Waking Nightmare – Review
72 Minutes, Not Rated
Written by Brian Farmer
Directed By Steve Craig and Brian Farmer
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
Jordan suffers manic episodes after the loss of her friend. Her mother has a family doctor prescribe Ambien to help with her sleepwalking. As time goes on, Jordan has issues remembering what happened while she slept.
Well, well, well… A sleepwalking movie.
Look, is there anything more terrifying — seriously — than the idea our bodies could just get up and do stuff without our knowing about it or remembering it?
No.
The answer you’re looking for is No.
Axe-wielding psychopath? No problem. We can put our brains to work and maybe have a shot at survival.
But just having your body — sans brain, mind you — decide it wants to get up and do… whatever it wants?
That’s terrifying.
In Waking Nightmare, Jordan is having trouble sleeping due to the trauma of losing her close friend, and when she does sleep, she has started sleepwalking as she did when she was younger.
Here’s the twist: she gets prescribed Ambien to help her sleep, and while this isn’t meant to be a takedown of Ambien, let me just say that I have personally taken Ambien for my own chronic insomnia.
I took it for a week before my wife demanded I have the doctor prescribe something else. Apparently, I would wake her up while having conversations with the little men standing on my chest.
So for me, the terrifying realism of Ambien’s possible side-effects was exactly that: terrifying. I’ve had a taste of what it can do, and I can say without reservation that while I slept better than I ever had, the possibility that something else was going on simply wasn’t worth it.
Throw in Jordan’s underlying mental fragility and things can get hairy pretty fast.
There’s death, deception, and a twist involving a mother’s love that only servesto reinforce the best horror trope there is: people are the best (worst?) monsters out there.
The performances are good all-around, with Diane Franklin as the over-protective mother to Shelley Regner’s Jordan, and any time David Naughton is in your film, you’re good to go.
While there are some narrative issues with Waking Nightmare, the premise is 100% unsettling and completely worth a watch.
Waking Nightmare will be available to watch on August 18 and stars Shelley Regner, Jamison Newlander, Diane Franklin, David Naughton, Yan Birch, Stephen Wu, and Every Heart.
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