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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is about a half-human, half-cat race of shape shifters called, for no apparent reason, sleepwalkers. Hunky Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his incestuous mother (Alice Krige) are sleepwalkers, and they've come to the small town of Travis, Indiana, where they've somehow acquired a nice house and false identities. They need virgin souls to survive and have fixated on local beauty Tanya (Madchen Amick from Twin Peaks). That's about it for the story--from then on it's a series of chase scenes full of badly done gore. King must have been sleepwalking himself when he wrote this screenplay: the dialogue is terrible, the characters are cardboard, and the plotting is clumsy. Combine that with mediocre acting, thoughtless direction, slapdash editing, and cheesy special effects, and you have Sleepwalkers. Amick comes off reasonably well and there are cameos by King, Clive Barker, and horror directors John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But really, if you're interested in were-cats, see the original Cat People, starring Simone Simon; it's both sexier and scarier. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com
DISAPPOINTING
Review date: 2007-11-01 Rating: 6 out of 10
In the small town of Travis, Indiana, Mother-and-son Charles, (Brian Krause) and Mary Brady, (Alice Krige) move in, and Charles immediately sets his sets on Tanya Robertson, (Madchen Amick) a girl from school. Tanya seems just as smitten with him as he is with her, and they spend an increasing amount of time together. However, no one in town believes their story about being relocated from another state and the police get involved in the matter. When Charles turns on Tanya, showing himself and his mother to be a form of cat creature, it becomes an all-out search to stop them.
The Good News: With Stephen King, you can never really tell what he's going to make with his films. Either he makes some of the best horror in the genre, or he makes ones that are pretty mind-numbingly bad. Sadly, this falls into the later category quite often, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything worthwhile. This is pretty much a special effects movie through-and-through, and it does look pretty nice. The cat creatures look really nice, with a sort of feline look with a sort of demonic twist that makes them truly benevolent. The transformations into them look quite believable, and are a far cry better than more recent transformations. The fact that these creatures are pretty violent and ruthless isn't a bad thing either. There is plenty of blood-loss in here with some violent set-ups and gags. In here are some really impressive moments, including having a hand ripped off, a corn-on-the-cob as a an impaling device, and a really brutal slamming onto a white-picket fence, which is the bloodiest kill in the film. It's got a fine collection of other kills as well, so they're never dull. Once things pick up in the third act and the momentum gets going, it's actually not that bad, and features a little bit of action in it that it normally doesn't.
The Bad News: As I said above, there's more bad than good. It has a rather interesting premise and that goes a long way, but it has an oddball approach to working through it. Instead of setting up a series of incidents and coincidences that set up a feeling of unease concerning the situation, it dives right in and makes the audience aware of what's going on, ruining what suspense it could've had. Then by introducing a radical shift in tone, the difference becomes to the point of distracting. By becoming a low-rate horror-comedy that isn't all that funny to begin with, it clashes with the hardcore horror the plot and the actions clearly want it to be. There is also a big feeling of the film being a little underwritten, and there are so many questions still unanswered and motives in the film. Why the cats? What is the myth about the sleepwalkers? What is the deal between the mother and son? There are a couple more real big questions in here, but these are the ones that really stick out. There action in the film is also non-existent, consisting mainly of flimsy-done chases and a couple scenes at the end, but none of them are all that spectacular. All of it is rather dully played out, and doesn't really capture much interest or excitement in the proceedings. However, the biggest point against the film is the repeated cat killing and scenes featuring dead cats. Even though this is a horror film and that kind of stuff doesn't affect me all that much, I still don't like to see it. It's a personal thing, but I don't like to watch something that looks like the cat I have at home getting killed. However hokey the effects are done doesn't matter, and the fact that it features these kinds of scenes is one that I find a little troubling and it lowers a point because of it.
The Final Verdict: The biggest gripe I have with the film is a personal issue more than anything, but that still doesn't excuse it from being all that good of a film. It's more of a disappointment than anything from it's source, so advance with caution. You could find stuff of importance in here, but it'll be pretty hard to find.
This is a pretty good adoption from print to the screen. Of course the disadvantage is selecting what to show. The big advantage is not having to use the King potty mouth on every sentence. A few descriptive words are needed for the ambiance but King goes overboard in his writing.
Alice Krige the Borg queen and ghost is the perfect person to play Mary Brady as she can be so sweet and forceful at the same time.
If you look close you will see Stephen King as the Cemetery Caretaker. He is a much better token than Alfred Hitchcock
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We all know that there is some truth to fantastic creatures reported through the ages. This is the story of a pair of the last of a bread of shape shifting creatures called Sleepwalkers. They are a very close nit mother and son. They must live on the life essence of good girls and at all costs must avoid cats as cats are the mortal enemy of Sleepwalkers. Watch as they barley escape with their lives and set-up house in a rural community.
The genesis of this story sounds pretty good, actually. Drawing upon ancient stories and the highly mysterious history of cats, the film brings to life two modern-day “Sleepwalkers,” a mother and son forced to constantly roam around the country as a direct result of their unusual feeding habits. Some places just don’t take too kindly to having their citizens slaughtered and fed off of. The mother is now especially hungry, and she is depending on her beloved son Charles to supply her needs. These needs are rather specific, requiring a “nice” girl, and Charles has found the perfect such paragon of virtue and virginity in Tanya Robertson. His plans for bringing Tanya home to Mother inevitably go awry, and the last half hour of the movie is an anticlimactic torture test and overacting marathon in the form of a story that seemingly refuses to end. Brian Krause and Alice Krige actually play their roles rather well (not counting all of the silly dialogue they are forced to utter), and Madchen Amick is a lovely young woman who played her role of sacrifice-to-be in the brilliantly cheesy kind of way this script seemed to call for. Amick also has the distinction of being the only woman in the world I would pay money to watch sweep the floor.
The talent of one actor can sometimes save a movie from utter disaster, and the real hero of Sleepwalkers accomplishes just such a feat. This unsung hero is named Sparks, and he is outstanding in the role of Clovis the Attack Cat. Clovis is the hero of Sleepwalkers; don’t let anyone tell you any differently. One sometimes wonders if cats are not the real overseers of this world. Everyone knows how mysterious they are, how they seem to live lives of leisure, and how even the best of them interact with the human world on their own terms. Sleepwalkers walk in utter fear of cats, deeply vulnerable to the merest slash from a cat’s claw. By instinct alone, cats recognize Sleepwalkers, and throughout this film they are camped en masse outside the home of our local shapeshifters, patiently waiting for the perfect time to strike and thus, once again, help preserve the lives of human beings who will never realize their indebtedness to these seemingly playful, lazy creatures. Their constant vigil around the house of the Sleepwalkers provides the only remotely creepy aspect of the entire movie. Without the cats, this movie would not be worth watching at all.