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.

This is a movie with interviews with people having sleeping disorders described as "Sleep paralysis", a subject studied but certainly not yet enough, or, perhaps, the knowledge is not substantial enough to very exactly what the therm, or condition, actually is.

Where is the line to be drawn between "regular" nightmares, which can be truly terrifying, realistic and actually ruin peoples lives, and more "direct" experiences of attacks connected with sleeping stages and different peoples mental states, caused by stress, traumatic experiences (known or unknown)?

Many opinions about this documentary, or what you prefer to label it, is "there's just a dude telling a dramatic story about seeing strange things when going to sleep, it's not real or scientific!" Well, take it for that then, and go in to this for what it is, in this case not a bunch of medical psychiatric professionals/professors stating what is actually possible or not, and not facts and proofs.

It is well made though, compared to many other "documentaries" dealing with things not easy to scientifically prove. The people interviewed seems to give a true statement, as good as they can, of their experiences, and it's not accompanied by any dramatic narrator trying to push a certain theory as "THE Fact".

It is actually quite scary hearing about these (real) peoples experiences, compared to plain fiction. I have friends who during stressful/painful episodes in their lives have experienced the very disturbing feeling of "dreaming while awake", so to speak, but that has always seemed purely connected to the fact that it is possible to have moments/lapses in rem-sleep, dreaming, and being completely awake. If you ask around, I'm sure many people can refer to some personal episode that's connected to this, and it is also how many medical professionals choose to describe it as. Several people I have talked with, having had complex heart surgery, for example, has had some of these kind of feelings afterwards. NOT, however, "beings" terrorizing them.

Then there is the point "what you feed the mind with is what it will circulate around", and I mean certainly there is a connection in these kinds of experiences, as well as other strange happenings, that if you open your mind up to certain influences, it can affect you. That does not take a doctor to understand. I don't put a judgment in these particular cases concerning that.

The scary parts in these stories is more related to actual strong perceptions of physical attacks from something, such as strong pain, voices, "beings" seemingly terrorizing/stalking them at night on such a regular basis. These experiences is not much commented by medical science (yet), because professionals studying it is very careful where to draw the line (not to ruin their careers, maybe...).

For example, a leading professor can state that "there is probably multiple universes", but the same one would be careful to say "there is likely beings from other dimensions that can hurt you while you sleep".

So, take it for what it is...

The Nightmare (2015)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Interesting documentary that caused quit the stir at the Sundance Film Festival. This documentary interviews eight different people from around the globe who all suffer from the same thing: sleep paralysis. Through their spoken words and re-enactments, we see their haunting visions as they go to sleep and find themselves unable to move and possibly be visited by demons.

THE NIGHTMARE is yet another horror movie that has come along and has many calling it the scariest movie since (fill in the horror movie name). Director Rodney Ascher, who previously made the bizarre THE SHINING documentary ROOM 237, manages to bring his rather unique and original vision to this tale, which is part documentary and part horror movie.

There's no question that the subject matter makes for a very interesting documentary and I found a lot of the stories to be fascinating. I mean, most people go to sleep to rest and find some sort of peace so just imagine if you dreaded going to sleep knowing that something terrifying and evil was about to visit you. Some of the stories told are pretty effective including one man who remembers as far back as being in a crib and seeing two figures standing over him.

Shadow people are mentioned throughout the documentary as several of the people claim to have encountered them. They talk about these dark, shadow figures who approach them and of course the people are pretty much unable to move so there's nothing they can do to stop it. I think one of the flaws with the film is that we're really given no information on what this could be. There's a lot of speculation on what it exactly is but perhaps a sleep expert being interviewed would have helped.

Another problem I had with the film is that the best stories are told right at the front when we're introduced to the character. After hearing their initial stories, what follows isn't nearly as effective and this is a 100-minute movie. Without any "outside" interviews, the stories become somewhat boring after a while so as a documentary it would have been nice throwing something else into the mix.

With that said, THE NIGHTMARE is certainly worth watching once as there are some effective moments.

this is a documentary about sleep paralysis, not an educational film on the medical science and history of the phenomenon, but a series of narratives by people who have experienced it firsthand and their interpretations of their experiences

the documentary is intended to scare, with an accompaniment to the interviews and short re-enactments of primarily minimalist, suspenseful synth and droning/pulsating percussive noise by composer Jonathan Snipes. the interviewees are all fairly articulate, the film is well-edited and the monster/(dream) entity designs and costumes for the re-enactments are artfully haunting

the film is very effective at what it sets out to do, namely exploring a phenomena people throughout the world, including the director, have experienced and its effects on their beliefs and personalities it inspires a large enough fraction of the fear and contemplation in the viewer that the phenomena itself must inspire in those who experience it firsthand to make it well worth watching and recommending

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.