My Thoughts on Sleepwalker
Sleepwalking has always fascinated me, as the idea of moving through the world without knowing it, has always scared me, and I did hope the movie would at least be tense, maybe even claustrophobic in the way it played with reality and unconscious movement, but it never really commits to much, well except darkness.
The story itself, while messy, is somewhat interesting, where there’s a family in crisis, an abusive husband, and one night that holds the weight of the entire plot, and on paper, that should feel heavy and intimate.
In execution though, it just feels scattered, where the narrative jumps back to the central night repeatedly, but too erratically, and it all feels like the story is stuck on a loop, hitting the same notes without any variation.
Dreams are central to the narrative, but they’re so overused that they stop being mysterious and start feeling like a crutch, and it doesn't help that the film relies on tired horror shortcuts - the husband character, in particular, is drawn so broadly and theatrically that you will find it hard to take his cruelty seriously.
The visual style as well doesn't work too good, as we get moments where the camera swings suddenly, or cuts to familiar horror tropes, which all feels quite lazy and clumsy. Lighting, framing, and movement don't work in harmony, and it’s hard to describe without sounding petty, but the movie seemed unsure of how it wanted to look.
Gayden Panettiere is the protagonist in Sleepwalker, and all too often she stumbles into overacting or awkward line delivery, which again creates a strange rhythm where I couldn’t quite tell if the character was scared, angry, or just reacting to bad writing.
Beverly D’Angelo, playing her mother, is fairly steady and grounded, and she brings a kind of quiet credibility that the rest of the film lacked, while Justin Chatwin’s performance as the husband is exaggerated, almost comical at times, and while that exaggeration isn’t entirely his fault, but it makes it hard to feel the danger he’s supposed to represent, as mentioned.
Scenes often stop and start abruptly, or the pacing slows just when it should be tightening, and while there’s a lot of heavy material - abuse, trauma, supernatural interference - the way it’s presented makes it feel almost like a melodrama pretending to be horror.
That doesn’t make the story bad, per se, but it makes it hard to fully invest, and there are moments that could be gripping, moments where the stakes are clear and the fear could work well, but they’re diluted by awkward presentation, uneven acting, and overused tropes.
The ending of the film is probably the most interesting part, if you make it that far.
It has a twist and I thought for a moment that everything leading up to it might be worth it, but even here, the build-up is so messy that the payoff is muted, and while a strong ending doesn’t completely redeem the film when the road to get there is bumpy and inconsistent. but it can help a bit, but not when the execution rarely allows the premise to land with the weight it deserved.
There are flashes of potential here though, where the story’s emotional core peeks through the clutter, but those moments are fleeting, and most of the time, I found myself mentally cataloging what didn’t work rather than being pulled into the story, which is never a good sign.
Sleepwalker is not completely unwatchable, but it isn’t that particularly satisfying either.