Alex Lee Williams, Canada, Dainty Smith, David Richard, Dream Eater, horror, Jay Drakulic, Mallory Drumm, movies, reviews, Robin Akimbo
October 29, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Jay Drakulic (also known as Justin Hewitt-Drakulic), Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Canada, the horror film “Dream Eater” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with two black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A documentary filmmaker and her unemployed boyfriend go to a remote house in the woods to document his parasomnia for medical purposes, and they experience terror from an evil supernatural presence.
Culture Audience: “Dream Eater” will appeal primarily to people who people who don’t mind watching a sluggish and uncreative horror movie that copies too many ideas from “Paranormal Activity.”
“Dream Eater” has a title that refers to this horror movie’s supernatural villain. The title could also apply to how this slow-paced and awful ripoff feeds like a parasite on the original ideas of 2009’s “Paranormal Activity.” “Dream Eater” is nothing but an amateurly made, boring rehash of the “Paranomal Activity” concept of “found footage” that documents someone being possessed by a demon in a house. Considering the numerous other horror movies that have copied the same concept, ever since “Paranormal Activity” became a blockbuster hit and spawned a “Paranormal Activity” franchise, “Dream Eater” is just a substandard and forgettable entry that belongs at the bottom of the heap.
Directed, written and produced by Jay Drakulic (also known as Justin Hewitt-Drakulic), Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams, “Dream Eater” doesn’t have any original ideas during the entire movie. “Dream Eater” is the second movie released from The Horror Section, an independent film distribution company co-founded by Eli Roth and aimed at releasing horror movies from non-mainstream horror filmmakers. The Horror Section’s first release was 2025’s “Jimmy and Stiggs,” an unimpressive and obnoxious splatterfest about two friends fighting space aliens in an apartment unit.
Although it can be commended that The Horror Section is giving distribution to low-budget feature films that might not otherwise get distribution, The Horror Section should at least give these opportunities to films that have true creativity and originality. (It can be done. The horror-oriented streaming service Shudder, which releases many of its original movies in theaters, is an example of how to do it right, when it comes to distributing low-budget movies from lesser-known horror filmmakers.) The Horror Section’s movie releases so far come across as short films masquerading as feature films because they’ve stretched their lengths by inflating their flimsy plots with a lot of dull repetition.
“Dream Eater” is a 90-minute film, but the story could’ve been told in a film that was 30 minutes or less. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in Canada. “Dream Eater” was film in the Canadian province of Ontario. In the movie, Mallory (played by Drumm) and Alex (played Williams) are a troubled , unmarried couple who live together. Mallory is an independent documentary filmmaker. Alex is unemployed.
An opening caption says that the movie’s story takes place from January 29 to March 27, in an unnamed year in the 2020s. During the course of the movie, Alex turns 30 years old. Everything except the movie’s last scene happens at a remote two-story house in the woods. The movie begins with an audio recording of the emergency phone call that Mallory makes when all hell breaks loose. “Dream Eater” circles back to this scene toward the end of the film.
Conversations in “Dream Eater” reveal that Alex and Mallory have rented this house to document Alex’s sleep patterns because he’s been having parasomnia episodes. (Parasomnia includes sleepwalking and nightmares.) Alex’s parasomnia began shortly after Alex quit his unnamed job. A doctor treating Alex for his sleep disorder recommended that Alex go on a getaway trip to rest and suggested that Alex’s sleep patterns should be documented.
Mallory is filming everything that happens while they are at this rental house. In the week before going to this rental house, Alex lashed violently, but this poorly written movie doesn’t go into details. It was Mallory’s idea to rent this house because she wanted to go to a place for a few weeks so there wouldn’t be any distractions. This decision to rent this house has caused tension between Mallory and Alex, who is annoyed because he thinks renting this house is something this financially struggling couple doesn’t need right now. From the outside, it looks like the house has four or five bedrooms.
