Written by The idea of those reaching out from the beyond and into our dreams has been a long-standing trope in horror filmmaking. Movies like Nightmare on Elm Street and The Black Phone have utilized this mechanic to their advantage. Unfortunately, Sleepwalker can never quite get it to work. Directed by Brandon Auman, the expansion of his short film of the same name crafts some fun images, but the overall experience falls flat.
Sleepwalker Plot
After the death of her daughter, Aimee, artist and mother Sarah Pangborn (Hayden Panettiere) struggles with recurring nightmares. She continues to see her husband, Michael (Justin Chatwin), who abused her and led to her daughter’s death. When both Michael and Aimee appear in her dreams, Sarah starts taking her mother’s sleeping pills to try to stay asleep.
However, as the nightmares get worse, Sarah’s sleepwalking becomes more dangerous. As Sarah’s fears intensify, she leans on her mother (Beverly D’Angelo) and son, Holden (Laird LaCoste). However, the narcolepsy starts to trap her in a dream world. Her visions no longer only affect Sarah, but her family around her.
A ghost story that feels too conventional for its own good.
Ghost tales can often be used to help deepen the metaphors within their stories. However, Sleepwalker rarely finds anything beyond surface-level trauma horror. With Sarah and Holden trapped by the manifestation of their torturer, Michael’s apparition literally overlooks many of the scenes. Yet a recurring image of seven fingers on one hand comes up so often, it’s neither surprising nor frightening as a way to let us know Sarah has entered a dream state.
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The visuals rely on hackneyed visuals and creatures that rarely work. There’s not enough of a CGI budget to effectively render the ghosts, and you can only show a young girl walking through a house so often before it gets tiring. One scene evokes the visual styling of Sam Raimi effectively. However, more often than not, Sleepwalker lands on the generic side of jumpscare horror.
The storyline around domestic abuse and mental anguish is not a topic that’s easy to write about, and Sleepwalker runs into too many tropes of abusive characters. Chatwin is playing the abusive dad role as big as he can, and it would be impossible to interact with his character in the real world without realizing he’s an abuser. The final twist of the movie is not only frustrating, but it undercuts most of Sleepwalker‘s story. If anything, it verges into problematic territory about trying to escape an abuser.
The performances are far from the cast’s best work.
Hayden Panettiere has long been envisioned as a scream queen, in part because of her excellence in the Scream franchise. Pantettiere is certainly deserving of a star vehicle like Sleepwalker, but she does not bring enough nuance into the role for the movie to showcase anything new from the actress. Her most effective screen partners are D’Angelo and Misha Barton, whose brief role in Sleepwalker is more distracting than effective.
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Auman also needs to work on directing children, because the two youth performers have almost nothing to do here. Thanks to the screenplay, LaCoste is forced to look sullen. He also comes into conflict with his mother several times, with Auman’s screenplay making the child unlikable. Meanwhile, Aimee (Corinne Sweeney) is left with deadpan reactions and short screeches. Auman does little to deepen either character, and his direction does not put them in a position to give much more to the camera.
Chatwin gives the worst performance in the movie, overplaying every emotion and beat. He even looks like he’s trying too hard when his character is supposed to be falling asleep. It just doesn’t work, and as the antagonist for much of Sleepwalker, Chatwin does not provide the necessary heft to keep us thinking about the movie’s villain.
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To its credit, Sleepwalker gets decently fun performances from D’Angelo and Lori Tan Chinn. They both provide the movie with energy and genuinely good comedic timing, which becomes a godsend during those stretches of Sleepwalker. While Chinn only has a pair of scenes, she stands out and helps build the best sequence.
Is Sleepwalker worth watching?
No, the new horror flick is not one you should rush out to see. It does not have the budget to land the visual effects it’s trying to create. Unfortunately, Sleepwalker does not make up for that with a good screenplay or above-average performances. If anything, it tries to slip in an unexpected twist to make you talk about it after you’ve walked out of the theater. Unfortunately, even that is a dud.
Watch Sleepwalker in theaters on January 9, 2026.
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