Sleepwalkers [DVD] [1992]

The genesis of this story sounds pretty good, actually. Drawing upon ancient stories and the highly mysterious history of cats, the film brings to life two modern-day “Sleepwalkers,” a mother and son forced to constantly roam around the country as a direct result of their unusual feeding habits. Some places just don’t take too kindly to having their citizens slaughtered and fed off of. The mother is now especially hungry, and she is depending on her beloved son Charles to supply her needs. These needs are rather specific, requiring a “nice” girl, and Charles has found the perfect such paragon of virtue and virginity in Tanya Robertson. His plans for bringing Tanya home to Mother inevitably go awry, and the last half hour of the movie is an anticlimactic torture test and overacting marathon in the form of a story that seemingly refuses to end. Brian Krause and Alice Krige actually play their roles rather well (not counting all of the silly dialogue they are forced to utter), and Madchen Amick is a lovely young woman who played her role of sacrifice-to-be in the brilliantly cheesy kind of way this script seemed to call for. Amick also has the distinction of being the only woman in the world I would pay money to watch sweep the floor.

The talent of one actor can sometimes save a movie from utter disaster, and the real hero of Sleepwalkers accomplishes just such a feat. This unsung hero is named Sparks, and he is outstanding in the role of Clovis the Attack Cat. Clovis is the hero of Sleepwalkers; don’t let anyone tell you any differently. One sometimes wonders if cats are not the real overseers of this world. Everyone knows how mysterious they are, how they seem to live lives of leisure, and how even the best of them interact with the human world on their own terms. Sleepwalkers walk in utter fear of cats, deeply vulnerable to the merest slash from a cat’s claw. By instinct alone, cats recognize Sleepwalkers, and throughout this film they are camped en masse outside the home of our local shapeshifters, patiently waiting for the perfect time to strike and thus, once again, help preserve the lives of human beings who will never realize their indebtedness to these seemingly playful, lazy creatures. Their constant vigil around the house of the Sleepwalkers provides the only remotely creepy aspect of the entire movie. Without the cats, this movie would not be worth watching at all.