PARASOMNIA (2009)

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"Unusual Horror that should appeal to Horror fans."

Danny Sloan (Dylan Purcell) is an art student that gets dumped by his girlfriend. Meeting a friend who is in a mental hospital, for drug offences, he stumbles first across Byron Volpe (Patrick Kilpatrick) a crazed psychopathic hypnotist that is strung up in a padded cell. Then Laura Baxter (Cherilyn Wilson) a stunning young lady that suffers from a condition known as Parasomnia, or sleeping beauty syndrome. Laura is basically asleep most of the time and is only awake and lucid for moments. Danny takes an instant liking to Laura, much to the dismay of Volpe who believes Laura belongs to him.

Plot wise this is perhaps a little slow to get going. I would say though it is worth sticking with, because it does get better and the final half hour or so it especially well done. Though it is a little predictable and the very end is also a bit sickly sweet for my tastes.

Volpe the crazy hypnotist/mesmerist comes across well, though the ease at which he hypnotises/mesmerises people is a little too easy - only has to look at them. Being strung up with his head covered, mouth gagged, arms and legs suspended probably breaks some sort of international laws on treatment of patients I would imagine. But it looked ominous and dark, the general sight of him in that state would probably freak out most normal people.

Danny is a bit wet, typically nerd type of character that works in a record store selling vintage stuff. Though he is likeable enough and does things for the right reasons. He doesn't do anything too amazingly stupid that you start to question the character.

Laura is a bit of a conundrum in certain respects. Spending most of her time asleep, she has not matured to match her physical age. So she comes across as innocent and child like, but there is a dark side that is being manipulated by Volpe.

Acting was great overall; the main players came across well. I didn't doubt anybodies abilities, or not believe in the characters they were playing. Though it was obvious this film had a limited budget, due to the recurrent use of the same settings. The actors though did make you forget that aspect which I thought was good.

I can't fault the directing or the editing I must say the final sequences are put together nicely. You do sort of wonder how things managed to get setup so quickly under the circumstance. But if you don't probe things too much and take it 'as is', then this film has an interesting ending. It is done well and has an almost artistic lilt to it in certain respects. Lots of crazy clockwork figures and classical music playing, they certainly do create an interesting atmosphere at the end.

Visually some of the effects looked a bit cheap/throwback to an age already gone. But they didn't impact too much on the film, I think they realised with regards to effects that had some possible issues. So there wasn't a reliance on effects you see in many mainstream productions. Instead they were there and a bit laughable, but they conveyed the right feeling. Where some of the visual effects were a little old fashioned, the makeup effects/physical effects were actually well done. The clockwork models at the end were fantastic; whether that was the effects team or a professional artist I don't know.

I think any horror fan should quite enjoy this film, especially if you like good acting and a reasonable story. Gore wise it has its moments, but that isn't the main focus of the film. If you can keep watching long enough it gets better, the last half hour or so is certainly worth the wait.