The Sleeper

This movie is everything I read in the review I read here. It is an80's style slasher film. Acting is not that bad,filming,lighting, sound, not bad. Especiallyconsideringthe budget. Make you kind of wonder what this crew could do with a budget of a million or more and very much more what did some directors do with the millions they had for their work and ended up a lot worst than this here. I actually liked this movie. Of course there is nothing new here, it has all been said and done several times over. That being said it has been 30 years since so it was kind of a trip to go down this lane again. If I was to compare the quality overall of this film vs the budget that did it with I would truly have to say great job. I have seen too many million dollar films that were just so awful and to have this quality for so little its just surprising.

'The Sleeper' is a slow and rather bland 80's throwback slasher flick that whilst ambitious and does capture the authentic style and feel of the early 80's, but it doesn't quite capture the same charisma due to its sluggish pacing, lacklustre storytelling, stilted acting and lack of any sort of tension or suspense which makes this a slog to get through. However, it does have some decent elements such as the solid production values, the eerie atmosphere and ominous tone that runs throughout the entire runtime and there's even some fun and bloody kills, other than that there's not that much to enjoy here.

The Plot = Set in 1981 where the girls of Alpha Gamma Theta sorority are throwing a party to welcome new pledges. But little do they know there's a killer roaming about known only as 'The Sleeper' who starts killing off the girls one by one.

The filmmaking aspects of this film are highly impressive as the writer and director Justin Russell does recapture that 80's retro style with its haunting dreamlike vibe and well-structured cinematography that helps build a suitably claustrophobic feel. But what really lets things down is lack of consistency of the story as it feels way too derivative of another far better slasher flick 'Black Christmas' only without any of the magic or charm that movie had. There's a severe lack of scares or suspense here especially towards the kill scenes as while they were a bright spot here, there was a lack of build up towards them as they seem to just happen and the killer himself lacked any sort of menace and came across as too goofy and lacked any sort of screen presence or mystery as he was shown way too much. The movie didn't flow together as well as it should as everything just seemed dull and lifeless which leads to a very unsatisfying climax that lacked any sort of tension.

The acting for the most part was very wooden and bland, but there were a few bright spots such as Brittany Belland was fine as the final girl Amy, Paul Moon was rather likeable as Bobby and Jessica Cameron also gives a decent performance as one of the sorority girls Cindy.

Overall 'The Sleeper' was sort of ambitious from a filmmaking perspective, but other than that it wasn't a very fun viewing experience.

this had all the elements to be a great homage to the 80's but it fails because the acting is god awful and the effects couldn't touch what they did in the 80's with movies like The Prowler and The Burning don't get me wrong i really wanted to love this movie and couldn't wait to see it especially the old school VHS/DVD packaging the movie came in but i was disappointed on so many levels i think it was trying to copy the same element as Slumber Party Massacre but at least those movies had semi decent acting as opposed to the horrible stiff acting in The Sleeper,i'm still very interested to see what the director will offer in the future he had a decent grindhouse homage with Deathstop Holocaust that wasn't bad at all

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.

Slasher throwbacks are tricky. Very few people can get it right, but The Sleeper just about succeeds. In some ways, it really does feel a lot like an 80's slasher flick. The acting is a mixed bag, the cinematography isn't too bad, and the synth score is great.

The story is nothing special, but it's told fairly well and there's a few attempts at suspense. If I was going to compare it to the other classic horror films, I'd say it's a mix of Black Christmas, He Knows You're Alone, and Final Exam. If you liked those, you might like this one.