There’s something uniquely unsettling about having night terrors that are so bad you’re afraid to go to sleep. When sleep deprivation sounds like a better alternative to rest, it means something really bad has found its way into in your mind. James Ross II’s Parasomnia stakes its horror claim here, in a story about a woman whose night terrors operate as a doorway for a powerful demon that desperately wants to bring its violence into the real world.
Parasomnia follows Riley (played by Jasmine Mathews), a woman who has struggled her whole life with sleep. When she was younger and living in a foster home, she experienced a particularly horrible night terror that seems to have been responsible for a set of gruesome deaths that included her friends. These murders were committed by their legal guardian, an old woman who got possessed by a sleep demon that lives in Riley’s nightmares. The victim’s eyes were ripped out of their sockets and consumed by the possessed woman.
Fast forward a few years and we see an independent Riley living in her parents’ former home with partner Cam (RJ Brown). Riley’s mom was murdered by her father when she was a kid, on her birthday. The dad stabbed the mom and then ate her eyes. He then committed suicide. Submerged in trauma, Riley decides to approach sleep on her terms, controlling the time and manner of it to avoid further bloodshed. Unfortunately, the night terrors return, and with them the demon that hungers for eyes.
James Ross II, who both wrote and directed the film, proves to have a keen eye (no pun intended) for the macabre. Given the demon’s food of choice, kill scenes carry an insidious sense of violence that lingers. Blood is plentiful and wounds look painful and angry. This is perhaps the strongest part of the film. The deaths are so nasty and brutal that the threat posed by the demon feels severe, like an ancient type of punishment.
Color is used to great effect in these horror sequences. Dark reds overwhelm some of the more intense scenes, giving the memories that haunt Riley a hellish quality. The demon’s design favors an inky black that stands out in the red, and it works to give the proceedings a unified sense of terror. We see the entity often and clearly enough, so it’s important he sticks out.
It’s made obvious rather quickly that Ross II likes to wear his influences on his sleeves. When Riley is locked in her dreams, for instance, the camera takes to a first person POV that’s visually reminiscent of the found footage stylings made popular by The Blair Witch Project, down to the faded VHS look.
Riley’s nightmares take the form of a labyrinth made up of grey walls and warped doors that lead to nowhere, evoking the aesthetics of a long-abandoned home. It reminds of the house that appears in the final act of The Blair Witch Project. It’s differentiated enough to not feel like a straight copy of the same idea. Rather, it’s a visual design wink that horror fans will appreciate.
There’s also a bit of Nightmare on Elm Street when it comes to the concept of resisting sleep to keep the threat at bay. Again, it’s not a case of outright copying. It’s more about honoring the classics while setting up scares that are entirely its own. If anything, Ross II goes lengths to keep his demon a fair distance away from Freddy Krueger, proving that the land of sleep is big enough for multiple monsters to roam.
Where Parasomnia falters somewhat is in the script department. Settling on an 85-minute runtime, Ross II hits the ground running to get through all the main story beats at a steady but relentless pace. The problem lies in his decision to fall back on heavy exposition dumps to get to the scary stuff quicker. Parasomnia needed a good 20-30 minutes extra to flesh out its plot and its reveals. The material barely has space and time to breathe.
There’s also a twist of sorts about halfway through the story that’ll either make or break the movie for some. This is where a longer runtime would’ve worked wonders to smooth out the rougher edges still present in the script. The choice to take the narrative in a different direction at a key point is an interesting one, and it opens up the characters to new questions and considerations that complicate the situation in fascinating ways. But it can feel as if it comes out nowhere. At least we get some truly haunting imagery out of it.
Parasomnia is a solid entry in the field of sleep horror. Like the movies it borrows from, it succeeds in turning the dream state into an intimate manifestation of terror. It’s why Ross II makes sure we can relate to Riley throughout. We all know what it’s like to delay sleep for fear of having a nightmare that’ll shake us to our core. It’s an idea that would certainly justify a sequel. Why not have a few more dream demons running around in the horror genre?
Parasomnia is now streaming on Shudder.
