Macabre…ish Horror Reviews: The Nightmare

The Nightmare, 2015/ 90 min.

This is a documentary about people who suffer from sleep paralysis.

Chris talks about a news caster on the evening news, talking directly to him. He remembers him saying, “Hey Chris, hey Chris don’t worry, everything’s gonna be ok. And one day, we’ll be back.” And five year old Chris (Siegfried Peters) was terrified and his mom explained that, that can’t happen. That moment disrupted his place in reality.

He also describes shadow people and then a claw arm hacking up his body from the bottom up and having the pain linger after he was awake. Once he had a shared experience with his girlfriend which was one of the most terrifying, involving a demonic cat and a mothman.

Another man, Forrest, talks about a girlfriend (Nicole Bosworth) who had sleep paralysis and then he had his own terrifying experience, terrifying sounds and colors flying through the air. He had no control over his body and he thought he might be dead of having strokes. And it was happening for months. Sometimes he would think he was awake and talking on the phone and then a demonic voice says “Let me in!” Then reality turned into chaos and he has the feeling of being slammed back into his body.

Ana talks about hearing bees buzzing and her body was paralyzed but tingling. Then she’s hear tapping on the windows, after a while she’d feel a presence. She’d even have sleep paralysis through her pregnancy.  And some of the sleep paralysis felt like sex with an invisible being.

A teacher named Kate would see a giant dark figure, a shadow man (Steven Yvette). At first she thought it was a burglar and after a while she new, it wasn’t a burglar.

Interviews from around the world with accompanying actor portrayed recreations of shadow people, sleep paralysis monsters, black blobs and a demonic cat who’s whole point is to terrify them. And the sufferers quest to find answers and being unable to protect themselves, move or scream for help. Then the fear that they might die from it one day because the interactions are escalating to violence.

This is a documentary in the style of like a true crime documentary. The sleep paralysis sufferers will tell their stories and while they are talking there’s an actor portrayal of what they are describing. There are also clips from movies that has attributes of sleep paralysis and drawings that they made to show what they look like. This isn’t a horror movie but there are definitely moments of horror. Expect jump scares, some blood and adult scenes.