A look at a frightening condition that plagues thousands; sleep paralysis.

----------------------------------------
Jeremiah Holt from United States
----------------------------------------

If you are looking for an informative documentary on sleep paralysis, go somewhere else. The interviews in this film feel scripted and unbelievable, there is little to no scientific information or expert opinion on the phenomenon, and halfway through it begins focusing on the suggestion that these dreams could be caused by demons and can be stopped by prayer or by chanting Jesus' name.

There is some decent cinematography and horror imagery though. It could have been a cool documentary if it had actually been a documentary. I was quite interested in the topic beforehand and came out of this film very disappointed.

----------------------------------------
flannery1978 from USA
----------------------------------------

From the creators of Room 237 (excellent doc) comes stories of sleep paralysis. If you're into 90min of hearing about someone else's dreams, then go for it! If not, then this will seem like pure tedium with hack visuals to match.

If you find this film scary, then save yourself some time and just type in "horror" into your Netflix or Amazon search box, and watch anything that pops up.

Calling this film a documentary is a stretch, as there is zero professional medical info or research about the subject whatsoever. Instead, we get story after story of hyperbolic romanticized experiences during the least credible time in your life; as you drift off to sleep.

----------------------------------------
John Mahalick from United States
----------------------------------------

Sleep paralysis is a variety of dream which can seize a person prisoner in a ghoulish and tactile hallucination. "The Nightmare" profiles a dozen such severely afflicted individuals and invites you into their brains.

The recorded medical history of the disorder is touched upon in brief, only long enough to establish the subject's credibility. It's not a phenomenon that's been approached with much clinical discipline, and medical history is ostensibly not what this is a film about. It is instead fascinated with the experience itself, and the life these people lead.

Mostly the movie plays out through vivid dramatizations of dreams recounted in voice-over. It gets hella scary as the volume of awful steadily rises. A common vocabulary of bad things runs through it all, which amounts to elemental nightmare fuel.

This builds to the question of how his interviewees deal with their worsening condition. This film takes folks on an extreme of human experience and examines how they and then perceive their reality. What if sleeping meant you were attacked by demons? Would you explain it with cognitive science? Christianity? New age spiritualism? The film is patient enough to listen with interest and a sort of apathy to concrete answers.

It isn't perfect. Particularly there's some intentional fourth wall breaking-behind the scenes that's labored and distracting. And there's one dream recreation technique of photo slide show that isn't as hot as the rest.

But a unique experience of a documentary. Just watch it at night in the dark, don't be a chicken ;)

----------------------------------------
Leon Smoothy
----------------------------------------

This is a movie with interviews with people having sleeping disorders described as "Sleep paralysis", a subject studied but certainly not yet enough, or, perhaps, the knowledge is not substantial enough to very exactly what the therm, or condition, actually is.

Where is the line to be drawn between "regular" nightmares, which can be truly terrifying, realistic and actually ruin peoples lives, and more "direct" experiences of attacks connected with sleeping stages and different peoples mental states, caused by stress, traumatic experiences (known or unknown)?

Many opinions about this documentary, or what you prefer to label it, is "there's just a dude telling a dramatic story about seeing strange things when going to sleep, it's not real or scientific!" Well, take it for that then, and go in to this for what it is, in this case not a bunch of medical psychiatric professionals/professors stating what is actually possible or not, and not facts and proofs.

It is well made though, compared to many other "documentaries" dealing with things not easy to scientifically prove. The people interviewed seems to give a true statement, as good as they can, of their experiences, and it's not accompanied by any dramatic narrator trying to push a certain theory as "THE Fact".

It is actually quite scary hearing about these (real) peoples experiences, compared to plain fiction. I have friends who during stressful/painful episodes in their lives have experienced the very disturbing feeling of "dreaming while awake", so to speak, but that has always seemed purely connected to the fact that it is possible to have moments/lapses in rem-sleep, dreaming, and being completely awake. If you ask around, I'm sure many people can refer to some personal episode that's connected to this, and it is also how many medical professionals choose to describe it as. Several people I have talked with, having had complex heart surgery, for example, has had some of these kind of feelings afterwards. NOT, however, "beings" terrorizing them.

Then there is the point "what you feed the mind with is what it will circulate around", and I mean certainly there is a connection in these kinds of experiences, as well as other strange happenings, that if you open your mind up to certain influences, it can affect you. That does not take a doctor to understand. I don't put a judgment in these particular cases concerning that.

The scary parts in these stories is more related to actual strong perceptions of physical attacks from something, such as strong pain, voices, "beings" seemingly terrorizing/stalking them at night on such a regular basis. These experiences is not much commented by medical science (yet), because professionals studying it is very careful where to draw the line (not to ruin their careers, maybe...).

For example, a leading professor can state that "there is probably multiple universes", but the same one would be careful to say "there is likely beings from other dimensions that can hurt you while you sleep".

