SLUMBER

US, 2017, 84 minutes, Colour.
Maggie Q, Will Kemp, Sophia Wiseman, Kristen Bush, Sam Troughton, Lucas Bond, Honor Kneafely, Sylvester Mc Coy, Vincent Andriano.
Directed by Jonathan Hopkins.

Slumber begins in a rather documentary way, information given about nightmares and difficulties in sleep, sleepwalking. There are also a number of illustrations of sinister presences during sleep. And then, there is a nightmare sleepwalking sequence in which a little girl is unable to save her sleepwalking brother from falling out of window to his death.

Maggie Q is Alice, a wife and mother, working at a Sleep Center, interviewing families, reassuring them about sleepwalking, imagination and fears. However, she interviews a family which is particularly disturbed, deciding to observe them laboratory fashion. This leads to some violent drama, the father being arrested after his violence towards Alice herself, the mother and the children still finding sleepwalking difficulties at home. The cleaner at the Center is helpful and has a grandfather who has had similar difficulties. Alice interviews him and ask for his help.

As with this kind of film, suggestions of horror, there is a buildup and quite some drama to save a boy prone to sleepwalking and threatened by some kind of daemon. The end is ambiguous – Alice, whom the audience has been admiring, being finally seen in some kind of interned hospital situation.

1. The title? The nature of sleep? Sleepwalking? Sleep paralysis? Disturbed sleep? Nightmares? The information given at the opening of the film?

2. The American setting, the city, homes, Sleep Center, observation rooms? The musical score?

3. The opening, the tone, the little boy with the nightmares, his calls and repetitions, his sister asleep, going into the corridor, at the window, the appeal to his sister, falling out of the window? The revelation that this was Alice’s experience of the death of her brother? Her blaming herself?

4. Alice and her husband, her daughter, at home, domestic? Going to work? The Sleep Center? Interviewing families, giving advice, reassuring children? The interview with the Morgan family? Their disturbances? Each member involved? The decision to observe them? The father and his situation? The four and the observation room, Daniel sleeping, the others rising, moving away from Daniel? The issues of violence, the bruises on Daniel? Everyone waking? Cam and his intervention with the father? The father taken away by the police? The threat to Alice, his attempt to choke her, the sleep?

5. The introduction of the themes of demonic presence? The range of art works and illustrations? Demons? Alice’s daughter looking at the book? Alice and her dreams, her drawings?

6. Alice, her work, her collaborator, her being tired, watching the sleepers, going for the coffee, the disturbance? Cam and his role at the Center? His decision to leave?

7. Cam, the back story, his grandfather, age, experience, dark glasses, cutting his eyelids, his past, explanations? Cam and his unwillingness to help? The old man offering?

8. The dilemmas at home, the mother and the bathroom, her teeth, the daughter and her experiences, Daniel?

9. Alice at home, the tensions with her daughter, her husband? His support?

10. Alice and her decision, her theory, that the old man could help, that the father could save his son while he was asleep? The interactions, the drama, the threats? Alice and the repetition of the episode with her brother? Daniel saved, Alice and her collapse?

11. The ending, the phone call, Alice being reassured, the fact that she was an institution…?

12. Diagnoses of sleep paralysis? The scientific background? The introduction of mythology? Issues of sanity and madness? Secular exorcisms?