Sleepwalkers (1992)

Wonderful character development!

Just perfect...

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

What's a sleepwalker? How about shapeshifting energy vampires that survive off the energy of virgins, who can cast illusions, move things with their minds and transform into werecats? Oh yeah and their biggest weakness is cats, who can see them and kill them with their claws. And before we forget, the only way the males can feed their female mothers is by having sex with them. Got all that? Then if you can get your head around all of that, you're ready for Sleepwalkers.Charles Brady and his mother Mary (Alice Krige, the Borg queen!) are on the run, settling for a bit in Indiana. They've just escaped California, where they killed a young girl (who emerges as a screaming skeleton from a closet, shocking the police — including Mark Hamill among them) and left behind a house surrounded by dead cats.Somehow, Charles is able to fake the necessary paperwork (this is pre-internet) and attend the local high school, where he chases Tanya (Mädchen Amick from Twin Peaks). Is it love or is he just trying to feed his mother? Well, on their first date, he tries to suck out her lifeforce, so she jams a corkscrew in his eye. If that's not young love, what is?Deputy Sheriff Andy arrives, having been searching for Charles ever since he was speeding and trying to run down young girls (not to mention slicing. the hand off of a pedophile teacher). Oh yeah — the deputy has a partner. Clovis. A cat who sits in the front seat. As Andy attempts to save Tanya, Charles kills him, drawing the ire of Clovis, who scratches him. He staggers home, where his mother uses her powers to hide them from the police. However, the area cats are having none of this as they gather around the house.

Well, well, well, what have we here? Yes, that's right, yet another average Stephen King film. This one is slightly different from the others in that King actually scripted the film, instead of it being an adaptation of one of his stories. And sad to say that the plot of this film is very poor indeed. We are offered no explanations of what these 'sleepwalker' creatures are, how they came to be, or why they turn into big rubber suited monsters when they get near cats. Also, like other King films (for instance PET SEMATARY) the film is very glossy and slick.The acting ranges from adequate to poor, especially in the case of Alice Krige, who seems to think she is in some kind of melodrama instead of a cheapo horror film. The rest of the actors are just not taking the film seriously, which is something I don't like much. This means that you laugh at the film, and there is no chance of identifying with any of the characters. Other than that, it's your typical "monsters disguised as humans" film, with a few twists in the tale to differentiate it from all of the others we've seen in the past. The use of cats is quite original, and at least the cats are realistic in this film (unlike THE UNCANNY). They're the good guys too, so expect to see a lot of them broken in half, thrown about, and caught in bear traps before the credits roll. The film does boast some good special effects work in its favour. There are a number of clever post-TERMINATOR 2 morphing scenes which are nice to look at. Unfortunately only the first, unexpected morph is shocking and then you simply wait for the next one to happen.The film also has a high gore level, which surprised me a bit seeing as it's a mainstream film. There is lots of hand violence: hands are a) cut off b) slammed in doors c) have their fingers bitten off and a lot of blood everywhere, with people being stabbed in the eyes. There are also a number of cameos to look out for, from Joe Dante to John Landis to Clive Barker. Even Mark Hamill pops up as a policeman in the opening scenes. Stephen King also puts in his expected 'comedy' appearance. The film is entertaining with all the violence and gore on offer, but it's not exactly involving or intelligent in any way. If you're looking for cheap thrills then you've come to the right place.

Only a month ago or so the world was treated to a home security video clip of a cat saving a little boy from the neighbor's dog. It was a sight to see. It is clear that Stephen King is a cat person (see Cat's Eye). Cats are the heroes again in the movie Sleepwalkers.Sleepwalkers is about an inhuman freaky-deaky mother and son. As the opening caption stated, they feed off of "the life forces of virginal human females." Apparently the son does the hunting while the mother stays at home and awaits nourishment. They've moved to a new town and identified a new prey and so the movie goes.The movie was rife with clichés. You already know them: cat jumping out of the closet, assuming the bad guys is dead, exploding cars, etc. Besides the clichés and some so-so acting the movie was alright. Sleepwalkers were a different being to explore. Vampires, zombies, slashers and werewolves have been done so much that it was cool to see some other types of beings. The effects were really good for 1992. The movie was more of a thriller than a horror with some gratuitous blood thrown in there. The movie wasn't bad, it was well worth the price I paid to watch it. Nothing.

This is a pretty cool movie about a pair of monsters known as sleepwalkers, who move to a town in Idaho so as to hunt for prey so that they might survive. The prey that is necessary for them to survive are virgin women, which in my opinion is quite a cliché from ancient times. Still, Sleepwakers is a good movie and explores the idea of living on the fringes of society, never being able to mix with real people.The sleepwalkers are not really portrayed as being evil, rather just intelligent predators that need to survive. Unfortunately, this does not come out as much as the sleepwalkers roam around killing everybody they come across. Some of the one liners are reasonable: "Cop Kebab," while others are downright corny "If you don't eat your vegetables you don't get any desert," right after the mother sticks a corn cob into a cops back.What gives this movie flair is its use of cats. The thing about sleepwalkers is that cats hate them and they hate cats. The reason is that cats can see through their disguises and their claws can injure them. What I found really beautiful was how the cat Clovis climbed up onto the body of a dead cop and cried.This movie could have been much better if the nature of the creatures had been explored more. It is about survival, not sadistic murder, and that is what comes out with the sleepwalkers' one liners. A creature that must do this to survive would be much less comical and jovial, and in some ways suffer much more pain, especially how every time he makes an acquaintance with a young woman, he knows that he must kill her or he will die himself.Still, I like this movie and will watch it again, namely for the nature of the creatures and its reasonable story line.