The Sandman (1995) — Triskaidekafiles

THE SANDMAN

WRITERS: Story by J.R. Bookwalter & David Lange and Matthew Jason Walsh

Written by Matthew Jason Walsh and J.R. Bookwalter

DIRECTOR: J.R. Bookwalter

STARRING: A.J. Richards as Gary

Rita Gutowski as Maris

Terry J. Lipko as Bud

James Viront as Zachariah

Barbara Katz-Norrod as Mrs. Martinak

Matthew Jason Walsh as Ozzy

Mary Wilkerson as Bizarre

Jennifer Barrett as Bimbo Model

James L. Edwards as Gerald Rivers

Stan Fitzgerald as The Sandman

QUICK CUT: One man suffering from insomnia is about to make it everyone’s problem.\

THE MORGUE

Gary - A struggling writer who is suffering not just from writer’s block, but insomnia. It’s putting a strain on his relationships, and at least he’s trying.

Maris - Gary’s soon to be ex girlfriend. She’s a waitress and going a lot of work so Gary can chase his dreams…heh!

Zachariah - A Vietnam vet who has seen some shit, and is pretty much every PTSD trope all at once. And he sounds like Yosemite Sam.

The Sandman - An eternal malevolent force feeding on dream energy and killing it’s victims. I dunno, if you kept them alive, you could keep feeding…

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! February is here, and continuing the tradition of sleepytime dream fighting horror movies to kick off the month, is The Sandman. Let's just tuck ourselves in, and see how this goes.

The movie establishes the local trailer park, and homes in on one resident, struggling romance novelist Gary. He's busy staring at a paragraph, trying to think of the next words to write. I know the feeling.

For some reason, the power fluctuates, and Gary sees something moving outside. He goes to investigate but gets sidelined by his cousin Ozzy, a punk dude wannabe who is on the outs with his parents, and came to crash on Gary's couch unannounced.

Ozzy just invites himself in, and into staying, without Gary having much say in the matter. Gary lets it slide though, since the kid has nowhere to go, and Gary feels like a bit of a pushover.

With his taste in music, Ozzy would probably get along well with Erin from Call Girl of Cthulhu, if you wanna sympathise with Gary a bit.

The sun comes up the next day, with Ozzy clutching his comfort skull, and Gary watching the tv, as a Geraldo wannabe comes on the screen.

Calling him Gerald Rivers isn’t even really trying.

GeraldNo asks his panel of guests about the strange cases of adults dying in their sleep going around might be, and they all have their opinions. Ultimately, this stuff is little more than filler, barely exposition, and is really there for nothing more than the filmmakler's amusement, if I had to guess.

Following that, Gary heads out for a leisurely stroll in this rather slow paced movie, and stops at the local diner to visit his girlfriend, Maris.

After she finishes up, the couple walks home, and get into a fight. Maris has agreed to do the heavy lifting in the relationship, so Gary could focus on his writing career, but she's getting fed up with his lack of progress.

Maris runs into one of the neighbours on her way home, and Mrs. Martinak imparts some important exposition for the audience; bad dreams are a way to fight off the devil. They wake you up when he's near to protect you, and you throw on a light, because "the devil can't stand the light!"

Gary, on the other hand, runs into Zachariah and his family having a barbecue, while Zach has 'Nam flashbacks. He has his own sort of exposition, ranting in a very crazed manner about a monstrous entity he and his friends encountered during the war that they called the Sandman.

Next, Gary stops at his friend Bud's place to whine about his problems, while he's doing a photoshoot with a bimbo bunny wannabe, hoping his photos will get her into Playboy.

Gary finally heads home, and finds Ozzy huddled around the tv with an adult film, and a bunch of his friends over to watch with him.

We are 30 minutes into this movie, and not much has really happened yet, aside from a lot of characters wandering around, whining, and moping, and complaining.

When you order your Playboy Bunny from Wish dot com.

Gary tries to get back to writing, surprisingly not being bothered by Ozzy, which feels like a missed opportunity. If Ozzy is supposed to be there as a nuisance, as a monkey wrench in Gary's life, not having him bothering Gary while writing is a major oversight. There’s a scene later where he gets bothered at Ozzy in general, for just being there, but that’s about it.

The movie must have heard me, because a pair of glowing red eyes appear outside Gary's window, and he chases after the shadowy figure again.

And while we still don't get to see something happen, Gary does come across the body of a dead dog, which is better than nothing at this point.

The next night, Gary is getting annoyed by another night of Ozzy and friends, so heads out to go and try and talk to Maris.

But finaly, 37 minutes in, and the Sandman finally really wanders into his own movie. He's standing over Mrs. Martinak, while giving her good dreams, so he can suck off her brain, before slicing her neck.

Having had a light snack, the creature then sets his sights on Maris in the next trailer, giving her a good dream to keep her sedating while he tries to feed.

Gary shows up, gets the spare key out from under a mat, and lets himself into Maris's place. And uh, dude? Just because you know where the key is, doesn't make it cool to just...enter your ex's place at three in the morning.

He interrupts the creature as he is trying to feed on Marsi, and uh...

Oh uh, I see you’re busy, I’ll come back later, and knock first…

The interruption causes Maris's dream to shift, she wakes up, and Gary turns on a light, making the creature disappear. Hmm, sounds familiar!

Gary tries to explain to his ex why he is lurking in her bedroom in the dark, but she doesn't believe him. And rightly so.

We go back to watching the tv, and one of Gerald Rivers' guests is revealed to have died between shows, and if stuff like this is hitting such a level, and is so frequent, I feel like the fact only one doofus in Nowhere Ohio being the only one to notice, a bit far fetched.

Gary tries to prove he's not going crazy, trying to find the creature, and enlists Bud to help him in his search. The pair break into Martinak's place, to do an investigation of their own.

