Blu-ray Review: Sleepwalkers (1992)

Stephen King adaptations should really be a sub-genre unto themselves.

Between 1976 and 1992, there were no less than 23 movies based off of his work, on both the small screen and in Theaters. There honestly wasn't a hotter name in Horror during the 80's & 90's than Stephen King, and rightly so.

Some of his movie adaptations were excellent, and some were horrid. Most were pretty solid.

Sleepwalkers falls into that pretty solid category.

There's nothing wrong with a movie being a mostly solid effort, you understand. In fact, in a Genre filled with so many shitty efforts, the mostly solid efforts of the world are quite welcome...

Especially when they make us believe that cats are kick-ass, monster-killing machines!

Sleepwalkers is the story of a mother/son duo of shape-shifting energy Vampires who sustain themselves by feeding on the lifeforce of hot virgins. That's great news for the son, Charles, because the small Indiana town that their creepy asses just moved to happens to be the home of the hottest virgin ever. With his mom (who is also his lover) being really hungry for virgin essence though, you know that some poor, sweet girl is doomed to become food, and that's not such great news for her.

Why would you want to rob this QT of her essence?

Tanya, the aforementioned hottest virgin ever, falls head over heels for Charlie, because he's the new bad boy in town, his hair is feathered all sexy-like, and he drives a bitchin' Camaro (Trans Am, whatever.) Charles takes the smitten Tanya to a graveyard for their first date (because that's completely normal), where he proceeds to try and drain her lifeforce via deep kissing. Worst first date ever.

That car is rad.

Tanya desperately tries to fight Charlie off, but neither a corkscrew to the eye nor the local Sheriff's Deputy can stop the possessed monster, and all seems lost... until Cat-Cop Clovis lays a whoopin' on that shapeshifting creep's ass! You see, cats are the mortal enemy of the Sleepwalkers, and are just about the only thing that can kill them.

You do not fuck with Clovis, because he is full of cat rage!

From here on out it's a crazy fight for survival! Will Charles and his mother/lover feed off of poor Tanya's inner beauty? Can Tanya ever hope to survive? Will an army of cats show up and ruin the Sleepwalkers plans? Far be it from us to spoil anything for you here, but suffice it to say that Clovis is the best Cat-Cop Ever.

Somehow we just know that this movie is a thinly-veiled commentary about feminism.

You could easily dismiss Sleepwalkers as a cheesy 90's Horror movie, because It absolutely is one. It's also a lot of shameless fun, so to dismiss it because it's trapped in some sort of crappy time-warp to the Decade of Suck would truly be a shame. The 90's was a shitty time for Horror movies in general, and it's not easy to think of many truly great Genre efforts from that era. As far as fun Horror movies go though, the 90's offered up plenty of those. Sleepwalkers is a perfect example of that.

That 90's hair lol.

Poor Special Effects aside, Sleepwalkers is an enjoyable romp that at least gives us something different. I mean this is a movie that made us believe that cats could kick ass and save the day, and it never felt like a cheap ploy while doing so. How often do you see something that sounds that crazy, and doesn't come off as laughable? Even the song that popped up throughout the movie was awesome; Enya's Boadicea fit perfectly here, and when we watch this movie now, hearing it totally makes us want to listen to The Fugees first album, which sampled the track for their song "Ready or Not."

The cast in this movie is amazing. Aside from Madchen Amick, Brian Krause and Alice Krige, this one boasts appearances by Cindy Pickett, Ron Perlman, and Mark Hamill, but even better, it also has cameo appearances by a gang of Horror royalty like Stephen King, John Landis, Joe Dante, Clive Barker, and Tobe Hooper.

Relax, it's just a haircut.

The FX in this one were 90's bad. Yes, technology was only so advanced back then, but the transformation and soul-sucking scenes look and feel completely dated, and not in a good way. It's not the movie's fault, as it was a victim of the time in which it was made, but looking back at it now is a sobering reminder of just how far VFX work has come since then.

LOL

With all of the shitty Horror Sequels that have followed since Sleepwalkers was released, where is the sequel to this one featuring Clovis and his marauding band of killer cats? We'd watch that!

We'd watch a movie called Clovis' Revenge. We would!

Decapitation, eye gouging, impaling, some bear trap violence, a scene of corn cob violence, and plenty of death-by-cat; this movie is a visually bloody bunch of fun.

What a corny scene. Zing!

There's no nudity in this one, but there are a bunch of scenes involving incest between a mother and her son. Keep in mind that the family members in question are monsters, so maybe incest isn't really all that creepy or forbidden for them, but it's still pretty touchy material for most of us human folk.*Not counting France, because France is freaky like that.

So that's how it is in their family.

If you're a monster, don't ever mess with cats, because they will kill you. Also, incest is not best.

His face is a cat-tastrophe. Zing! #2.

In all fairness, and with all of its faults, Sleepwalkers probably falls into the C Grade range. We bumped it up a bit to a solid B though because of the cats, and because it pushed the boundaries with the incest storyline in a decade where Hollywood didn't push very many boundaries at all. Also, because this is a fun movie, plain and simple.

Sleepwalkers is a mostly serviceable, and often times fun flick, that should give you those 90's nostalgia feels. It's definitely well worth a watch, especially on Blu-ray.

B

Sleepwalkers is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.

Was there a madchen who better exemplified 90's hotness better than Madchen Amick? Between this movie and Twin Peaks, we'd have to say no. The best part about her? She's still smoking hot all these years later.

Dear Madchen,
Thanks for the memories.
Sincerely, every penis that existed in the 90's.