The Sandman

This was the first film I watched from Tempe (at the time, I ordered two others with it), and wasn't really impressed.

The photography is fine, but the story takes too long to go anywhere, and the music (guitar twangs) kind of repetitious. You have to respect any indie that gives a flick this much of a polished look (nice dolly shots, opening credits montage over the trailer park), but something felt missing. Maybe action (definately not fog - where is this trailer park - England?).

The story deals with folks in a small town where the residents all have a terrible habit of dying in their sleep. The locals in a trailer park start to think a supernatural force...a sandman (with glowing eyes resembling computer-superimposed Christmas lights), is behind it.

Good effort. Mediocre (at best) results. Great packaging.

JR Bookwalter is known for low budget straight to video movies, from No-budget ones like Robotninja to 8mm epics like The Dead next door. The lack of budget (and maybe the lack of talent...) on his movies is usually replaced by good old blood and gore. The problem with The Sandman is that it have no exploitation elements, no blood, no gore and no nudity. The movie is a low, near to no, budget SOV that tries to be "serious" and tries to imitate a Hollywood horror movie. The best of the no budget SOV is that because of the independence, they can make all kind of PI stuff....this is not the case, its a boring no budget movie. Not the best Bookwalter pic.

Gary is a guy who lives in a trailer and he is trying to be a writer. His girlfriend Maris works as a waitress and wants him to have a real job. Gary receives Ozzy, a relative `self- guest' in his trailer (by the way, this character has nothing to do with any plot along the story. Maybe he has lent some money for the `production' of this amateurish movie and required to participate somehow in the story). His best friend is Bud and his neighbor is a neurotic veteran from Vietnam. Gary realizes that persons in his community are being killed by The Sandman. This film is almost as bad as `Troll 2' and `Satanic Attraction': amateurish cast and direction, poor effects and locations. The greatest work on me is that Sandman made me sleep at least four times along the story and I, instead of going to the bed, used the `rewind bottom' to watch the missing parts. However, the screenplay with improvement, actors, actresses and director could be the basis for a reasonable movie. My vote is two.

Not to be confused with the same years Sleepstalker this horror is as much comedy despite not being advertised as such.

Telling another story about the Sandman being an evil being that steals your soul while you sleep I found more enjoyment than I expected even if ultimately it is pretty damn bad.

Poorly made, terrible audio quality and advertised as an incorrect genre altogether yet retains a level of entertainment in other ways.

For a start the humour is often on point even though it was entirely unexpected and often not in keeping with the rest of the film. The characters are mostly likable, very much so in fact.

Yes the Sandman looks goofy alike everything else but the film was clearly made with a minimal budget and under the circumstances it probably should have been a lot worse.

Sleepstalker (1995) is a better Sandman tale but this isn't without its merits.

The Good:

Chat show segments are funny

Decent characters

The Bad:

Chat show segments aren't in keeping with the rest of the film

Gary, a rather bad dime-store romance novelist, soon after watching a sensationalist tabloid news show about the recent rash of people that have been dying in their sleep, is worried about his girlfriend who is having trouble sleeping (he's an insomniac himself) So when his war veteran neighbor tells him about the Sandman he's frightened (not by the vet's story, more his demeanor) add to this the fact that Gary's worthless leech of a cousin has just moved in to his trailer. It's no wonder he's on edge. When he starts seeing the Sandman everyone think he's going crazy.....at first.

The pacing of this movie is so extremely slow that it desperately needed a great story to make up for it. Sad to say, the plot is supremely sub-par as well. I quite enjoyed the director's previous "the Dead Next Door" film, however this one is a stinker, and included way too much filler. The filler being so very bad (time spent on Gary's 'kooky' neighbors and a rather idiotic talk show being the chief offenders) To further compound my misery there wasn't any gore, nor nudity to attempt to liven the preceding up.

My Grade: D-