Parasomnia

When it comes to the horror community, I have a lot friends — fellow fans, other journalists, filmmakers, actors, writers — it's inevitable that we'll mesh and our lives will intertwine. (We all go to the same parties!)

So that is why it's a challenge to write reviews on friends' movies. I recuse myself from some; other times I will just do an interview instead, to help get the word out. I do, however, try and keep my journalistic integrity as intact as possible when I decide to go ahead and write a critique.

In the case of Parasomnia, I was actually on set for much of the shooting, read the script, have seen it in different cuts, and therefore have a lot more information and foundation going into the first official screening than I normally would with any other movie. My perspective may be different from the in-cold reviewer, but I do genuinely like the film and I want to tell you about it.

Writer/Director William Malone won me over as a fan with his entry in the "Masters of Horror" TV series, with his one hour story entitled Fair-Haired Child, in 2006. Prior to this, I had seen his House on Haunted Hill remake and FearDotCom in theaters, and while I enjoyed them both, I didn't run out and buy every Malone title on DVD.

Going back and revisiting those movies now, along with Fair-Haired Child and Parasomnia, I can definitely see a deliberate trend in his style… dreams, dolls, demons and delirium dominate. Are you with us? ("Us" being a bizarre yet breathtaking amalgam of H.R. Giger, John William Waterhouse, Dr. Phibes, Sigmund Freud, Robert Wiene, Federico Fellini, Hieronymus Bosch, and The Brothers Quay.)

Parasomnia, a structured narrative chiller and horror-tinged mystery, follows a naïve and reckless, yet earnest and well-meaning, young man named Danny (Dylan Purcell) who works in a retro record store by day, and harbors a beautiful, beleaguered girl in his apartment by night. Innocent and ingenuous, the luminous Laura (Cherilyn Wilson) is struck by a narcoleptic-like malady called parasomnia. Most of her life has been spent sleeping — suffering nightmares of being trapped in a sharp, stormy, mirrored world ruled by mesmerist and murderer Bryon Volpe (Patrick Kilpatrick) — and as such, she is confined to a bed in a mental hospital.

She's trapped. That is, until one day when Danny comes to visit his incarcerated friend, Billy (Dov Tiefenbach), and he sees Laura. He falls so deeply for her the moment he lays moony eyes on her, that he must have her for his own alone. In desperation to be with his beloved, Danny kidnaps Laura and hides her in his apartment. Little does he know… Volpe is equally obsessed with Laura and he will stop at nothing to suck her back into his dangerous dreamscape.

When the worlds of fantasy and fatality collide, Detectives Garrett and Conroy (Jeffrey Combs, and Jeff Doucette respectively) are called onto the case. What they find is a trail of terror unlike anything either of them ever could have imagined. And once Volpe is on the loose, his mayhem makes Manson look like Mister Rogers.

To say that Parasomnia is bloody and twisted is an understatement. However, it may be too understated for some fans who are looking for pure horror. More sentimental than suspenseful, the heart of the story is the inexplicable yet irresistible adoration between the two youngsters. Each would die for the other, and to believe that, you simply have to let go and buy into it. (There is an explanation of their connection, but some viewers may not feel its impact as forcefully as the filmmakers would like.) Other caveats are a few comedic scenes revolving around Laura's childlike simplicity which, in this reviewer's opinion, fall a tad flat.

The acting is to-par across the board, with standout characterizations coming from Combs as the tough-talking noir-styled wisecracking gumshoe, and Tiefenbach as the twitchy, advice-spewing automaton-puppeteer and avant-garde, sticky-fingered artist.

Nicholas Pike's atmospheric score sets the stage for Christian Sebaldt's titillating cinematography, which is bolstered by stunning production design from Gene Warren III and Dan Adams. One climatic sequence which stands out in particular in the visual sense is one in which Laura, clad in peacock feather-wings like a blue and green angel (kudos to K.N.B.) and surrounded by mechanical malevolents (constructed by Jeff Farley of Obscure Artifacts), wakes up with the force and fury of vengeful valkyrie. It's quite astonishing and beautiful.

While it is probably the most palatable and the least outres of my favorite cinema obscura of the year (Darren Bousman's Repo! The Genetic Opera and Dario Argento's Mother of Tears being on that list), one must be pretty predisposed to the weird and wonderful if they're going to like Parasomnia as much as I do. It's not for everyone; but if it is for you, you already know it. Now all you've got to do is see it!

Parasomnia premieres at the L.A. ScreamFest on October 17.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson