Let me start off by saying that this is a good film.Its not great in any sense of the word,but the people who crafted this film have actually put a lot of heart into it,and I truly can appreciate the effort.
"Parasomnia" is the baby of William Malone,he directed the remake of "House on Haunted Hill" with Ali "She Tastes Great With Whipped Cream" Larter and Taye "What The Hell Happened To My Film Career?" Diggs. Which is actually a pretty decent film. He also directed Fear.Com which wasnt a pretty decent film....in fact it is utterly unwatchable....avoid it at all cost.That film I guess kind of killed Mr. Malone's major theatrical opportunities,as he really hasn't had anything since other than some Masters of Horror stuff.
This film should get him back in the good graces of the studios....if not the major ones....at least one of the smaller ones that occasionally release theatrical films...he has done a really nice job here.Mr. Malone evidently paid for this whole film to be made and its obvious that this is his baby. He has put a lot into this film.
"Parasomnia" is about a girl who has a real rare form of narcolepsy,called parasomnia , in which the person is asleep most of the time while awakening sporadically and being awake for an inestimable amount of time. Anyways,the story deals with this girl being in an asylum naturally (kinda hard to have a job and shit,when ya cant stay awake),well she unfortunately is the next room neighbor of a serial killer who is a hypnotist who kills people by hypnotizing them and making them do his bidding.Usually killing themselves or other people.He of course is kept under a hood and chained to the walls.And is pretty creepy looking while under the hood. He has somehow found a way to get inside sleeping beauty's head while she sleeps,giving her some seriously fucked up dreams,very Hellraiserish/Silent Hill creepy style dreams that are some of the very stylish efforts that Mr. Malone gives to this film to give it some flava.
Now the main dude in this film is weak sauce....seriously,he seems like a nice dude,but hes annoying as hell because he's just such a putz.This guy who works in a record store (think Cusacks "High Fidelity") is at the asylum visiting a buddy of his who is in rehab,and stumbles upon home girl getting her sleep on.He has a deja vu kind of moment once he finds out what her deal is (evidently he had met her when they were both little kids and she had had one of her falling asleep moments while he was around her) anyways he FALLS hard for her (actually he might be on to something...a hot girl who is barely awake...hmmm)...well he finds out that the docs are transferring her to another facility to be put through experiments....yeah not good....so he kidnaps her. This of course not only gets the police on his trail,but the serial killer is none too happy either and escapes to come after them also.
As I said this is a good film,if the hero character wasn't such a putz....it might have been top notch.Malone adds a lot of style and atmosphere to this one.Its like a Dario Argento style with modernistic flashes of Silent Hill and also many of evidently I guess Malone's own "Haunted Hill" type moments all thrown together...you can definitely see the "Haunted Hill" influence on it,which helps a lot.
"Parasomnia" has a very off kilter feel too it,especially the last half of the film,which even though its in the real world takes on a very dream like feel to it.Its actually the dream like feel of this film that really helps it,if not for the stylistic choices that Malone uses,this probably would not have been nearly as enjoyable.This film has a much bigger feel to it than the budget would probably lead you to believe.If you can get your hands on this film give it a shot,its a very good rental...and I'll take a film in which the maker has put a lot into it,rather than some half hearted DTV sequel to some random series that wasn't good to begin with,in which the producers are just trying to make a quick buck.
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