Danny Sloan(Dylan Purcell) is an art student who is visiting a friend, Billy Dornbuss(Dov Tiefenbach) in rehab when he stops off to look at a serial killer in a padded cell, and a girl he once knew from child hood suffering from Kleine-Levin, accompanied by catalepsy, a car accident causing her chronic narcolepsy . The villain of the film is a serial killer named Byron Volpe(Patrick Kilpatrick, just oozing menace), a talented by evil mesmerist who uses his powers to cause death and destruction, his eyes black as night. Danny kidnaps parasomniac Laura Baxter(the cherubic, porcelain-skinned Cherilyn Wilson)fearing that a sleep doctor(known for his patients dying on him)might harm her. When Danny discovers that Volpe is haunting Laura's nightmares while she's asleep, causing her to kill while under a type of hypnosis, he decides to purchase a gun and raid Byron's padded cell to end his reign of terror..but, all doesn't go according to plan. Interference from a security guard and a nurse Volpe induces his spell on halt Danny from shooting Byron and he eventually escapes. Meanwhile, Detective Garrett(Jeffrey Combs)is hunting for Danny, believing he had something to do with the murder of a partner found butchered in Sloan's apartment. Volpe's goal is simple, to force Laura and Danny apart by his powers of suggestion so he can have her all to himself.
William Malone may've finally done it. PARASOMNIA is the film that Malone has come close to over the years, but he needed the right kind of material to go with his stunning visual style and art direction. He also aligns himself with one hell of a cast, with a likable Purcell as the young hero in love with the gorgeous Wilson, also providing Kilpatrick with his best part in ages. Combs has also starred in Malone's FEARDOTCOM & HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, and he adds the idiosyncratic gum chewing as a trait that distinguishes his nervy detective, bummed that he must continue to come across bloody crime scenes. Tiefenbach has another memorable weirdo, his Dornbuss a quiet-voiced metal-artist whose works are used by Volpe at the end for two "orchestral symphonies" featuring two kidnapped pretty violinists playing classical tunes while "assistants"(made out of metal scrap parts and other junk yard objects)turn devices which accompany the music. Timothy Bottoms has a small role as one of Laura's caring doctors who explains her condition to Danny and later, at the end, to Danny's music-loving rock aficionado pal, Phil(Philip Newby). Sean Young has a cameo, and does it leave an impact opening the film, expressing Volpe's insane abilities to cause humans to do whatever he so wishes, including suicide. As with any Malone film, there are these really disturbing images which make you shudder, coming in the form of these creatures which pop up in Laura's Volpe-controlled nightmares, mirrors off the ground and moving in a clock-wise motion also distinctive when we get a glimpse inside what she must endure when not given brief moments of freedom awake. John Landis(American WEREWOLF IN London)has a funny cameo as a store owner, annoyed at discovering another "vagrant"(Laura, in this case)sleeping in a bed inside his establishment. Malone should be proud of this movie, because it very well could be his finest hour as a director..unlike films of the past, PARASOMNIA doesn't wallow in unpleasantness although it certainly has a nasty psychopath, probably Malone's most effective human monster(even though, Stephen Rea wasn't no boy scout).
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