The 1992 horror film was written by Stephen King and directed by Mick Garris. It’s the story of Charles Brady ( Brian Krause ) a high-school age boy who’s secretly non-human.
PLOT:
First off, the film’s introduction. Mark Hamill and a no-name cop investigate a murder in Bodega Bay California, which you may know from the Hitchcock movie ‘The Birds’, a film I think Sleepwalkers took some inspiration from. They go into the house, full of cats, some dead, some alive.
As far as appearence goes, Charles is an everyday kid who moved from Ohio to neighboring state Indiana. He’s new in town and has a crush on his classmate Tanya ( Madchen Amick ). He lives with his Mother, Mary ( Alice Krige ), who is also a sleepwalker. Due to their fear of cats, they have several bear traps layed out in their front yard. The cats waiting there like the birds in the Hitchcock movie. After a really long start, the film finally starts to, you know, start.
Tanya takes Charles out on a photoshoot in a graveyard. The unsuspecting girl takes photos of her surroundings. Suddenly, he bites her, and sucks her soul. Also, Charles has fangs ( but it isn’t a vampire ). She knocks him out with her camera. Being a horror movie, there’s bound to be a few stereotypical cliches in it somewhere. In this case, it’s the “is he really dead? I’mma go check and get attacked” trope. She makes a run for it, escaping the graveyard and is saved by Clovis the police attack cat.
After a brief cameo by Stephen King, Tanya is questioned about the occurence. She describes what happened, they of course not believing her. Then she shows them a picture she took of him, the photo somehow capturing him with an unumanly look.
The police, including Captain Soames ( Ron Perlman ) place her under police protection, in case Charles returns.Mary breaks into Tanya’s house, kills her parents and abducts her. She also kills a cop via corn on a cob stabbing. She takes her to her house, finding a bloody Charles, who had suffered a major attack by several cats. Charles wakes up, trying to once again, kill Tanya. She gouges his eyes, killing him. Meanwhile, the outside cats launch a full-scale tactical invasion of the house to kill the remaining sleepwalker, it’s a sucess! The End
CONCLUSION:
Fun fact: this was the first time King wrote a movie intended exclusively for screen, meaning it wasn’t based on a novel. Sleepwalkers was a bizarre little horror flick. It really wasn’t scary at all to be honest. In part because I’ve seen horror films multiple times more effective at the art of fear, and probably, mostly because of the poor makeup done to Charles and Mary, making them significantly less intimidating then they could have been otherwise.
Overall, Sleepwalkers wasn’t great, but it wasn’t trash either. It was just ok, I guess. My favorite part would probably have to be the corn-stabbing, imo it was also the most memorable, and I’m sure a large portion of people who’ve seen the film only even remember it for that purpose. For what it was, I’d give this film a 5.5./10.
