Chasing Sleep

This is a pretty good thriller. Better than I expected. However, ahem... you can't help but see the director's influences... I mean, David Lynch's "Lost Highway" (the punch in the face waking the protagonist from his daze, the way he vanishes into dark hallways, and many more details...), Christopher Nolan's "Following"(not for the structure of the story but more for the direction, dialogues, etc.) and occasionally Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (especially the bathtub creature episode).

Despite the gathering of borrowed imagery, this film still develops an obvious personal style and a precise direction. All in all, a very good first film owing also a lot to Jeff Daniels's performance. Hopefully, the next one will be less obviously influenced.