Starring: Dallas Roberts, Alison Eastwood, Anne Dudek
My Review and Thoughts:
You start off in Cambodia in 1979.
A young native boy is killed by the shadow people, which is some-type of being in the shadows. The boy after hearing the story from his parents and friends is hunted down in his sleeping area. You then flash to America present day and are introduced to Charlie Crowe who is a radio host. He slowly starts to become apart of a mystery after a young teenager phones in talking about the Shadow People.
This is a mixed bag film of supposed actual footage, found footage and also acting filmed fiction. This has interesting subject matters and over all does work for what it is. It is a little creepy at times but also tends to let the viewer down in that the CGI animation is kind of corny at times and unbelievable.
The overall acting worked I do feel that Dallas Roberts who plays the main character of Crowe was a wrong choice or his performance did not seem tight enough or real.
So the basis is an experimental sleep study back in the 1970's where people had been seeing figures, dark shadowy figures and doctors wanted to study the people and the people ended up dying and so they named the ordeal SUNDS.
Meaning Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome. That is the basis of the film after Charlie gets some phone calls from the teenager seeing the shadowy people he becomes interwoven into a mystery thick with is it real or is it not. Do the shadow people exist or are they just shadows built around lack of sleep?
So Charlie decides to investigate and people he tells ends up dying in there sleep.This has that film making reality of real life type footage added with a dramatic re-enactment of the so called events.
Now here is where most people are confused:
This is a story about a subject that some people believe, but the movie is fictional, it was written after the director said he had a dream about a shadow person. The subject has been researched on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell which is a radio program that deals with the weirder sides of life. A woman named Heidi Hollis appeared on Coast to Coast talking about shadow people and that they supposedly try and jump on your chest and choke you and that the only way to stop them and get them away is call on the name of Jesus.
Paranormal author Chad Stambaugh has stated he has recorded these beings on video. Many people in the paranormal world state they are aliens, demons, ghosts, creatures from another dimension.
What the movie does is play on the mind and the idea your not alone in the dark when you turn the lights out. It plays with your sleepy mind. The movie adds those classic jump moments which are fun. The movie is based on a subject certain people believe in but the movie is not real it's a fictional documentary style of film making which goes back to the style of the Blair Witch Project.
Now are you ready for the reality that the movie really does not talk about, here is the real basis of the subject of SUNDS, in 1977 the first talk of the subject was from a group of Hmong refugees who came to America.
This Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome was noted in Singapore when a survey was taken that 230 Thai men died in there sleep from 1982 to 1990. In the Philippines it is called bangungot where 43 persons out of 100,000 mostly young male die in there sleep. Now the Filipinos state that its because you eat to many carbohydrates before you go to sleep.
In truth there are several realities to what causes death in sleep the most common and truth to the subject is cardiac activity where the heart has irregular beats. The Philippines doctors has traced the death rate to what they call Acute Hemorrhagic Pancreatitis, which causes gastric problems causing the chest and breathing problems. Basically put it's a heart attack or Sleep Apnea or a gastric attack causing the heart to pump faster or off rhythm. Now the folklore of the Hmong people is that its a spirit of a jealous woman. It is said some even will dress like a woman to confuse the jealous female spirit or so called shadow people that they are referred to in today's world.
So sorry to bust everybody's bubble out there that believe the movie is real, it's not, now the subject the movie is based on the Shadow People, some say are real and I am not here to say if the subject is real or not, the movie takes the subject and creates a fictional story around it.
I would have liked to have seen the movie showcase all aspects of the story and bring forth a deeper subject of the reality that people do dye in there sleep.
I suffer from Sleep Apnea which means I stop breathing and then my heart can stop, that is why I am suppose to sleep with a Sleep Apnea machine that breath's for me, in case I stop breathing, but I tend not to.
Millions suffer from Sleep Apnea and most persons don't even know it until its to late and your loved ones are left to bury you.
