February 10, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Jason Yu
Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed city in South Korea, the horror film “Sleep” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A pregnant woman fears for her family’s safety when her husband starts dangerously sleepwalking.
Culture Audience: “Sleep” will appeal mainly to people are interested in watching horror movies that are more about creepy occurrences than big jump scares.
The horror movie “Sleep” as it first appears to be. It’s more of a psychological supernatural mystery than a movie with obvious jump scares. The acting performances are effective. Just don’t expect non-stop action in this atmospheric film.
Written and directed by Jason Yu, “Sleep” is his feature-film directorial debut. The story (told in three chapters) revolves around married couple Soo-jin (played by Jung Yu-mi) and Hyeon-soo (played by Lee Sun-kyun), who live in a high-rise apartment building and are plagued by Hyeon-soo’s unexplained sleepwalking incidents that have suddenly begun to happen. Soo-jin is pregnant at the beginning of the movie, which takes place in an unnamed city in South Korea.
Hyeon-soo (who is an award-winning actor) has sleepwalking that is frightening because he does harmful thing to himself while sleepwalking, such as scratch his arms so hard, his arms become bloody. He also screams so loudly, nearby neighbors can hear him. Hyeon-soo begins to eat raw meat in the refrigerator.
While he’s sleepwalking, Hyeon-soo almost falls out of a window in the couple’s apartment unit, but Soo-jin is able to save him before he falls. Soo-jin has to have window bars installed after this terrifying incident. And then, one day, the couple’s Pomeranian dog Pepper disappears.
“Sleep” has a relatively small number of people in the cast. The other significant characters in the movie are Min-jeong (played by Kim Gook-hee), the couple’s next-door neighbor, who expresses concern about the loud screaming that she’s hearing at night; Madame Haegoong (played by Kim Geum-soon), a cynical psychic medium; an unnamed doctor (played by Yoon Kyung-ho), who prescribes sleep medication to Hyeon-soo; and Soo-jin’s unnamed single mother (played by Lee Kyung-jin), who comes to visit during this family turmoil.
Some of the movie gets repetitive with no real development to the plot. “Sleep” has touches of comedy with the Madame Haegoong character, who says things such as “Ghosts are like people. They are pathetic.” The answer to the sleepwalking mystery is eventually revealed in a somewhat conventional ending. “Sleep” is by no means a masterpiece, but it’s a fairly good option for viewers who want to watch a supernatural horror movie that isn’t about serial killings.
Magnet Releasing released “Sleep” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on September 27, 2024. The movie was released in South Korea on September 6, 2023.