Parasomnia

James Ross II’s Parasomnia is real scary stuff. Real scary. Sure, it’s culling from every popular horror trend over the past decade—a bit of Insidious, a touch of Get Out—and while it may not be wholly original, Ross II’s debut feature is as effective an homage as any. This is springboard horror at its finest, and I’m willing to bet we’ll see Ross II helming some big commercial IP in the next several years. That’s how it goes with talented debuts, right?

After a gory cold open, Riley (Jasmine Matthews) is startled in the shower. Is it a ghost? An intruder? Luckily not. Instead, it’s just her friends surprising her with a birthday party. Fun. Only, the fun quickly evaporates. Riley lives pursuant to a very strict coda. She doesn’t drink, doesn’t have fun, and absolutely won’t, under any circumstances, disrupt her circadian rhythm. Literally. She declines a drink using that rationale.

It’s an odd party, complete with lots of sleep talk and tricks to immediately pass out, and I chuckled at the technique, something my friends and I (unwisely) tried often in middle school. It’s not safe, but Parasomnia’s cast is fine. They go to sleep under strict orders to zonk before Riley does, and to subsequently wake her up if anything happens. Well, that doesn’t happen, and a rich world of lore unravels featuring demonic entities and hellish, found-footage mazes that threaten Riley and everyone close to her.

At its best, Parasomnia plays out like any number of first-person horror games on Steam. I mean that as a compliment. There’s limited perspective, grainy visuals, and quick cuts to something demonic lurking in the background, drawing ever closer. It’s a hoot, Amnesia or PT as cinema, and James Ross II flexes considerable filmmaking muscles in not only making it work, but matching it with the more conventional filmic beats that frame the night terrors.

As is often the case with paranormal horror, the more effort made to explain what’s happening, the more the efficacy of the scares wear off. Parasomnia borrows quite liberally from Insidious, but it doesn’t have Lin Shaye. What it does have is an exhaustive, five-minute exposition dump outlining every arbitrary rule and restriction related to what’s been haunting Riley. Scary faces are more frightening when an audience doesn’t know what they are, and the more Parasomnia fills in the gaps, the less its upcoming scares land.

Luckily, co-stars RJ Brown, Sally Steward, and Stephen Barrington are so natural, so engaging, the keep the growing lunacy grounded and effective. There’s metal lingo, “tears of sorrow,” and enough wild paranormal lore to carry Parasomnia through to the only ending it could possibly have. So, no, it’s not original in the slightest, and it stumbles into familiar pitfalls, but there’s so much talent so astutely deployed, it really doesn’t matter all that much. Everyone is entitled to one good scare, and this Brooklyn Horror Film Festival debut luckily has several. And when James Ross II inevitably helms an Insidious sequel of his own, you’ll all know I called it here first.

Summary

Wild paranormal lore and serious scares render Parasomnia a real winner.

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