Alex gets even more annoyed when he sees that the house, which looks upscale on the outside is really shabby on the inside. Mallory’s excuse is that it’s the only rental house with indoor plumbing that she could find and that was within their affordability range. A note left by the house’s owner says that the house’s electricity has “rolling blackouts,” but the electricity can be restored with the circuit breaker in the cellar. It’s really just the movie telegraphing that the house will have power outages during some “jump scare” parts of the movie. Alex half-jokingly remarks that the cellar is bigger than the couple’s apartment.
About 80% of “Dream Eater” is a repeat loop of Alex having parasomnia episodes where Mallory wakes up late at night to see Alex in a sleepwalking trance, and when he comes out of his trance, he has no memory of what he did while in the trance. While in a trance, Alex acts terrified and says things such as “They won’t let me sleep” and “He’s here,” but he won’t say who “he” is. Alex also says he hears a male voice talking to him sometimes when he’s alone.
Alex’s sleepwalking episodes become more disturbing as time goes on. And yes, “Dream Eater” is one of these movies where terror attacks happen in a haunted house, and the people in the house still stay for several days, when people with common sense would’ve left a long time ago. Even in the scene where Alex and Mallory decide to leave, they go as far as putting some items in their car, but Mallory and Alex still remain at the house. It’s all so tedious and cliché. “Dream Eater” is filmed in a very drab manner that’s made worse by Drumm’s very wooden acting.
In between the repetitive parasomnia incidents, the movie shows arguments between Alex and Mallory. Alex is paranoid that Mallory is exploiting his parasomnia to make a documentary where she could possibly profit from it. Of course, Mallory denies those are her intentions and says she only wants to help Alex. Mallory and Alex do not have believable chemistry as a couple, even as a quarreling couple.
The movie also shows a few video calls being made from the house. These video calls break up some of the monotony happening during the rest of this movie that revolves around the lackluster relationship of Alex and Mallory. In one scene, Alex and Mallory do a video call with a sleep disorder specialist named Dr. Marsha Snape (played by Dainty Smith), who tells them that Alex should do a clinical sleep study that would cost $5,000. It’s an amount that Alex and Mallory can’t afford, so that’s something else for grumpy Alex to complain about in the long list of things that he’s unhappy about in his life.
It’s mentioned in the movie that because Dr. Snape knows Alex and Mallory don’t have health insurance, so Dr. Snape is giving them a discount for her services. But if this movie is supposed to take place in Canada (Alex and Mallory have obvious Canadian accents), doesn’t Canada have universal health care that would cover these expenses? A plot hole like this is a small detail that doesn’t derail the plot, but it’s an example of how “Dream Eater” isn’t well-written.
When Alex was a baby, he was placed in the foster care system and ended up being raised by a family where he had a sister named Tammy (played by Robin Akimbo), who has some clues to Alex’s murky past. Alex doesn’t like to talk about his past and doesn’t seem interested in finding out who his biological parents are. Mallory discovers from a ridiculously quick Internet search that other people in the world have been having parasomnia incidents that are similar to what Alex is having.
Mallory finds out from further research that an expert on this phenomenon is Dr. Armitage (played by David Richard), who ends up doing a few Zoom calls with Mallory. DR, Armitage tells her about an ancient entity called Fuller that is described as a sleepwalking zombie that eats the souls of sleepwalkers who are in the same bloodline. Mallory’s detective work falls into place way too easily and looks too fake. The obvious truth about what’s haunting Alex is revealed in a lazily conceived exposition dump that often happens when almost the entire movie takes place in one location.
The acting in “Dream Eater” ranges from mediocre to terrible—although Williams makes an effort to be convincing in the terror scenes, even if some of his performance is amateurish. “Dream Eater” is unrated by the Motion Picture Association, probably because there’s full-frontal male nudity in the movie. The ending of “Dream Eater” is abrupt and quite silly. This creatively bankrupt horror flick has nothing that hasn’t already been seen and done in other horror movies. “Dream Eater” is more likely to conjure up disappointment and boredom instead of fear and terror.
The Horror Section released “Dream Eater” in select U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025.