Non ho sonno
Tags: gothic, murder, violence, horror, suspenseful, sadist

Plot synopsis:
In Turin, Italy, 1983, Detective Ulysses Moretti investigates a murder scene and tells a young boy named Giacomo that he will find his mother's killer, even if it takes the rest of his life.Seventeen years later.Angela, a Rome prostitute, refuses to let a man do "disgusting things" to her and he gives her money and tells her to leave. After cleaning up in the bathroom, Angela hears the unseen man mumble in his sleep about killing "lots of people". In a panic, Angela runs, knocks over a table (that has several knifes on it), gathers her things and leaves. On a train heading back to Turin, she realizes that she inadvertently picked up a blue-colored file which is full of articles, photos of dead people, and a copy of 'The Death Farm' poem by John McKenzie. After recalling a past murder case which involved "the dwarf killer" Angela calls her friend Amanda on her cell phone and tells her about the file and says to meet her at the train station. But a minute later, the killer calls Angela, calling her a thief and threatening to killer her for he is on the train. Angela runs down the train corridor until she finds a conductor and asks him to stay with her until reaching her destination. She returns to the cabin to get her things, hears a noise, and runs. She runs into the conductor who is knocked out cold. She tries to hide in another vacant cabin, but the unseen killer catches her, and stabs her to death.At the train station, Amanda arrives and looks around the train and finds the blue file. She goes back to her car in the parking lot, but the killer is there waiting for her, and stabs her in the neck, killing her. Beppe, the car lot attendant, finds a gold pen on the ground as he sees the killer get out of the car with his blue file. A little later, Inspector Manni and other cops arrive on the scene where they investigate both killings, and the conductor tells Manni about Angela mentioning the killer dwarf. The next morning, Manni goes to visit Moretti, who was in charge of the case back in 1983, and he talks about "loose ends" of the dwarf suspect being found shot in the head from a suspected suicide before he could be apprehended for the killings. Moretti, already in his 70s and long retired from the police force, tells Manni that his memory is not what it used to be.Across town, Mel, a young woman who dances in a skin-tight "kitty" costume at a local nightclub, prepares to leave when she goes to her dressing room when the lights go out. She hears the sounds of a cat howling and is scared by Marco, a bouncer who tells her that there is a short circuit in the fuse box. After he leaves, Mel goes up a dark staircase to the exit where at the top she sees a figure wearing a yellow jacket. She thinks it's Marco until the figure turns around, wearing a hood. The killer grabs her, but Mel puts up a fight, scratching the killer's neck, but gets punched out cold. The killer drags her to a tub of water in the maintenance room, where he drowns her, and then cuts off her fingernails as not to leave skin DNA evidence behind. Manni and the police arrive on the scene later and discover a cutout of a cat near Mel's dead body. Manni informs Moretti of this latest murder, and the elderly detective tells Manni that the killer used to leave cutouts of animals in the "dwarf killer" case 17 years earlier.Meanwhile in Rome, the young boy Giacomo, whom Moretti vowed to help find his mother's killer, is working as a busboy in a local Chinese restaurant when he gets a phone call from Lorenzo, an old childhood friend whom he hasn't seen in 10 years, who urges him to come back to Turin to help out with family problems of his. Giacomo arrives and Lorenzo lets him stay at his family house. Giacomo then goes to the police station where Moretti is there and hears him talking to Manni and remembers when Giacomo says his mothers name: Maria Gallo. Reunited, Giacomo and Moretti talk about what transpired during the 17 years when they first met, and they go to the scene of Maria's murder. Giacomo tells Moretti that he could not see the killers face, but he remembers a "whistling" or "hissing" sound afterwards.That evening, Giacomo eats dinner with Lorenzo's family where his father, Mr. Betti cannot find his gold pen. Later, Lorenzo talks to Giacomo about his stern father wanting him to be an athlete and sent him abroad to various schools, while Giacomo talks about fighting his abusive father. Giacomo goes to see his old school friend Gloria play a harp for a opera house crowd. Afterwords, he, Glroia, Lorenzo and his girlfriend, and Fausto, Gloria's boyfriend, go out to a local nightclub to party. Fausto talks about the latest killings and think that the