With FINAL DESTINATION, screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick helped kick off what I find to be one of the most entertaining horror franchises of the latest twenty years. Now Reddick has crafted a new horror story, DEAD AWAKE, which went into production last year with Phillip Guzman directing.
Starring Jocelin Donahue, Jesse Bradford, Lori Petty, Brea Grant, Dileep Rao, and James Eckhouse, DEAD AWAKE tells the story of
a young woman who discovers an ancient evil stalking its victims through the real-life phenomenon of sleep paralysis. After losing someone close to her, she teams up with a local artist to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding the unexplained death. After she is finally exposed to the terrifying truth by an eccentric expert on sleep disorders, her investigation unknowingly puts her best friend and everyone close to her in danger.
In my previous article about DEAD AWAKE, I noted some similarities between its ideas and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and those similarities have made it into the film's trailer, which can be seen below. In a movie where characters are being confronted by an evil that attacks them when they sleep and they need to take its power away by not believing in it, the fact that there's a scene where the heroine has a bad sleep experience in a bathtub can't be a coincidence. This is homage city.
DEAD AWAKE will be making its East Coast premiere at the FEARnyc film festival on October 26th, and we'll keep you updated on release details as it moves forward. I'm definitely interested in checking it out.