10/23: Before I Wake

Movie for yesterday:

10/23

Ever watch a movie and like all the ideas behind it but don't like how it's executed? Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about this number. Today's movie, Before I Wake, is another foray into Mike Flanagan films. I've, up to this point, been largely a huge fan of Flanagan's brand of horror: Hush, Gerald's Game, and, from what I'm hearing, The Haunting at Hill House (I need to get on watching that). I wasn't as big of a fan of Oculus, but Flanagan shows a different and sophisticated eye for even well-tread horror. 

The movie centers around a couple who lost their son after he drowned in a bathtub (c'mon now. The kid is like 8. How does an 8 year old drown in a bathtub?). They decide to adopt a young boy who has gone through several foster families. Quickly they realize that when he sleeps his dreams come true in the form of wondrous, horribly CGI-ed butterflies and even their dead son. Unfortunately, his nightmares become reality too in the form of the equally horribly CGI-ed (at least when he's fully seen) Cancker Man, a mutilated being who consumes the people the young boy loves.

Despite being released later in his career, Before I Wake was made several years before it was actually released. It sat in release hell for a long time until Netflix finally acquired it. Being a film made earlier in Flanagan's career, Before I Wake shows a filmmaker still figuring out his own brand of makin' movies. Before I Wake feels unrefined, a cool idea that is dragged down by veering into melodrama territory and relying on REALLY crappy CGI. Flanagan falls into the CGI trap of showing too much too clearly. Nothing is left mysterious and pulls any potential fear out of everything.

As I read up on the film, apparently Flanagan opposed to Before I Wake being labelled as a horror movie. He views it as more of a supernatural fable and thus not meant to have the fear factor of horror. That honestly makes this film make a lot more sense; it chooses to be fantastical instead of terrifying. Even with that knowledge, though, the movie still feels like it has it's feet in both doors; it has all the trappings of a horror movie, but not really. What it ends up being is a cool idea that is simply told in a weak way. It's a bummer, especially by seeing where Flanagan has gone with his filmmaking; maybe if he had had the chops he has today, Before I Wake would have been able to fully realize what it was trying to be.

6.5/10