Relationship between Stephen King and Hollywood was long and fruitful. King not only had almost any of his literary works adapted to screen, but also tried his hand as producer, director and screenwriter. The first original feature screenplay he wrote was for Sleepwalkers, 1992 horror film directed by Mick Garris.
The “sleepwalkers”, as the opening titles say, refer to ancient race of shapeshifters with ability to transform from humans into giant cats and vice versa. The last of them are Charles Brady (played by Brian Krause) and his mother Mary (played by Alice Krige). They live like nomads, feeding on the life force of virgin women and always moving afterwards, trying to avoid attention and domestic cats that are the only creatures that can actually harm them. Bradys have settled in small Indiana town where Charles, posing as a human teenager, starts attending high school and picks fellow student Tanya Robertson (played by Mädchen Amick) as the next target. Charles manages to present himself as sensitive romantic person and easily seduces Tanya, who agrees to meet him at nearby cemetery. What was supposed to be a date, however, soon turns into struggle for survival. Tanya, who witnessed Charles’ transformation into monster first hand, barely escapes after injuring Charles, but her parents and local law enforcement is somewhat sceptical of her story. That leaves opportunity for Mary to try to abduct Tanya and finish what Charles started.
Sleepwalkers were ravaged by critics but it had very modest success at the box office, mostly on the account of King’s name on the poster. King, who appears in small cameo role, together with famous horror directors like Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper, Clive Barker and John Landis, didn’t do particularly good job and the plot doesn’t seem particularly original. It looks too much like the vastly superior film Cat People, and even features that film’s incest subplot about incest, here directly depicted in a sex scene. While film starts somewhat promisingly, it soon descends into something like unintentional parody of itself. Weak attempts of dark humour are, however, drowned by awful dialogues, too much gratuitous violence and some really cheesy special and makeup effects that make Sleepwalkers look cheaper than it actually is. Brian Krause (who allegedly had actual sex while shooting scene with Krige) terribly overacts, especially in the second half of the film. Krige tries to give some sort of gravitas to her thankless role, but she gets betrayed by King’s script. Same can be said for Mädchen Amick whose character is reduced to passive “damsel in distress” and ultimately gets saved by bunch of cats. Despite Sleepwalkers being considered failure, director Mick Garris later directed adaptations of Stephen King’s work for television.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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