dwarf killer, Vincenzo de Fabritiis (aka: John McKenzie) and says that he does not think that the man is dead. The next day, Giacomo and Moretti go to the Villa de Fabrittis and Giacomo thinks he sees Vincenzo in the window. They meet a derelict, named Leone, who recites a familiar verse of the poem to Moretti, but says that he cannot remember any more.Meanwhile, Beppe meets with the unseen killer about offering to give his gold pen back, and wants blackmail money to keep his mouth shut. The killer gives Beppe a wad of cash, and Beppe gives the killer back his pen. But then the killer writes something on Beppe's hand and suddenly shoves the pen into Beppe's head many times. Giacomo and Moretti arrive on the scene a few minutes later and notice the words I am a bad boy written on Beppes hand. They call the police, where Manni is upset that the two of them are trying to investigate the murders on their own and tells them to back off and let the police do their own work.Giacomo and Lorenzo meets their friends at a bar. When they sit back down at their table, Lorenzo accidentally drinks from Giacomo's glass of beer, notes a funny taste and collapses. In the hospital, Giacomo says that the poison was meant for him, and Lorenzo's father, Mr. Betti, arrives and tells Giacomo to stay away from his son. Giacomo leaves, and Gloria runs off after him. Moretti, up late at night because of his insomnia, recalls another verse of the rhyme and believes that the killer is murdering to the nursery rhyme.The following day, Dora, a waitress in a local fast-food restaurant whom her friends call her "little rabbit" because of her large front teeth, is working when the unseen killer sees her. That evening, Dora leaves work, gets on a train and walks outside to her apartment building. She just lets herself in the door when the killer runs up and attacks her. Dora puts up a fight by biting the killer's arm with her large front bunny teeth. But she gets overpowered and the killer slams her face into a wall, knocking out her front bunny teeth. The killer leaves a cutout of a rabbit by her dead body.Moretti tells Giacomo of a manuscript Vincenzo had said was stolen, believing the killer was using it to kill. At the house, they meet Vincenzo's elderly mother, Laura and they ask her about his books. Gloria calls Giacomo and tells him about Swan Lake which he is about to perform that night. Moretti finds a childrens book, 'Animal Farm', with pages missing., and he thinks that Vincenzo had hidden the pages of the original text from the killer. He looks at an old copy of George Orwell's book, 'Animal Farm', and finds the missing pages, which contain the nursery rhyme. The last verse, following the death of a cat, and a rabbit, mentions killing a swan. Giacomo quickly drives to the Swan Lake performance and runs backstage, and finds Gloria alive and well. But a minute later, they find Mara, the ballet dancer who danced to Gloria's harp music, dead and beheaded in her dressing room.At the local cemetery, Vincenzo's coffin is exhumed, but the corpse is gone. Laura goes to see Moretti at his house and says that she does not want the rumors to start again. She says that she knows her son is dead because, not wanting him to go to prison for murders that he did not commit, shot and killed him herself and made it look like a suicide. Moretti tells her that the gun used was never found, and Laura tells him that she has it. Laura goes back to the estate to retrieve the pistol from a hidden place. She sees a short figure approaching her in the dark, backs up, and falls off a railing to her death.That evening, Moretti phones Giacomo and leaves a message on Gloria's answering machine. Just then, the phone lines goes dead, then the light go off. Moretti sees a tiny person walking out of the darkness. Moretti takes out a pistol from his desk drawer and fires repeatedly, but the figure keeps on approaching. Suddenly, Moretti grabs his chest, and falls to the floor dead. The next morning, after spending a passionate night with Gloria, Giacomo finally hears the message on Gloria's machine where Moretti talks about the murders being in a small neighborhood in 1983, and they are now happening all over the city in 2000, plus Moretti mentions a "discrepancy" in his mothers killing and the handwriting on Beppes hand. Manni then calls and tells Giacomo that Moretti had died from a heart attack.Giacomo and Gloria get into her car and give the bum, Leone, a lift. He is dropped off and Giacomo gets out to give him a bottle of wine he left in the back seat. At the shed of the Vincenzo estate, he sees Leone with a puppet dwarf and he runs back to the car to tell Gloria. Giacomo and Gloria follow Leone to an apartment building, and Gloria goes to her car to call