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A look at a frightening condition that plagues thousands: sleep paralysis. These people often find themselves trapped between the sleeping and waking worlds, totally unable to move but aware of their surroundings while being subject to frequently disturbing sights and sounds. A strange element to these visions is that despite the fact that they know nothing of one another, many see similar ghostly ';;;;shadow men.';;;;
In the faces of these men and women, ranging in age from their 20s to their 40s and spread out everywhere from Los Angeles to Manchester, you can see the genuine terror they suffered - and, in some cases, continue to suffer.
It's compelling viewing, as well as disturbing as hell. Honestly, who needs the spectres of Insidious: Chapter 3 when our own brains are capable of scaring us half to death.
December 18, 2015
CineVue
The Nightmare squanders [its] subject in a shallow, messy and frustrating documentary that tends towards the pseudo-intellectual and paranoid.
It just isn't as informative as it could be. It's plenty scary, and on that level satisfying. It would be great to see Ascher make a full-on horror feature.
While "Room 237" sought evidence for its most outlandish conceits, "The Nightmare" declines to delve. As the testimonies grow repetitive, the strategy suggests willful ignorance.
Ascher plunges us into the actual visions that sleep paralysis creates: the moving silhouette figures, the darkness, the static. The sense of terror is palpable.
Ascher is too content to let repetition of experience take over his film. No sleep studiers or brain experts or anybody else, for that matter, are interviewed.