Kate Fuller, a criminal psychologist working for the police, is assigned to the murder of a man who has been strangled in his sleep by an ancient demon which kills people in their sleep, and the only witness is their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie. As you might have guessed, the demon is “Mara”, who’s like a female Freddy Krueger in that she comes after you while you’re sleeping – but that’s where the similarities stop. A better comparison would be like a sad, dramatic Freddy Krueger instead of the terrifying, hilarious Freddy we all know. I’ll admit that my initial reaction to Mara was hopeful and impressed, but that was all dismissed as soon as I got my first real look at her. Her appearance is strongly reminiscent of the stupid Blair Witch from the 2016 reboot, with those ridiculously long arms and legs.

Why do I call her a sad, dramatic Freddy Krueger? Seemingly every time someone is killed, this operatic music starts playing and everyone moves in slow motion, which would be understandable in a drama, but this is a horror movie. People are expected to die, especially non-essential characters who are only in a few scenes, but even those characters aren’t spared from awkward, unnecessarily sad death scenes set to inappropriately dramatic music. I can’t believe I have to say this, but the death scenes in horror movies are supposed to be scary and gross, not fucking sad. That may sound weird but you have to admit I’m right here. The trailer was very well done and had me looking forward to watching this, but once again I’ve found myself watching a drama instead of a horror movie. If the trailer was edited to properly reflect the actual tone of the movie then I wouldn’t have wasted my time watching it. At least these scenes mute the ambient noises coming from the main character’s nose-breathing. Oh, man.

I have to ask, what is with the audible nose-breathing from the main character throughout the whole movie? This might seem like such a weird thing to complain about, but let me tell you it is such an annoying sound and it’s constant. In any scene of tension, this erratic nasal breathing penetrates through all other sound in the scene, so instead of being scared, I found myself incredibly annoyed. Although she was making the noises, I guess the main character can’t be held responsible since she (presumably) wasn’t responsible for audio editing for the film, but my God; someone should be.

Ultimately, the main character is saved by discovering that she must learn to forgive and also be forgiven, because of course this dramatic movie had to include a message of some kind. The filmmakers attempt to save the film from this corny ending by giving us an equally corny surprise ending that sees the main character killed by Mara. Ironically, this final scene, which was actually intended to be dramatic, just comes off as a boring finale that takes too long to wrap up and gives little payoff.

This movie is…

So much potential, but another wasted opportunity.

Cheers and goodnight.