The Nightmare, film review: a documentary about sleep paralysis

The dark visions seem inspired by other horror movies and traumatic events in their personal lives

This misconceived feature documentary about sleep paralysis uses horror-movie techniques to dramatise the experiences of its subjects. They’ve all suffered from terror in the night and had visions of red-eyed demons or shadowmen. Sometimes, their nightmares seem partly inspired by films they may have watched (Natural Born Killers, A Nightmare on Elm Street); sometimes, their dark visions appear to be inspired by traumatic events in their personal lives.

They are articulate about what they have endured but the film-makers might have served them better by either making a straight documentary without the over-stylised horror-movie frills, or by using their recollections as the starting point for a fictional drama.

The Nightmare (15), Rodney Ascher, 87 mins