the police while Giacomo climbs a fence and walks inside. Upstairs, he finds Leone dead from a shot to the head and Mr. Betti appears in the room and shoots Giacomo in his shoulder. Lorenzo and Gloria rush in and pound and yell at the front door, and Mr. Betti suddenly shoots himself. Lorenzo and Gloria run in and Lorenzo is clearly distraught to see his father dead, in which he begins hyperventilating and uses his asthma inhaler.When Lorenzo walks out of the room to call the police, Giacomo tells Gloria what Moretti had learned. The killings in 1983 were in a small area because the killer was a child back then, and now in 2000, they are all over the city because the killer, now an adult, can go anywhere he wants. Additionally, a child would take the rhyme literally, not realizing "instrument" referred to a weapon. Just then Lorenzo returns to the room and, in a sneering, wild-eye tone, congratulates Giacomo of figuring it all out. Giacomo takes Lorenzo's inhaler away from him and says that was the hissing sound he heard, and knows that Mr. Betti knew about his sons killings and sent him away to prevent him from killing again. Lorenzo says that he was doing fine on his own and called Giacomo back to Turin because he wanted to play a game between the two of them so Lorenzo could get caught, and he even deliberately took a sip from Giacomo's poisoned beer that night to divert any suspicion away from him. Leone was Lorenzo's co-conspirator who used the dwarf puppet to make it look that a dwarf was doing all the killings of the present. Lorenzo suddenly grabs a knife and holds it against Gloria's throat, threatening to kill her of Giacomo approaches him any further. Giacomo asks Lorenzo why he did not kill anyone for this long and why did he start again after 17 years. Lorenzo replies: "who said I stopped?" He tells of other places in Switzerland, Paris, Germany, England, Spain and the USA where there have been dozens of unsolved killings over the past 17 years and replies "they know the nursery rhyme there too!" Backing up towards a window, Lorenzo threatens to make Giacomo watch, when Manni and the police arrive and seeing Lorenzo in the window, open fire several times, literally blowing Lorenzo's face off. Giacomo and Gloria embrace as the cops run inside the apartment and huddle them out to safety.

Review: Teaming up Giacomo (Stefano Dionisi), whose mother was killed by "The Dwarf" when he was a child, Moretti tries to solve these recent slew of murders and put to rest the case forever.From the opening, where we have an intense murder on a train, to the end, where the killer is finally revealed and Max Von Sydow recites a nursery rhyme (which is relevant to the plot) over the credits Argento uses his trademark styles to keep us on the edge of our seats.
From his masterful direction, Goblin's always excellent score and the incredibly brutal murder sequences 'Sleepless' is Dario's best movie since Opera.
The atmosphere throughout is kept at an intense level, although Argento focuses a lot on the story, which is hardly a bad thing (if anything it's better) and the story unfolds at an excitingly nail-biting pace.However, like many of his movies, the acting by a few is subpar but that's something that many fans of Argento come to expect and even if you're not it shouldn't matter.
It has to be seen to be believed, it really does.Like many Italian horror films, Sleepless isn't the best film ever made in terms of acting, and at times the plot isn't always well paced.
Films like "Suspiria" (1977), "Profondo Rosso" (1975) and Phenomena (1985) range among my all-time favorites, and Argento's repertoire includes several other masterpieces of Italian Horror/Giallo, such as "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage" (1970), "Opera"(1987) or "Tenebre"(1982).
The good-old Giallo premise is still working greatly, and the fact that Argento borrows many elements from his older films does in no way downsize the greatness of "Sleepless".
Since the police make little progress, Giacomo and the retired homicide detective Ulisse Moretti (Max Von Sydow), who was working on the cases in 1983, begin to investigate themselves..."Sleepless" brings the old-fashioned Giallo-greatness that we're used to from Argento.
A creepy atmosphere, stunning suspense, ultra-bloody murders, an excellent cinematography and especially another ingenious score by Progressive Rock band Goblin - this film delivers all the great elements that we love Argento for.
The death scenes in my opinion are more tense here than in some of his older films.The acting is very good although the occasional dubbed voice causes some actors to look like their facial expressions almost don't match their voices.One outstanding feature is the cinematography.