So, take it for what it is...

----------------------------------------
QuadeC2010 from United States
----------------------------------------

Who am I? I doubt you know me. For years I have struggled with the horrible experience of sleep paralysis. When I was around the age of 12, I had my first episode. I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't even call my mom for help. I was fully aware. I had no control of my body. I was experiencing horrible hallucinations. I didn't know how to make it stop. Then, in an instant, it all just cleared.

That next moment, I woke up my parents. It was around 3 am. I was squalling. I thought I had gotten a glimpse of hell. My mom didn't know what I was talking about. After that moment, I began doing some research on the phenomena and found out that it was, in fact, sleep paralysis. It terrified me and made me never want to sleep again. My mom never heard of the experience and though I just had a lucid nightmare. I didn't even sleep for the next night in fear of it happening again. It was, in a short explanation, absolutely terrifying.

After a while, sleep deprivation had taken a toll on my body and I went to sleep afterward and the experience didn't happen again. I thought maybe it was just my imagination... But my consciousness during the situation said something else. It didn't happen again for a couple months. Now I, a 23 year old male, still have these experiences happen once every month or two; sometimes more often if I'm sleep deprived or really stressed. I have extreme fascination in these experiences and have delved into the interest of these experiences and others' reaction to them. My mom doesn't fully believe but after some of others' stories, she has become more open to the idea.

Now I know that was a long, and possibly, unnecessary introduction to this review, but I feel it is vital to my rating because of the fact that I am so use to these experiences. I've become unafraid of them and when it happens I just brace myself and try to get myself to acknowledge these hallucinations are not real.

So now, to the review. As I said earlier, I have a huge interest in this phenomenon and when I heard there was going to be a documentary about it, I couldn't wait to see it, especially with the great reviews it was receiving! I saw the trailer and almost messed my pants. It looked so similar to what I experienced and was so excited to hear others' recollections and what I was left with was a mediocre, pretentious, documentary that I was extremely disappointed with.

Well, where to really start about this review? We begin with people talking about their experiences. There are several stories that are going on simultaneously, but it's never too busy, with some recalling the same shadow people I too experienced and caused me to lose sleep. The main problem with this movie you ask?

Well the main problem and why I gave this a 4/10 is because this documentary is an hour and a half long. 45 minutes of this documentary is taken up by a guy that I doubt had a clue of what sleep paralysis is. He is recalling alien hallucinations he had as a BABY. Memories don't usually form until you have an understanding of your native language. Clearly he had no idea as a baby. Not to mention he clearly remembers what those aliens said to him. I'm not saying aliens don't speak English, but I highly doubt it, much less him remember it as a baby. It just seemed foolish and unbelievable. It kinda seemed like a mockery of this to me. Also, the other half of the movie was split between several people.. Why did he have such a huge time slot to himself with such a stupid recollection when there are several others who get probably 10-15 minutes of time a piece?

Now the other half of the movie was pretty believable with some good, reliable, believable stories (even if they weren't, I still gave them credit for them). And it was effective in giving me chills by reliving my experiences every time I saw a shadow man on screen.

So it should be a 5/10 right? No. I knocked off another point for the lack of a psychiatrist or a doctor specialized in the field of sleep disorders to discuss a scientific explanation on what exactly goes on during this state. This documentary seemed to have no credibility and it didn't help that it had a guy who remembered "tv fuzz aliens" as a baby, whom as I said, took up a majority of the screen time.

In closing, let down is an understatement. This could've been my favorite documentary of all time, if not at least in a long time, and Rodney Ascher lets us down again like he did with Room 237. I guess I should've expected it, but he just solidified his place as a mediocre, pretentious, director. He made something scary and creepy as an experience that help give rise the horrifying Freddy Kruger into a dull, uninteresting, unbelievable documentary that had the potential, and yet, should've been so much more.

----------------------------------------
JeniaEv from Israel
----------------------------------------

Well , i won't praise this piece or something but i will say that the makers of this one somehow managed to produce documentary film that has horror elements in it and its kind of working . If you are interested in this subject then this film will be a nice to you , i must say that it get a little boring after a half of an hour and stuff seem to be told over and over again and thats something that is killing it completely . The film has a lot of potential hidden in it but unfortunately the makers have failed to deliver the documentary that you can keep watching for a full 90 minutes. If you didn't understand my opinion by now then i will sum it up the easy way : The movie will get you bored a little more then 30 mins inside , i cant recommend it since it was made a little sloppy .

----------------------------------------
Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY
----------------------------------------

The Nightmare (2015)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Interesting documentary that caused quit the stir at the Sundance Film Festival. This documentary interviews eight different people from around the globe who all suffer from the same thing: sleep paralysis. Through their spoken words and re-enactments, we see their haunting visions as they go to sleep and find themselves unable to move and possibly be visited by demons.

