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.