Being his fan I could not miss his last effort specially when I noticed that the myths since the time of "Profondo Rosso": The Goblin, were performing the soundtrack.Dario Argento is back to the old typical thriller structure: a serial killer with a nonsense-rhyme for kids is the leitmotiv of all the homicides in a very wet and scary Turin.The characters are well performed specially by the "bergmanian" Max Von Sidow.
With his newest giallo "Non ho Sonno" Dario Argento proves again that he is the best Italian horror/suspense director."Non ho Sonno" is basically about a killer who murders women and leaves the police always a clue:a paper-cut of an animal(e.g.cat,rabbit).The killings are based on a children's poems,and the murder spree started back in 1983,stopped abruptly after three killings,and continues 17 years later.Many people complain about acting,but I don't care.In my opinion the cast is pretty good,and the characters are well-developed."Non ho Sonno" is also Argento's most violent and sadistic work to date.The gore is pretty extreme and there are some really ghastly murder scenes like one where the victim gets her head bashed against the wall-it really hurts watching that!Anyway if you like the works of Italian maestro Dario Argento,you'll love "Non ho Sonno".9 out of 10..
Most of the murder scenes are incredibly gory, but I didn't really feel they were to the point that they were overdone.While "Sleepless" is nothing that will be considered a classic, it tells a solid story, wraps itself up with a good ending, necessary for this type of movie, and impresses the audience with its visuals and style.*** out of ****.
Elderly detective teams up with the son of an old murder victim to find the elusive night killer that is now striking again years later.Over the course of the 90's, Dario Argento seemed to be moving away from his artsy, old-school style of horror for more modernized thrillers.
What I liked was that the killer uses nursery rhymes from a specific book to pick their next victim, which I thought was pretty ingenious and disturbing, especially since the victims have something to associate them with the animals in the nursery rhymes.Though the plot might have certain flaws, one being it's one -dimensional characters and secondly at times it was pretty convenient that the killer was at the right place at the right time- but otherwise it makes up for it with it's swift and creative deaths: that truly come out of left field you cant go wrong with that opening scene on the train and at the station, with the hysteria and tension of isolation that builds up throughout that scene.Though the death scenes might turn off certain viewers- but not if your fan of Argento, as a lot of detail goes into them and so did the setting of the film- it was beautifully shot.
Fans of Dario Argento and viewers who like a violent suspense film will appreciate `Sleepless'.
But years later the killer returns and Giacomo is back in the thick of things: he teams up with a retired detective he met as a boy (played by Max von Sydow) and they track the clues around Turin.Dario Argento consistently delivers films that I consider top-notch.
Hearing the name 'Dario Argento' the first thing that comes to your head is horror.'Sleepless' is that.Horror!They say that the performance of the actors is awful.The script,too.They are right!But when I saw this movie,honestly,I had not any problem with that!It isn't a drama!
It's a horror movie.Dario Argento is master in this section and I think this movie deserves a better rating.The story is wonderful,the ending is completely unpredictable and the horror...grate!It's a different story.Not the story we all know well with the college boys and girls with the friend who's a serial killer(urban legend,etc)!Of course the bad performing can't give a better grade to this movie but surely it deserves more responding from critics.It's a masterpiece of horror with a cult feeling that makes it mysterious.Dario offers horror and he's doing it well!I personally love this movie!I believe it is the cult splatter of the new millenium!.
If anyone like New York Ripper, they will really enjoy this movie.When you know that Goblin is doing the music and Sergio Stivaletti is doing the make - up effects it´s kind of guarantee that this movie is going to be very good, when you know that Dario Argento is the director and have been working whith them before.For some some scenes can be too violance and gory.
When I where at the Stockholm Filmfestival som people whent before the movie were finished.If you are a fan of classical horror movies from the beginning of the 80´s, whith especially Italian directors you will enjoy this.Our Swedish actor Max von Sydow has a role in this movie to.I hope that someone will have some help to decide if you should or shouldn´t look at this film..
Movies such as 'Suspiria', 'Tenebrae' and 'Deep Red' put Argento on the map as a true exponent of the horror genre, but recently his films have nose-dived into mediocrity, culminating with the truly dire 'Phantom Of The Opera'.
