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‘Among the Sleep’ Review: A Child’s Imagination
“A child shouldn’t have to go through this.”
Wise words from a teddy bear. They’re also spot-on for the situation Among the Sleep’s two year-old protagonist finds himself in, as he’s forced to endure a number of horrors that are both imagined and very real in one of the most original — and refreshing — horror games I’ve played in some time.
Since its unveiling back in early 2012, I’ve been more than a little anxious to get my hands on developer Krillbite Studio’s debut, the toddler-horror indie game Among the Sleep. After the wild success of Frictional Games’ Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Mark Hadley’s Slender: The Eight Pages, which threw players into unfamiliar environments where they’re unarmed and being chased, an increasing number of developers have adopted similar approaches with their games.
Among the Sleep is a culmination of this trend, as it’s a horror game you experience from the perspective of a two year-old child. When danger approaches, your only option is to flee or quickly seek a hiding spot. You’re entirely defenseless, and it actually makes sense. Not being able to fight back feels more natural in this game than it has in most other horror games with similar play-styles.
For example, while my love for Outlast is no secret, there’s no reason why you can’t grab something to defend yourself. It’s done on purpose to make the game scarier, but it does so with the hope that you’ll be too terrified to notice this glaring issue.
This is also the second crowdfunded horror game to release this month. Sadly, DreadOut didn’t do as good a job at filling that Fatal Frame shaped hole in many of our hearts.
In a small way, that puts added pressure on Krillbite, because while it’s easy for the gaming community — and specifically those who donate to sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo — to overlook one sub-par crowdfunded horror game, two in a row may affect the genre’s chances at seeing more success stories like these in the future.
Krillbite does a wonderful job in immediately developing a bond between the child and his mother — a theme that permeates much of the game’s story, as well as the child’s singular goal of doing everything he can to reach her. The same goes for the relationship between the child and his stuffed bear, Teddy, whose role in the story becomes more significant later on in the game.
There’s a lot to love about this game, but my favorite are the environments. Krillbite has a supremely talented team of artists, as I realized pretty early on in the game that one of the strongest driving forces that kept me from ever putting down the controller — yes, PC Master Race, I played it with a controller — was its gorgeous art style.
Seeing the world through the eyes of a child isn’t something we often get to experience in video games. Even an environment as mundane as an average looking home with an interior you’d expect to see in any suburban household is presented in such a unique way. Among the Sleep has no shortage of gorgeous environments to explore, but even the most familiar ones are taken to another level entirely by the wise decision to use exaggerated shapes and vibrant colors.
More than that, playing as a two year-old offers a number of clever ways to traverse those environments. Unfortunately, interacting with this beautiful world can sometimes prove to be a little frustrating.
This is an indie game that started out as student project, so for those reasons, I went in willing to overlook a certain lack of polish. Visually, it’s as close to flawless as I’ve seen from a developer’s first attempt. That aside, this game did raise a quarter of a million dollars, so that forgiveness has a limit. A majority of the problems I encountered stemmed from the occasionally awkward controls and the fact that it sometimes took me multiple attempts to get the kid to do what I needed him to. Responsiveness is a problem, especially when you have a monster closing in on the rubber heels of your footed pajamas.
I also noticed a few audio issues, including background tracks, which would sometimes switch to another track without a transition. The mixing is a little rough, but the soundtrack and quality voice acting more than make up for it.
In terms of what you’ll be doing in Among the Sleep, much of it revolves around walking or crawling — the latter is faster — around fantastical worlds that range from exaggerated realism to surrealism, to full-on nightmarish landscapes. The monsters play a pivotal role in two of the levels, but they’re hardly the focus. You’ll be chased, and it’ll be intense, but most of the time you’ll be exploring and soaking up this amazing world.
The objectives are simpler than I would’ve liked, but a two year-old child shouldn’t be expected to have the problem-solving skills required to solve puzzles you would expect to find in games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I did however, like how children’s toys, like the one where you put blocks of various shapes in colors through their corresponding holes, were used for puzzles. That tied the fantasy into the reality in a very neat way.
