Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

doc8998 While Sleepstalker certainly fails to reach the lofty goals you can see those involved reaching for, it still falls into one of those "guilty pleasure" movies. The acting's weak, the special effects are underwhelming, (even for 20 years ago,) and it overstays its welcome by a bit, but you can see that effort was put in to attempt to create a new Freddy/ Jason/ Pinhead character that might, at the very least, capture some of that audience. While most of the actors involved aren't horrible, you can tell that many were still in the early parts of their careers, and while they give it their best shot, the performances are always on the wrong side of good, but they never fail so profoundly that it makes you want to shut the movie off. You'll recognize the ever-present Ken Foree from his long career in these types of movies in a limited run as a police officer. William Lucking, "Piney," from Sons of Anarchy, also takes a small role as another detective, and a young Giuseppe Andrews, (Deputy Winston from Cabin Fever,) also makes one of his early film roles. The main characters however, have had mostly middling success in front of the camera since- with Kathryn Morris as Megan, Michael Harris as The Sandman, and Jay Underwood as Griffin all gathering more than 50 roles apiece in their careers, you're bound to have seen one of them at some point. Michael Harris as the Sandman is perhaps the best of the three, (although Kathryn Morris is perhaps the most consistent of all of them throughout,) actually making the Sandman reasonably creepy at times with his lullabies that are also inconsistent, with occasional attempts to sing, while other times reciting them eerily. It's a shame, because some of the acting inconsistencies would oh so easily be overlooked if there had simply been a little more money tossed at the budget. The Sandman is not just a name given to the killer- although that is how it begins. Eventually, like all good movie maniacs, the supernatural angle kicks in, and he actually becomes a being of sand. While the look of Sandman is reasonable when he takes form, just not enough is done with this great power with the exception of traversing under doors and through ventilation shafts. They do make attempts within budget to show a few things, ie: accidentally dipping fingers into water, making the tips disappear, or using the abrasive sand as a weapon on 2 occasions, but when they do try for these more dramatical effects, it usually looks, at its best, bad... at its worst, horrible. One thing I did remember after watching this again for the first time in nearly 20 years was just how eerie the lullaby playing (Sleep Baby Sleep, sung by Teresa Straley,) on the record player during flashbacks actually is. I remembered it sticking with me for a long time after I viewed this 20 years ago... I watched it quite a bit- was a favorite fallback B-Movie of mine at the time. And after rediscovering this gem tonight, I know that song will stick with me again. A sorrowful lullaby that fits the tone of the movie quite well. And that's where Sleepstalker, besides the music, hits another high note... As the pieces begin falling in place, this movie becomes a bit more than the sum of all its parts. As the movie begins linking past with present, antagonist to protagonist in multiple ways, it achieves a level of sadness that most B-Movies cannot do- mostly because they make the mistake of trying to force emotion down your throat. Sleepstalker waits until the last 1/3 of the movie to begin giving you everything you'll need to put it all together successfully, (although certainly, it can be figured out before that,) but it allows you to come to your emotions on its background on your own. Will it put you in tears? No. Yet somehow, it strikes a chord much more naturally and, despite its supernatural maniac derivative, full of real feeling that the likes of Freddy Krueger's child killing or Jason's revenge killing just never really achieve. It truly is a shame that this movie didn't quite make the cut. There's so much here that really could have made for a great franchise, but you can tell that the studio wanted a new maniac, they just weren't sure if there was room for one, and the budget suffers at times. After viewing this, I have to believe that the extra budget and time would have proved there WAS enough room for another maniac on the big screen. Still, with the limited resources available, I applaud the filmmakers for still putting out a movie well worth viewing once. This movie seemingly reformed in my memory, much like the Sandman is capable of doing after drifting under a doorway, and I'm glad it did- and I'm glad that it urged me to find a copy on DVD (I'm grateful Lion's Gate ever even put it on DVD,) and after sitting down and watching it tonight, I'm more than happy I made the purchase.

