From: cosc15xo@Rosie.UH.EDU
Subject: Re: Sleepwalkers - SPOILERS
Reply-To: cosc15xo@Rosie.UH.EDU
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 08:41:00 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.144707.20805@acsu.buffalo.edu>, v062nm65@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Chris J. Randall) writes:
>For those of you who don't wish to be spoiled (although not that bad), leave
>now...
>
>Last chance...
>
>You have been warned...
>
>
>Stephen King's track record is once again affirmed with his latest film,
>"Sleepwakers."
>
>	*sigh*
>
>	I don't think that I've ever left a movie feeling so disappointed. 
>This movie had such potential, but every chance they had was wasted on
>something trivial...
>	The acting, in general, was decent.  Unfortunately, they spent no time
>on any real chracter development, which I think caused the film to lose a lot.
>The main characters were competent, and in some cases good.  There just simply

Big disagreement here.  I thought the acting sucked-big time.  The girl from
Twin Peaks was ok, but everyone else was awful.

>was no reason to care about what they were doing most of the time. 
>	What the hell are these "Sleepwalker" things?  They give us a
>definition in the beginning, but we get no other explanation other than what we
>figure out on our own.  We don't know where they came from, why they were the
>way they were, orhow they became these things.  If they had given 15 minutes
>of the film to explain their orgin, it would have added much needed depth to
>the film.  Instead, we're left to make up our own theories about the
>Sleepwalkers.

The film suffered from lousy editing.  You can tell Stephen King had a lot
more background written in the script (he gave some early hints).  He also
implied they were looking for other Sleepwalkersand that subplot disappeared
entirely (again, I think it was cut).

>	The effects were good, and in some cases, outstanding.  Granted, they
>weren't up to T-2 standards (what is?), but some things were very eye-catching. 
>The car transformation scenes stand out, as well as the morphing of the faces.
>Would someone mind explaining what they were siphoning out of the victims?  Not
>a very efficient means of draining someone's "life force" if all they had to do
>to stop it was close their mouth.  

I'm tired of seeing the T2 morphing FX myself.  The makeup was acceptable
(better than T2, really).

>	the only bad effect were those using the cats.  It was so painfully
>obvious that some parts weren't real, and it looked as if they just didn't
>care.  They were capable of good cat effects, as witnessed by when the mother
>caught the cat in mid-air and snapped it in half.  At times, the whole thing
>reminded me of an extended "Toonces the driving cat" skit on SNL, except SNL's
>cat is a little more realistic.

I diagree here, too.  The cats looked ok for a movie with NO BUDGET. I assume
it had a small budget considering the nobody idiot director in charge of the
mess.

>	Holy inconsistencies, Batman.  The biggest one in the whole film was
>the story - actually, there wasn't much that could be called a story.  Like I
>said before - there was no background for any of the characters, and points
>were brought up that could have provided interest, but were quickly dropped. 
>The make a reference to other "Sleepwalkers" around, but they never go any
>further.  Also, the orgins would have been interesting, but once again, nothing
>was said.  When the kid gets shot in the back by the cop, notice the placement
>of the bullet wound.  Later, when the kid crawls into his house, look at his
>back - no wound of any kind.  Just plain sloppy.

Again, poor decisions by the director or the studio.  This turkey ran
something like 85 minutes (by my watch), and I think there was another good
45 minutes of story there (and probably scripted).

>	I'm not sure what Stephen King wanted this to be billed as.  From what
>I've seen and heard, this is just supposed to be horror.  The crowd didn't take
>it as such.  There was more laughter in that theatre than I've heard in movies
>labeled as "comedies."  There are so many moments when we weren't supposed to
>laugh, but the whole thing was so ridiculous, we couldn't help it.  I mena when
>the majority of the theatre starts chanting the cat's name when it appears, you
>know somethings wrong. (I've never seen a cat so strong that it could get into
>a house by breaking a window...   :)

Blaming Stephen King for this isn't fair.  He wrote the script (and I think
it was orginally a good one-I'd like to see an uncut version).  The director
has to take full blame because he did a lousy job.  How many times do we
have to see a shot filmed at an angle anyway?  

I saw this at a college preview Thursday night and enjoyed the crowd response.
We started cheering for Clovis early on, and he didn't let us down :(.

>
>	All I can say is that I'm glad I saw it for free.  Even so, I still
>feel a bit cheated.  King is capable of good stuff, and with a few simple
>changes in character development and story development, this could have been a
>really good movie.  The potential was THERE, but they failed to capitalzize on
>it.  King has no excuses like "Well, it didn't carry over well from the novel."
>He's responsible for it and has no one to blame but himself.

WRONG.  He can say it didn't carry over from the script.  He didn't direct this
film, therefore he also didn't have creative control.  Mick Garris is to blame
for this turkey, and it is a turkey.

>At most, I'd say that this movie is worth matinee prices.  If you really want
>to see it, wait till it hits the $1.50 theatres.
>

Cable.  Late night.  

>	At least we got to see previews of Lethal Weapon 3 (Looks Great), Alien
>3 (Looks Great), and Batman Returns (Looks Great, but I don't know...).  Hmmm. 
>I do believe that I'm going to be going to the movies quite a bit this
>summer...                                       :)
>

Lethal Weapon Trailer looked crappy, as does Alien 3.  Batman looked fantastic.

>
>

>Chris 


Matt