SLEEPWALKER (2026)

Studio:   Brainstorm Media
Director: Brandon Auman
Writer:   Brandon Auman
Producer: Chad A. Verdi, Jennifer Davisson, Phillip Watson, Michelle Verdi, Chad Verdi Jr., Paul Luba
Stars:    Hayden Panettiere, Justin Chatwin, Lori Tan Chinn, Corinne Sweeney, Laird LaCoste, Mischa Barton, Beverly D’Angelo

Review Score:

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Summary:

A grieving mother discovers her disturbing nightmares may be connected to the vengeful spirit of her abusive husband.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Since the death of her nine-year-old daughter Aimee in a car accident that left her abusive husband Michael in a coma, artist Sarah Pangborn continues suffering from nightmares of Michael and Aimee that result in frightening bouts of sleepwalking. Sarah’s mother Gloria, with whom Sarah and her son Holden now live, comforts her daughter over the disturbing dreams Sarah and Holden still have.

Sarah tells her troubles to her art dealer friend Aniya, who recommends Sarah channel her trauma into macabre paintings of dark entities Holden recognizes as his father. Aniya excites Sarah by revealing plans to put her work in an upcoming gallery show featuring acclaimed artist Lawrence Cavanaugh.

Sarah dreams of a memory from when her family visited a petting zoo together, but an argument with her husband causes Michael to morph into a monster and Aimee to appear dead with a tree branch impaling her. Sarah wakes to discover she sleepwalked outside.

Sarah thinks back to Aimee’s ninth birthday, when an argument over Michael’s infidelity prompted Sarah to demand a divorce. Refusing to break up their family, Michael threatens Sarah with a hammer and smashes her phone to destroy evidence she recorded of his lies and physical abuse. Holden witnesses the fight.

Sarah visits Michael at Blackwood Heights Hospital to angrily blame him for Aimee’s death despite him being comatose. Michael’s sister Joelle interrupts to accuse Sarah of ruining her brother’s life by being selfish.

Over dinner with Gloria, Holden tells his mother he has been having dreams of Michael trying to take him away. That same night, Sarah has a nightmare of Michael that Holden wakes her from before she falls down a staircase while sleepwalking.

Sarah discusses her lack of sleep with Doctor Langford, who says Sarah’s nightmares are a manifestation of guilt she feels because she hosted Michael for dinner the night of the car accident. Langford advises against Sarah continuing to use her mother’s prescription sleeping pills.

A dream of his dead sister lures Holden into sleepwalking outside. Sarah rescues her son before he walks into a street where he is nearly struck by a passing car.

Holden warns his mother that Aimee and Michael are now ghosts. Sarah experiences a nightmare of Gloria and Holden as ghouls as she and her son continue having vivid dreams of their family.

Michael’s doctor, Doctor Henson, summons Sarah back to the hospital to discuss Michael’s condition. Henson reveals Michael has been showing intermittent signs of increased brain activity during REM sleep, which indicates lucid dreaming.

In a private conversation, Joelle apologizes to Sarah for how she spoke to her previously. Joelle also reveals she has had frightening nightmares about her brother, who has seemingly tried to warn her about Sarah wanting to end his life support.

Gloria invites her Buddhist friend Bai Zhou to cleanse the house. Sensing a shadow around Sarah, Bai warns that Michael is coming to Sarah in her dreams because he wants his son back, and his goal is for the family to reunite on the other side. During the ritual, Bai becomes possessed by Michael’s spirit and dies.

At the art show, Aniya introduces Sarah to Lawrence Cavanaugh. Sarah becomes distracted by a vision of Aimee, which turns into a screaming sleepwalking event that shocks gallery guests.

Joelle calls Sarah to tell her Michael’s condition is worsening and she now agrees it is time to pull the plug. Gloria warns Sarah that Michael won’t let her go after he dies, and she worries his spirit will strengthen once it’s away from his body.

Sarah experiences another sleepwalking nightmare while driving. Sarah wakes in time to avoid a fatal collision.

Sarah, Joelle, and Michael’s family join Doctor Henson in disabling Michael’s life support system. Following Michael’s death, Sarah assures Holden his bad dreams will now stop.

Sarah has another nightmare of Aimee taunting her and Michael attacking. Gloria tries waking Sarah, but Sarah inadvertently knocks her mother backwards while sleepwalking. Gloria falls down a staircase and dies. After speaking to the police, Sarah tries telling her son that Michael is responsible for Gloria’s death, but Holden tells his mother she needs help.

