The Sleeper

THE SLEEPER is a low-budget horror movie with a very basic plot about a serial killer who stalks a bunch of (female) college students. Yes, there are hundreds of movies with plots just like that but the fact that the movie is set in the 1980s is unusual for a low-budget production. The movie is actually not as bad as many of the negative reviews might suggest, but you have to keep in mind that this is a $30,000 production with mostly unexperienced actors. I guess most people who rated this movie low had their expectations set too high. They probably expected more of a plot, which is not really that important of an element in this movie. It's the way the story is presented effectively and evocatively on a very limited budget and with a cast of amateur actors that is intriguing.

Director Justin Russell and his crew did get a lot of things right to make this look like a typical 1980s horror flick. The pre-credit scenes and the opening titles in particular look like they could be straight out of a vintage slasher. The look of the rest of the movie falls short in a way, though, which can be attributed to the fact that it wasn't shot on film. THE SLEEPER could probably pretty much look like a movie from the decade it tries to recreate if they had shot it on real film stock instead of digital cameras. Ti West shot THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009), which also takes place in the early 1980s, on 16 mm film and he managed to make it look exactly like a film from that period. If the producers of THE SLEEPER could have afforded to shoot on film, this movie would look a lot better and the vibe would be completely different. This digital footage just looks too clean and not film- like, which is not right for the time period. Therefore, you never really can fully appreciate the images shown in this movie because the look of the digital footage is quite distracting in many scenes. Nevertheless, they did the best they could with the very limited budget, I guess. Maybe the look could have been improved with the right filters, but I don't know about that.

A number actors from the cast are quite good even though they seem to be amateurs who do not pursue acting as a career. It's nice to see real-looking people in a movie for a change. I'd like to see more acting performances from these people, but for many of them this is the only movie they've done so far. I especially liked Jenna Fournier's performance. She is mainly a musician and painter, it seems, but I think she should act more. She has talent.

All in all, this is an enjoyable movie for fans of 1980s slasher movies. It has a good cast and most of the killing scenes are quite inventive and well done with nice practical effects. Yes, the movie is lacking an elaborate plot, and, yes, the movie should have a different, more film-like look, but if you can see over those issues and keep the limitations of low-budget productions in mind, you have an ambitious horror movie that was clearly made by fans of the genre for fans of the genre.

The Sleeper is an homage to those slasher films of the 1980s. I attended a screening of the film at the Grandview Theater in Columbus, OH a couple nights ago and a large crowd had showed up for the Ohio film makers who shot this thing in Springfield, OH. Set in 1981, the film follows a sorority house whose pretty young members and telephoned, stalked and killed by a maniac who likes to sit in the basement, drawing things on their photographs and muttering incoherently to himself. He calls up the house from time to time to let those on the other end who is next victim will be. For a very low budget movie ( the campus is virtually deserted and there are few extras in the film), this came out pretty well. The acting is not cringe worthy and The Sleeper's kills are pretty effective and gruesome in some cases. Full of all the clichés and lapses in character logic that the 80s slashers were infamous for....right up to the not-so-shocking final scene, which makes no sense plot wise, but is tacked on because that is what's expected from these films. During the Q&A after the film, the director said there was distribution deal at the moment, but hopefully some DVD label will pick this up.

The Sleeper is a slasher killer film that attempts to capture the feel of late 70s early 80s slasher. Very specifically it emulates the 1970s film Black Christmas. While I actually love the painfully cheesy scenes like the girls playing basketball and the way too long choreographed discover dance scenes, the film is brought down by a total lack of character depth and predictable and stupid character actions that serve no purpose. Additionally while I appreciate the subtlety of the Era piece not shoving pop culture references down our throat as shows like Stranger Things and Fear Street do, the outfitting and hair styles of the characters could easily be mistaken for the 90s or today.

"The Sleeper" is a faux lost '80s slasher that wants to have an old school vibe. Unfortunately, the gimmick doesn't work. If the filmmakers wanted this to look like a horror movie from 1981, why not shoot on stock available at the time? The digital aspect is too polished and, aside from the opening credits, only adds to the sad fact that nothing looks like it's from the 1980s.

However, this movie will always be remembered for one reason. There's a disco/rap line dance that's so excruciating you'll have to see it to believe it. This scene is worse than the party fiascos in "The Howling: New Moon Rising" and "Birdemic: Shock and Terror." In the end, this movie will stay in the public conscious, but for all the wrong reasons.

The grainy atmosphere of some nicely shot locations is completely undone when the 'guys' turn up. Horny teens are one thing, it seems obligatory for films like this, but the two gate-crashing twenty-something adolescents arrive at a sorority party and the viewer - or this viewer at least - is aching for the film's antagonist to graphically wipe the smug grin off the faces of these cretins. The girls, by comparison, are more concerned with semesters and exams and that kind of thing - before mild sex is introduced to fill in more time before anything interesting happens.

One of the freedoms of low budget films like this is that they don't have to go down the same predictable routes as more mainstream horrors. Many exercise the freedom they have by producing something different and interesting - this one doesn't.

The kills are arbitrary, we know nothing about the murderer, and characters are tepid. Against that, it's nicely directed and the moments of gore are fairly convincing. My score is 4 out of 10.