Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

punishmentpark Amateur movies aren't always bad, but mostly they are. 'The sleeper' does have its upsides, but director Justin Russell has a lot to learn. There are plenty of older slasher movies that could be named as an inspiration for this ('Black Christmas', 'Friday the 13th' - the originals, of course), but the retro horror movie 'The house of the devil', by Ti West, may have inspired Russell very much as well. The walking around on campus, the stretching of the suspense, the somewhat off-handed disco dancing scene and the basketball scene, the in your face (pun intended) gore, it's all there. But where Ti West succeeded in telling a story, building up to a climax and capturing the right atmosphere, and energy, ánd gore (here it is only incidentally pretty good), Russell fails mostly.The cast does not help much here, either. The killer has potential, but ultimately is not nearly iconic. The girls, the cop(s), the housemother, none of them are truly convincing, except when for instance Riana Ballo as Stacy gets into a swimsuit (big continuity error there, when she leaves her top with her lover boy and minutes later walks around with the top on)... some tasty nudity always works, but there is not much of that here. Maybe Brittany Belland had the right looks, but she was still unconvincing.Still, Russell does achieve some atmosphere at times, with a lot of nice camera angles and a decent soundtrack, but that is not nearly enough for a good movie.A very small 4 out of 10.

BA_Harrison The Sleeper is a retro-styled slasher that pays homage to all of those movies in which sorority sisters fall victim to a homicidal lunatic, the most obvious inspiration being Bob Clark's proto-slasher Black Christmas (1974). As such, this movie offers very little in the way of innovation or surprises: all of the expected clichés are there, from the creepy phone calls, to the leather-gloved killer drooling over photos of his victims, to the oversexed boyfriends, gratuitous nudity, graphic gore, and concerned detective out to save the pretty 'final girl'. There's even an incredibly cheesy final 'shock' that makes zero sense at all.It's easy to see how some might perceive this film as a rip-off, but the fun to be had is in seeing just how close to the real deal director Justin Russell can make his movie, and to his credit, he does a pretty good job. From the opening credits, this film oozes the early '80s: the clothes, the hairstyles, the synth score, the retro props, the prowling POV camera-work—they're all spot on. Working with HD digital cameras instead of film obviously doesn't help the overall effect, and some of the kills could have been a bit juicier, but on the whole this is an admirable effort. Russell even chucks in a pointless but fun synchronised disco dance routine just for a laugh, precisely the sort of incongruous nonsense that can be found in many a genuine 80s horror.6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

jtmorehead55 You know the expression "they don't the make em' like they used to"? Well, that's not entirely true in this case. I am an an avid horror fan, and I adore the 80's slasher genre. Many films attempt to emulate the look and vibe of this genre, yet fall so far in their attempts. Justin Russell and his GammaKnife films production crew absolutely nailed almost every element of what an 80's slasher embodied. The look, tone, dialogue, and music. The killer "The Sleeper " was brilliantly portrayed. The gore was fantastic!There were flaws and questions left unanswered ... but in almost every slasher from that time period this seemed to be the case. If you're a horror fan, you need to own "The Sleeper" in your collection.

zmoviefan If you are not a fan of micro-budget flicks stay away, if you don't like slasher flicks also stay away. That being said, this was a somewhat fun feature, I get what they were trying to do, but something was missing in my humble opinion.I thought the stalking scenes of the victims were pretty good and the FX equally good, however every time we had scenes with the detective I was bored and the ending was not as good as it could it been. I know probably due to budget budget constraints.It had the right ingredients: somewhat attractive cast, couple of cool death scenes, a sex scene (without nudity though), a creepy enough killer, bimbo skin (breast shots), some cool music and a totally unexpected musical number (which I did not hate like other reviewers).To me what didn't work were the ending and cop scenes. It could've used a little more screaming from the would be victims too (only 2 of the girls scream in the whole movie).