The Sleeper

THE SLEEPER

A recently-produced movie that was released in 2012, The Sleeper is a period slasher film set mostly in 1981 (aside from a brief prologue in 1979).  The plot follows Amy, a sophomore in college who gets invited to a party at a sorority house that is plagued by weird phone calls from a whispering fellow who sometimes giggles and cries.  The caller manages to systematically pick off the sorority sisters throughout the course of the film via various methods (hammer to the face, gouging out eyes, and such).  Amy, the ostensible lead character, vanishes through much of the middle of the plot (she’s hanging out at a bar) while the killer does his thing.  Amy ultimately comes face-to-face with the antagonist, who chases her across a strangely deserted campus (apparently the filmmakers couldn’t afford to have extras in the background).  Amy coincidentally winds up in the murderer’s lair (an old storm basement in a campus building), where she finally takes some action by stabbing the guy.  An epilogue suggests that her ordeal might not be over.

The Sleeper features an excellent soundtrack that evokes the spirit of John Carpenter’s early scores, but unfortunately the script features bland and largely interchangeable characters, a boring protagonist, and a prolonged dance scene that does nothing but kill time.  The auteur behind this project (Justin Russell) does a fine job capturing the look and feel of an early eighties slasher (if I had watched the movie without knowing anything about its production history, I could easily have been fooled into believing it was an actual lost stalk-and-slash film from thirty years ago).  It’s a shame that the heroine is so passive (while the killer uses a hammer to smash open the door of a room she’s in, she cowers and cries instead of actively searching for a weapon).  The dialogue is plain and expositional, and there’s no explanation about the killer’s identity or motivation.  For a much more engrossing story about sorority girls in jeopardy, check out the original Black Christmas from 1974 (not to be confused with its 2006 remake).