Bloodwank I should have watched this one when I was younger. Around about 14 would have been just the ticket I think. I did see portions of it a few years back, the ending and bits and pieces of the rest deep one dope-haze night in between episodes of Six Feet Under and was pretty intrigued by what I saw, though by then it was a little too late already as some of it fell pretty flat. Still, I did get interested enough to finally see the whole thing and like I say, I should have seen it earlier. Not because its some great work or of any real significance at all, but having grown up on the 90's conception of B cinema this one could have awed the younger me. These days though, not so much. In short, the problem here is a lack of guts. The plot is solid supernatural slasher fare, a serial killer with several dead families to his credit and a penchant for pouring sand in the eyes of his victims gets a new lease of life after his execution, courtesy of a devilish priest. This becomes rather a problem for the survivor of his last slayings, not unexpectedly. There aren't any surprises in the general course of events, but the film gets a great boost from its evil doer, known as The Sandman. Not entirely sure why the film isn't just called The Sandman, but then maybe I'm just not that smart. Anyways, he's a terrific villain, well designed and decidedly unsettling. Freaky scars, inverted cross, artfully ragged clothes and deathly desert pallor plus the physical presence of Michael Harris make The Sandman quite the unnerving figure, but Harris' performance really sells things, soft voice and quiet demeanour perfect vehicle for his creepy rhymes and disturbing justifications. Whenever The Sandman is about the film carries a decent charge and threatens to turn great, the problem is that things are much too tame, there are scant few deaths and only one has any level of grue (and its pretty brief at that). Not that gore is totally necessary, but there aren't many kills and the sequences tend not to be especially well constructed. Its a real bummer as the film ends up repeatedly not quite delivering, even though it never gets too dull, indeed is fairly watchable throughout. As well as Michael Harris other performances are decent enough, Michael D. Roberts is effective as the evil priest (and sports wicked white contacts), Kathryn Morris is an appealing heroine and Jay Underwood is nicely wired as paranoid protagonist Griffin, his mounting terror put across rather convincingly. Pacing is okay and effects are sometimes interesting, sometimes silly looking. The ending is unfortunately part of the silliness, albeit moderately suspenseful and there are a few general plotting issues to chew over, though only one serious. Altogether this is a pretty frustrating watch, but even so it does manage to be fair enough if you have some interest nostalgic yearning in 90's b movies. 5/10 from me, which I guess might seem generous but I'd still say its do-able enough on a real slow night.

Aaron1375 Yes, this movie has a man executed and returned as the Sandman a supernatural killer that does in fact have about the same powers as the villain from the Spidey comic books. He must kill now and his main target is his younger brother. Creepy music played, strange truths revealed near the end, and lots of sand and not all that much gore. In fact, he does kill his victims in rather different ways from other movie slasher/monsters. The movie has some good in it, with that it has just to much bad. The whole using sand to kill gets old and is a bit lame, sand is just not all that scary. Well unless of course you are in the desert and in the middle of a sandstorm. There are some interesting plot points, and there is one kill that occurs near the end that makes one who watches this type of movie go "that is not supposed to happen". They try to kill the sandman in differing ways, one of those ways backfires and leads to the death above. I do not know, I think they had an interesting concept going for them, but maybe they needed to do something with the killer perhaps making him more of a supernatural slasher who turned to sand only to get to his victims and not as a means to kill them. I mean that one scene involving that girl in the bed was really over the top.

davethorne700 At first glance this looks like a complete rip off of the far superior "Dust Devil" (check out the opening credits). The characters are laughably wafer thin - especially the Hispanic gang banger. But fair play the guy who plays the evil priest hams it up to superb effect (the funniest thing about this movie). I can't believe I actually sat through this and I can honestly say as a long time horror movie fan, there is nothing to report here. Zero suspense and about as scary as a big fluffy bunny!