One little girl can still fall asleep, and the American government is racing to find out why she’s immune-FYI: It’s not extra strength melatonin gummies-before nearly all of humanity perishes from sleep deprivation. But, as these post-apocalyptic tales usually go, there’s a catch. Crankiness quickly devolves into societal collapse by way of highly agitated individuals shooting one another, while others embracing the inevitability of death start roaming around naked, which is arguably just as worrying. In the appropriately titled Awake, a mysterious cataclysmic event wipes out all electricity (not great) while also making it impossible for every person on Earth to catch some Z’s ( really not great). Undeterred by those failures, though, the streamer has cooked up another post-apocalyptic scenario with an unconventional twist: losing the ability to sleep. (Perhaps The Silence and The Society could’ve used more dank memes.) Bird Box was a legit phenomenon when it debuted in 2018, but the results elsewhere have been middling: The Society was canceled after one season in 2020 the same year, The Silence was savaged by critics before disappearing into the vast, unknowable abyss that is the Netflix digital content library. A Freestyle release.Whether it’s Bird Box (sinister entities come to Earth), The Society (the parents in a small town inexplicably vanish), or The Silence (basically A Quiet Place), Netflix has been trying to corner the market on niche post-apocalyptic scenarios. MPAA Rating: unrated, horror violence, some nudity, sex scenesĬast: Dominic Sherwood, Charlbi Dean Kriek, Drea de Matteo, Alex Rocco, Jill Hennesy and Cary ElwesĬredits: Written and directed by Rick Bieber. “Don’t Sleep” is heartless, fright-free and, yes - sleep-inducing. Whatever Bieber’s gifts to the cinema as a producer - and his name was all over that abortion “Radio Flyer” - here, he’s working by formula, attempting straight exploitation.Īnd he doesn’t have the knack. Otherwise, there’s nothing here to pull us in, no one to root for/fear for. He’s animated in every scene, giving us something to cling to every time he’s on screen. You want to see good screen acting? Watch Rocco, in his last screen performance (this was shot more than two years ago), bring pathos to an old man who loses his beloved dog, menace when that old man turns demonic. She disrobes three times, but gets one moving speech and relationship-saving scene. The South African beauty Kriek made her own deal with the Devil, or in this case, Bieber. The movie’s pretty uncertain about that, though truthfully, the slack pacing and generally uninspired acting kind of dulled my sense of “What’s REALLY going on here?” “It’s a CURSE! A curse has come into our home!” Shawn isn’t buying it - “You seem a little delicate these days.”īut Jo, the neighbor (de Matteo of “The Sopranos”) is the first to catch on. Zach starts to wonder what mom (J ill Hennesy) and that long-ago therapist never told him. Nor do their neighbors/landlords ( Drea de Matteo, Alex Carter), or elderly Poppy (the late Alex Rocco) who lives with them.īut cowled figures turn up - in darkened closets, in rear-view mirrors. Neighbors are sexually assaulted and go mad.īut law student Zach ( Dominic Sherwood of TV’s “Shadowhunters”) and his art teacher girlfriend Shawn ( Charlbi Dean Kriek of “Death Race: Inferno”) don’t know that as they move in together. Rick Bieber’s achingly slow story is about the horrors of young Zach’s past assaulting him and all those around him in the present day.ĭemons stalk, haunt and attack. “Don’t Speak” is a drab indie horror tale earning release thanks to a director whose next credit (as a producer) is the “Flatliners” remake. The kid is speaking with a demonic growl. Repeated bad dreams? I have the answer!ĬUT TO: Back home, where the boy, and then his mother, realize just how off the mark Dr. Zach, an expressionless child actor whom we’ll spare calling out on his limited future in films, has to listen to a smug psychotherapist ( Cary Elwes) diagnose what ails him. The little boy imagines himself in what looks like a graveyard, macabre figures greet him, direct him and then threaten him.ĬUT TO: Interior, a shrink’s office. The title “Thirteen years ago” appears on the screen. INTERIOR: A dark hallway, the camera tracks into a bedroom where a little boy is having a nightmare.
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