Am I Missing Something?

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Blistering performances.

If you asked a sample group of dedicated horror fans, "What has been the worst decade for the genre thus far?," chances are the majority would tell you it was the 1990s. Not that all 90s horror films were bad; there are actually many good ones from this time... "Sleepstalker" just doesn't happen to be one of them. In fact, this is the exact type of gimmicky, one-idea film that ran rampant throughout the decade that gives the 90s horror haters their case in the first place. Slasher films in particular had gone incredibly stale by this point. Jason, Freddy, Michael, Pinhead, Chucky and Leatherface had literally bled the sub-genre dry throughout the 80s and early 90s. By the time the mid 90s hit, desperate filmmakers were coming up with some of the dumbest and most absurd concepts imaginable to try to keep the ball rolling. It wouldn't be until the following year that "Scream" (1996) revitalized things. Only "Scream" ultimately ended up having an even more disastrous effect on these kind of movies when everyone started annoyingly trying to copy the smart-ass characters, constant "clever" film references and self-aware humor. But that is another story for another day... Now back to "Sleepstalker..."A serial killer known as The Sandman (Michael Harris) has already killed five families. As he's busy slaying mom and pop from Family #6, young Griffin manages to escape. The police, led by Detective Bronson Worth (William Lucking), show up and finally apprehend the psycho. Seventeen years later, The Sandman is on death row awaiting execution. Luckily for him, the man assigned to give him his last rites is a Satanic, white- eyed preacher (Michael D. Roberts) who offers him a chance at revenge. He's given an upside down cross, uses it to cut his hand, bleeds into the sand and then - after his execution in the gas chamber - returns to life. Now a monstrous-looking supernatural entity who has the ability to transform into sand at will (to sneak under doorways, through keyholes, etc.), The Sandman has three days to hunt down and kill a now-grown Griffin (Jay Underwood), who's working in L.A. as a freelance journalist. If The Sandman is able to track down and dispose of Griffin, he will also gain immortality in the process.After establishing its premise, we are then treated to... Well, not a whole lot actually. The Sandman (who is given an utterly predictable childhood trauma back story in brief flashbacks) kills a few people in surprisingly tame ways. Someone's thrown off a balcony. Another is drown in sand. A head is knocked against a wall. There's nothing memorable or clever going on here despite ample opportunity for both, and there's also a curious absence of blood and gore; almost as if they were trying to avoid an R rating (which the film got, anyway). Though the makeup design on the killer is actually really good, the other fx; a mixture of simply reversing the film (for the sand fx) and primitive and dated early CGI; are quite poor. The absolute worst thing about this one though is its complete lack of logic and how stupid the characters are. Our heroes learn early on that water is an effective means of fighting off the reanimated killer (who is - of course - made of sand and easily dissolved), so what do they do? They run from him, attempt to shoot him, heave a Molotov cocktail at him and fight him in other silly ways. If I were around to help, I'd be yelling something like, "Hey, go stand in the shower!" or "Why not take a relaxing dip in a hot tub until this guy's time runs out?" Speaking of time running out, the killer is given his three days to kill his target and has ample opportunity to do so throughout the film. During one scene, Griffin is even behind bars when The Sandman pays him a visit. Instead, the killer decides to taunt him and waits until the last minute of the last day to really make his move.I really do have to give some credit to the cast, though, for at least trying. Despite being given some extremely corny dialogue, Harris gives an effective performance as the killer, and Underwood and Kathryn Morris (playing the obligatory love interest) are as appealing as possible under the circumstances. Cult horror star Ken "Dawn of the Dead" Foree, looking atypically dumpy here, gets a few scenes as one of the detectives, but it's a forgettable, throwaway part.

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.

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.

I don't get why no one has seen this movie. In retrospect, it fills all three of the qualifications that should be necessary for it to gain eternal infamy. Those are:1. Campy 2. Crappy 3. CultI mean, come on, who couldn't love dialogue like, "That freaking freak!" or the classic, "You psychotic sack of #%$@!" And the special effects are so awful, you've got to love them! Can't afford to use computers to make sand fall up? Hey, no problem, just dump it out of a ceiling vent and play the tape in reverse!And the acting, oh man, you've gotta love the acting! There's Michael Harris, who actually looks like he's trying to make something of the Sandman--though he's working way too hard to be semi-scary--and Jay "OHMIGOD!!!!!!" Underwood, who makes William Shatner look like a student of William Shakespeare, and whose most famous role might (sadly) be the one he was (mercifully) never seen in--as The Human Torch in the unreleased 1994 version of "The Fantastic Four," which actually sucked considerably less than the big-budget 2005 version (but still sucked, nonetheless). Honestly, the only actor in this movie who seems to recognize this project for what it is (and play her role as such) is Kathryn Morris, who adds the obligatory moderately-attractive chick to the film. She's just helpless enough to be a B-movie horror villain, yet just resourceful enough to be a B-movie heroine. It's worth noting that Morris is literally the ONLY person involved with this film who is still doing anything more significant than the odd one-shot guest appearance on Law & Order clones.Listen, this movie is not a masterpiece, and suggesting it as such is just ludicrous. In fact, it may be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but it's bad in an endearing way. What's most unfortunate of all is that if a talented horror director like Wes Craven with a decent budget and a competent cast were to get their hands on this script, it could be a pretty good film. The story is there, but the acting, the directing, the special effects, and, you know, the intelligence aren't. As it stands, you can do a whole lot worse in those $5 bargain bins at Wal-Mart, but you can make your $5 go a whole lot farther if you spend it on a bag of chocolate. Unless you've got a sense of humor as sick as mine, you'll enjoy the chocolate a lot more than you will this 90-minute running gag of a film.