Sleepless Nights – review

Director: Wayne Whisenant (segment)

Release date:2016

Contains spoilers


This is another portmanteau effort this time masterminded by veteran b-movie/straight to video impresario Todd Sheets (from a TMtV point of view he was the writer of the truly risible Vampire Holocaust). And whilst time has moved on the filming quality of this film seems stuck in a straight to vhs era. Now, this is played with; the film starts with a “feature presentation” screen straight out of grindhouse. But it still looks poor.

The surround follows a girl and her babysitter as they carve a pumpkin, hear the radio talk about an escaped lunatic and the girl tells the nervous babysitter horror stories. There is quite a neat twist to the surround but that’s not why we’re here. The vampire tale is the last segment and the girl introduces it by talking about her grandma living near a creepy man. The segment is called Unnatural Attraction and was a short from two years before this was put together.

John O'Hara as Edwin

The creepy guy is Edwin Parker (John O'Hara) and he is watching life go by whilst sat on a park bench. He is clearly nefariously interested in a jogger (Michaela Paxton Tarbell) who goes by. He also takes too much notice of a young girl (Ariah McLaws) on her bike. The girl has a fall and he goes over to her – she’s cut her knee. He offers to get a first aid kit from his car. He gets it out from the trunk and we see he has another girl (Ashley Whisenant) tied up in there. He patches her up and then we see him leave, the bike still crashed, abandoned on the floor.

Michaela Paxton Tarbell as Regine

When he gets home he gets the girl out of his car – she has clearly been knocked out with chloroform – and takes her into his basement, tying her up. In there are another couple of older girls also tied up. Back upstairs he has a picture of his desired victim – the jogger. There is a knock at the door and, when he gets there, the visitor actually is the jogger. His house is on her route to the park, she has noticed his car and has brought a jumper wondering if he had lost it. It isn’t his but she asks for a glass of water and so he invites her in.

not the actual twist

Of course you know what has to happen, given the film is listed here. The jogger is a vampire and she is preying on him. She gives her name as Regine Dandridge – a clear reference to Fright Night Part 2 - and she chats to him for a little while before baiting him with news of the girl who went missing and vanishing as he goes to stab her. She reappears and attacks… The only real lore we get is that she drinks blood and is fine in daylight. There is a twist in the tale beyond her vampiric existence.

fangs

The short was probably the best segment in the film and what saved it was the story of the vampire preying on the despicable. The acting was ok but nothing to write home about and the photography was washed out. All that said – the segment wasn’t bad and probably deserves 4 out of 10. I’m afraid the whole film would get less in total, it isn’t greater than the sum of this part.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK