Brandon Auman’s Sleepwalker, a feature-length version of the filmmaker’s own short, centers on a grieving mother (played by Hayden Panettiere) and her series of unyielding, nocturnal terrors. And as a recurring dream might have, there is an overwhelming sense of familiarity to Sleepwalker that lingers well after everything else has been forgotten. That nagging, been-there-done-that feeling ends up being way more haunting than the actual story here.
When we first meet Sarah, Panettiere’s character in Sleepwalker, she’s still coping with multiple traumas. On top of losing her young daughter, Aimee (Corinne Sweeney), her husband (Justin Chatwin) was controlling and abusive. That same man also fell into a coma before they could get divorced, so Sarah technically remains married to him and has to make medical decisions on his behalf. The full details of Aimee’s death are a bit vague as well, but Sarah’s grief, along with plenty of visceral nightmares, makes it clear that the child’s passing was violent.
Pictured: Hayden Panettiere and Beverly D’Angelo in Sleepwalker.
Unable to process her tragedy whenever she is awake, Sarah succumbs to sleepwalking. That suspicious case of somnambulism goes on to fuel the nightmarish reveries during her waking hours, which, as you might guess, leads to a lot of jump scares. Keep in mind, the use of “scares” here is totally figurative, seeing as how nothing in this film is all that frightening. At best, you’re caught off guard when gauging whether or not a scene is actually happening, or it’s just another dream sequence. There is very little dread to be found in the film’s half-hearted horror scenes.
For a film where Panettiere’s character feels absolutely everything, Sleepwalker’s emotional range is quite limited. A few unsuccessful bits of comic relief, ones largely delivered by the hippie grandmother (Beverly D’Angelo), do nothing to break up that one-notedness. Surely no one was expecting cheer, but the dreariness is taxing. The fact that nearly every scene has the same depressing, feel-bad tone doesn’t help matters, either. There is, though, a plot-padding sequence, one involving a family friend and spiritual exorcist (Lori Tan Chinn), that briefly livens up the joint. Out of place as it felt, that silly séance showed more personality than anything else in the film.
It might have been purely incidental, but the way Sleepwalker was acted and shot gives it a surreal quality. Nothing comes across as overly authentic; the production values are modest and Lifetime-esque, and the performances are awkward. To Auman’s credit, the film achieves a weird dreaminess that doesn’t improve the overall experience; however, that atmosphere is apt and unfaltering. That’s about as good as things ever get in Sleepwalker, a film that generally does nothing new, as far as grief horror goes. Sad to say, that punchy ending wasn’t worth sitting through everything else. Maybe the starting material would have better served as an anthology segment, as opposed to something that feels stretched beyond its limits.
Starting on January 9, Sleepwalker is available on VOD and plays in select theaters.
Pictured: Poster for Sleepwalker.
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