Sleep To Dream is the
thriller-esque short from CNGM about a young lady with some
skeletons in the closet who receives a creepy phone call.
I'd tell you more, but actually that's the gist of it. If I
describe the purpose of the call I'd be giving away the end, and
that's not cool, so I'll jump right into the critique.
The lead actress is very
talented, but I regret that her written reactions to the phone
call just didn't seem realistic in some places. It has to be
very challenging for a performer to do their job when they have no
other actor to work with, and I can see that Angela Wascher will
do big things when she is put into a larger project. So my
main gripe is the writing of this short.
Granted, writing about
someone with the kind of issues this main character has is not an
easy task. But it seems to me that when most people get
creepy phone calls, they tend to hang up right away. While
Angela may have a bit more reason to stay on the line than most, I
still didn't buy into it. Her reactions get more and more
appropriate as the short proceeds however, so there is a bit of a
saving grace.
The caller on the phone is
very important to the story (obviously), thus the actor who
provides this voice must be able to nail the lines with such
authenticity that it will intimidate not only the actress,
but the viewer as well. The problem with most amateur movies
is that when someone is trying to sound creepy, they end
up sounding 'listen-to-how-creepy-I-am' creepy rather than 'Keifer-in-Phonebooth'
creepy. The bad news is that Sleep To Dream is not an
exception. (Though it should be noted that I've seen much,
much worse. The performance is not terrible - it's just
didn't deliver the way I'd hoped.) Acting as a voice that
has to drive the main character to extremes (as is the case here)
is a very tall order for even a professional actor -
considerable rehearsals and takes would likely be needed to even
deliver a passable performance.
On the tech side, the
editing is good, the camerawork is ok. It starts off tightly
shot, but towards the end of the short there are problems with
camera shake, and they tend to distract. Musical cues
were unique and fairly subtle, I liked this. Overdone music
would have killed this short, but it was used in moderation, and
the choices were very interesting.
DVD notes, a
behind-the-scenes vid shows the CNGM team having a good ol' time
shooting and reminding us that making flicks is supposed to be
fun, and trailers are included as well.
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