The Dark Sleep

Not Lovecraft But An Interesting Pastiche
Brett Piper has made a name for himself as one of the most unique and dedicated low budget filmmakers over the last couple of decades; his brazen use of archaic usual techniques and mix of horror and humor have given him the same cache as underground filmmakers. He’s like a well kept secret for devout fans of weird cinema.”The Dark Sleep” is credited to HP Lovecraft, though that’s more for a plentiful use of tropes and style than anything resembling an actual adaptation. Sure, Brown Jenkins is here and there’s a lot of screwy dream sequences, but the film really bears little resemblance to Lovecraft’s work.That being said, Piper does fill the movie with a lot of cool images through he trademark use of stop motion and matte effects work. Piper has a defined style that makes all of his creations unmistakably his own; you could never imagine Ray Harryhausen coming up with these things!Unfortunately, the movie slips with the story, which is a cumbersome tale about a rather unpleasant woman haunted by visceral nightmares of another world. In her waking life, she deals with an ex-husband that’s at odds with her and generally tries to make his life a living Hell.The story’s a flop and while the effects work helps salve that burden, it can’t make up for how much time we spend around a bunch of miserable people doing very little of anything. I feel like a 3 is a bit forgiving, but there’s so many cool pieces here I can’t go lower.

There is Lovecraft mythos in the movie, hamstrung by budget
I wish there was a 2 1/2 stars, the movie is better than two stars but not good enough for three.The movie does follow, somewhat, the Dreams of the Witch House with the genders reversed and a less typical Lovecraft ending.Get ready for some spoilers. I will try to keep it to a minimum.The acting is okay, I have seen much worse on bigger budgets. My biggest beef with the movie is the protagonist is a bit of a jerk and I kept hoping that the sister would end up being the real protagonist. And the antagonist was really not believable as “the bad guy” as he was less of a jerk than the female lead. We are not given any real motivation as to why the antagonist is doing what he is doing other than she divorce him. We get almost no background on the characters to justify the motivation other than it justifies the plot. There is a lot of Lovecraft name dropping here but not as the personifications found in the original story.They did get some of the atmosphere correct and it did give it an eerie tone when they did use some sets of the dreamlands, some of the CGI and lens effects were effective. The CGI for the most part, however, was just plain atrocious and probably a result of a minuscule budget. And then the movie went into Dungeons and Dragons mode for the final boss. Seriously, I thought I had switched to a video game at the end.The actors reactions to some situations were just baffling, especial at the end. I was half expecting a Nightmare on Elm Street ending. If I had woken up in that situation I would have been screaming like John Trent in the blue bus dream scene in In the Mouth of Madness.The plot does go from A to B with very little divergence, there is that.If you are a die-hard Lovecraft fan that has to see every movie that is connected to his writings, you could do worse.

Atmosphere
I really enjoyed this film. Yes, it was done on a low budget, most indies are. However, the CGI, although not up to blockbuster standards was still decent. The main protagonist, although whiney and bitchy at times, was easy on the eyes and proved to be a strong character in the end. Along with Dirt Dauber and Die Farbe this is one of the better Lovecraftian films out there, not on the level of HPLHS, but just bubbling under.

Just one.
This is a very intriguing movie. I well recommend it.