Editorials
Finding Retro Fun in Stephen King’s ‘Sleepwalkers’ [The Silver Lining]
In this edition of The Silver Lining, we’ll be tackling Mick Garris and Stephen King’s unfairly maligned Sleepwalkers!
For every successful Stephen King adaptation, there are usually a handful of lesser projects lurking in its shadow. From Dreamcatcher to Lawnmower Man, the King of Horror actually has quite a few box-office bombs under his belt, with some fans justifying this by claiming that adaptations miss out on crucial inner monologues and emotional subtext. However, there is one Stephen King project that suggests that there might be more to the middling reception of some of these movies than the adaptational process.
Naturally, I’m referring to Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers, the one and only time that Stephen King wrote a story specifically for the big screen (or “scream”, as the posters gleefully announced). Back in the early 90s, King’s tales were already sizzling hot properties at movie studios, so Columbia Pictures immediately accepted King’s offer to write an original screenplay for a brand-new movie.
Influenced by classic monster flicks like 1942’s Cat People, King came up with a bizarre tale following an incestuous pair of vampiric shape-shifters (Brian Krause and Alice Krige) who move to a small town in Indiana as they continue their search for virginal victims to sustain them.
While the studio originally chose Rupert Wainwright to helm the feature, his insistence on rewriting parts of the story led to King championing another director to take Rupert’s place. That’s how Mick Garris and Stephen King began their first partnership, with the writer specifically choosing Garris to take over Sleepwalkers due to his work on the underrated Psycho IV.
With the movie boasting an original script that would surprise even die-hard fans of King’s work and an up-and-coming genre director with a unique vision, it makes sense that fans and media outlets were expecting Sleepwalkers to be yet another horrific hit.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG?
Stephen King’s name goes a long way when trying to get butts into seats, so it stands to reason that Sleepwalkers doubled its $15 million production budget at the box office. Unfortunately, that didn’t help much with critics, as the film currently holds a disappointing 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, the movie has even shown up on several “worst horror movie of all time” lists, becoming somewhat popular on the internet as a cinematic punching bag for online movie reviewers.
Many complaints were (and still are) directed at the film’s general lack of scares, with several critics comparing the flick to a teenage romance that just so happens to feature some laughable supernatural elements. There was also plenty of criticism directed at the absurd mythology surrounding the titular Sleepwalkers, from their unexplained superpowers to the exact rules behind their feeding rituals – not to mention their bizarre rivalry with domestic cats.
This lack of narrative cohesion extends to the rest of the movie as well, with the picture never really deciding on a single protagonist and just blindly following a random assortment of characters as they stumble towards a foregone conclusion. Mädchen Amick’s Tanya isn’t really fleshed out as anything more than a victim, and not enough time is spent on Krige and Krause to make them proper anti-heroes.
The wildly varying tone was also a problem for most audiences, as the film goes from slasher-inspired satire to serious family drama so fast that it’s liable to give some viewers whiplash. Individually, many of the movie’s strange moments work (like the “no vegetables, no dessert” one-liner or that shocking arm removal), but these scenes never manage to sustain tension, making it hard to feel legitimately scared.
THE SILVER LINING
This isn’t the first time that we’ve covered a Stephen King / Mick Garris team-up on The Silver Lining and I think there’s a reason for that. From NBC’s The Shining to Riding the Bullet, these two storytellers have a habit of polarizing audiences with their old-school collaborations – which might have something to do with their specific set of narrative influences. Both creators appear to draw from low-budget creature features and cheesy b-movies, and these campy elements are blasting on all cylinders in Sleepwalkers.
Sure, Sleepwalkers isn’t a particularly scary movie, but it doesn’t really have to be. It’s quite clear that the goal here was to make an intentionally absurd and thoroughly entertaining monster movie – and judging by those merits, I’d argue that Sleepwalkers is an incredibly successful midnight movie. It’s just a shame that general audiences didn’t see it that way back in ’92.
However, even if you’re not a fan of tongue-in-cheek retro horror, there are plenty of individually great elements here that would have been celebrated had they been a part of other Stephen King projects. For example, the film gives just as much attention to the Sleepwalker duo as Tanya’s family, letting audiences decide for themselves exactly how they should feel about these characters (though I admit it’s hard to sympathize with people who keep skinned cats in their front yard).
Alice Krige is also phenomenal in her role as the Sleepwalker matriarch, with her performance ranging from legitimately threatening to laugh-out-loud comical without missing a beat (I mean, only she could have pulled off that corn-on-the-cob kill with a straight face). Plus, the movie boasts a star-studded collection of cameos that are sure to please genre fans.
