Product Details

• Actors: Brian Krause, Mädchen Amick, Alice Krige, Jim Haynie, Cindy Pickett
• Directors: Mick Garris
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: August 20, 1996
• Run Time: 89 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302544289
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,196 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  Video > Horror > Horror Masters > Stephen King

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is about a half-human, half-cat race of shape shifters called, for no apparent reason, sleepwalkers. Hunky Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his incestuous mother (Alice Krige) are sleepwalkers, and they've come to the small town of Travis, Indiana, where they've somehow acquired a nice house and false identities. They need virgin souls to survive and have fixated on local beauty Tanya (Madchen Amick from Twin Peaks). That's about it for the story--from then on it's a series of chase scenes full of badly done gore. King must have been sleepwalking himself when he wrote this screenplay--the dialogue is terrible, the characters are cardboard, and the plotting is clumsy. Combine that with mediocre acting, thoughtless direction, slapdash editing, and cheesy special effects, and you have Sleepwalkers. Amick comes off reasonably well and there are cameos by King, Clive Barker, and horror directors John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But really, if you're interested in were-cats, see the original The Cat People, starring Simone Simon; it's both sexier and scarier. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars All-Dancing/All-Slashing Cringefest, July 15, 2004

By	C. T. Mikesell (near Eugene, Oregon) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sleepwalkers (DVD)

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is a fairly-good B-movie. Most of it is enjoyably watchable, due mainly to the easy-on-the-eyes-ability of its lead cast members Brian Krause, Alice Krige, and Madchen Amick. Then there are the cringeworthy moments: the violent moments that are both poorly executed and overly gory, as well as the disturbing dance sequences (creepy incestuous slow dance/hottie teenybopping with a carpet-sweeper ) early in the film.

There are a number of nicely put together scenes in the movie: the Trans Am chase, Krause and Amick at her house, as well as Krige's first two scenes with Amick. The "superpowers" of the Sleepwalkers are nice and original, but much of their history is left to our imagination. We are given some backstory via an "encyclopedia" definition, a snippet of Krause's creative writing assignment, and a few comments dropped here and there by Krause and Krige, though more would have been helpful. Questions remain as to why Krige can't "feed" herself and whether or not the Sleepwalkers are actually made of Meow Mix (how else can you explain the scene where cats troop through downtown Travis, Indiana, in pursuit of Krige)?

Plot holes? Certainly. Cameos by directors who ought to stay behind the camera instead of in front of one? Definitely. While the movie isn't exactly played for laughs and never fully descends into the campy netherworld, it's hard to take it too seriously. DVD extras are severely limited - although if you want to learn to read in Thai or Portuguese you're in luck because those are two of the seven sets of subtitles included on the disc.

For an original screenplay, Stephen King has put together a decent story. Were it a novel, we'd likely get the missing backstory (frustratingly, the movie wasn't novelized), but as it stands the story is pretty good - okay, the corn killing is lame, but for the most part things make sense. It would have been nice if some of the effects were less fakey or there had been a few more extras on the DVD (Sleepwalkers movie trailer, Writer/Director commentaries, deleted scenes), but for a few bucks you still get your money's worth. Netflix it first if you want, but I'm not ashamed to have it in my library collection.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What's Up, November 28, 2002

By	"x_opp" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleepwalkers (DVD)

I must say I always have enjoyed this movie and as I was breezing through the reviews it seems like I was one of the few. Sleepwalkers is by no doubt the best movie I have seen, but I thought it has some merit as being a good movie. Sleepwalkers introduces you to these mysterious creatures that cats don't like. They appear human most of the time but can change either voluntarily and sometimes involuntarily into their cat like forms. They feed off human virgins it seems they suck their souls right out of them per oral. The plot is kind of thin and it could have been more developed, but it was still pretty good. The movie leaves a lot of questions about what these things are. If you are a movie watcher that likes to know all the facts this may not be the movie for you. The special effects were not all that great and I think the monster's appearance could have taken a little more attention, but I have never rated special effects above the plot. I think maybe Sleepwalkers would have turned out better as a book opposed to a movie, where there would be more time to develop the plot, but this didn't happen, so I guess I will settle for the movie.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not to be catty, but, May 17, 2001

By	tmp "snippy reviewer" (Solar System, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sleepwalkers (DVD)

This isn't a very good movie. The gore effects are not great, there are plot holes big enough to drive a Trans-Am through, and most of the acting is board stiff. The only bright spot is Alice Krige- she turns in one of her usual, ..performances. Why this woman is not the biggest star on the planet, I'll never know. She made this character, Eva in "Ghost Story", and the Borg Queen in the Star Trek movie so incredibly ..compelling I can't think why she doesn't get bigger jobs. Worth seeing only for her.