Sleep. Walk. Kill.

'Sleep. Walk. Kill.' occupies a strange place in my opinion. There are plenty of low budget horror films on various online streaming platforms and many of them are so bad that I turn them off and don't bother even trying to review them. However, I watched this one all the way to the end, so there must have been something there that was interesting or entertaining. It's just there seemed to be so many flaws in it.

It's about a strange loud noise that echos out across America, making anyone who falls asleep a mindless killer. One lovable loser has to try and keep his family together while holding out against the source of this supernatural event. It's a horror comedy in a (very!) similar style to the classic 'Shaun of the Dead.'

What I'm going to do next is basically tear into the film like it's the worst movie ever made, yet it's not. First of all, when I say 'low budget' I really mean it. The gore is just about passable, but the acting is terrible. Yes, I know we've all seen a bad actor or two pop up in a film and yet here pretty much everyone seems to be reading their lines off a cue-card just off screen.

Then we have the direction itself. It's like half the shots you can almost tell that the actors were simply standing there waiting for the director to shout 'Action!' and then start performing accordingly. The edits are sometimes jarring, especially when there's a scene that they clearly didn't have the budget/skill to film, so they just sort of use the loosest of camera tricks (maybe cut away from the action and only return to the aftermath) and hope that the audience doesn't notice.

Now, I don't know whether this was something to do with the streaming site or even my TV that I watched the film on (if so, please ignore this criticism), but the audio was all over the place. It was like you needed to turn the volume way up to hear the characters speak, but then when some music was played over any dramatic part, it blares out at you and you have to quickly hit the 'volume down' button on your remote.

So, there you have it - many reasons not to like it. But I stuck with it. And, I think that the reason I did (besides seeing if there was an eventual explanation for the supernatural happening) was that the dialogue was actually quite funny. Sure, the characters were hardly developed, but there were more than a few times when I let out a genuine chuckle or two. So, set your expectations low and you might find something at least entertainingly watchable for an hour and a half.

While trying to get through his life, a man encounters a strange nightmarish sound emanating throughout the area that at night turns those who hear it and fall asleep into flesh-eating monsters, forcing him and the survivors unaffected into a race to safety and get out of the area alive.

Overall, this was a generally fun and likable feature. One of the better features here comes from the lighthearted atmosphere present where this one employs a goofy setup to great effect. The main storyline about the strange noise being heard in the distance and affecting everyone who comes into contact with it that later falls asleep which turns them into a ravenous creature is a solid start that is genuinely chilling enough that gives this a solid genre setup. The seriousness this approaches that setup with the concurring series of encounters within the neighborhood involving the exploits of the infected victims going around killing or attacking everyone they come across that continues this kind of dark concepts at play which are brought to bear in some gruesome attack scenes. These are generally fun enough and generate some fine bloodshed that's increasingly more brutal and bloody as time goes on and their numbers get lowered. This all makes for a lot to like about it while there are some big issues present. The biggest drawback to this one is the fact that, despite being billed as a comedy, hardly anything here is overtly funny. The entire film tends to run on the joke that everybody tends to get on each other's nerves because of the cramped conditions which bring out long-reserved feelings of animosity and jealousy. Not only is this idea inherently not funny but it grows wearisome and tired as the film goes on with the group getting increasingly more unlikable as it goes on with everyone constantly critiquing and picking fights with each other which is supposedly branded as the comedy stylings present within here. On top of not being funny, the fact that they're not all that likable means that the longer this goes on the less we care or connect with the survivors who are trying to go through the situation which all come together to bring this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.