The movie is good and worth a watch but I don't really think it's anything to talk about, it has fun jumps moments and is creepy at times and does work for what it is, a simple fun paranormal type of subject matter that gets the viewer thinking or at least sleeping with the lights on.
This is a mixed bag film of supposed actual footage, found footage and also acting filmed fiction. This has interesting subject matters and over all does work for what it is. It is a little creepy at times but also tends to let the viewer down in that the CGI animation is kind of corny at times and unbelievable.
The overall acting worked I do feel that Dallas Roberts who plays the main character of Crowe was a wrong choice or his performance did not seem tight enough or real.
So the basis is an experimental sleep study back in the 1970's where people had been seeing figures, dark shadowy figures and doctors wanted to study the people and the people ended up dying and so they named the ordeal SUNDS.
Meaning Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome. That is the basis of the film after Charlie gets some phone calls from the teenager seeing the shadowy people he becomes interwoven into a mystery thick with is it real or is it not. Do the shadow people exist or are they just shadows built around lack of sleep?
So Charlie decides to investigate and people he tells ends up dying in there sleep.This has that film making reality of real life type footage added with a dramatic re-enactment of the so called events.
Now here is where most people are confused:
This is a story about a subject that some people believe, but the movie is fictional, it was written after the director said he had a dream about a shadow person. The subject has been researched on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell which is a radio program that deals with the weirder sides of life. A woman named Heidi Hollis appeared on Coast to Coast talking about shadow people and that they supposedly try and jump on your chest and choke you and that the only way to stop them and get them away is call on the name of Jesus.
Paranormal author Chad Stambaugh has stated he has recorded these beings on video. Many people in the paranormal world state they are aliens, demons, ghosts, creatures from another dimension.
What the movie does is play on the mind and the idea your not alone in the dark when you turn the lights out. It plays with your sleepy mind. The movie adds those classic jump moments which are fun. The movie is based on a subject certain people believe in but the movie is not real it's a fictional documentary style of film making which goes back to the style of the Blair Witch Project.
Now are you ready for the reality that the movie really does not talk about, here is the real basis of the subject of SUNDS, in 1977 the first talk of the subject was from a group of Hmong refugees who came to America.
This Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome was noted in Singapore when a survey was taken that 230 Thai men died in there sleep from 1982 to 1990. In the Philippines it is called bangungot where 43 persons out of 100,000 mostly young male die in there sleep. Now the Filipinos state that its because you eat to many carbohydrates before you go to sleep.
In truth there are several realities to what causes death in sleep the most common and truth to the subject is cardiac activity where the heart has irregular beats. The Philippines doctors has traced the death rate to what they call Acute Hemorrhagic Pancreatitis, which causes gastric problems causing the chest and breathing problems. Basically put it's a heart attack or Sleep Apnea or a gastric attack causing the heart to pump faster or off rhythm. Now the folklore of the Hmong people is that its a spirit of a jealous woman. It is said some even will dress like a woman to confuse the jealous female spirit or so called shadow people that they are referred to in today's world.
So sorry to bust everybody's bubble out there that believe the movie is real, it's not, now the subject the movie is based on the Shadow People, some say are real and I am not here to say if the subject is real or not, the movie takes the subject and creates a fictional story around it.
I would have liked to have seen the movie showcase all aspects of the story and bring forth a deeper subject of the reality that people do dye in there sleep.
I suffer from Sleep Apnea which means I stop breathing and then my heart can stop, that is why I am suppose to sleep with a Sleep Apnea machine that breath's for me, in case I stop breathing, but I tend not to.
Millions suffer from Sleep Apnea and most persons don't even know it until its to late and your loved ones are left to bury you.
The movie is good and worth a watch but I don't really think it's anything to talk about, it has fun jumps moments and is creepy at times and does work for what it is, a simple fun paranormal type of subject matter that gets the viewer thinking or at least sleeping with the lights on.