Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Nightmare'

Written by Scott edwards

There are many people across the world that have problems sleeping and being one of them, I always wonder what it would be like to get a full night’s sleep without something waking me up. While it is usually a door slamming or a monster truck skidding up the road, there are times when it seems to be something else that goes bump in the night. Not knowing what it is exactly, I chalk it up to an overactive imagination, since I really do have one of those, but what if it really was something more malevolent? I have heard of sleep paralysis where you are awake but cannot move, yet what if there is really something or someone that is keeping you like that instead of it just being in our heads?
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Returning to her hometown to continue her education on sleep paralysis, Molly Duggan is able to find a place to stay with some great new friends. After a long night of drinking, Molly is up before anyone in the house and makes it to class to talk to her new instructor Dr. Edmonds who has a spot on her sleep monitoring team. Being able to convince the professor that she is ready and willing to take the open spot and turn it into post graduate work, Molly is on the team, but little does she know what that will entail.

Arriving at the sleep center, Molly meets with Rudy who lays down the hard rules of what she will be required to do. Watching as a man is starting to seize up and go into cardiac arrest while in REM sleep, Molly tries to wake him from the nightmare, but when the man awakes, he has a message that someone is coming for the college student and passes away. Not being able to find out what the man was talking about, Molly is approached by a former student of the college who knows exactly what is happening around her and Silas will not let his words go unheard. But thinking that the former student is just crazy, Molly goes on with her life, but after sleeping with her roommate Gavin, she wakes up to something that she has never seen before.

With her dreams starting to get worse and worse, Molly sees that her erratic behavior from not getting proper sleep is starting to affect her friends as well and needs to find a way to put an end to it. Trying to talk to Dr. Edmonds about what is happening to her, she is dismissed from the conversation and forced to look elsewhere. Turning back to Silas who seems to know what is going on, Molly finds out that she has fallen victim to an Old Hag who wants nothing more than to take her life. Thinking that this is just an old legend, Molly is forced to come to grips with the fact that her entire family has fallen victim to this creature that lives in the deepest part of their dreams and there may not be a safe way to escape it, for her or any of her friends.

As far as putting the fear back into sleeping, this movie does a pretty good job, even though it was made for television, so you don’t get all of the bloody reminders of how bad nightmares can be. I really liked how Molly wasn’t affected by the Old Hag until she took her relationship with Gavin to the next level, reminding the audience that premarital sex is bad. Seeing what happened to her mother years ago was what gave Molly her drive in knowing what she wanted to do with her life and watching as she transformed into the victim was a nice way to handle the storyline, since you are forced to believe that with Silas’ help, she will somehow be able to battle the ancient evil. With people dying in their sleep, an unseen force making its presence known, a stranger with all the answers, some research and a battle to the death against loved ones, this movie might keep you awake at night a little bit longer than usual, since you never really know what your dreams have in store for you. Stay Scared.

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