The Nightmare

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.

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.

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.

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 ;)

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.