Writer and Director: Jason Yu
Horror films are always more effective when they take place in the home, suggesting in some way that the action may just about be plausible. And this South Korean horror begins strongly when husband Hyun-Su wakes up in the middle of the night announcing that someone is inside. After this frightening statement, he falls soundly back to sleep leaving wife Soo-jin to deal with the intruder, which turns out to be a door banging in the wind.
The early scenes of Jason Yu’s Sleep are exciting as Hyun-su’s nocturnal behaviour becomes more unusual. He scratches bloodily at his face and sleepwalks to the kitchen to gorge on raw meat and uncooked eggs. Their dog – raw meat at its finest – is surely destined for a grisly end.
Seeking medical help, Hyun-su is diagnosed with REM disorder and is given pills, but the situation doesn’t improve. With oven gloves on his hands and wrapped up in a compact sleeping bag, Hyun-su now sleeps in a locked room. These measures are stepped up when Soo-jin gives birth to a baby girl.
But as ever in this kind of movie, the narrative becomes too familiar. A medium must be employed, and she’s as crazy as the one in Poltergeist, telling Hyun-su that he’s been possessed by one of his wife’s old flames. Soo-jin becomes increasingly distraught because as her husband sleeps, she must stay awake to protect her baby.
Sleep is never as scary as it should be and if there is a social message underneath the occasional jump scare and the rising silliness, it’s the idea that we live too close to our neighbours, irritating each other with our noises and our pets. Many of us must curse our neighbours for their yapping dogs and concrete shoes.
In one of his last roles before his tragic death at the end of 2023, Parasite actor Lee Sun-kyun mainly plays it straight, although there is always a glimmer of something offbeat about his Hyun-su as he’s cocooned in his sleeping bag, a hint that Sleep could have been more of a black comedy. As Soo-jin, Train to Busan actor Jung Yu-mi smoothly plays the narrative arc of doting wife to paranoid mother. But with a cast as stellar as this, Jason Yu’s horror is disappointing. You won’t lose much sleep after watching this.
Sleep is screening at the Raindance Film Festival which runs from 19 – 28 June in London cinemas.
