‘Sleep. Walk. Kill.’ Review
Stars: Ellen Boscov, Darryl Charles, Rob Coulter, Zoey Miller, Bob Quintana, Bill Reick, John Reshetar, Melanie Rosedale, Samantha Russell, Ashlee Rose Toll, Zachary Uzupis, Raquel Watson | Written and Directed by Justin Miller
After almost a couple of months of pretty much only watching Christmas movies (yes I’m that person), I got back on track at the start of 2023 and immediately went with some low-budget horror. Something I am of course, very at home with.
Sleep. Walk. Kill. is indeed very low-budget too. But, like many movies of a similar ilk, it has that charm, to it, which if you have watched these types of movies, or at the very least, watch this knowing what to expect, then there’s plenty of fun to be had. But this is not for everyone.
Let’s get the bad out of the way first, the acting, for the most part, isn’t great. It all feels very amateur but this does set a certain tone for the movie and it just wouldn’t work any other way. This is supposed to be a comedy, and many people will laugh at some of the delivery of plenty of the lines but for me, it all works well this way. Even when the movie tries to go down a more serious route, it can’t really be taken that way. You will laugh at points when the filmmakers didn’t want you to but also when they want you to as well.
With that out of the way, there’s plenty of good to concentrate on. Sleep. Walk. Kill. Has some good ideas, not least the idea that people fall asleep and then sleepwalk their way to a killing spree. It could seem a bit silly, and kinda is but it absolutely works here. The idea is never expanded upon or explained and that’s fine. No explanation would probably make much sense anyway. There’s a love story that is thrown in there to add a little more substance to the characters and storyline but all it needs is a group of people in the same room in some sort of apocalypse.
What surprised me most about Sleep. Walk. Kill. is that it goes hard with the violence and who it happens to. I feel like because of the low budget and comedy, things don’t feel quite as harrowing as they could have because when children and pregnant women are front and centre of the deaths and death attempts, you know the movie isn’t messing about. On top of that, the practical gore effects are good. Each death scene involves lots of blood and gore and we see it in all its glory. If a low-budget horror film needs to have something going for it, it’s the practical effects, and this will no doubt satisfy plenty of genre lovers.
It feels like there’s an attempt at a few different endings just to mix things up but once the credits roll, that final moment is probably how many people expected it to go. As far as super low-budget horror goes, Sleep. Walk. Kill is pretty good and it will no doubt appeal to the gore fans out there looking for the next dismemberment and blood splatter.
