“Trauma is such a powerful force. If untreated it can slither into all the facets of your life, corrupting until finally it transforms you into something you never wanted. That negative energy, it’s what that entity feeds off of. I know this is hard for you to hear, but you need to accept the fear that lives in a world that’s both seen and unseen, and part of the unseen world detests humanity and wants to see it destroyed, both physically and spiritually. This entity is as ancient as it is evil. Whatever you do, don’t let it get you alone in the dark.”
That’s actually good advice that applies to movies. They certainly can get us alone in the dark, and sometimes it’s a great time. Sometimes maybe not so much. That can be doubly so with an entry in the “found footage” sub-genre of horror films. Sometimes it’s a scream. Sometimes it makes you want to scream … and not in a good way. That’s my feeling about Dream Eaters. They say that too many cooks spoil the broth, and when it comes to these dream eaters, that’s likely the biggest problem the film has. With three writers/directors who also happen to be the stars of the film? Yeah, it’ll make you want to scream.
Eli Roth is listed as the presenter, and a producer but he actually didn’t have anything to do with the film. He started an outreach company to try to bring low-budget horror films to theaters, and this is an example of the kind of thing he’s supplied. He’s more a curator than anything else.
Here’s the quick story. Alex (Williams) suffers from parasomnia, but not really. What he suffers from is a bad case of sleepwalking. It gets so intense that he eventually hurts himself and scares the crap out of his girlfriend, Mallory (Drumm). So one of them, and this appears to flip at one point, decides they need a getaway. Check this. The guy is becoming a dangerous sleepwalker, so they decide that an isolated cabin in the middle of winter with about two feet of snow everywhere is a really great idea. Already I’m thinking these people deserve whatever happens to them. Mallory, who happens to be a starving documentary filmmaker, also decides she’s going to film their entire 10-day stay. There are also a few security cameras about ,and there’s where you as the audience come in. You’re seeing this whole thing happen through these cameras. It’s so bad that at one point Mallory is running for her life but has this bulky camera she carries throughout the ordeal. Yeah, she should be monster food.
The two characters really aren’t enough to carry this thing. Alex is getting worse, and Mallory keeps making the same mistake over and over again. By the way, that’s the clinical definition of insanity, so I don’t know which one needs the shrink more. I’m actually thinking it’s Mallory. So the folks involved likely realized they were not going to carry this thing by themselves. So we have zoom chats with Alex’s therapist, Dr. Snape (Smith) who wants to put Alex in a sleep study. I think that’s the sequel. Then there is Dr. Armitage (Richard) who wrote a book about happenings like this and credits it to some Lovecraftian creature with a lot of tentacles.
These filmmakers certainly gave it the old college try, but they missed on so many levels. The chemistry between these two who are so hopelessly in love is horrible, and the film hangs too many of the scares on either Alex’s often creepy face staring around a corner or a lot of booms and thuds. Now Paranormal Activity actually turned those elements into some sweet scares, but the production value here doesn’t carry these audio cues well enough to get a scare out of us. Jump scares are too predictable these days, but filmmakers continue to rely of them instead of offering us a truly scary experience. It’s cheating, and it’s a crutch, but in this case I think they had to do both. If you are interested in a really great film about true parasomnia, you really need to check out the William Malone film Parasomnia. It’s a small-budget film that runs circles around this kind of stuff. Look for it. You won’t be sorry.
The trouble with Dream Eaters is I had to fight to maintain my attention span enough to tough this one out. If you want a good film for background at a slumber party, give it a run. “You’re not going to like this.”
