Stephen King's Sleepwalkers has a reputation as one of the lesser quality adaptations of his work, which led me to put off watching it for years. Well I don't know what film the critics saw, cause the one I watched was wicked good. Nestled in that perfect area of 80's horror where the blood was corn syrup, the flesh was latex, there wasn't a pixel or rendering in sight and atmospherics mattered more than excessive violence, this is one serious piece of horrific eye candy with the backbone of King's wicked imagination to hold it steady. The story tells of a small Midwestern town (is there any other kind in the man's work?) That falls prey to a pair of vampire werewolf hybrid creatures who subside off the blood of virgins and morph into slimy behemoths that conveniently show off the impressive prosthetics. Brian Krause is one of said creatures, drifting into town with his creepy mother (the wonderful Alice Krige) and setting his sights on severely virginal schoolgirl Madchen Amick, by dialing up the charm past eleven. People and animals start to die all over town and the suspicions arise, but the pair are cunning and have most likely been doing this for centuries almost unnoticed. It's nothing too unique as far as the concept goes, but the fun of it lies in the gooey special effects and one demon of a performance from Krige, a veteran stage actress. She is one part beautiful seductress (even to her son, in one unsettling scene) and one part volatile banshee, setting your nerves on edge time and time again throughout the film. Krause does the demonic James Dean thing nicely and Amick shows blossoming reilience beneath the required mantle of terrified scream queen. The three of them run amok in a beautifully realized fever dream of psycho sexualized terror, small town atmospherics and a classic old school horror climate. This film loves it's cameos, so watch for Clive Barker, Ron Perlman as a grouchy state trooper and King himself as the world's dumbest graveyard caretaker. Baffles me why this was panned upon release. It's actually one of the best films I've seen based on King's horror work, and there's a lot to compete with.

Arriving in small-town Indiana, a woman gets involved with a strange man and his domineering woman who each have a sinister reason for an extreme phobia towards cats as they try to blend in only to have word of their secret get out again while trying to live their lives.

This one was quite the overall enjoyable effort. One of the better elements in the film is the rather demented and utterly depraved mother-and-son relationship at the heart of the film. While this isn't the first time this kind of relationship was featured, this one is explicit in detailing the incestuous nature of what's going on with the two of them openly flirting and being tender with each other in far more blatant experience than expected. As well, there's also the deep make-out sessions they share as well as the sweaty sex scene between them that really manages to further this storyline which really carries the first half here. By going on the rest of the film with this already set-up, the other story lines here come across far more impactfully with their being placed alongside the great action featured in here, from the really fun car chase through the rural roads that comes with the great shock transformation and the novel manner of concluding, the fantastic ambush in the cemetery where he reveals his true nature to her before the chase around the woods and the great confrontation that occurs by the front gate which is what sets up the great finale. The house abduction comes with some great action of her breaking through everyone to take her away before the spectacular finale where the violence is turned towards humans and the action and intensity picks up, as the cats begin attacking more purposefully at the house by breaking in leading to some wholly enjoyable action to occur here as the monstrous secret gives this one plenty to like alongside the bloody kills. The other big plus here is the creature makeup which is sporadic but effective at displaying their powers and gives this enough positive elements to hold out the few flaws. The film's biggest problem is the lack of explanations for anything, from the origin of the creatures to why cats can kill them to why the teacher went after him to begin with as there's little explained at all within here in regards to anything going on. Beyond the fascination with the Native American mythology, that's all that's given about their history as sleepwalkers so everything here is really mysterious. Likewise, some of the violence towards cats could be problematic here as this tended to have full- on views of cats having their heads twisted off or bitten and shaken like rag dolls which isn't something that would be very appealing to many. These here are the film's biggest problems and hold it back the most.

Rated R: Continuous scenes of dead and mangled cats, on-screen animal deaths, Graphic Violence, Language and themes of incestuousness.

...Corn cob. Seriously....

Snapping a hand off cleanly at the wrist....

Shooting once at a cop car and it blows up...

A man still alive after having a pencil shoved in his ear canal...

Three fingers bitten off at once, on a nice even level...

Eye gouging an obvious rubber dummy....

Impaling a man on a picket fence, when IRL those thin slats would break, and wouldn't do more than give you a bruise...

...And one scene after another of hilarious Cat Fu. Rubber kitties held by the actors while they pretend a cat is attacking them.

These are the absurdities the film asks us to believe. It's truly a Plan Nine level of bad film making.

You watch just to laugh at how bad it gets. No one in it can act. King, at least for this film, can't write worth a damn.

Almost as hilarious are the reviews making excuses for the film. Then again, they do that for most of King's films, no matter how bad they get.

Right up there with Manos Hand of Fate and Troll II as a film you'll get loaded with friends and laugh at.