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While We Sleep is a piece directed by Andrzej Sekula, who is known for his work on Cube2 Hypercube and Fait Accompli. He is primarily known for his cinematographic works in classics such as Reservoir Dogs, American Psycho, and Vacancy. While his skills as a director have not been seen since 2006, I do not know what inspired him to return to directing now. What I can say is that after viewing the movie, I wish he never did.
Cora (Lyra Irene Gross) starts to behave unusually after a weird prank she pulled on her guests during her 13th birthday party. Her parents, Jennifer (Jacy King, Killer Island) and Derek (Brian Gross, Dream Killer) are worried and decide to take her to the doctor for further evaluation.
Nina (Darya Tregubova, Stranger, My Beloved Ghost) is deeply unsettled by the results of the CAT Scan she conducts on the girl. Believing that what Cora has are Night Terrors, she moves in with the family to study Cora closely. What she uncovers is considerably worse than just a sleep disorder.
While We Sleep feels like a film that wasn’t sure of what it wanted to be. It starts out with a scene that made me think of The Omen for a moment, then tries to be a generic creepy kid film before turning into The Exorcist, or more accurately, it becomes one of those cheap European knock-offs of The Exorcist. I guess at least it does not try to misrepresent its Ukrainian setting in place of the US. Unfortunately, very little happens after the party scene apart from Cora behaving strangely. And any suspense created, as to why Cora is acting strange, is undone by two early shots of a shadowy CGI figure. A demon is involved. It’s just a waiting game and seeing him get off the couch and do something. Most of the Exorcist rip-offs had something to keep the audience from falling asleep. Some blood, possessive vomit, swearing, angsty moody teenagers sprinkled here and there. Most of the time Cora just silently mopes around like an angsty teen girl. That’s only scary if you’re a parent.
Right from the beginning, While We Sleep ultimately turns out to be another run-of-the-mill horror movie. With scenes of levitation, spider crawling, deep voice talking, and a lot of nonsensical “secret” spilling that Cora could in no way know about. Even the father Andrey’s exorcisms (Oliver Trevena, Out of Death, The Reckoning) are done so swiftly that it is hard to believe he is actually portraying the father Andrey role. He is so much like Jason Statham that you expect him to try beating the demon out of the girl. Guess what, even this twenty-minute-long monologue is over in five minutes. Everything is so fast-paced, all in the name of a twist ending. The case is, by the time it reaches the audience, is When We Sleep. And trust me, so will the audience.
While We Sleep is unbelievably mundane with hardly anything happening in the entire stretch save for the last few minutes. While We Sleep is no different, it has been mistreated by a screenplay from the script of star Brian Gross and co-writer Rich Ronat (Grand Isle). Guess what people, while there is almost no footage of the movie to salvage, there are helpful steps that can be taken to salvage the damage like leaving the monologue scene and the entire thirty minutes and four scenes span set for the exorcists.
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