Bloodwank I should have watched this one when I was younger. Around about 14 would have been just the ticket I think. I did see portions of it a few years back, the ending and bits and pieces of the rest deep one dope-haze night in between episodes of Six Feet Under and was pretty intrigued by what I saw, though by then it was a little too late already as some of it fell pretty flat. Still, I did get interested enough to finally see the whole thing and like I say, I should have seen it earlier. Not because its some great work or of any real significance at all, but having grown up on the 90's conception of B cinema this one could have awed the younger me. These days though, not so much. In short, the problem here is a lack of guts. The plot is solid supernatural slasher fare, a serial killer with several dead families to his credit and a penchant for pouring sand in the eyes of his victims gets a new lease of life after his execution, courtesy of a devilish priest. This becomes rather a problem for the survivor of his last slayings, not unexpectedly. There aren't any surprises in the general course of events, but the film gets a great boost from its evil doer, known as The Sandman. Not entirely sure why the film isn't just called The Sandman, but then maybe I'm just not that smart. Anyways, he's a terrific villain, well designed and decidedly unsettling. Freaky scars, inverted cross, artfully ragged clothes and deathly desert pallor plus the physical presence of Michael Harris make The Sandman quite the unnerving figure, but Harris' performance really sells things, soft voice and quiet demeanour perfect vehicle for his creepy rhymes and disturbing justifications. Whenever The Sandman is about the film carries a decent charge and threatens to turn great, the problem is that things are much too tame, there are scant few deaths and only one has any level of grue (and its pretty brief at that). Not that gore is totally necessary, but there aren't many kills and the sequences tend not to be especially well constructed. Its a real bummer as the film ends up repeatedly not quite delivering, even though it never gets too dull, indeed is fairly watchable throughout. As well as Michael Harris other performances are decent enough, Michael D. Roberts is effective as the evil priest (and sports wicked white contacts), Kathryn Morris is an appealing heroine and Jay Underwood is nicely wired as paranoid protagonist Griffin, his mounting terror put across rather convincingly. Pacing is okay and effects are sometimes interesting, sometimes silly looking. The ending is unfortunately part of the silliness, albeit moderately suspenseful and there are a few general plotting issues to chew over, though only one serious. Altogether this is a pretty frustrating watch, but even so it does manage to be fair enough if you have some interest nostalgic yearning in 90's b movies. 5/10 from me, which I guess might seem generous but I'd still say its do-able enough on a real slow night.

Paul Andrews Sleepstalker is set in Los Angeles where 17 years ago the family of 7 year old Griffin Davis (Jay Underwood) was slaughtered by a serial killer known as the Sandman (Michael Harris), the police managed to save Griffin & arrest the Sandman. Now, 17 years later, the Sandman is due to be executed in the gas chamber. He is visited in his cell by a weird preacher (Michael D. Roberts) who gives him a cross made of heated sand & empowers him with some black magic satanic spell or something like that. That night as the real Sandman dies in the gas chamber another Sandman is born in the desert from, surprise, real sand. Stop me if this is too exciting. The Sandman must track Griffin down & kill him within three days to gain eternal life or suffer the consequences of eternal damnation! I think.Co-written & directed by Turi Meyer I think Sleep Stalker is the type of horror film which you always find in supermarket & video store bargain bins where the almost unsellable rubbish ends up in a desperate attempt to get rid of them, yep that just about sums up Sleep Stalker. The script by Meyer & co-producer Al Septien feels like an attempt to create a film along the lines of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) with is sleep obsessed killer, luckily this never turned into a franchise despite the obvious ending which left the door wide open for a sequel. The plot has several holes, the black preacher guy & his stone throne are never really explained, the plot twist towards the end is just rubbish & if Griffin knows that water can harm the Sandman why doesn't he arm himself with a water pistol or a bucket of water or something liquidy along those lines? As a character the Sandman is rubbish, he never does anything particularly exciting or clever, his powers seems to consist almost entirely of turning into sand & travelling through pipes. The kills are few & far between with only four death's in the film & they are all very unimaginative, just think of the possibilities of a killer who can turn himself into sand & then completely forget all about them as Sleep Stalker doesn't have anything even remotely approaching it. The film is slow, the more human character's are poor, the dialogue dull & by the time Sleep Stalker had eventually finished I was on autopilot.Director Meyer tries to inject a little style into the film & isn't entirely unsuccessful, there are definitely one or two nice moments here but it doesn't really make up for the banality of the rest of the production & the fact it's simply not a very good film. There's no scares, there's no excitement, there's no tension, there's no atmosphere & there's no gore, violence or nudity. Enough said, right? The prison the Sandman is held in has to be the most underpopulated prison in all of film history, there doesn't seem to be another inmate anywhere! Hey, it's just an observation...Technically the film is alright, it's a bit flat & forgettable but it's quite well made considering. There are some early Sandman CGI computer effects, they are used sparingly & when you see them you'll understand why. The CGI magnificence of the Sandman from Spider-Man 3 (2007) this ain't! The acting isn't great although it's always nice to see Dawn of the Dead's (1978) Ken Foree in a genre flick.Sleep Stalker is the sort of generic dull horror film which like the title character will send you to sleep & definitely won't be giving you nightmares. Difficult, nay on impossible, to recommend when there are so many more better horror films out there so I won't, if you want to watch a proper Sandman watch Spider-Man 3 instead, hell just watch Spider-Man 3 instead of this full stop.

