It’s been a quarter century since The Blair Witch Project first terrorized unsuspecting audiences. In the ensuing years, it’s been difficult to find much innovation in the found footage subgenre. More often a clearing house for cheap streaming filler or a quick, no-frills calling card for ambitious young wannabe filmmakers, the limitations baked into the concept can help conceal myriad deficiencies in writing and cinematography, but also tend to limit traditional scares or formal innovation. It’s by and large an ugly stepchild of a genre, and so it’s something of a small miracle that the new film Dream Eater is pretty engrossing and occasionally quite scary. It’s a collaborative effort, co-written and co-directed by Jay Drakulic, along with stars Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams, that finds documentary filmmaker Mallory (Drumm) and boyfriend Alex (Williams) attempting to grapple with his violent night terror episodes. As the film begins, Mallory is calling 911 after a sleepwalking Alex accidentally cuts his arm open on a broken window. Under directions from their doctor, Mallory begins filming Alex, hoping to capture his nighttime episodes to show to some experts during a future sleep study. But the sleep study is some weeks away, and is going to be extremely expensive. In the meantime, Mallory has booked the couple on a weeklong vacation for Alex’s birthday. They’ll be staying in a remote cabin in the middle of dense forest, far away from the city. She’s hoping the peace and quiet will do them some good, but Alex can’t stop worrying about their finances.
The early parts of Dream Eater follow the couple on their long drive to the cabin, establishing the contours of their relationship and their contrasting personalities with a quick, easygoing shorthand. Alex is goofy and sarcastic, constantly mugging for the camera and making jokes. But as soon as Mallory tries to broach any kind of serious topic, he clams up and gets defensive. She has recently released an unsuccessful film, draining their bank account in the process, while Alex has quit his industry job and refuses to go back to his union to ask for work. He wants her to save money and put future projects on hold, while she wants him to get off his ass and find a job. The tension is palpable (and relatable), but the couple is also pretty charming. The house they are renting looks a little ominous and ramshackle from the outside (leading to more than a couple of The Shining jokes), but the interior is nice and cozy. They unpack and get comfortable, but their first night leads to another alarming episode from Alex. A video conference call with their doctor provides some exposition for the audience, filling in that Alex’s condition is technically called parasomnia and that it can easily lead to a person hurting themself or their bed partner. Mallory is obviously alarmed, but Alex is dismissive of her concerns despite mounting evidence that he is potentially dangerous.
Much of this transpires pretty much exactly how you expect it to; Alex’s reluctance to talk about his past ultimately reveals itself to be a deep, dark secret about his parental lineage, while Mallory tries to investigate just what exactly is going on with her increasingly unhinged boyfriend. Drumm does a particularly good job of threading a tricky needle between genuine concern and increasing frustration at Alex’s intractable stubbornness. But the real star here is the stunning nighttime photography that charts Alex’s sleepwalking episodes, which build and build in intensity before finally becoming a full-blown freak-out. Alex and Mallory’s days are shot in full natural light, often with an eye for stability. Mallory places the camera on flat surfaces to capture their normal interactions, a welcome change from the jittery, herky-jerky style so common to the found footage genre. The outdoors footage is particularly lovely, the vast, snow-blanketed forest falsely suggesting a halcyon setting for relaxation and romance. But the nighttime scenes are much more stylized; Mallory follows Alex around the house, capturing his movements in that hazy, luminescent green glow of night-vision photography, or sometimes turns on a light, creating a single light source that illuminates only part of the frame at any given moment. Williams, in turn, becomes mostly silent, altering his body language in various unnerving ways. And when figures begin emerging from the recesses of shadows or jumping out from the edge of the frame, well, these are old tricks, but they work for a reason when executed creatively. Dream Eater isn’t some new masterpiece of the genre, but it does manage to deliver a genuinely creepy time, and sometimes that’s more than enough.
DIRECTOR: Jay Drakulic, Mallory Drumm, & Alex Lee Williams; CAST: Mallory Drumm, Dainty Smith, Kelly Williams, David Richard; DISTRIBUTOR: Iconic Events; IN THEATERS: October 24; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 30 min.
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