However, it does result in a series of fetch quests, with a few chase levels, a bit of platforming, and the odd puzzle sprinkled on for added flavor (and variety). Among the Sleep may not feed your brain, but it has all the eye candy you could ever want.
Overall, this is a great game. It’s also a brave game, with uncommon characters, a dazzling art style, and a fantastic, emotional story. The only real complaint I can understand being an issue is the game’s running time. I beat it in two hours, and I tend to roam in my games. I was given review code, so I didn’t have to throw down $19.99 for it, but even if I had the experience would have been worth it. Even still, I think $14.99 would be a price tag that better fits the amount of content it offers.
The Final Word: Among the Sleep is a must-play for any fan of the genre, so long as you can overlook its handful of technical annoyances — almost all of which can be easily remedied with a patch — and immerse yourself in this game’s beautifully realized world.
We are now one full month into Spring 2024, which kicked off on Tuesday, March 19 and comes to an end with the start of Summer on Thursday, June 20. This year’s summer movie season has a whole bunch of exciting horror highlights, including A Quiet Place: Day One, MaXXXine, and Alien: Romulus, but let’s hold that particular thought until June rolls around.
We’re here today to talk about Spring 2024 and the many horrors we still have left before the weather gets warmer and we find ourselves in the heat of one hell of a spooky summer.
Here are 12 horror movies you don’t want to miss in Spring 2024!
STING – April 12
Two words: SPIDER HORROR. Writer/Director Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood) hopes to induce eight-legged terror with his brand new horror movie Sting, only in theaters April 12.
Of particular note, Sting features practical spider effects from 5-time Academy Award Winner Weta Workshop, with the spider in this one inspired by H.R. Giger’s Xenomorph!
In Sting, “One cold, stormy night in New York City, a mysterious object falls from the sky and smashes through the window of a rundown apartment building. It is an egg, and from this egg emerges a strange little spider. The creature is discovered by Charlotte, a rebellious 12-year-old girl obsessed with comic books. Keeping it as a secret pet, she names it Sting.
“But as Charlotte’s fascination with Sting increases, so does its size. Growing at a monstrous rate, Sting’s appetite for blood becomes insatiable.”
BLACKOUT – APRIL 12
Indie darling Larry Fessenden is back with new horror movie Blackout this Spring, Fessenden’s third movie – following Habit and Depraved – to put his own spin on classic monsters.
While Habit was centered on vampires and Depraved was a fresh take on Frankenstein’s Monster, Larry Fessenden’s Blackout is the filmmaker’s contribution to werewolf cinema.
The film follows Charley, an artist whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might be a werewolf. He distances himself from those he loves and sinks deeper into solitude, his flashes of memory of his nighttime grisly acts manifested through his artwork.
ARCADIAN – APRIL 12
If Nicolas Cage is covered in blood, you better believe we’re going to be watching. Cage gets his own A Quiet Place with Arcadian, a new creature feature coming to theaters April 12.
In Arcadian, which also comes to Shudder later this year, “After a catastrophic event depopulates the world, a father (Nicolas Cage) and his two sons must survive their dystopian environment while being threatened by mysterious creatures that emerge at night.”
Jaeden Martell (IT 2017) also stars in the post apocalyptic monster movie.
ABIGAIL – APRIL 19
If you’re bummed about Melissa Barrera being fired from the Scream franchise, you’ll definitely want to get out to your local theater this month to support Abigail, the new VAMPIRE BALLERINA horror movie from Scream and Scream VI directors Radio Silence.
Barrera stars alongside fellow horror favorite Kathryn Newton (Freaky) in Abigail, which is actually the latest horror movie in Universal’s relaunched Universal Monsters Universe.
In the film, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL – APRIL 19
One of the most talked about horror movies of Spring 2024 has been the Halloween 1977-set Late Night With the Devil, which has been playing in theaters since its premiere on March 22.
Late Night with the Devil will begin streaming at home on April 19, 2024, less than one month after arriving in theaters. Shudder will be the exclusive streaming home of the movie.
David Dastmalchian (Dune, The Suicide Squad) stars as the host of a late-night talk show that descends into a nightmare in Late Night with the Devil, set on Halloween 1977.
