Sleepwalkers (1992)

SLEEPWALKERS starts out promisingly enough to be a creepy tale about a mother and son vampire team--needlessly involved in an incestuous relationship--played by BRIAN KRAUSE and ALICE KRIGE. These two handle their roles extremely well and the creepy atmosphere of the story makes you believe you're in for a good Stephen King thriller about a small town about to be devastated by vampires seeking nourishment.

There's even a pretty girl (MADCHEN AMICK) who flirts with the new boy in town, first at the movie theater where she works and then at high school--and these three characters carry the first part of the film nicely. You start to wonder whether the girl is going to be an easy victim of the mother and son team or whether she'll fight them off.

But as the plot thickens, so does the absurdity of the whole thing, all directed in comic book style so that none of the characters have any dimension beyond being puppets in a horror story that is so grotesque and over-the-top, particularly in the last half-hour, that you'll wonder whether a sane hand had any part in these proceedings. All of the business involving a menagerie of cats that sit on the couple's front lawn becomes laughable before the story uses them in a way that lacks any credibility at all.

To be fair, there are some scenes that do hold the interest, usually because a quirky supporting character, such as the black cop with his trusty traveling companion Clovis (a cat), provides some much needed humor--but those moments are few and far between. And any attempt to provide humor by having Stephen King play an obnoxious local man seeking help from a sheriff, fails utterly to do anything but convince the viewer that King should leave bit roles to professionals.

Whatever potential it had as a thriller is diminished by the outlandish ending which has Alice Krige losing her marbles completely. She hasn't had an eerier role since she played the girl who came back to life to haunt men in GHOST STORY ('82). But as good as she is, she can't save a trashy horror film from looking absurd.

Fmovies: There's something about the b-grade sleeper "Sleepwalkers" that keeps me from liking it, but not enough to entirely hate it either. It kept me entertained, but I wasn't all that satisfied. Director Mick Garris' handling might come off stagy (which took any sense of atmosphere) with an almost TV-like feel, but remains crisp and well paced in its actions. Some imagery shows moments of creativity with the illustrative camera-work with its scopes and tilts. I just wished it had been much more darker in its visual styling. Stephen King would adapt his own book, where the premise creates a wickedly novel concept that would turn upon its sly tone with nonsensical and over-the-top dramatic lashings. This goes for its outrageous, if clumsy climax. While the jolts are grisly, they do come off quite risible with it being punctuated by sadistic heavy-handedness. The eccentric make-up FX is decently pulled off, even with some cheesy and blotchy trimmings. The script is rather ill-defined, but still has a neat touch of morbid humour and a sexual charge thanks to the seductively deranged performances by Alice Krige and Brian Krause in their mother and son relationship. Mädchen Amick is suitably appealing in the victim role. Ron Perlman makes a short, but commanding turn. Also keep a look out for some amusingly interesting cameos by Stephen King, Tobe Hooper, John Dante, John Landis, Clive Baker and Mark Hamill.

this Stephen King adaptation was entertaining but not great,by any means.it's worthwhile to pass time.it''s probably as weird as any of the King adaptation i have,and even weirder than others.this movie sort of felt like a fairy tale to me.although not a kid's fable,obviously.i did like the cast,many of whom have gone on to other things,since then.Brian Krause also appeared in the TV show Charmed,Madchen Amick (who could be Kim Delaney's twin sister)has been in several smaller budget pictures.Alice Krige was seen most notably as the Borg Queen in Star Trek:First Contact,while Ron Perlman was previously seen in The TV series beauty and the Beast.his most notable role(In my opinion)was in Hellboy as the title character.like in most King movies,king himself appears in a cameo.at least three other modern horror masters(Jon Landis,Joe Dante,and Clive Barker also have cameos.anyway if you wanna pass 90 minutes or so,i'd say this movie is worth it.for me,Sleepwalkers is a 6/10

Sleepwalkers fmovies. `Sleepwalkers' is a film whose main plot thrust comes from the pre-opening credits description of what the film's title means. Just about all character backstory and motivations are given here, and we are then treated to a ninety-minute entertainment vehicle that plays out these events in a simplistic but interesting manner.

