Parasomnia
It is no exaggeration to say that in her life Riley has suffered more trauma than many people endure in a lifetime, but while it has shaped her it has not broken her, a strong woman who has not cried it over two years, orphaned at a young age, her loving father inexplicably murdering her mother then killing himself, then another violent death ten years later at the foster home where she grew up.
Another decade gone, Riley not the kind to dwell on the past or celebrate her birthday, her boyfriend Cam has organised a surprise party along with David, her close friend since foster care, his girlfriend Ailish also attending, but Riley has firm rules set to protect herself and her wellbeing, no alcohol as it disturbs her circadian rhythm which might prompt the night terrors she has finally escaped, and she must always be the last in the house to fall asleep.
A descent into a rabbit hole of buried memories, sleep paralysis and suffocating nightmares, Parasomnia is written and directed by James Ross II, starring Jasmine Matthews as Riley, sensible and determined in incomprehensible circumstances, alongside R J Brown, Stephen Barrington and Danny Brown as Cam, David and Ailish with Sally Stewart in a sinister supporting role, the woman who holds the answers and has kept secrets all the long years of silent suffering.
The maze of the dreamworld creepy and inhabited by a masked figure who lurks out of sight behind corners, “the Seer,” with carved symbols hanging from ceilings, the somnambulant stood in corners, facing the walls, and corridors scrawled with bloody warnings, almost A Nightmare in the Blair Witch Backrooms, but while the performances are suitably fraught and the sense of dread genuine, there are structural issues.
A heavy handed flashback which spells out the hidden backstory landing at the halfway mark, it would have been better drip-fed through the last act as Riley’s gathering realisation rather than a villainous plotting and cult indoctrination session, compounded by the next scene which reveals how characters whose fate is already established came to be in that situation, something which would have played better chronologically rather than affirming the modus operandi just described.
That these frustrations mar an otherwise well executed film makes them doubly irksome, taking familiar ideas of supernatural possessions, dreamworlds and body horror and shaping them into something original, the appearance of the Seer recalling the notorious Bughuul but mixed with other influences and rites, with its own powers and behaviours in how it manifests and influences, a nocturnal companion with a taste for enucleation.
Parasomnia will be streaming on Shudder from Friday 4th September
