Mike Flanagan discusses Before I Wake’s troubled US release

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

With movies like OCULUS, HUSH, OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL, and the upcoming Netflix projects GERALD'S GAME and a Haunting of Hill House series, Mike Flanagan is becoming one of the most popular and reliable names in modern horror. But there is a Flanagan film that audiences in the U.S. currently have no access to (aside from a Canadian release), even though it had originally been scheduled to be released in theatres more than two years ago.

That troubled film is BEFORE I WAKE (which our own Chris Bumbray got to see a year ago), a victim of distributor Relativity's bankruptcy.

Speaking with Mick Garris for the podcast Post Mortem, Flanagan went into BEFORE I WAKE's crumbling chances for a U.S. theatrical release: 

My suspicion — and I’m just speaking for myself — is that the theatrical option’s pretty well burned at this point. Our international distributors waited for a while for Relativity, but then a lot of them just started releasing it, and so it got pirated very quickly, it ended up online very quickly, and then we had this kind of wave of… negative reviews that came in, mostly criticizing the movie for not being a horror movie and being marketed as one… So, between those reviews, and the fact that it’s been so exposed online, I’d be very surprised if after all these years somebody wanted to take a shot at it theatrically."

As Flanagan says, he's only speaking for himself there, and there may well be a chance that BEFORE I WAKE could still reach theatre screens in the U.S. At this point, it doesn't matter much to me whether the movie ends up on big screens or small, I just want to see it get a proper release in the states.

Starring Kate Bosworth, Thomas Jane, Annabeth Gish, Dash Mihok, and Jacob Tremblay, BEFORE I WAKE has the following synopsis: 

In this intense and heart-pounding supernatural thriller, Jessie and Mark decide to take in a sweet and loving 8-year-old boy, Cody. Unbeknownst to them, Cody is terrified of falling asleep. At first they assume his previous unstable homes caused his aversion to sleep but soon discover why: Cody’s dreams manifest in reality as he sleeps. In one moment they experience the incredible wonder of Cody’s imagination and in the next the horrific nature of his night terrors. To save their new family, Jessie and Mark embark on a dangerous hunt to uncover the truth behind Cody’s nightmares.