Finally, I adore the disgusting sphynx-cat-like design of the titular monsters. The effects might not always be up to snuff -especially during transformations- but the suits themselves are always eerie to look at. And the less said about that disturbing sex scene the better…
Ultimately, I appreciate how Sleepwalkers’ odd collection of idiosyncrasies makes it more fun than a simple straight-faced monster movie. It’s not exactly It, but there’s a cartoony sense of humor here that makes this odd flick worth revisiting 3 decades down the line. Plus, it’s sure to entertain bored housecats, as my own little feline horror fan seemed intrigued by the story’s cat-based mayhem.
Watching a bad movie doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad experience. Even the worst films can boast a good idea or two, and that’s why we’re trying to look on the bright side with The Silver Lining, where we shine a light on the best parts of traditionally maligned horror flicks.
“Elevated Horror.” Of all the combinations in the English language, that one is the most insufferable.
It represents almost a decade of scary movies that, for the most part, took themselves too seriously. Horror responds to the moment, so its “why so serious” lean makes sense as we scuttle through the “worst of times” equation of Charles Dickens’ famous opening lines. But there’s still an opening and a need for a lighter approach; one that not only has fun with its audience but takes the piss out of a genre that is seemingly letting its newfound “respectability” go to its head.
Wes Craven believed devotees see horror films to let out their fears one primal scream at a time. At their core, these movies are roller coasters; they bring us as close to the edge as possible before pulling us back into a safety net of reality. The need for a bigger and badder coaster increases during times when the size of that net decreases.
There’s a thrill that comes from imagining being in a foot race with a madman, or outthinking the hordes of zombies on the other side of the door, plus the scavenger humans coming behind them. There’s even a rush that comes from imagining how one might deal with possession to see good triumph over evil in the end. It’s all about building tension and releasing it through catharsis. That cathartic release usually sounds like screams followed by laughter, which signals relief. Genre heavy hitters over the past 10 years offered very little of that respite when the credits rolled. Films like Hereditary, The Witch, Talk to Me, and even Smile (pick one) keep that tension going after the screen fades to black.
Hereditary
As the genre became obsessed with creating trauma metaphors, that lack of release made sense. Anyone with even a small sample size of traumatic experiences knows those emotions don’t magically resolve themselves in an allotted run time. But how much trauma can one take? Especially when there’s a mess going on outside that few of us can escape from. Movies offer that off-ramp, no matter how short.
Everything can’t be, nor should it be, “elevated.” Audiences need thoughtful explorations of life’s ills via monsters as much as they need murdering masked maniacs with kitchen knives. And no, it doesn’t have to go any deeper than that. Sometimes, a knife is just a knife, and it’s still worth our time and respect. As weird as it sounds, that simplicity is comforting not in spite of the trauma but because of it.
The worst of times should manifest more than just anguish. People need to laugh just as much as they need to think seriously about this moment in time. Even the Scream franchise forgot the meta rock upon which it built its church when the latest foray sacrificed the subtle comedy for serious drama. Scary Movie returned at the perfect moment. It provides the necessary laughs, but it’s not a cure-all.
This isn’t a call for Scary Movie imitators but a return to a mainstream landscape where Killer Klowns from Outer Space sat with The Serpent and the Rainbow, nestled neatly with the latest Nightmare on Elm Street, which took nothing away from The Vanishing.
They Live
Even They Live, John Carpenter’s horror sci-fi satire sandwich, kept its tongue firmly in cheek while discussing serious ideas still relevant in 2026. Yes, a film about aliens taking over the world through subliminal messaging only visible through coded sunglasses is, in fact, a tad silly. Carpenter understood that mainstream horror can’t become so self-important that it never looks itself in the mirror and laughs at that inherent silliness.
The thing is, horror historically excels at poking fun at itself. Most of the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods, or The Blackening show adoration without kowtowing. They recognize tropes and trappings but invert them for an audience already in on the joke, but one that also finds solace in said conventions. This keeps the genre on its toes; once something gets parodied, it’s usually time to evolve. That breeds new ideas and fresh filmmakers, which not only strengthen the genre’s collective voice but also amplify it.
Get Out, as “elevated” as some critics want us to believe it is, is a cathartic, populist scary movie that spoke to an untapped audience rather than speaking down to them. Backrooms is one of the biggest horror hits in years, partially because it’s fine-tuned for modern-day teenagers instead of their parents. Movies like these tell everyone the genre is open for business; open for innovation and, yeah, open for new ways in which people can lovingly poke fun at with a wink and a nudge.
Horror needs dread as much as it needs laughter.
Catharsis is just as important as tension, and pulpy populism has the same merit as more high-brow material. Respectability shouldn’t come at the expense of an experience akin to walking through a haunted house. At a time when joy seems in short supply, horror should look to its past to map out its future, and make things just a tad brighter for audiences.
Backrooms
You must be logged in to post a comment.