Sleepwalkers

Rating:
Summary: Stylish and Scary.
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Makes you kind of Sleepy
Review: Sleepwalkers is not the best Stephen King based film out there. It has more than its far share of scares and jumps, but is boged down by a very slow pase. It does carry with it an interesting story line of two creatures (a mother and son) who are the last of their kind trying to find some way to survive. The son looks to a fellow female class mate to fit the bill. With some decent special effects and an erie story line makes for a fun night. Some may be put off by the film so i would say rent before you buy, it is perfect for thoes that hate cats!. As one extra little tid bit Mark Hamell has a cameo in the begining.

Rating:
Summary: This has that Stephen King feel
Review: 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.


Rating:
Summary: All-Dancing/All-Slashing Cringefest
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: proof that cats are nothing to be afraid of
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A ridiculously cheesy, almost laughable horror film
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Death by Corn
Review: This gets 2 stars solely for the scene where the police officer is fatally stabbed with an ear of corn.

Rating:
Summary: not to be catty, but
Review: This isn't a very good movie. The gore effects are not great, there are plot holes big enough to drive a Trans-Am through, and most of the acting is board stiff. The only bright spot is Alice Krige- she turns in one of her usual, ..performances. Why this woman is not the biggest star on the planet, I'll never know. She made this character, Eva in "Ghost Story", and the Borg Queen in the Star Trek movie so incredibly ..compelling I can't think why she doesn't get bigger jobs. Worth seeing only for her.

Rating:
Summary: Horror/Thriller/Drama/and Comedy
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Umm...Uh.......Well.....You Know?......Ummm.....Huh?
Review: You know how every once in awhile you get in the mood for a movie about incestuous shape-shifting monsters, a movie that features an attack cat, or how you long to see someone killed in a horror film by an ear of corn, and a movie that features cameos by some of the biggest names in horror (Stepehen King, Clive Barker, Joe Dante, etc.) all mixed in with a soundtrack featuring Enya? Well, Sleepwalkers is about the only thing out there that will scratch that itch. I don't want to give away any plot.......plot? points to the story. The dialog is classic Stephen King, and the rubberized monsters are fun and harken back to the day before CGI effects ruled horror films, but don't go into this movie expecting scares and tense scenes. If you like the bizarre, not in a David Lynch kind of way, but in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 kind of way, then Sleepwalkers is an enjoyable flick.