The film's acting, for a horror picture, is remarkably good. Brian Krause and Alice Krige give standout performances as the titular feline troublemakers who also share a disturbing Oedipal relationship, cult favorite Madchen Amick gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as Krause's troubled love interest, and the cameos by many famous faces from the horror world will give fans something to look for and smile about. Even the supporting cast members seem to be having a good time, including Ron Perlman and Glenn Shadix in relatively small but amusing roles.

The make-up effects are very good, although not top-notch. They're certainly nothing amazing, but they serve their occasionally-gruesome purposes well. The optical effects look pretty dated by today's standards, but it's still interesting to see CG effects in some of their earliest forms. The transformation sequences now look like something out of a made-for-TV movie, but they don't significantly detract from the film.

Where this picture does tend to fail is in its plot and dialogue. Just about all of the mystery of the story dissipates by its halfway point, leaving the audience to predict and anticipate just about everything that happens in the rest of the film, essentially destroying the tension and suspense aspects. And since this is a horror picture written by Stephen King, one would expect these two elements to be the strongest components of the film. The dialogue is at times campy and at other times overly-serious. This has the effect of making some of the characters unbalanced in many ways, something that detracts from the film as a whole. It seems the director and/or writer was/were having difficulty deciding whether or not to play this film up as a comedy or a true horror movie, and so as it stands it awkwardly lies somewhere in between.

`Sleepwalkers' is not horror at its finest, either in terms of ability to truly frighten or to provide fun campiness. It straddles the line between the two, existing somewhere equidistant from both. It is never too over-the-top for us to laugh out loud with it, nor is it ever truly scary enough to make us shiver. As it stands, it is an extremely simple and very entertaining work of filmmaking, something that horror fans will enjoy and others should probably avoid.

Best Stephen King film alongside IT, though this one is more fun than scary.

This one's got it all:

-a great cast with a Alice Krige and Brian Krause and a fun cameo from King himself;

-well dosed horror in an amusing storyline;

-great use of music, Santo & Johnny's "Sleepwalk" in particular;

-likeable characters in a typical King setting: middle of nowhere village;

-lots of humor. You can't really get good scares here because it's too much fun and over the top;

-old but really nice makeup effects like they don't make anymore!

A 4,5 rating: I don't get it really. When was the last time a horror film was as much fun as this one?

Director Mick Garris has commented on how "Sleepwalkers" was a troubled production, and one only has to watch in disbelief to see what he means. Before its 1992 theatrical release, I remember the film being heavily hyped as Stephen King's first foray into cinema with a completely original screenplay (and as was true with most adaptations of his work--with or without his involvement--at the time, the reviews were less than sympathetic). Ironically, Garris would become better known for helming TV-miniseries versions of some of King's best-known works ("The Stand"; "The Shining"; "Desperation"), directing right from the author's own scripts. Needless to say, these made-for-TV works outshine "Sleepwalkers," which simply further proves that King's writing style (heavy with internal dialogues and detailed, unspoken perceptions) is better suited to a format that can fully develop his themes and characters. This tale of an incestuous mother/son duo who shapeshifts into bloodthirsty felines, roaming from small towns to dine on virgin prey, is fairly decent for the first 50 minutes--King's use of 'local color' (and the resulting humor) is well-rendered, and Garris does a fine job of creating an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue. But just when "Sleepwalkers" seems headed for the zone of good (if not truly memorable) King adaptations, its final third devolves into overblown, ridiculous action sequences (as though the producers chopped away 30 pages of King's script for explosions and shootouts) and a queasy imbalance between absurd humor and sentimental melodrama. The end result hobbles the overall experience--had King's ideas been thoroughly fleshed-out, "Sleepwalkers" may have been a solid entry in his filmography...but as it stands, it feels like a lament over what could have been. The cats are incredibly cute, though.