davidahenning

We watched seasons one and two without any issues that I recall. Now watching seasons three and four, I've found the audio varies wildly. Scenes change quickly (if not suddenly) from a quiet conversations to something extremely loud scene of girls screaming or monsters roaring. Swings from -18 dB to -3 dB happen multiple times per episode. There is not really a fine line between good and bad sound. This sound mix is bad. It is not artsy. It is not stylish. It is not avant-garde. It is not even designed to enhance a jump-scare. What it is is nonstandard and a distraction from the story and the characters. Before we bleaker the sound mixer, we have to remember that it took a team of people working day and night to bring two seasons worth of bad sound to the streaming screen. It took the editing team, the director(s), the producers, executive producers and even the studio to make awful distraction.

I'm a pretty positive person. I always try to see the bright side of things especially for an indie horror film - one of my favorite genres. So there are some positive things that can be said about Insomnium. For instance, some reviews said this film was a cure for insomnia but I had very different experience. Insomnium kept me guessing the whole time. Questions like: "It's daytime, right? Or is it night? I can't tell." And "Who throws toothbrushes at someone??" "Why do they only make video-calls?" "Who the heck is SHE?" And so many other questions right up to the end.

I like Brad Pennington (although I can't think of anything he was in) so I was kind of routing for this film. That's why I gave it such a high rating - 2 stars. I'm sure he did his best with the script he was given. And I wish Scott Powers the best in all of his future endeavors.

Another positive thing I can say about Insomnium is that it has a plot. Somewhere, mid way through the movie, I figured that there was nothing more to the plot than "sleeping roommate causes tension." (A side note: The roommate with insomnia is asleep through most of the movie. Don't let that detail distract you.) In the end, in the last seen, the last shot in fact, I realized that there was a much more complicated plot. This little surprise was craftily hidden from the viewer. Most filmmakers rely on devices like foreshadowing to keep the viewer interested. Not so here. Of course, I will not spoil the film for you by trying to explain. You'll have to watch to the end, like I did, to catch this clever twist.

All in all I felt that I had been, somehow, cheated out of 80 minutes that I could never get back. But as I thought about this film all the next day (which is usually my indicator of a great film for me) I realized that Insomnium showed me how important the little details are. The tiny little scenes that denote the passage of time or explains the presence of a new character, the dialog that sets up a protagonist's explosive reaction to a situation... Insomnium emphasizes these little clips by their omission. I have to admit, I enjoyed this film more than any other awful film I've seen.