Customer Reviews

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Giant incestuous demon cats who suck the life force from virgins... sure, why not? That's the concept behind "Sleepwalkers," a Stephen King horror movie that rarely actually manages to be scary -- but there is enough entertaining cheez here, as well as brilliant performances by Alice Krige and Sparks.

Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his mother Mary (Krige) have just moved to a small town. And we soon discover that they are "sleepwalkers": giant incestuous cats who suck the life force from virgins, and are really freaked out by actual cats (who apparently sit outside their house waiting to kill them). Mary is literally starving to death, so Charles has to find a virgin quickly.

Charles soon homes in on the virginal Tanya Robertson (Madchick Amick), and sets about seducing her -- but when he tries to kill her, he ends up horribly wounded by a cop's cat. Now the sleepwalkers are even more desperate to get their hands on Tanya, and are willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of their food.

"Sleepwalkers" has a really cool idea... but honestly it's not very scary most of the time. Director Mick Garris seems to wuss out on some of the potentially scary scenes (like the rapey graveyard scene), with goofy angles and one-liners. I mean, it's hard to be scared when Madchen Amick is popping her screaming fact right near the camera. Instead, it becomes a massive ball of cheesy, over-the-top gore and rubber cat suits.

Fortunately, a lot of the cheesiness is still very entertaining in a B-movie way, especially when the sleepwalkers stop pretending to be human and go all-out in their monstrousness. I will admit, though, some of the scenes late in the movie ARE very creepy, but that's mainly because Krige's character is absolutely insane. The scene where she forces Tanya to "dance" with her half-dead son is chilling.

One big downside: we never learn much about the sleepwalkers. We know the basics, but no backstory or explanations for why cats hate them or whatever.

Unsurprisingly, Krige gives the best human performance of this movie -- she's creepy, weird and inhuman, especially she goes all angry mama-bear/lover. Amick spends most of the movie crying and screaming, Krause is moderately sympathetic as a monstrous creature who wants to save his mother/lover, and Ron Perlman is criminally underused. Keep an eye out for Stephen King in the funniest authorial cameo I have ever seen.

But of course, there's the scene-stealer and a truly awesome actor: Sparks the cat. I am not kidding. This kitty is completely convincing (such as when Clovis views his dead owner), and he kicks... er, claws butt on not one but TWO occasions.

"Sleepwalkers" isn't scary at all, but it is brainlessly, amusingly gory and cheesy -- and the performances by Krige and Sparks are excellent.

Stephen king says what is really scary is when you are just in the realm of reality and possibility. Then the spooky extraordinary seems scarier because this may be taking place next door.

This is a pretty good adoption from print to the screen. Of course the disadvantage is selecting what to show. The big advantage is not having to use the King potty mouth on every sentence. A few descriptive words are needed for the ambiance but King goes overboard in his writing.

Alice Krige the Borg queen and ghost is the perfect person to play Mary Brady as she can be so sweet and forceful at the same time.

If you look close you will see Stephen King as the Cemetery Caretaker. He is a much better token than Alfred Hitchcock

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We all know that there is some truth to fantastic creatures reported through the ages. This is the story of a pair of the last of a bread of shape shifting creatures called Sleepwalkers. They are a very close nit mother and son. They must live on the life essence of good girls and at all costs must avoid cats as cats are the mortal enemy of Sleepwalkers. Watch as they barley escape with their lives and set-up house in a rural community.

Sleepwalkers has all the elements of a horror movie, and yet it isn't one. The first scene is very effective, and sets the tone for a good horror movie. We see Mark Hamill (unrecognizable from his Luke Skywalker days) as a cop checking out some odd goings-on at a house. But I wonder - did the girl scream or was she already dead? Or was it a dead body that screamed? The music and imagery during the opening credits is great. There's a definition of a sleepwalker from an old occult encyclopedia. The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and art look really cool. The sketch of a sleepwalker breastfeeding an infant looks scary. The thought that the infant might actually be a human being makes the sketch even more unsettling. Anyway, that first scene and the opening credits create an atmosphere of dread that we would expect to last throughout the rest of the movie. But Stephen King (who wrote the script) wanted to write a movie that was campy AND scary at the same time. I don't think anyone has ever been able to pull that off in the entire history of filmmaking, and director Mick Garris fails in the attempt. But it's a noble effort, and he should be commended - this is a good movie.

