This movie had me lured in by the DVD cover, the fact that it is a horror movie and also because Cary Elwes was in it.I was in for a rude awakening of a surprise."Don't Sleep" is weighed down by an incredibly slow paced and pointless storyline. It had potential at the start, but lost its momentum about halfway through.In fact, the movie was so boring and uneventful that I gave up when there was just 15 minutes left of the movie.It should be mentioned that they had a rather good cast of talents to perform in the movie. Although this was but adequate acting, because the actors and actresses were having almost nothing to work with in terms of script and plot.All in all, don't bother with "Don't Sleep" if you like a proper horror movie to keep you entertained. And I guess the title of the movie actually was more of a plea from the writer and director than it was an actual title.

Of all the wacky ideas put forth by this movie, its greatest flaw is that it is insufferably boring. It doesn't even try to be original for much of its run time, relying on every Smalltown, USA hot young couple moving to a new house horror movie cliché so blatantly that every single jump scare is laughable. You see everything coming, and they kill the dog, so that's an immediate strike against this film. The main character guy whose name I completely forgot it was so forgettable was apparently demon possessed or something as a child, and had to rely on extreme therapy from a doctor guy and now he's a supposedly well adjusted adult. Except he's a complete and utter asshole and douchebag, which this seems to be unrelated to his demon problems. drifting drearily along this boring slog, a random demon kid in a hoodie appears and... beats up people. that's literally all he does. He beats up an old man so badly the old man starts freaking out and jibbering incoherently, then commits suicide while angrily defying the demon kid who watches him. Then the main character guy gets beat up by the demon kid. Then a whole lot of basically nothing happens, and the main character guy has an irrational freakout at his old doctor on learning that he still contacts his mother to discuss him and his case. He then also starts arbitrarily harassing his girlfriend and acting needlessly paranoid about... nothing in particular. He's just running around screaming and cursing at nobody and nothing while overly dramatic music tries to tie this to the demon kid who beats people up, or maybe he's being re-haunted by the demon, or maybe he is the demon kid. None of this makes any sense, and by the time we reach the end, they throw in a wacky, screwball-esque twist. At some point early in the movie, completely out of nowhere, they bring up a story about a fisherman who went on Crusade in medieval times, and when he came back, his wife killed herself because she was raped repeatedly. That story suddenly comes back as it's revealed the main character guy was that fisherman crusader, and his girlfriend was the wife who got raped, and apparently she got raped by some manner of demon thing that turned her immortal, and she spent the next millennium either waiting for him to be reborn, or trying to find him after he wandered off or something. Then the movie ends, with its end credits overlaid with some incredibly awful romance pop songs after the movie spent about 95% of its run time being the exact opposite of a romantic movie.

By the end of Don't Sleep I felt bad, the ending was so interesting that I wished that I had enjoyed the film. But I didn't, I simply couldn't.Starring Cary Elwes (Princess Bride, Saw, Top Gun) and Drea De Matteo (Joey, The Sopranos) but both as side characters this supernatural thriller staggers along at a dreadful pace from start to finish.The story a mess, the creation abysmal and yet there was something there something frustratingly beneath the surface but unable to break free.In the hands of a decent writer this could have been something quite watchable but Don't Sleep is far from that in its present form.The Good: Well the ending was certainly interesting Cary Elwes The Bad:Lame/dull leads Dreadful story Things I Learnt From This Movie: I learnt that we had a backup pack of ibuprofen at the back of our cupboard for the headache this 95 minute embarrassment gave me

I'm pretty surprised with the talent of actors like Elwes, DiMatteo and Alex Rocco of "God Father" fame would be in a film with such a stupid plot and terrible, Total "B" class production value. This is not to say any of these actors are top notch Hollywood "A" listers. They are, however, talented and have been in some very good films and TV shows.That said, this is simply one of yet another non-relevant mediocre at best, attempt to delve into a Horror story that tries to be different. Let's face it, it's not the easiest task of creating a "new" type of horror film that has not been done in one way or another 100's X's over. But, every once in a while a really good new film comes out that does manage to be original despite using formats already used many times. (Sinister, The Conjuring, Paranormal activity, Saw, Hostel Deliver us from evil etc)....It seems as though anyone with a few bucks and a decent camera can write, produce, direct and sell crap dressed up as scary and unique yet, us Horror and Thriller fans pay (with time and $) hoping we find something worth telling your friends about. They are few and far between. If you do tell anyone about this film in the form of a recommendation, make sure you say "steer way clear".Don't Sleep is no different. Acting was way below par surprisingly. One caveat, in defense of Cary Elwes, he is only in a few scenes. Direction was all over the place and the flashback scenes made no sense. Frankly, it was a boring film that I had to struggle to get through. The makeup (for the Demons/Ghosts?) was akin to something you would expect from a 10 year old kid showing up at your door on Holloween. Yes, it really Is that bad.I don't like writing spoilers in any of my reviews and won't do that now, although I should and save you all a lot of wasted time and $. The name of this film should have been "Do sleep"! And there should have been a recommendation at the beginning of the film advising to do just that for the next 97 minutes rather then a quote from Nitsche, which was, BTW, the best part of the film.Go and rent ANY of the films I mention above if you want to see an original, worthwhile film that will put a fright into you.