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John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

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Parasomnia

Posted Jul 26, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Jul 26, 2010 at 01:26 PM

Parasomnia
Genre: Horror
Directed by: William Malone
Run time: 103 minutes
Rating: R
Format: DVD

The Lowdown: Here’s the knock on William Malone, and I think it’s a valid one.

As the director of Dark Castle’s remake of “The House on Haunted Hill,” through his better-than-average Masters of Horror offering “Fair Haired Child” to this, his latest, original film, “Parasomnia,” Malone has shown he definitely has a specific “style.” His films all contain signature camera tricks, they all paint from the same muted, washed-out palette of dark colors and they all feature rather gruesome, often exceptionally cool, creatures that make for great production stills or poster art.

But when it comes down to the stories, the actual plots that propel his features, Malone’s work often stumbles, and while it’s not a good criticism to be known for, it is curable, if only he would spend more time fleshing out the story and plugging the gaping holes in logic or continuity that end up hobbling his efforts and shaking the audience out of its investment in what’s happening on screen.

“Parasomnia” actually has a really good idea at its core, and it involves a young woman stricken with the rare sleeping sickness disorder that keeps her in a perpetual dream state.

And Malone fills the screen with very cool visuals – dream-state fields of dark, ominous monoliths where creatures lurk and stalk, scary rooms filled with sinister-looking puppets that you just know will suddenly animate and chase you.

And he devises a sufficiently creepy bad guy, Byron Volpe, a mesmerist and serial killer who is capable of making people take their own lives simply by controlling and infecting their thoughts with a single glance.

Why isn’t it a better horror movie then?

Malone isn’t careful about how he constructs his narrative, and he allows for too many coincidences or moments of sheer ridiculousness that simply wouldn’t, couldn’t occur in the real world.

In this instance, the narrative problems revolve around a lonely art student named Danny, who happens upon a pretty girl named Laura, who sleeps all the time, and just so happens to be strapped to a bed in a room at the local mental hospital where Danny’s best friend ends up trying to detox from drugs.

And the girl, Laura, her room is immediately adjacent to a cell where the hospital is keeping Volpe suspended by chains on his wrists and ankles, his face covered with a heavy black bag so he can’t see anyone to use his mesmerist abilities.

And Danny, inexplicably, has free and clear access to just wander around the hospital ward, looking into Volpe’s isolation cell and just walking into Laura’s room to talk to her or put headphones over her ears so she can hear classical music.

He even is able to sneak in and remove Laura from the hospital after stealing a doctor’s jacket and wheelchair, and makes it past a security guard who barely registers that Danny’s answers are not sufficient to explain why he is rolling away a patient so late at night.

These logical flaws mar an otherwise visually interesting film that, at times, harkens back to the look and style of “Hellbound: Hellraiser II” and other dreamscape-centric horror offerings.

“Parasomnia” isn’t a wash. It’s definitely worth a rent, particularly for fans of Malone’s former work. It just never reaches the potential that its crazy cool creations and creatures and obvious visual flair suggest.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Cherilyn Wilson, bedridden hot.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Yes.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Byron Volpe, he can kill with his thoughts.
Buy/Rent – Rent it.
Release Date – July 13, 2010