THE NIGHTMARE is yet another horror movie that has come along and has many calling it the scariest movie since (fill in the horror movie name). Director Rodney Ascher, who previously made the bizarre THE SHINING documentary ROOM 237, manages to bring his rather unique and original vision to this tale, which is part documentary and part horror movie.

There's no question that the subject matter makes for a very interesting documentary and I found a lot of the stories to be fascinating. I mean, most people go to sleep to rest and find some sort of peace so just imagine if you dreaded going to sleep knowing that something terrifying and evil was about to visit you. Some of the stories told are pretty effective including one man who remembers as far back as being in a crib and seeing two figures standing over him.

Shadow people are mentioned throughout the documentary as several of the people claim to have encountered them. They talk about these dark, shadow figures who approach them and of course the people are pretty much unable to move so there's nothing they can do to stop it. I think one of the flaws with the film is that we're really given no information on what this could be. There's a lot of speculation on what it exactly is but perhaps a sleep expert being interviewed would have helped.

Another problem I had with the film is that the best stories are told right at the front when we're introduced to the character. After hearing their initial stories, what follows isn't nearly as effective and this is a 100-minute movie. Without any "outside" interviews, the stories become somewhat boring after a while so as a documentary it would have been nice throwing something else into the mix.

With that said, THE NIGHTMARE is certainly worth watching once as there are some effective moments.

----------------------------------------
Finfrosk86 from Norway
----------------------------------------

I am a little split on this one.. On one side, the stories, the experiences these people have had, some of them are downright chilling. 'Truth is stranger than fiction' really goes for this. You can't make this stuff up! (well, some probably could, but I doubt they have. Well, of course, it is the brain/subconscious of these people that are making it up. You know what I mean.. right?)

On the other side, though, I found it to be slightly annoying that many of these people think that there is something paranormal going on. It's not. We know what sleep paralysis is. It's all in the mind. But most of the people that are interviewed, seems to think that they are seeing demons or aliens or something of the sort.

So I was intrigued and entertained, then a little annoyed, then entertained again, and so on. Anyway!

The visuals are great. There's some really creepy stuff. These people must have been terrified. I jumped pretty good at one scene, and I was creeped out a lot of times. It's not your usual documentary, it's a horror movie AND a documentary.

It's made in a sort of playful way, and I was just entertained through out.

Funny thing: I have this thing where I wake up at night and see some kind of hallucination for a couple of seconds, then it fades out. And the night I saw this I had one of those, it was some kind of creature lying besides me, opening it's mouth, the it faded away as it kind of slowly moved away and the mouth kept opening wider. But I'm used to seeing all kinds of weird stuff, so I immediately knew what it was. I also woke up several times during the night, being kind of confused. What I'm trying to say is: it made an impact on me.

Conclusion: I liked it. Really creepy stuff.

----------------------------------------
rgmurray from Canada
----------------------------------------

There's little here that's of any value by the end of the film. Waste of time, feels much longer than its stated runtime.

I had hoped that the film makers would present the initial stories of the people suffering from sleep paralysis or night terrors or whatever they're experiencing before introducing a neurologist or researcher to explain more about the sleep cycle and what these people are going through.

Instead, we're left with a wishy-washy bunch of unrelated and dissimilar ghost stories. It might have been interesting to hear about the history of night time visitations from monsters and demon and how those shifted into witches or aliens as time went on. No, instead we are told stories about how people claim to have contracted their nightmares from someone telling them them.

We hear from a guy who claims that he and his girlfriend experienced a shared dream, and from people who were driven to Jesus by their demons.

At least Room 237 made some pretence of trying to find outside "experts" to refer to .

----------------------------------------
Derrick O'Daniel
----------------------------------------

I thought was about the reasons people have sleep paralysis. I was watching out of sheer curiosity. I was a not expecting to hear the stories of unrelated people around the globe talking about the exact same things I've seen and experienced.

The Shadow People peaked my interest. I turned to my friend and said, "I used to see those in my past up to a couple years ago, but the one I saw multiple times had a Quaker type of ha on his head". Right after my comment... guess who came up?

Completely spellbound by these peoples recollections of their experiences. I shivered with goosebumps and the hair on my arms standing up... I thought I was all alone with these experiences.

The film is presented in a typical documentary fashion but with great visuals of these horrific episodes. It sure held my interest.

Because this documentary completely hit home with me, I give it my first EVER "10".

Great job to the people behind this and thank you very much for making this.

reenactment|interview|

AKAs Titles:
Bosnia and Herzegovina (Croatian title) - Noćna Mora
Croatia - Noćna Mora
Serbia - Noćna Mora

Release Dates:


Certifications:
Australia:MA15+ (2015) / Germany:16 / South Korea:15 / UK:15 / USA:Not Rated