Mainly I was intrigued by this film because dreams and sleep have always fascinated me, particularly sleep paralysis. I found it to be such a strange and frightening phenomenon, and wanted to learn more about it. As a documentary, this film fails. No science behind anything to do with sleep paralysis is explained, the entire film is individuals recounting their experiences. Most of the film is reenactments during interviews with these people, and the reenactments are really the point of the movie. And many of these reenactments are pretty good, even though the budget was as low as $28,000. With what they had to work with, they put great effort into it and it turned out well. It definitely has passion behind it, and I think that its director (Rodney Ascher) has potential as a good filmmaker. But back to the reattachment scenes, I really think the purpose of the movie was to give viewers a taste of the experience of sleep paralysis. There are copious amounts of pov shots in beds while shadowy figures approach, usually these shots are then switched to the person having the experience, and then switched back. This is played over haunting music and the person being interviewed. Its similar to some of those bad ghost shows on the discovery channel in the way its formatted, though the stories recounted here I am sure are real, sleep paralysis is a real thing, ghosts I'm unsure of. I suppose that's what works about this movie, is it instills the fear of experiencing sleep paralysis in its viewers. Also some of the ways it maneuvered around the low budget was charming. But is it an informative documentary? Not at all. As a decent horror film, however, it succeeds.
Review of The Nightmare