jaxjag03 I don't get why no one has seen this movie. In retrospect, it fills all three of the qualifications that should be necessary for it to gain eternal infamy. Those are:1. Campy 2. Crappy 3. CultI mean, come on, who couldn't love dialogue like, "That freaking freak!" or the classic, "You psychotic sack of #%$@!" And the special effects are so awful, you've got to love them! Can't afford to use computers to make sand fall up? Hey, no problem, just dump it out of a ceiling vent and play the tape in reverse!And the acting, oh man, you've gotta love the acting! There's Michael Harris, who actually looks like he's trying to make something of the Sandman--though he's working way too hard to be semi-scary--and Jay "OHMIGOD!!!!!!" Underwood, who makes William Shatner look like a student of William Shakespeare, and whose most famous role might (sadly) be the one he was (mercifully) never seen in--as The Human Torch in the unreleased 1994 version of "The Fantastic Four," which actually sucked considerably less than the big-budget 2005 version (but still sucked, nonetheless). Honestly, the only actor in this movie who seems to recognize this project for what it is (and play her role as such) is Kathryn Morris, who adds the obligatory moderately-attractive chick to the film. She's just helpless enough to be a B-movie horror villain, yet just resourceful enough to be a B-movie heroine. It's worth noting that Morris is literally the ONLY person involved with this film who is still doing anything more significant than the odd one-shot guest appearance on Law & Order clones.Listen, this movie is not a masterpiece, and suggesting it as such is just ludicrous. In fact, it may be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but it's bad in an endearing way. What's most unfortunate of all is that if a talented horror director like Wes Craven with a decent budget and a competent cast were to get their hands on this script, it could be a pretty good film. The story is there, but the acting, the directing, the special effects, and, you know, the intelligence aren't. As it stands, you can do a whole lot worse in those $5 bargain bins at Wal-Mart, but you can make your $5 go a whole lot farther if you spend it on a bag of chocolate. Unless you've got a sense of humor as sick as mine, you'll enjoy the chocolate a lot more than you will this 90-minute running gag of a film.

Philip_Pugh A serial killer, thinking he's the sandman goes on a rampage trying to kill families that match a certain description. He is caught by police just as he's about to kill his intended victim, a little boy Griffin. The sandman is locked away. He later kills himself and upon his reincarnation he takes up from where he left off and sets out to kill a grown up Griffin. Incredibly low budget and looks very cheap, but it's not the worst film in the world. It is infact moderately entertaining with a pretty good story. The production team make the best of what little budget they have, using some very low budget camera shots in places allowing them to spend a little more money on some bigger effects shots else where. The acting and direction is fairly average but doesn't lower itself to being bad or too cheesy. The sentimental bulls**t is also thin on the ground which is pleasantly surprising for a film like this where they would try and make up for the lack of budget with sentiment and crap dialogue in the script. Fairly good, watch it if it comes on TV but don't go out of your way to see it. 7/10