Parasomnia

2008

Action / Horror / Thriller

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 27%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 27% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.1/10 10 2659 2.7K

Plot summary

Laura Baxter is a young woman, literally a "sleeping beauty," who suffers from a medical condition called "parasomnia." A childhood accident victim, she is actually sleeping her life away, awakening briefly on rare occasions. Art student Danny Sloan falls in love with her, unaware that her hospital neighbor, a terrifying mass murderer and mesmerist named Byron Volpe has other, more sinister plans.

Director

William Malone Photo
William Malone

Top cast

Kent Shocknek Photo
Kent Shocknek as Kent Shocknek
Janet Tracy Keijser Photo
Janet Tracy Keijser as Sara
Timothy Bottoms Photo
Timothy Bottoms as Dr. Emil Corso
Alison Brie Photo
Alison Brie as Darcy
720p.BluRay
942.72 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 43 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by BenjAii 4 / 10

A conspiracy of good IMDb reviews

It's somewhat telling that most of the great reviews for the film on IMDb all come from people who have only reviewed one film in their entire IMDb career and yes you've guessed it, that film is "Parasomnia". I've often suspected suspiciously good reviews on IMDb for what turns out to be an anything but good films as underhand marketing , but it seems fairly transparent in this case.That's not to say Parasomnia is terrible, but it stops well short of being the good or great film it had the potential to be.On the plus side, it has a great baddie in Patrick Kilpatrick who does a brilliant job projecting menacing and evil, I could easily see him having what it takes to play a truly memorable baddie on a par with Hannibal Lecter. There are some beautiful visuals in the dream sequences, in fact if the film had decided to explore that terrain more it might have been something better. The actual concept of devious misuse of hypnosis is great too.Although I understand suspension of disbelief is necessary for immersion in any good story, it's the mark of a good story that it succeeds in letting you do that. If you find yourself being annoyed at what you find illogical or just plain silly, then the story is losing you and that's what kept happening to me with this film. Other reviewers have mentioned this here and I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but I will say the setup at the ending was particularly ludicrous and disappointing, not too mention the varying mental age of a character that is only supposed to have experienced a few years of life.All in all, there is the germ of a great idea here in diabolically misused hypnotism, but sadly this film fails to realise it into anything special.
Reviewed by Michaelckdk 6 / 10

Above average horror movie hybrid of The Cell meets Silence of the Lambs meets Tim Burton

OK so the movie does not have a high budget. The acting from the two younger leads is mediocre at best. But the psycho killer character and the unusual production style are what keep the momentum and interest in this movie going. I found elements of "The Cell", "Silence of the Lambs", and "Saw" all wrapped in one. The quirky style of many scenes in the movie has elements of Tim Burton and "Puppet Master". The creepy and astounding score also lend major points to an otherwise average horror thriller story. The movie was genuinely creepy and somewhat scary at several moments, but scary in a suspenseful way and not so much a frightening way. With the slew of horrible horror movies, high budgets and low, this one definitely stands out as above average and unique in it's own way. If you can get past the amateurish acting of the two young leads and the low budget aspects of the film that are apparent here and there, you will find a fantastic and gripping horror movie.
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