My quick rating – 4.2/10. Nothing says “romantic getaway” quite like a remote cabin, a demon possibly squatting inside your boyfriend’s body, and a doctor who decides to jet off on business but still expects homework. That’s what I got in Dream Eater, a found-footage possession thriller that really leans on its gimmick… and then keeps leaning until it starts to wobble like Alex on one of his midnight wanderings.
Mallory (Mallory Drumm) is instructed by Dr. Snape (Dainty Smith) – playing a physician whose bedside manner is basically, “I’ll be out of town, film your boyfriend’s night terrors, thanks!” – to document Alex’s increasingly violent parasomnia. Naturally, the best place to do this is a remote cabin in the woods. Horror movies have been screaming “don’t go to the woods” for decades, but our heroes treat that rule like a suggestion on a cereal box.
We follow everything through their camera, which means lots of shaky first-person shots and found-footage tricks. You know how much I ADORE that format. If your heart didn’t just fill with sarcasm, mine did enough for both of us. At least the movie lands one thing well. That creepy whistling. That sound cue works. Every time it floated in, I perked up like a cat hearing its treat bag.
Alex (Alex Lee Williams) begins sleepwalking, ranting, lunging, and generally doing the kind of things that should make someone call a priest, a therapist, or at least an Uber. When he wakes, he remembers none of it, which becomes the movie’s main loop: sleepwalk, freak out, blank memory, repeat. It’s like watching a haunted Fitbit log.
The jump scares? Oh, they’re here, and they’re dumb enough to qualify for government assistance. Mallory, understandably fed up, consults a new doctor (David Richard) who casually suggests Alex might be fighting off a demon like this is an everyday Tuesday diagnosis. Once Mallory hears “demon,” the correct play should be simple: get in the car and drive until the cabin is a dot on the GPS. Instead, she runs around the house and yard in a panic, essentially LARPing as “the character who makes terrible decisions.”
To the film’s credit, Williams gives a surprisingly solid performance. He sells the “I didn’t do that, did I?” energy pretty well. And a couple scenes legitimately try to spook you with decent atmosphere. The problem is that the story never really evolves. It’s a possession movie trapped in a sleepwalk-cycle treadmill.
In the end, Dream Eater isn’t awful, it’s just undercooked. Better than most found-footage wannabes out there, though that bar is buried so deep even a demon couldn’t dig it up. Drop this one into 1998, and it probably would’ve been hailed as the next big thing. Even now, it has more going on than The Blair Witch Project did… and yes, I said it.
A few sparks, a few chills, and a whole lot of what-ifs. I was hoping for more, but hey, Eli Roth’s name got it onto my watchlist.
