious propaganda piece, going so far as to claim that the only defence against this particular nightmare is the word "jesus".

Entertaining, but not overly useful if your hoping to learn something.

Sleep paralysis is a variety of dream which can seize a person prisoner in a ghoulish and tactile hallucination. "The Nightmare" profiles a dozen such severely afflicted individuals and invites you into their brains.

The recorded medical history of the disorder is touched upon in brief, only long enough to establish the subject's credibility. It's not a phenomenon that's been approached with much clinical discipline, and medical history is ostensibly not what this is a film about. It is instead fascinated with the experience itself, and the life these people lead.

Mostly the movie plays out through vivid dramatizations of dreams recounted in voice-over. It gets hella scary as the volume of awful steadily rises. A common vocabulary of bad things runs through it all, which amounts to elemental nightmare fuel.

This builds to the question of how his interviewees deal with their worsening condition. This film takes folks on an extreme of human experience and examines how they and then perceive their reality. What if sleeping meant you were attacked by demons? Would you explain it with cognitive science? Christianity? New age spiritualism? The film is patient enough to listen with interest and a sort of apathy to concrete answers.

It isn't perfect. Particularly there's some intentional fourth wall breaking-behind the scenes that's labored and distracting. And there's one dream recreation technique of photo slide show that isn't as hot as the rest.

But a unique experience of a documentary. Just watch it at night in the dark, don't be a chicken ;)

It's a documentary, yes, but it seems like its main goal is to be entertaining, not inform the audience about the science behind sleep paralysis (what little information there is out there, at least). While that's completely fine, I do think they should have at least had a mental health professional or sleep expert (or whatever they're called) weigh in at times. Once again, that's fine that they kept the focus on the experiences of the subjects, but I do think that in the avoidance of including a professional and researched opinion, it does feel like they're giving some undue credibility to the "it could be paranormal" argument. They do interview some people who believe and explain the more rational side of things, but it still would have been nice to hear from a professional.

I've had sleep paralysis a handful of times in my life, and once in particular it was absolutely terrifying and it did seem like there was something in the room with me. It actually took a few weeks for me to get over it, but it would have taken much longer to get over if I actually thought for a second that the experience was "real" in any way and not just an elaborate creation of my own mind. That's not to say that I think the documentary is in any way dangerous to those who are looking for an explanation, but I do think people should go in more expecting a horror movie, and less expecting an informative documentary.

That being said, it is entertaining to hear all of these pretty terrifying stories acted out on screen. If that's your thing, you should give it a watch.

This is a movie with interviews with people having sleeping disorders described as "Sleep paralysis", a subject studied but certainly not yet enough, or, perhaps, the knowledge is not substantial enough to very exactly what the therm, or condition, actually is.

Where is the line to be drawn between "regular" nightmares, which can be truly terrifying, realistic and actually ruin peoples lives, and more "direct" experiences of attacks connected with sleeping stages and different peoples mental states, caused by stress, traumatic experiences (known or unknown)?

Many opinions about this documentary, or what you prefer to label it, is "there's just a dude telling a dramatic story about seeing strange things when going to sleep, it's not real or scientific!" Well, take it for that then, and go in to this for what it is, in this case not a bunch of medical psychiatric professionals/professors stating what is actually possible or not, and not facts and proofs.

It is well made though, compared to many other "documentaries" dealing with things not easy to scientifically prove. The people interviewed seems to give a true statement, as good as they can, of their experiences, and it's not accompanied by any dramatic narrator trying to push a certain theory as "THE Fact".

It is actually quite scary hearing about these (real) peoples experiences, compared to plain fiction. I have friends who during stressful/painful episodes in their lives have experienced the very disturbing feeling of "dreaming while awake", so to speak, but that has always seemed purely connected to the fact that it is possible to have moments/lapses in rem-sleep, dreaming, and being completely awake. If you ask around, I'm sure many people can refer to some personal episode that's connected to this, and it is also how many medical professionals choose to describe it as. Several people I have talked with, having had complex heart surgery, for example, has had some of these kind of feelings afterwards. NOT, however, "beings" terrorizing them.

Then there is the point "what you feed the mind with is what it will circulate around", and I mean certainly there is a connection in these kinds of experiences, as well as other strange happenings, that if you open your mind up to certain influences, it can affect you. That does not take a doctor to understand. I don't put a judgment in these particular cases concerning that.

The scary parts in these stories is more related to actual strong perceptions of physical attacks from something, such as strong pain, voices, "beings" seemingly terrorizing/stalking them at night on such a regular basis. These experiences is not much commented by medical science (yet), because professionals studying it is very careful where to draw the line (not to ruin their careers, maybe...).

For example, a leading professor can state that "there is probably multiple universes", but the same one would be careful to say "there is likely beings from other dimensions that can hurt you while you sleep".

So, take it for what it is...

This (horror-)documentary is about sleep paralysis, a phenomenon in which a person either during falling asleep or awakening, temporarily experiences an inability to move, speak, or react. A transitional state between wakefulness and sleep, characterized by muscle weakness, often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations and physical experiences. It's been a recognized part of human experience for centuries, but sleep scientists are only just beginning to understand the condition.

'Room 237' director Rodney Ascher's documentary largely eschews hard science to focus on the emotional and psychological toll. He interviews eight sufferers whose lives have been upended by repeated bouts of nocturnal panic and vivid, inescapable hallucinations.

'The Nightmare' wants to be the first properly scary documentary, employing time-honored horror movie techniques in a concerted effort to spook the viewer. But it's here that Ascher slightly oversteps himself. While there is a well-maintained sense of lurking discomfort, the gotcha scenes feel a little cheap. In the end, a straight doc might have been more rewarding, but it entertained nevertheless.