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The first of several Stephen King adaptations to be directed by Mick Garris, Sleepwalkers is dated somewhat by its (then cutting-edge) CG morphing effects of the kind seen in Michael Jackson's music video for Black and White, and later in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. Creaky CGI trickery aside, the film is actually a whole lot of silly fun, with a daft story about a shapeshifting mother and son, Mary and Charles Brady (Alice Krige and Brian Krause), the sleepwalkers of the title, who must feed on the lifeforce of female virgins to survive.

Moving to a new town, Charles quickly sets his sights on schoolgirl Tanya (the gorgeous Mädchen Amick), but his nefarious plans are thwarted by the local cat population, who gather forces, their scratches deadly to the sleepwalkers.

Things get off to a wonderfully sordid start with a spot of incest between Charles and his mother, and the bonkers fun continues with hilarious attack by Charles on Tanya at a local graveyard make-out spot, some very silly gore (a pervy teacher loses his hand, a cop is stabbed in the ear with a pencil, Charles has his face seriously messed up, Ron Perlman gets his fingers chewed off, a guy is stabbed in the back with a corn cob, and a sheriff is impaled on a picket fence), several pointless cameos from horror luminaries (Stephen King, Joe Dante, John Landis, Tobe Hooper and Clive Barker), and a completely nutzoid finalé that sees the cats launch an all-out attack on Mary Brady, who has assumed her true reptilian/feline form.

To summarise: Sleepwalkers is by no means a classic King adaptation, but it's never a boring one.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

A shape shifting young man (Brian Krause) and his mother (known as "sleepwalkers" for some reason) arrive in a new town. But the mother (Alice Krige) needs to feed, so her son Charles must find him a pure young woman. But who will he love more, his mother or the beautiful Tanya Robertson (Madchen Amick)? "Sleepwalkers" is a film that has a special place in my heart. I saw it repeatedly on television as a teenager watching our local horror host, Ned the Dead. And while I never thought it was great, I found it entertaining. I place it in the same category as "Maximum Overdrive" -- cheesy and fun, though by no means a great film. And look at the cameos in this film! Mike Mayo tears this film apart, calling it "arguably King's worst film". He says the "script meanders through pointless chitchat scenes." Director Mick Garris "doesn't know how to photograph" and throws in "close-ups of knees." Wow. He has nothing nice to say about this film, giving it a dismal 0 on his one through four scale. I must beg to differ with Mike on this one.

First of all, King's worst film is "Langoliers". Second, I did not notice these pointless chitchat scenes he speaks of. Some of the plot is a bit loose, but nothing is completely pointless. I furthermore do not recall any shots of knees, though if the knees belonged to the beautiful Madchen Amick I think this is forgivable. Mick Garris has made many a bad film, this is true. And "Sleepwalkers" is by no means a masterpiece. But I think to lay down such heavy scorn is misplaced and really ignores the "fun factor" of this picture.

Oddly enough, Howard Maxford, whom I almost never agree with, seems to get this one. He calls the film "silly but quite lively" and points out the "nifty effects" and "gag cameos" (Stephen King, Clive Barker, Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper and John Landis). And there you go -- recognition of the fun this film was and still is.

Ron Perlman ("Hellboy", "Pro-Life") plays a cop and doesn't get nearly enough screen time. Not sure what else to say about that. Clearly they did not foresee the star power in Perlman.

`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.

An incestuous mother and son (Krige, Krause) of preternatural origin move to a small town to find a young female virgin (Amick) the son may take the life force of and feed the mother with.

It's Stephen King, who wrote the screenplay, at his not bad best. Interesting music; I've never heard Enya in a horror movie before but surprisingly it works. As with Ron Perlman, I'd pretty much sit through anything with Alice Krige in it.

The down side is that although the mother and son are interesting beings the curiosity about them the movie arouses is not satisfied. What are they? A kind of feline lineage is hinted at as they can morph into variations of cat like creatures yet cats are their mortal enemies (a scratch can be fatal). Where are they from? Egypt is hinted at (the origin of the worship of Bast, perhaps). Why are they called Sleepwalkers (origins of the incubus/succubus/vampire mythologies)?

Despite the questions raised and unanswered the film is still an enjoyable gore-fest horror break from reality.

Worth a rent/buy used, especially for fans of Stephen King's work.

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.