Yes, it is not the best giallo Argento made (that was PROFONDO ROSSO), but, hey, it is unfair to expect someone to make masterpieces all the time, and while SLEEPLESS is not a masterpiece, it is much better than his own disastrous TRAUMA or virtually all of American serial killer movies made in the past ten years or so.
Especially if You liked Argento's 70s Giallo work and his 1982 GORE-Extravaganza TENEBRE, You'll feel real familiar.About the Acting:-The characters look sometimes not more stone-facedas in Deep Red / Tenebre -and MAX(THE EXORCIST)VON SYDOW does still his job!My source was the nice Italian MEDUSA  D V D with English language..
Ok, got the Italian DVD via TNT express from cdbox.it (very good service, guys).Watched it with a friend on Dolby 5.1 and 16:9 tv-set.From the title-sequence, for the first time in years, the old Argento feeling (which I first experienced in 1984, watching Tenebre in a big movie theatre), was back.
But then, that´s much more than one could expect.A lot of classic moments in the film, with the first 20 minutes being easily the most terrifing that you´ve seen for a long, long time.It´s a good Argento, the first since Opera, and really the first good movie I saw for years.He still makes them like this..
Sleepless (2001) finds director Dario Argento at his self-referential best; producing a film that seems like a veritable greatest hits package of his more recognisable trademarks and preoccupations, including the revelation of a traumatic childhood event, the reliance on the juxtaposition between an older, more seasoned character and his young protégé turned amateur sleuths, the foregrounding of a burgeoning love affair and the always prevalent notions of sight and perception.
Admittedly, it could be argued that the film falls apart a little towards the end, but for the most part Sleepless is a fantastic thriller, and easily Argento's best film since Opera (1987) more than a decade before.It was touted at the time as the director's return to his more traditional Giallo roots of films like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1974) and Tenebrae (1982); though I'm sure some would still argue that it doesn't quite achieve the creative highs of those particular films, with the occasional flaws - many of which Argento fans will have come to know and love - marring the film in the second half.
The presentation might be a little more cutting-edge, with the modern-day, 21st century streets of Rome and contemporary attitudes of its characters further fuelling the plot; however, the structure of the film, the relationships between the characters and the fantastic way that Argento builds tension and dread is right out of his "animal trilogy" of the 1970's.The murder scenes are as inventive as ever, filled with those trademark POV shots and plenty of bravura, with the cinematography of Ronnie Taylor thankfully being closer to his work on Opera (1987) rather than The Phantom of the Opera (1998).
The grandiose scenes of stalk and slash terror is to be expected from Argento, especially with the memory of his earlier films still in mind, however, what really sets Sleepless apart from his more recent works, like The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) and The Card Player (2005), is the compelling performance from a genuine acting legend; in this instance, the ever-brilliant Max Von Sydow.Von Sydow plays Ulisse Moretti, a now retired police detective still obsessing over a shocking murder case that took place eighteen years earlier.
Though Stefano Dionisi as the earnest and enthusiastic Giacomo lacks the natural ability of Von Sydow (a fact not helped by his rather poor English dubbing), he still manages to carry his strands of the narrative fairly well, while the scenes between their two particular characters resonate with the same kind of mutual respect and contagious curiosity that was found between the lead characters of The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971) or even the aforementioned Deep Red. Some of the other performances aren't quite as strong, though the shadow of Von Sydow and the technical virtuosity and ace storytelling of Argento definitely make up for it; turning a film that could have easily become generic and derivative into a genuinely interesting murder mystery.It might not be Argento's greatest film; lacking the unconventional flair and visual eccentricity of Deep Red or the self-reflexive experimentation and daring design of the classic Tenebrae, it does at least deliver on the basic levels of story, characters and vision.
Max von Sydow is real great in this role as the retired policeman, but especially the younger actors cannot cope with such a performance...As a result, "Sleepless" is a real good and entertaining murder mystery with a lot of suspense.
Max Von Sydow by far gives the best performance in the film playing the detective who worked on the original case and is now called into to solve the new murders.
Argento displays his undisputed bravura only in two scenes (one, on a train, at the very beginning; the other, on a red carpet of a theater, much later), but it's really too little for a movie who's intended to be the sequel to "Profondo rosso", one of Argento's most beloved films...It's a shame to see the great Max von Sydow sink in this sea of mediocrity...
