The Sandman

Woof. Bad writing, bad acting, bad effects... Just bad. And the annoying little girl wasn't trying to stop anything and didn't even act afraid. She just conjured up the Sandman to kill folks on a whim and looked like she enjoyed it. So unlikable. My sons and I did get entertainment value from making fun of it, but that's it.

'The Sandman' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an slightly intriguing premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'The Sandman' is terrible, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is next to nothing to recommend and it is a sleeper.

Lets start with the positives. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky. Tobin Bell does his best.

Unfortunately, the scenery is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm.

Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.

Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting, especially one of the worst child performances ever.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about, never recovering. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way) if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both very poorly done.

A lot of 'The Sandman' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending makes the film finish on an incomplete and confused whimper.

There is not enough threat, and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, it is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy in its execution of the more psychological elements, completely failing to show any sense of horror or creativity. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden, inexperience seems to be all over the film, and the music doesn't really fit.

Altogether, another very bad film. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Well, for starters I will just say that this was not all that bad for a SyFy Channel movie actually. But with that being said, then I must also say that this was no outstanding experience in the horror genre either.

The storyline in "The Sandman" is fairly simplistic. An 8 year old girl is capable of invoking a nightmarish creature known as the Sandman, a creature that kills without a second thought. She has been put into custody with her aunt, and they must find a way to rid the girl of the nightmarish entity before it becomes too late.

Yeah, well on the surface it seemed like a fairly okay plot idea. The execution on the screen, however, told a different tale. The movie was fairly slow paced with nothing overly exciting happening throughout the course of the movie. And that meant that the entire movie experience felt rather prolonged and at times dull. Despite running at a standard feature length, this movie felt way longer.

The design of the Sandman was perhaps the best part of the entire movie. I liked the way they made him look, however, I would think if they had made sand continuously fall from him from various places, it would have be the icing on the cake. The face of the Sandman was quite interesting.

For a horror movie, then there wasn't an abundance of special effects throughout the course of "The Sandman", which puzzled med, because this definitely seemed like a movie that would have benefitted so much from having lots of special effects. However, the special effects they did have in the movie did work out well enough, and certainly served their intended purpose.

The acting in the movie was adequate, although it was mostly unknown and unfamiliar actors and actresses to me. I do like that in a movie, so it was a nice thing I think. They had Tobin Bell in the movie and lining on the movie's cover/poster. Just a shame that he was hardly in the movie. But hey, it was the biggest name in the movie, so why not brandish him on the cover?

Was "The Sandman" a scary movie? Hardly so, despite it being branded as a horror movie.

"Then Sandman" is the type of movie that you watch once, and never return to watch a second time, because the movie simply doesn't have enough contents to the storyline to support more than a single viewing.

An average SyFy release at best.

Uhm, firstly, why does the tagline say 'Don't fall asleep' if the story has nothing to do with falling asleep? The little girl can conjure the Sandman at any time at free will, and the Sandman also appears when she gets upset - like when Bruce Banner becomes The Hulk. This was ok-ish; there really wasn't anything special to write home about. The effects were fine and the monster was creepy-ish. Shae Smolik was very good as the little girl, that I admit. In fact, the acting in general was good. The killing does become a bit unnecessary and too much later in the film, similar to a Steven Seagall or John Woo film...

There is so much to say about The Sandman, unfortunately it's nothing good, but then absolutely nothing good at all. Almost all ingredients to make a bad movie are present, bad actors, a bad script, bad editing, bad CGI's, just everything. From the beginning you immediately know this movie has been made for television, it just oozes amateurism, but it's still watchable. the more you get to the end the more ridiculous and bad it becomes, you just start commenting on everything bad that is happening, in other words you never shut up during the entire last half hour. The main actresses, Haylie Duff and Shae Smolik, are just horrible. Haylie Duff is even bad when she just have to make a facial expression without saying anything. There are some good kids as actors but Shae Smolik isn't one of them, on the contrary she's the opposite. I would suggest those two give up on their acting career, they're still hiring at McDonalds. The scenario wasn't great from the beginning but with the extreme bad CGI's and bad acting this movie just becomes more laughable than anything else. And yes I keep in mind this is a television production, so I don't have to have too high hopes, but I've seen good tv movies before and The Sandman isn't one of them.