I think of Sleepwalkers as more of a comedy than a horror movie, just because there are so few moments that anyone would find scary (even though this movie terrified me when I was a kid). There's a lot of moments when this movie tries to be scary, but falls short, because the suspense is undermined by jokes or humorous incidents. All the murders are amusing for one reason or another. How can a murder be amusing? Watch this movie and you'll see what I mean - a lot of the murders look really silly, like when a Sheriff is bodyslammed on a picket fence. I think this movie works best as a comedy anyway. If the guys that made Sleepwalkers cut out all the funny stuff and just tried to go for the chills, then I think I would have enjoyed this movie a lot less.

In a nutshell, a mother and son are demonic shapeshifters called sleepwalkers that feed off the life-force of virgin women. Normally they take the form of human beings, so that they can go about daily life unnoticed. The incestuous behaviour of Mary Brady (Alice Krige) and her son Charles (Brian Krause) is disturbing, but for some reason it doesn't have any shock effect at all once it becomes apparent they aren't human. I suppose it's because I expect non-humans to do things that humankind considers perverse. But I also liked the way this movie made a nice instrumental like Santo and Johnny's 'Sleepwalk' sound evil and creepy. Enya's 'Boadicea' makes for good background music in the opening scene, but not when it shows Charles leaving the theatre - it just doesn't seem to suit the light-hearted nature of that scene. But when it plays at the end of the movie it suits that scene perfectly, and it runs on through the end credits.

I also like how the heroine Tanya Robertson (Madchen Amick) is a klutz, socially awkward, a nerd, and can resort to extreme acts of violence to defend herself. And I like how the teachers use corporal punishment on the kids, like rapping their knuckles with plastic rulers, or dragging them by the ear to the principal's office. The entertaining teacher Mr. Fallows (Glenn Shadix) has a few hilarious exchanges with Charles. Even Mr. Fallows' fatal run-in with Charles is somewhat of a light-hearted moment, thanks to Charles' wit. And the high-speed chase with the stressed out patrolman Andy Simpson (the excellent Dan Martin) is hilarious. I've seen Dan Martin in all kinds of stuff, so why is he still not getting the recognition he deserves?

The scene where Andy gets out of his car and stands in the middle of the deserted highway was good, but it would have been more effective if the viewer didn't know that Charles' car was invisible until AFTER Andy drove away. And that scene would have been more effective if he didn't curse (and say some really goofy words) out loud. A rather chilling scene was when Mrs. Brady puts the rose in Tanya's hair and says "There. It finishes you somehow." The coolest scene of the movie is when it shows Mrs. Brady lying on the ground, completely engulfed in flames. The most disturbing scene is when Tanya's arm gets cut on the broken glass of a police car window. And it was pretty cool when Mrs. Brady blows up the police cars, even if there was no realistic way they could have blown up like that.

I like cats, but all the cats in this movie are annoying. The scene of the cats running down the street to the Brady house is completely preposterous. But if there were no cats in this movie then there would be a problem, because a cat's scratch is the only thing that can harm a sleepwalker. I'm not sure if sleepwalkers are an actual legend or if Mr. King dreamed them up himself. If he did, why would he make a cat's scratch the only thing that can kill a sleepwalker? Something a little less complicated would have been better.

The guys that made this movie deserve a round of applause - it's hard as hell to make a movie that's funny AND scary, but in the case of Sleepwalkers they weren't just trying to be funny - they were trying to be HILARIOUS. Can a movie that's hilarious be scary? Some (but certainly not all) movies work because they don't take themselves seriously, like Sleepaway Camp 2. But in the case of Sleepwalkers it tries so hard to be funny that it can't be scary.

