The Nightmare

Here is the thing. I will tell a little story. You can choose to believe me or not. But it will explain why I gave this movie a perfect rating.

The movie is a documentary about different people who experience sleep paralysis. Basically, you are so called "dreaming" but you cannot move anything or say anything. You are frozen and things happen around you. There are different forms. Some just can't move certain parts. Others, cannot move anything.

My story. When I was little I had sleep paralysis for years. It wouldn't be every night, but a few times a week. It was the same every time. I was frozen and I would hear someone enter my room and taunt me. Breath in my ear, touch my body and then finally grabbing me. Which then I would "wake up" screaming in cold sweat. My body would be tingling all over and I felt drained and sick. One night before I went to bed, I decided to fight. So I laid on my back and waited. I kept repeating to myself over and over "I will not be frozen tonight".

So I closed my eyes and then instantly reopened them. Everything was silent. I couldn't move, I was frozen. The so called entity was in my doorway, but I was frozen with my eyes at the ceiling. It got closer and closer and I started realizing I couldn't breath, but then I remembered what I said, "I will not be frozen tonight". After that I was able to move my hands. Then I realized I wasn't frozen anymore. So I sat up as fast as I could screaming "I AM NOT FROZEN!" In my doorway was a dark silhouette of a man in a black coat and hat; like from the 1950's. After I saw him he ran out of the room. Right after, my mom ran in my room. She heard me yellow "I am not frozen" and came to see if I was ok. Pretty crazy huh?

So fast forward 15 years later since I had this happen. I am sitting down to watch this movie with my love Alyssa. We get part way in and they start asking people, who was the man they saw. Most of them said.....the man in a black coat and hat. Just then Alyssa looked at me and my eyes teared up. She tried to snap me out of it, but I was so scared I couldn't even talk. How could this be real? When that happened to me, the internet wasn't even a thing yet. So I couldn't of even heard about it. Plus I was just a little kid and no one else had it happening to them. After that, I wasn't myself for a week and I couldn't even sleep that night.

Pretty crazy huh? What do you believe? Has this happened to you? Also I have not been able to watch this film again and probably never will for it may bring it all back to me and the man in the black coat and hat would visit again.

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.

The directing and editing on this documentary are very well done. Lots of really great horror imagery. I'm not sure if it's the people embellishing their stories or if the interviews are just scripted to begin with. But something feels incredibly fake about a lot of it. I really hate giving this a bad score. I was going to give a lower one but at least a 5 is average. Its a very well made movie, but some of the stories people were telling made me cringe with how made up they felt. Who knows, though. Maybe they did experience that. But for one reason or another, I didn't buy it. If you're interested in the topic of sleep paralysis, this is a decent watch. Check it out on Netflix. You might like it more than I did.

Pretty immersive, good look into the people's head. Not really trying to convince or explain anything, just wonder. Not quite a documentary, not quite a horror movie. Fear comes from the creepy atmosphere and interesting stories.

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.