Full disclosure: at 45 I decided to go to the University. I studied Cognitive Psychology and my dissertation was about the impact of New Media (including cellphones and tablets) on sleep patterns in the current era. I'm also a comic book writer who wrote a story about Jung, alchemy and shadows dwelling in forests.
Let's start by saying that this movie is extremely well shot and produced. The cinematographer (who is also the writer and the director) not only made the most out of a low budget, but also created unusually realistic camera effects to "immerse" the viewer into altered states, from disorientation to seizures. The acting by the central character is good, too.
Sadly, the rest (and the writing "in primis") is an astounding mess. Let's start with the use of Jungian terms as, literally "chapter titles". Did the director bothered to look beyond the word? "Persona" introduces the main character. "Anima and Animus" shows he become acquainted with a researcher (who, I swear, for the whole movie I mistook for Daniel Radcliffe); those terms aren't referred to "male" and "female". "The Shadow" is, literally, centered on shadow figures; this is stunningly not what Jung meant with this term. And so on.
The protagonist suffers from a serious sleep disorder, characterised by insomnia followed by deep dives into lovecraftian/Silent Hill-ish nightmares. She flees from her mother for reasons unknown and enrolls in an experimental sleep study hoping for solace. Both she and the other subjects are not "chosen": they freely sign up. Yet, the others... have her same nightmares?
While monitored she wears a suit with cables. "We can't tell you why" say the researchers. Why? Polysomnography is a very common sleep study that monitors the whole body (around the clock, BTW, not only during sleep). Bad sleep can have a lot of sources, including problems with usually common body functions during the day (like an unnatural accumulation of adrenaline). Are the scientists slyly inserting a factor in the research that causes these nightmares? But we know that our main character suffered from them *before* signing up...
Nothing is holy in this movie. Other test subjects develop "sleep paralysis". This is a real and genuinely frightening condition that has you awake but paralysed while experiencing the sight of shadows, ghosts, aliens and other horrors (watch "The Nightmare", a documentary shot by a director who suffers from it about other people with the same condition). It is also very rare. *All* the test subjects develop it? And should we believe that the shadows that "emerge" in the real world are the same they dream about? Maybe, but, and here is a genuine paradox, the scientists shouldn't be surprised: one explanation for what you "see" during a bout of sleep paralysis is that these horrors are a projection of your inner fears. Here, these shadows seem to be some kind of malevolent entities that... just happen to haunt people that *by chance*, have the same nightmares and happened to sign all up for the same experiment? Because the scientists aren't cackling with glee for an evil "occult" ritual of some kind well done, but genuinely baffled.
Other things thrown at the screen include a disappearing character; the frantic search of her by the protagonist only for the thing to be just forgotten; eyes that bleed for no reason at all; sleep paralysis during sex (sex paralysis?); a magical disappearing-reappearing cellphone that maybe has... powers; dreaming while sleepwalking (contrary to popular belief, sleepwalkers don't act out their dreams: when you dream your brain paralyses you *exactly* to avoid involuntary damage to your body; this is the source of the common dream when you try to run away from something but your legs don't answer); no curiosity about the real mystery: how are we able to sleepwalk and avoid damage to ourselves?; evil shadows in a forest that do... "something bad"; a character growing canines (I'm serious); and an ending which is such a stunning cop-out that, I guess, was written out of desperation, not as a real endgame - because there never was one.
"Come True" is a movie made by someone who discovered the wonderful world of sleep and the interesting (and disquieting) phenomena surrounding it - and that throw everything at the screen (along with a dictionary of Jungian terms) hoping that something suck. The result was a mess. True nightmares have more logic than this, just ask David Lynch.
Let's start by saying that this movie is extremely well shot and produced. The cinematographer (who is also the writer and the director) not only made the most out of a low budget, but also created unusually realistic camera effects to "immerse" the viewer into altered states, from disorientation to seizures. The acting by the central character is good, too.
Sadly, the rest (and the writing "in primis") is an astounding mess. Let's start with the use of Jungian terms as, literally "chapter titles". Did the director bothered to look beyond the word? "Persona" introduces the main character. "Anima and Animus" shows he become acquainted with a researcher (who, I swear, for the whole movie I mistook for Daniel Radcliffe); those terms aren't referred to "male" and "female". "The Shadow" is, literally, centered on shadow figures; this is stunningly not what Jung meant with this term. And so on.
The protagonist suffers from a serious sleep disorder, characterised by insomnia followed by deep dives into lovecraftian/Silent Hill-ish nightmares. She flees from her mother for reasons unknown and enrolls in an experimental sleep study hoping for solace. Both she and the other subjects are not "chosen": they freely sign up. Yet, the others... have her same nightmares?
While monitored she wears a suit with cables. "We can't tell you why" say the researchers. Why? Polysomnography is a very common sleep study that monitors the whole body (around the clock, BTW, not only during sleep). Bad sleep can have a lot of sources, including problems with usually common body functions during the day (like an unnatural accumulation of adrenaline). Are the scientists slyly inserting a factor in the research that causes these nightmares? But we know that our main character suffered from them *before* signing up...
Nothing is holy in this movie. Other test subjects develop "sleep paralysis". This is a real and genuinely frightening condition that has you awake but paralysed while experiencing the sight of shadows, ghosts, aliens and other horrors (watch "The Nightmare", a documentary shot by a director who suffers from it about other people with the same condition). It is also very rare. *All* the test subjects develop it? And should we believe that the shadows that "emerge" in the real world are the same they dream about? Maybe, but, and here is a genuine paradox, the scientists shouldn't be surprised: one explanation for what you "see" during a bout of sleep paralysis is that these horrors are a projection of your inner fears. Here, these shadows seem to be some kind of malevolent entities that... just happen to haunt people that *by chance*, have the same nightmares and happened to sign all up for the same experiment? Because the scientists aren't cackling with glee for an evil "occult" ritual of some kind well done, but genuinely baffled.
Other things thrown at the screen include a disappearing character; the frantic search of her by the protagonist only for the thing to be just forgotten; eyes that bleed for no reason at all; sleep paralysis during sex (sex paralysis?); a magical disappearing-reappearing cellphone that maybe has... powers; dreaming while sleepwalking (contrary to popular belief, sleepwalkers don't act out their dreams: when you dream your brain paralyses you *exactly* to avoid involuntary damage to your body; this is the source of the common dream when you try to run away from something but your legs don't answer); no curiosity about the real mystery: how are we able to sleepwalk and avoid damage to ourselves?; evil shadows in a forest that do... "something bad"; a character growing canines (I'm serious); and an ending which is such a stunning cop-out that, I guess, was written out of desperation, not as a real endgame - because there never was one.
"Come True" is a movie made by someone who discovered the wonderful world of sleep and the interesting (and disquieting) phenomena surrounding it - and that throw everything at the screen (along with a dictionary of Jungian terms) hoping that something suck. The result was a mess. True nightmares have more logic than this, just ask David Lynch.