Sleepwalkers

Sucks her dryer
Good movie

So grateful this film exists
So thankful to Amazon for having this movie! No one believed me it existed and were starting to give me very concerned looks. It’s a very odd plot to explain. Thanks for the help!

Goofy, gory fun.
SLEEPWALKERS, directed by Mick Garris (director of several King books/stories, producer, writer and host of the best horror podcast around – Post Mortem) and written by Stephen King, is a bizarre yet highly entertaining take on supernatural lore. The film stars Brian Krause (Charmed), Alice Krige (Ghost Story), Mädchen Amick (Twin Peaks) with cameos from Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling), Clive Barker (Nightbreed), John Landis and Stephen King himself.Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his mother Mary (Alice Krige) have recently moved to a small town in Indiana after fleeing their home in California. Unbeknownst to those around them, the Brady’s are modern-day vampires who move from one town to the next, preying on young women and draining their blood in order to survive. Also known as shapeshifters, their true nature is unrecognizable from almost everyone except felines. Once settled into their new home, Charles sets his sights on a new victim, the inexplicably single, innocent and virginal high-school student, Tanya Robertson (Mädchen Amick). Charmed by Charles’ charisma, nothing could have prepared Tanya for the horror that awaited her as she comes to learn of Charles’ mutating ways. As the terror rises, along with the body count, the townsfolk gather, with felines in tow, for the ultimate showdown between man and monster.This movie is wild. While I haven’t read, or seen, all of Stephen King’s work, but I’ve seen enough where I feel comfortable saying that this particular storyline is probably one of his more unusual ones. The film takes a hard left turn right from the start when it’s revealed that Charles and his mother share a very intimate, romantic, relationship. Honestly, I was so disturbed by their storyline that it was hard to watch them interact on screen regardless of the fact that they were shapeshifting vampires.I don’t want to linger too long on the incestuous plot line so let’s turn to the practical effects. This was one aspect of the film that really shined even if the end results were a bit comical at times. When it came time for us to see Charles and Mary in their true form, I was incredibly impressed with the detail that went into the design of their creatures form. However, the midway portion of their transformations were by far the most laughable – I would have never guessed that they were vampires by their transformation, instead, I would have assumed they had mutated themselves into some weird half cat/half human hybrid. It’s when we move into the territory of visual effects that we see a bit of a decline, but I blame that on the fact that it was the early ‘90s and we hadn’t perfected the use of CGI yet (though, I’m not sure we ever will).In terms of performances, I had a blast with all the characters that the actors portrayed (outside of the romantic mother-son relationship). It was great seeing so many surprise cameos throughout the film, but the most surprising was definitely when Ron Perlman showed up. Again, not knowing much about this film prior, I had no idea that he was going to pop in out of nowhere, which the same could be said about Mark Hamill, who has a brief cameo in the beginning of the film. However, my favorite character had to be police officer Andy Simpson (played by Dan Martin) as not only did he have the best tunes to sing along too but he also had his a cat as his trusty sidekick. He knew what was up, he knew there was something off with Charles, and it’s truly unfortunate that no one listened to him.All in all, SLEEPWALKERS may be an odd film to many, but I came to find that there were a lot of entertaining moments. I wouldn’t categorize this as being one of Stephen King’s best stories, but it’s one that is at least enjoyable to watch by yourself or with a group of friends. If you are a fan of killer critters like I am, I highly suggest watching this high because dang, it’s a trip.This is for the “bare boned” bluray. There’s a special Shout!/Scream factory version priced at (about) thirty bucks – frankly, as enjoyable as the movie is, the “Criterion” treatment seems like overkill.

Classic
Anything Stephen King is always a hit. This was one of my favorites growing up.

