There
must be something stirring in our collective subconscious. For some reason,
sleep paralysis and the malevolent figures sometimes reported by those suffering
from the condition have recently popped in the popular culture, under at least
two very different guises. After blowing the doors off this year’s Sundance,
Rodney Ascher’s The Nightmare,
perhaps the scariest documentary maybe ever,
opens in theaters this Friday. The phenomenon that likely inspired Freddy
Kruger also gets another fictional scare treatment in Joshua Fraiman’s The Man in the Shadows (trailer here), which screens
during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.
Whether
it is happening in an ostensibly true sense or not hardly matter for those who
experience sleep paralysis. Those even more unfortunate often find themselves
trapped between dreams and waking life, while being menaced by the so-called “Hat
Man” and the shadow men. Rachel Darwin is one such terrorized soul. Weary from
her nightmares, Darwin has been self-medicating with dope and withdrawing from
her alarmed husband Scott. Of course, his recent infidelity hasn’t helped their
marriage much either. In fact, he rather assumes her dreams are rooted in her
sense of injured betrayal. How like a trial attorney to assume it is all about
him.
Sadly,
she really is seeing the creepy figures. Worse still, they are aware of her
awareness and are keeping close tabs on her. As Darwin clings to her last
shreds of sanity, her husband hatches a brilliant plan to rekindle their
romance in an old, poorly lit cabin somewhere far from town. Remember, he is a
trial attorney.
Frankly,
sleep paralysis and the nightmarish visions that often accompany it are so
creepy, it is almost impossible to make a film about it that is not scary, at
least to some extent. Frustratingly, Fraiman also mixes in some violent
nightmare imagery that essentially qualify as torture porn. Be warned, the
opening credits are tough sledding to get through. Nevertheless, some of the
speculations offered by William, a fellow sufferer at Darwin’s group therapy,
are rather unsettling and differ significantly from Ascher’s film.
Throughout
the film, Sarah Jurgens’s Darwin looks convincingly terrified and
sleep-deprived. Conversely, Nick Baillie never finds the right key for the
problematically annoying and strangely arrogant husband. However, as wacko
William, Adam Tomlinson is appropriately twitchy and skittish, in a horror
movie kind of way.
By their very nature, if that is the best term,
shadow people are perfectly suited for horror films. It is not simply due to
their explicitly threatening behavior. That which is unseen is always far
scarier than any bogeyman we can clearly see in all its supposed ferocity.
Likewise, Fraiman falters when he shows too much, especially during the
hostel-like dreams sequences. What’s the point of having shadow men, when you
are forcing the dreaming Darwin to undergo a Hostel-style abortion? Its just unnecessarily ugly stuff.
Regardless, Ascher’s The Nightmare is
very highly recommended when it opens this Friday, whereas Fraiman’s The Man in the Shadows is best saved for
genre junkies in dire need of a fix when it screens tomorrow (6/1) as part of
DWF18.