Sarah relives the memory of hosting dinner on the night Aimee died. A heated argument results in Michael agreeing to leave after Sarah calls the police. The flashback reveals Sarah used Gloria’s sleeping pills to drug Michael’s meal with the intention of causing him to crash his car. However, Sarah was unaware that Michael secretly took Aimee with him.

Sarah suddenly wakes from the memory to find herself driving a dark road. Her subsequent crash causes Sarah to become impaled by a tree branch. As her car burns and she bleeds out, Sarah remembers her mother warning that if someone dies in their sleep, they become trapped in that dream forever.

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Review:

Getting to know the main players in “Sleepwalker” is easy. All anyone has to do is listen to the forced exposition constituting their dialogue.

Grieving mother and abstract artist Sarah Pangborn, borrowing a surname from Castle Rock’s sheriff, has been plagued by vivid nightmares and frightening bouts of sleepwalking ever since a car accident killed her daughter Aimee and left her abusive husband Michael in a coma. Sarah’s art dealer friend Aniya reminds her, “Look at everything you went through. All that trauma, for years. Then your daughter. You’re haunted by her memory.” Sarah wraps her own bow on the painfully presented premise by adding, “Oh yeah, it’s overwhelming. I wake up every single night in a panic, can’t go back to sleep, then I’m walking around the next day like a zombie.”

Sarah isn’t the only one suffering. Her son Holden has his own drama to deal with. Sarah sympathizes by saying, “Listen, I know things have been hard on you. After what happened, new school, new friends.” Holden asks, “Will we move back home?” His mother reminds him, “You know we can’t afford to do that right now,” prompting the boy to respond, “I don’t mind living with Grandma.” Indeed, Sarah’s mother Gloria appears to be a good woman, taking them in and comforting her daughter by assuring Sarah, “It was an accident. A horrible, terrible accident, but it wasn’t your fault.”

Despite these fact-filled exchanges delivering all this basic background via robotically delivered declarations, “Sleepwalker” shows as well as tells to really hammer the setup into our heads. In addition to her haunting dreams, Sarah regularly relives terrible memories in spontaneous flashbacks where her husband responds to threats of divorce with anger, violence, and threats of his own to take away their two children. Michael first loses his cool at a petting zoo. Then he flips his lid during Aimee’s ninth birthday party. Next comes a post-dinner blowup. Get what’s going on yet?

Being comatose doesn’t put a stop to Michael’s mania. Thanks to a wise old Asian woman who has just the right info to fill in final blanks, guilt-ridden Sarah discovers her dreams are being manipulated by Michael’s unconscious spirit, and the score he wants to settle involves using their daughter’s ghost to drive Sarah to do something deadly whenever she’s asleep.

Sleepwalking isn’t limited to the characters onscreen. Beverly D’Angelo does some of her own as Sarah’s mother Gloria, perhaps recognizing she’s stuck in a limited part that doesn’t require applying much effort. Joining Hayden Panettiere as another mid-2000s TV star going through mundane motions is Mischa Barton in the embarrassingly underwritten role of Michael’s sister Joelle. Barton shows up three times, with each brief appearance contradicting the one before it. In her first moment, she angrily accuses Sarah of ruining her brother’s life. The next time, Joelle says JK by apologizing for her unfriendly outburst. Finally, Joelle calls Sarah to suggest, you know what, maybe we should just pull the plug on my brother, so they do.

“Sleepwalker” was developed from a seven-minute short from 2024, which explains why its 89-minute runtime goes on 81 minutes too long. To reach that convenient 1.5-hour mark that makes it easier to sell to a cable network programmer or streaming provider searching for padding, the movie bloats itself with constant cliches, including a conventional music score, drone shots over opening titles to establish the setting, even a public domain two-for-one as someone watches both “Night of the Living Dead” and “Carnival of Souls” on television. Readymade for the small screen with a lit-for-TV look, not even a sloppily delivered twist can save “Sleepwalker” from sinking in a sea of commonplace themes and toothless thrills engineered to be routine.

“Sleepwalker” is such a paint-by-numbers production, it ought to come with a brush, as even a blind man could color between its simple lines. Better yet, they could create their own cover, since the movie is so generic, its poster art might as well be a solid white rectangle with plain black text. The film could even repurpose the ordinary font used for opening credits. Why not? Every other element of “Sleepwalker” is recycled from somewhere else, except somehow made dull as well as derivative.

Review Score: 35

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