The special edition of the Sleepwalkers Blu-ray is loaded with tons of entertaining features, including an informative & often humorous commentary by the film’s director Mick Garris & it’s two stars Brian Krause & Madchen Amick. Garris tends to be more technical (although he does have some interesting cameo stories & behind-the-scenes juice to share, unfortunately Brian Krause tends to laugh a lot so he shares far less; although when he does open up it’s informative, but Madchen Amick, who in particular, offers the most fun for commentary fans to enjoy. Amick has a dry sense of humour, and she’s naturally funny, but she’s never insulting to the project, she’s just a woman, who after 25 years has chosen to look back on this particualr project with a lot of respect, gratitude & humour. For fans like myself, the commentary will be a thrill to revisit Sleepwalkers with.Other features on the collector’s edition include several cast & crew video interviews as well as behind-the-scenes footage & special effects footage of the movie’s original ending (reshot after cryptic test audiences & the MPAA tore the film to shreds). The MPAA ordered Garris to chop at least five major sequences in the film before he could score a much-needed R rating. I prefer the original ending (as I often do for any film that suffer’s studio cuts).An interesting note for movie fans I have is: pause the movie during the opening credits when you see the various books, scriptures and texts pertaining to the Sleepwalkers origins. Even in the commentary Director Mick Garris and his two leads did not seem to know or take notice of the Sleepwalker history written for the credits. Upon paying these moments I learned that the Sleepwalkers were originally a group of occultists who believed they could prolong life by draining the life force of virgins. Over time these people became more animals than human, becoming a combination of cat & lizard-like entities that needed the life-force to even life. I thought it was interesting.So basically, even King hasn’t;t mentioned this background, but Sleepwalkers were in fact, once human, but through ritual and I assume magic, they slowly morphed into something else. Considered somewhat like a vampire, a Sleepwalker can morph shape, and assume the identity of a human, but they must focus to maintain this illusion. The males take the life-force of virgin females and feed it to their female counterparts. The females cannot take this life-force on their own.Also in one text there is a lengthy backstory about an Archeologist who studies the Sleepwalkers from a far while he’s on an expedition, but he was discovered and his entire exploitative team was murdered by the Sleepwalkers. Then, later in life the Archeologist was locked up in a asylum. All of this was right there in the opening credits, I mean it’s all written in text form, so on the Blu-ray you can freeze it and clearly read everything you wanna know about the creatures.I think all this background information would make for a stunning Tv min-series. If someone were to use what the movie already revealed, plus all the background info from these books and texts in the opening credits Sleepwalkers might finally catch a break. It’s always been a maligned King project, and I feel unfairly so.Alice Krige is brilliant as Mary Brady, the mother of Charles Brady (Brian Krause) who himself had the difficult task of conveying shy & monstrous all at once (and I think he succeeds beautifully. Maybe now that Sleepwalkers is a cult classic, 25 years in, Mick Garris and Stephen King would consider revisiting the storyline as a mini-series. And since we never truly see Charles die, they could easily create a story where Madchen Amick’s tanya Robertson is a grown, married and has a family of her own, with Charles plotting a revenge scenario for killing his mother.I am so happy to own this collector’s edition, and I highly recommend it to any Sleepwalker movie fans out there.

I love this movie.Saw it years ago and was please to see it released on Blu-ray as part of the Eureka Classics label.The digital “shape shift” effects are quite crude by todays standard but the film is 30 years old.The Eureka slip case and box art are brilliant, a must for any horror and cat fan.The sound track is a blast from the past too , featuring tracks by Enya, The Contours and “It’s a monster” by Extreme to name a few.It also includes a booklet for the first 2000 copies and a bunch of special features that i have not watched yet so unfortunately cant comment.All in all another great movie for my ever growing collection of obscure movies in my retro room.

It’s not a good movie, or a great movie. It’s lackluster at best. It’s the sheer insanity of everything else in it, from the antagonists and their ‘activities’, the cameos of a bunch of horror directors, a great premise almost purposefully made into a bad movie.Loved every minute of this schlock. Wish Mr. King made more movies like this.