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is a fairly-good B-movie. Most of it is enjoyably watchable, due mainly to the easy-on-the-eyes-ability of its lead cast members Brian Krause, Alice Krige, and Madchen Amick. Then there are the cringeworthy moments: the violent moments that are both poorly executed and overly gory, as well as the disturbing dance sequences (creepy incestuous slow dance/hottie teenybopping with a carpet-sweeper ) early in the film.

There are a number of nicely put together scenes in the movie: the Trans Am chase, Krause and Amick at her house, as well as Krige's first two scenes with Amick. The "superpowers" of the Sleepwalkers are nice and original, but much of their history is left to our imagination. We are given some backstory via an "encyclopedia" definition, a snippet of Krause's creative writing assignment, and a few comments dropped here and there by Krause and Krige, though more would have been helpful. Questions remain as to why Krige can't "feed" herself and whether or not the Sleepwalkers are actually made of Meow Mix (how else can you explain the scene where cats troop through downtown Travis, Indiana, in pursuit of Krige)?

Plot holes? Certainly. Cameos by directors who ought to stay behind the camera instead of in front of one? Definitely. While the movie isn't exactly played for laughs and never fully descends into the campy netherworld, it's hard to take it too seriously. DVD extras are severely limited - although if you want to learn to read in Thai or Portuguese you're in luck because those are two of the seven sets of subtitles included on the disc.

For an original screenplay, Stephen King has put together a decent story. Were it a novel, we'd likely get the missing backstory (frustratingly, the movie wasn't novelized), but as it stands the story is pretty good - okay, the corn killing is lame, but for the most part things make sense. It would have been nice if some of the effects were less fakey or there had been a few more extras on the DVD (Sleepwalkers movie trailer, Writer/Director commentaries, deleted scenes), but for a few bucks you still get your money's worth. Netflix it first if you want, but I'm not ashamed to have it in my library collection.

This gets 2 stars solely for the scene where the police officer is fatally stabbed with an ear of corn.

Ouch. When the big ones fall, they fall hard. "Sleepwalkers" has the distinction of being the first film Stephen King ever wrote directly for the screen, and much like his first directing gig (the abominable "Maximum Overdrive"), the results indicate that he should wise up and stick to books. At least the movie is laughably bad, which means it's still enjoyable on some level, rather than just BAD bad.
I won't lie. You will get to see some things you've never seen onscreen before, like a guy getting stabbed to death with an ear of corn. And you do get to look at the beautiful lead actress, one of the most adorable women ever. But the dialogue is moronic. The cat people are not scary. Indeed, Clovis, the police "attack cat", proves to be a far more formidable adversary than the lunkhead male lead. Throw in a teen-molesting teacher, an incestuous mother-son relationship, and an idiot cop, and you get a bevy of laughs (mostly unintentional), which at least partially redeems your wasted 90 minutes.
Here's a fun drinking game: every time the dialogue makes you wince, cringe, or giggle, do a shot. You'll be blotto within ten minutes.

This was an ok film about 2 vampire-like beings that can transform themselves into normal looking human beings. The son and his mother live together and can only live from eating human flesh. He meets a beautiful girl at his high school and begins dating her. The two become good friends. But when his mother meets her a jealous flame ignites inside of her. Similar to "Hush". And these beings also like to dance, right. So his mother becomes hungry and constantly reminds her son to bring home some "food". It gets to the point where he tries to kill his girlfriend but she fights back and escapes. His mother is fearing the hundreds of cats that are invading the property. A cat-scratch can easily kill them. Anyway he comes home with his face mutilated and his starving mother reaches her breaking point. Now it turns into a revenge "fatal attraction" thing as she drives over the girl's house and makes a destructive, violent campangue injuring every police officer and family member at the house. She then brings the girl back to the house. I wont tell you anymore. Watch it.