Anyone who's ever watched other Argento films will know *not* to expect good acting performances or a coherent plot.
thank god for dario argento and giallo because the movie world would be poorer place without them my favorites being tenebrae and profondo rosso then came this absolute gem which i saw under the title sleepless and with a combination of dario argento and the legend that is max von sydow this was always going to be excellent and has since taken over as my favorite argento film with its superb storyline great camera work and excellent murder scenes super acting all round especially max von sydow i would be amazed if anybody did not enjoy this film and as always with argento films the music is outstanding and as alway a film that will keep you guessing until the very end a film that i can watch over and over again highly recommended.
***SPOILERS*** Famed Italian Gailo horror director Dario Argento pulls no punches in this graphically gory slasher film that has the audience guessing to who the killer is up until the very last few moments of the movie.It's when a number of women are brutally murdered in Turin Italy that it becomes evident to the city's chief of police Manni, Paolo Mari Scalondro, that the killings are the work of the "Killer Dwarf" Vincenzo De Fabritiis, Luca Fagioll, who disappeared from sight back in 1983 after murdering three women under the very same circumstances!
It will spoil the whole movie if I`d utter one single word.Form: If you have`nt seen an Italian horror film or a giallo(murder\mystery)before this really is a good starter.
If anyone likes New York Ripper, they will really enjoy this movie.When you know that Goblin is doing the music and Sergio Stivaletti is doing the make - up effects it´s kind of guarantee that this movie is going to be very good, when you know that Dario Argento is the director and have been working whith them before.For some some scenes can be too violent and gory.
When I where at the Stockholm Filmfestival some people went before the movie were finished.If you are a fan of classical horror movies from the beginning of the 80´s, with especially Italian directors you will enjoy this.Our Swedish actor Max von Sydow has a role in this movie too.I hope that someone will have some help to decide if you should or shouldn´t look at this film..
Dario Argento's return to his most familiar and favourite genre, murder mystery (Giallo), is this 2001 film Non ho Sonno aka Sleepless which he also co-wrote with Franco Ferrini, his long time companion.
The film is not so artistic anymore in any way, so unwillingly or not Argento has this time created only a piece of violent mystery thriller to satisfy the audience by the "entertainment" received by that, nothing more, those few cinematic merits mentioned above excluded naturally.It is quite painful for the viewer to sit through films like this, Trauma and La Sindrome di Stendhal as they feel so slow and boring, mostly because the characters never become too interesting or multi leveled and there are scenes that are unnecessarily too long and not so important to the plot development, and they also usually involve, for example, the protagonist quite irritatingly talking to himself/herself as he/she tries to solve the case by himself in peace.
I rented Sleepless with high hopes, hence Dario Argento is my favorite horror director and his "Suspiria" is, on my opinion, one of the best films I've ever seen.
Although Argento's cinematography is once again out of this world, the films feels bland, the actors (expect for Sir Max Von Sydow) are not so good and the English dubbing doesn't really help either.
Sleepless, or to give the film its original Italian title, Non ho sonno, was a commercial success in its native country and marked the return of legendary director Dario Argento to the giallo sub-genre after a long hiatus.
Argento doesn't do much to separate this one from the giallo pack, but the nursery rhyme aspect is interesting and even a bit demented.The death scenes are fun and very elaborate and the performances are decent as well from the cast, Max Von Sydow is competent and an unexpected presence in this kind of movie and Stefano Dionisi also gives a convincing performance as the male lead.All in all Many say that this is a return to form, and in a way it is but not quite up there with (Deep Red, The Bird In A Cystal Plummage, Suspiria, Tenebrae and Phenomena), but much better than the more recent efforts like (Trauma and Stendal Syndrome)..
Not exactly a return to form for Argento, bur certainly a step in the right direction (after several less-than stellar efforts), Sleepless sees the director plundering his 70s and 80s back catalogue to put together what is probably his most satisfying movie since Opera (1987).Max von Sydow plays Moretti, an ex-detective called out of retirement to help assist in a murder case which is somehow connected to a series of vicious killings that took place seventeen years earlier.