Dead Awake

A film about sleep paralysis, the only theme I've been more scared of going in to a film (see: "The Nightmare") than I have waking up the next day (as in, I thought I was going to have nightmares and wake up paralyzed but then woke up the next day having forgotten all about it).

Well here's the fiction take, including the woefully underutilized since "The House of the Devil" actress Jocelin Donahue. It's too bad the the film itself is a tepid, creaky tale of a sleepytime boogeyman that strangles you while you lay there paralyzed. That's not exactly scary. The plot is just pure nonsense and the film has literally no tension nor atmosphere to speak of.

Watching "Dead Awake" made me sleepy. The acting was so dreadful I honestly wanted to get sleep paralysis myself - I guess experiencing that (horryfying condition nonetheless) would have been more interesting than listening to the wooden dialogues, watching no chemistry between ANY of the characters. The music that was such crap, that I honestly thought it was put on there by accident, the camera work, the lights, the sound in general, those inconsistencies. It was ...........

Nah.... you know what? No. To hell with it - watch it! I could go on and on and tell you why this movie is so appalling but no - watch it and see for yourself.

And when you reach the 50-minute mark and you get to the point where the main lead asks "Where's Linda?" and you get to "experience" the dialogue that follows.... the "ACTING" from both of the female characters pretty much sums up this garbage of a movie.

Yeah, watch it.

I suppose all I can say to the team that made this film is.... "great job" (with sarcastic, Heath Ledger's Joker's clapping).

2/10 because I know that Jocelin CAN act, it just seems to me she forgot how to do it this time.

Curtain!

My God, was that movie terrible.....

So first i gotta complement Jocelin Donahue ,, she did well in the beginning of the movie doing the two sisters roles ,, but the movie plot was just bad ,, the script was slow for a Horror/Thriller genre ,, watched it on my laptop "thankfully" so i kept on speeding up to see the good part till i found myself in the credits :D

The cast was okay ,, i watched Jesse Bradford before "in a comedy" :D so this was weird ,, Jesse Borrego "Dr. Hassan" was just not sensible to be a psychiatric , and even Lori Petty "Dr. Sykes" was so obvious and not engaging .

My advice find some other movie to watch ,, Not recommended.

Plot

A young woman must save herself and her friends from an ancient evil that stalks its victims through the real-life phenomenon of sleep paralysis.

Cast

Jesse "What happened to his career Bradford and the always delightful Lori Petty star.

Verdict

The very concept of sleep paralysis is horrifying but how does it translate into a horror movie? Well, not very well at all.

You see part of me actually wanted to like it, the execution was actually fairly decent here but what they were executing was lacklustre at best.

Our antagonist looked pretty poor, the sleep sequences used a very oversaturated filter, the characters were rather wooden and as much as I wanted to be engaged I found the movie rather pushing me away.

Dead Awake is not a bad film, it's just a film with no real identity, that failed to impress and perhaps could have used a stronger leading lady.

Rants

The cover features an image with a spider, no spoilers here but that is in fact a scene in the movie and though I have no arachnophobia I have to say that was the one single scene that got any kind of reaction out of me. You ever seen the meme with the guy counting numbers with a sombre looking on his face until he reaches 69 then he has a slight smile then returns to sombre with number 70 and beyond? That was me with this film and that scene, a glimmer, a moment of reaction and then back to the ho-hum.

The Good

Lori Petty A couple of interesting ideas

The Bad

Lead could have been better Predictable Filter/Antagonist were distractingly weak.

Metaphysical horror movie. The film focuses on a metaphysical entity that occurs over the centuries and around the world in many cases of paralysis during sleep. Each different culture has given it a different name like Mora. The film has a very interesting plot, quite well written and with convincing acting, while it had enough suspense and some plot twists. However, it is a bit long in duration and therefore has breaks in the suspense, I would prefer to be shorter and maintain the suspense throughout. Very good overall and above average. Recommended for the fans of the genre.