While Bud keeps watch, the Sandman does show up, and starts to send Gary into the Dreamscape, but Bud checks in and sends the creature away by shining his light on the thing. Yeah, when someone puts a flashlight in my face, I try to scream and run away too.

To try and get more answers, Gary visits Zach again, and we take a trip to Expositio-Nam, while he tells about his own encounter with the creature, and keeping his mouth shut so he wouldn't be locked up.

Gary heads home, yells at Ozzy finally, and manages to get some sleep, where he dreams of Maris forgiving him. At least, until she turns into a red eyed demon and he wakes up from the nightmare.

He calls up Bud at two in the morning, insisting they have to find it, now, hunt it down! And...why? How? I feel like this is more "this is what the plot requires at this point" than an actual motivation here.

Bud has no time for this, hangs up on his friend, and goes back to sleep...which is not his best idea.

He has a dream about having sex with one of his models, but comes to to find the Sandman in a similar position over his body. The creature pushes Bud down and finishes him off.

The next day, Gary snaps awake from his power nap, just in time to see Bud's body being wheeled away, but not before the corpse sits up, digs around in the head wound, so he can give Gary a piece of his mind.

Gary is doing everything he can to stay awake, or at least, I presume he is, since that's the plot. We don't really see him try too much other than slapping his face, tell himself, no sleep, no sleep 'til Sandman's gone!

Maris calls to tell Gary she can't stay awake much longer, and he rushes out into the night armed with his bat of righteous vengeance. He peeks in every nearby window, and declares, "they're dead, they're all dead!" Based on WHAT? Do you even know what sleep LOOKS LIKE you terminal insomniac??

Oy, I need this like I need another hole in the head.

He rushes over to Zach's, and nearly gets his head shot off by the paranoid PTSD sufferer. Gary tries to convince Zach to join the fight, but he's too damaged, too scared, for too long, and he has a family now. BUT! He does have lots of guns he can supply Gary with!

Gary asks where Zachariah got all these weapons, if he was just a mess cook, to which the vet replies, "I was one HELL of a cook!" WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!

He finally arrives at his ex's house, but can't wake her up. So he curls up in a corner to wait for the Sandman to show up. And he doesn't have to wait long.

The Sandman thinks Gary is asleep, but he was just faking. He manages to get off a few shots before the magic sickle destroys the gun.

You fool, you brought a bat to a sickle fight.

Being a supernatural creature, the Sandman has the advantage, until Zachariah shows up, and joins the fight. Unfortunately, the monster just makes the former soldier start melting into the Mindscape.

Zachariah saves himself with his flashlight, but then gets magically blasted. He gets in a shot or two though, and Sandman's sand goes everywhere, pafffing Gary in the face.

While in the dream realm, Gary runs into Mrs. Martinak and the rest of the souls the creature has captured. He figures out what he needs to do, and starts making his way back to the really real world.

Gary blasts the Sandman with his own sand, sending him to the Mindscape, where all the trapped souls have their revenge and tear the creature apart.

Among the myriad races of beings who roam this plane are the Sleepwalkers, of which I am but one.

Zachariah wakes up, but Gary doesn't. He appears to have died in the scuffle, and everyone is sad...until he wakes up in the ambulance like nothing happened. Because reasons!

As he and Maris are driven off in the ambulance, they see little red eyes light up in windows across the trailer park, and they know their fight is far from over.

...Or it is, because this is the end of the movie, and nothing more ever came of it.

When the dream dreams the dreamer, the dream’s the real.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s pretty rough. The DVD calls this “remastered” and ouch, it is a rough watch. Not the worst thing I’ve seen, but expectations were not met. Especially when it’s in the dark so often, stuff is just hard to see.

Audio: This was fine.

Sound Bite: “I’ll be out in the kitchen swinging from a noose if you need me, okay??"

Body Count: For the number of characters in this, this is a shockingly low list.

1 - 30 minutes in and we at least get a dead dog.

2 - Mrs. Martinak gets scythed by the Sandman

3 - One of the Gerald Rivers' guests dies off camera.

4 - Bud is the Sandman's next victim

5 - The Sandman meets his end.

6 - And he takes Gary with him…for about two minutes.

Best Corpse: No real winners this time. This movie plays things very safe, and most deaths are quicly slashed necks that never show anything.

Blood Type - F+: In that same vein, there’s very little to no blood. The only points I give is for the Sandman, which at least cuts a mean silhouette.

Sex Appeal: I don’t think there was anything of note.

Drink Up! Every time Zachariah tells a ‘Nam story.

Movie Review: I’ve done a few of J.R. Bookwalter’s movies now, both for Trisk and the Blood Stream, and this one might just be my least favourite. It doesn’t have the mad ideas and genuine shocks of a Robot Ninja, or the ridiculously entertaining fun of Polymorph. It does have a good idea, and is generally well constructed, but it feels like it’s lacking focus. It’s too slow in the start, taking too long to really get going, and it feels like so many missed opportunities. They have a lot of characters milling around that could be developed, and used as victims. Ozzy is there for no reason. The whole stuff on the tv is just there as filler and a bit of exposition. At least one of them dies, but it’s off camera! And at least with this DVD, everything being SO dark, really hurts it. I love the ideas, the acting is solid enough for these kinds of flicks, but it just never finds it’s voice. Two out of five sickles.

Entertainment Value: There is fun here. The characters are quirky, if pointless. The humour isn’t bad, and there are some creative moments, including this one sequence of Gary clawing his way back from the Mindscape through a gooey placenta like veil. It definitely falls more into the fun you can have but not great sort of movie. But when there’s just a lot of wandering around, the film never quite sparks. Three out of five bimbo bunnies.