Slumber

Saw 'Slumber', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching it.

Unfortunately, despite not reading any reviews purposefully before watching, am going to have to agree that 'Slumber' isn't too good, though not terrible. A film that started off good, but ran out of steam very quickly and rapidly got worse by a second half that makes one not want to keep watching. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to give 'Nails', so gave it a fair chance.

'Slumber's' best assets were the first fifteen-twenty minutes, starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected, and the music, which not the most memorable in the world, didn't detract from the atmosphere.

The setting is effectively spooky and the acting was better than average, Sylvester McCoy and Honor Kneafsey giving the best performances.

However, so much brings 'Slumber' down. The direction is so phoned in and pedestrian, one gets the sense that the director showed no interest in the film at all. Would have liked more chemistry between the actors, which can be put down to directing, tending to have interactions that are both static and awkward, and writing, which really doesn't flow, issues.

Where 'Slumber' most underwhelms is the writing and story. The far too exposition-heavy writing is incredibly lazy, it's awkward in dialogue, very confused as a result of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very limp pace after the first fifteen minutes and gets slower and slower until an interminably dragged out second half.

It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding, too many things that don't make sense or under-explained and tiresome repetition. The characters are nowhere near interesting enough, and the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down.

For a film billed as a horror, there is very little interesting and nothing remotely scary. They are too few and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the dull pacing and obvious sound effects cheapening them significantly. 'Slumber' doesn't engage let alone thrill, the film started off very well but feels wasted by how quickly everything runs out of steam. The ending is an anti-climactic head-scratcher, like the script it feels incomplete and making sense of it was extremely difficult.

Overall, mediocre but with good points that stop it from being worse. 4/10 Bethany Cox

If you are like me, you just want to be entertained for a few hours and Slumber fits the bill. Slumber isn't an awful movie, it isn't a great movie but the production is good and the acting is good. Not a bad way to spend a few hours.

Ok. This one is full of nonsenses.

1. A woman is a sleep doctor. She's working day and night. Wait...when does she sleep ? 2. They study people in special bedrooms, and said "there are cameras inside". Wait...no mic ? No motion detector ? 3. It's legit to have all doctors to leave the screens survey, both. 4. Looks like they have a few patients to study. However, they are only two : a man and a woman. Go to 5. 5. As they can have to study men too, they don't think to have a few strong male nurses. In case of a father becoming fierce during his sleep. 6. A janitor is always standing behind the door in case of emergency. 7. Yup, a janitor can save the day if you are a stupid doctor. 8. A disturbed old man has the key of the riddle. 9. The ending twist may leave you dubitative. 10. Watch this if you wanna to fall asleep fast.

"A nightmare on Elm Street" and "Darkness falls" are way more better than Dumber.

This movie was so close to perfection! It had an awesome plot, with very good details, good actors&acting, and I simply must pay more praise to the premise!

The story seems familiar at first, then it starts to grow, slowly, it makes its own set of rules, it becomes better as I get more and more intrigued. Even tho it is shorter than your usual only 1h:20 minutes, it gives the impression that it's going to deliver! When the ending does arrive, you'll feel so disappointed!

How could they build such a great atmosphere and not go all the way? It becomes so obvious that you almost want to skip to the end and see if it's going to happen the way you think it will. And its exactly what it does. A lovely little story that no one bothered to finish it properly and we are left hanging there, asking What happened? Is this it? Is there an alternative ending Slumber out there? Cause I want to see that!

This movie goes hand in hand with Before I Wake, another close to masterpiece horror that failed to deliver even tho it managed to have a much better and complex story than what we are given today.

Cheers!

I'm not a big fan of sleep horror genre, because it tends to end up being supernatural ninja fighting nonsense more often then not. This movie actually doesn't fall into that sad trap. But there are other problems in the movie, like the fact that these sleep doctors are completely incompetent that leads to some serious issues in the story. And sadly the person doing the sound balancing was incompetent as well.