I always had a secret crush on this little movie (secret, maybe because I wouldn't want people to think that I get turned on by mother-son incest!) But I do find their love affair kinda sexy. I love that scene early on in the movie when they dance together to the sound of a lovely, oldie music. The mother is tall, thin and beautiful, with long, silky hair and a bone structure to die for. The kid is a blond non-entity. I always wanted more of that mother-son thing and less of everything else.
I don't care about the teen-aged girl and I never could stand the actress that plays her part - but here she is at her youngest and least obnoxious.
I remember playing the scene when the boy turns into a monster over and over again in slow motion. That special effect was a big deal back then.
I don't find cats very terrific opponents to such a formidable mother and I don't get where King found his inspiration to create this myth. Minus the cats this movie might have been greater, I don't know.

Sleepwalkers is not a great film, but entertaining and worth owning, especially if you are a Stephen King fan. The story centers around creatures known as Sleepwalkers who must feed on the life force of others in order to survive. They dread and avoid cats, who can destroy them. The story is wierd and different and works in a Stephen King sort of way. Mick Garris adds value here with his stylish direction, the same talented director who brought "The Stand" miniseries and "Stephen King's The Shining" miniseries to life so successfully. Don't be put off by some of the negative reviewers - judge for yourself and enjoy!

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is significant for a number of reasons (all of which added together fail to make this anything more than an average film). For one thing, it is the first story King wrote expressly for a movie (his earlier movies all being based on previously published work). Second, there is a wonderful cameo appearance by King himself, and this time he's not alone; both Tobe Hooper and the rarely seen Clive Barker join in the fun as forensics experts, while John Landis and Joe Dante also sneakily pass in front of the cameras. A third, and by far the weirdest, special little aspect of this film is the really close (and I mean really, really close) relationship between the mother and her only son. A fourth distinguishing characteristic of Sleepwalkers is its overuse of silly clichés and ridiculous dialogue; this serves to negate any chance of the film actually being horrifying. I hate to say it, but this movie is downright silly.

The genesis of this story sounds pretty good, actually. Drawing upon ancient stories and the highly mysterious history of cats, the film brings to life two modern-day "Sleepwalkers," a mother and son forced to constantly roam around the country as a direct result of their unusual feeding habits. Some places just don't take too kindly to having their citizens slaughtered and fed off of. The mother is now especially hungry, and she is depending on her beloved son Charles to supply her needs. These needs are rather specific, requiring a "nice" girl, and Charles has found the perfect such paragon of virtue and virginity in Tanya Robertson. His plans for bringing Tanya home to Mother inevitably go awry, and the last half hour of the movie is an anticlimactic torture test and overacting marathon in the form of a story that seemingly refuses to end. Brian Krause and Alice Krige actually play their roles rather well (not counting all of the silly dialogue they are forced to utter), and Madchen Amick is a lovely young woman who played her role of sacrifice-to-be in the brilliantly cheesy kind of way this script seemed to call for. Amick also has the distinction of being the only woman in the world I would pay money to watch sweep the floor.

The talent of one actor can sometimes save a movie from utter disaster, and the real hero of Sleepwalkers accomplishes just such a feat. This unsung hero is named Sparks, and he is outstanding in the role of Clovis the Attack Cat. Clovis is the hero of Sleepwalkers; don't let anyone tell you any differently. One sometimes wonders if cats are not the real overseers of this world. Everyone knows how mysterious they are, how they seem to live lives of leisure, and how even the best of them interact with the human world on their own terms. Sleepwalkers walk in utter fear of cats, deeply vulnerable to the merest slash from a cat's claw. By instinct alone, cats recognize Sleepwalkers, and throughout this film they are camped en masse outside the home of our local shapeshifters, patiently waiting for the perfect time to strike and thus, once again, help preserve the lives of human beings who will never realize their indebtedness to these seemingly playful, lazy creatures. Their constant vigil around the house of the Sleepwalkers provides the only remotely creepy aspect of the entire movie. Without the cats, this movie would not be worth watching at all.