In the found footage-style film that captures a period aesthetic, “A live television broadcast in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.”
INFESTED – APRIL 26
Spring 2024 is all about SPIDERS – sorry, arachnophobes! – with the previously mentioned Sting being followed by the French creature feature Infested (Vermines) later this month.
What’s particularly exciting about Infested is that its director, Sébastien Vaniček, has been hired to direct the next installment in the Evil Dead film franchise, so this will be our first taste of what Vaniček is capable of within the genre. And the buzz for this one is strong.
In his review out of Fantastic Fest last year, for starters, Bloody Disgusting’s own critic Trace Thurman raved that Infested is “one of the best spider attack movies in years.”
In the upcoming horror film, “Fascinated by exotic animals, Kaleb finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap.”
HUMANE – APRIL 26
The daughter of horror master David Cronenberg, Caitlin Cronenberg is making her own mark in the genre filmmaking space with IFC Films’ Humane, coming to theaters this month.
The film is described as “a dystopian satire taking place over a single day, months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to reduce the earth’s population.”
The wild premise? 20% of the world’s population must VOLUNTEER TO DIE!
“In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman has invited his grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children.”
I SAW THE TV GLOW – MAY 3
Fresh off the haunting and singularly creepy indie We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Jane Schoenbrun is back with A24‘s I Saw the TV Glow, releasing only in theaters this May.
Meagan Navarro wrote in her Sundance review for BD, “I Saw the TV Glow offers a layered and authentic portrait of identity, wrapped in ’90s nostalgia and surreal imagery that embeds itself deep into your psyche.” Meagan continues, “Schoenbrun delivers a singular vision of arthouse horror that entrances for its fevered dream style and insanely cool imagery.”
In A24’s latest, “Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.”
TAROT – MAY 3
Originally titled Horrorscope, a much better title if you’re asking me, Screen Gems returns to the big screen with studio horror movie Tarot this Spring, a Tarot-card themed spookshow.
When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings – never use someone else’s deck – they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards in the upcoming Screen Gems horror movie Tarot. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death to escape the future foretold in their readings.
The hook for this one? Artist Trevor Henderson designed the film’s eight monsters!
THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 – MAY 17
Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion classic The Strangers spawns a brand new reboot trilogy this year, with first film The Strangers: Chapter 1 kicking things off in theaters on May 17.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 is expected to follow in Fall 2024.
Madelaine Petsch is the lead of the new reboot trilogy, playing a character who drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest.
When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.
IN A VIOLENT NATURE – MAY 31
Slasher fans who have been hungry for a new Friday the 13th movie won’t want to miss In a Violent Nature, which plays out like a Friday movie… entirely from Jason’s perspective!
IFC Films will release In a Violent Nature exclusively in theaters on May 31.
In the film, “When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. The undead golem hones in on the group of vacationing teens responsible for the theft and proceeds to methodically slaughter them one by one in his mission to get it back – along with anyone in his way.”
Meagan Navarro wrote in her Sundance review for Bloody Disgusting, “In a Violent Nature may offer slasher thrills and a delightfully gory rampage across the wilderness, but the approach captures the carnage through ambient realism. It results in a fascinating arthouse horror experiment that plays more like a minimalist slice-of-life feature with a grim twist.”
THE WATCHERS – JUNE 14
M. Night Shyamalan returns with the new thriller Trap this coming August, but the road to that film’s release will be paved by the feature debut of his daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan.
Ishana Night directed The Watchers, in theaters from WB/New Line on June 14.
The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.
Which Spring 2024 horror movies are YOU most looking forward to?
4 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including ‘Late Night with the Devil’ at Home
‘Ready or Not’: Radio Silence Filmmakers Tease the “Absolute Banger” of a Sequel That’s Taking Shape
“We Built Every Creature” – ‘Alien: Romulus’ Goes Heavy on the Old School Practical Effects!
‘Sting’ Review – Throwback Creature Feature Entertains With an Impressive Practical Monster
‘Abigail’ Review – Radio Silence Delivers Another Gory Good Time at the Movies
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