If there is a genre that I love as much as horror, it is certainly documentaries.  I can spend hours in a day watching good documentaries.  When done correctly, a solid documentary will make you care about the journey you are traveling on with the subjects and filmmaker.  Movies like King of Kong had me picking sides on something as silly as the World Record high score in Donkey Kong. Never in my life had I cared about the old Donkey Kong Arcade game, until then.  This is what a good documentary can do, and The Nightmare by Rodney Ascher does none of this.

I will say that the premise had myself, and several of the Modern Horrors crew excited: a look into the world of sleep paralysis. If you are not familiar with sleep paralysis, it is the phenomenon that temporarily causes an individual to be unable to move or speak when falling asleep or upon waking.   With over 3 million cases per year in the United States alone, this is a topic that speaks to a lot of people.  In The Nightmare, we follow eight different individuals and their personal struggles with sleep paralysis.

Throughout the film, the stories are told by the individuals who experienced the phenomenon, while we are treated to a visual recreation of the events.  Most of the effects are well done, and you get a visceral feeling for what it must be like to experience sleep paralysis.  Unfortunately, this gimmick becomes drawn out and tired.  What starts as an exciting exploration into these hellish memories, soon becomes mundane and irritating.  We as an audience should be feeling sympathy for these individuals, but in the end you are simply jaded by the never-ending trope.

As if taking away my investment in these people weren’t enough, the information given to you is severely limited.  I found myself Googling information pertaining to sleep paralysis since the documentary failed to provide it.  You had one job as a documentarian!  At one point they do talk about Wikipedia, but come on now.  Wikipedia?  As your main source of information?  I doubt you get away with that in a middle school research paper.  Where are the interviews with sleep professionals?  How about with a psychoanalyst?  Furthermore, why even briefly mention String Theory and multiple dimensions if you aren’t even going to have the local community college professor come and speak on it?  I understand the desire to push the “scary, supernatural” aspect of this, but by omitting professional views of the phenomenon, Rodney Ascher really discredits the film. If you couldn’t already tell, I am frustrated by this point in my viewing.

Truly, I appreciate the idea of creating a “terrifying” documentary.  Something that can scare you, yet still be informative.  It sounds great in theory, and The Nightmare started off strongly.  However, the problem is that documentary making is a very special art form.  Do it right, and I care about a man spending hours in his garage playing a game from 1981.  Do it wrong; not even shadow people with red eyes from a different dimension of existence can save you.

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