‘Sleep’ (2024) Review – Chilling Directorial Debut Is The Stuff of Nightmares

“Together, we can overcome anything” is the mantra that hangs over the apartment of struggling actor, Hyun-su (Parasite’s Lee Sun-kyun) and expectant mother, Soo-Jin (Train to Busan’s Jung Yu-mi). The two are newlyweds and are expecting their first child together. Their life isn’t quite idyllic, but comfortable. Until their new downstairs neighbor informs them of the noise she’s been hearing from their apartment the past week. Both are unaware until Hyun-su sits up one night in his sleep and mutters the words, ‘Someone’s inside.’ This phrase leads us to a supernatural and psychological thriller of startling proportions. Debut writer & director Jason Yu takes us on a journey that makes horror out of what should be the most peaceful time of our days.

Sleep makes us ask some very fundamental and terrifying questions like what if the person you’re sleeping next to at night isn’t the same person you know? Is it just a medical disorder or something far more nefarious? The film wrestles with this tug-of-war between science and the supernatural that makes audiences feel as conflicted and confused as Soo-Jin. What also makes the film stand out is that it is a testament to love. Soo-Jin fights desperately to save her husband, her child, and her sanity. The film is an emotional roller coaster that has you questioning who and what to believe, right up until its final moments.

Most people know of the dangers of sleepwalking and night terrors, but this film tackles what it does to one’s partner. The restlessness, the hallucinations, the panic and anxiety of not being able to rest consistently. It’s this paranoia that Jung Yu-mi captures perfectly in her performance that will have audiences on the edge of their seat, sweating. The film, in this sense, is not your traditional horror, although it borrows many of the classic tropes. We spend the majority of the film inside the couple’s apartment, keeping the film feeling increasingly more claustrophobic as it goes on. The score by Jang Hyeuk-jin and Jang Yong-jin slowly rises and falls building the tension in every scene and Shin Yoo-jin’s production design creates an atmosphere of hopelessness that gets darker and darker as the film progresses. There’s even the trope of our main character doing something reckless that makes all horror viewers roll their eyes.

When Soo-Jin’s mother (Lee Kyung-jin) learns of Hyun-su’s disorder, she immediately believes it to be a supernatural imbalance, which leads us to a tension-filled scene with a shaman (an excellent Kim Keun-soon) filling us in on the conflict occurring in some mesmerizing close-up shots that mounts the mystery and confusion even further. Jung Yu-mi and Lee Sun-kyun are phenomenal as the leads. The two have played as a couple before and their natural chemistry together is on full display. When they fight, it feels earned. When they show affection, it feels genuine. That is the unique aspect of Jason Yu’s film. We’re not just witnessing a supernatural mystery, we’re also seeing how hard a couple must fight to stay together, even among the most uncertain odds there could possibly be. For that to work, you need two actors who can be effortless in their devotion to one another, which Yu-mi and Sun-kyun nail perfectly. 

Jason Yu has crafted a fine film of paranoia, horror, and fear out of the one thing that’s supposed to be our respite from all of that. What will we do when the things that go bump in the night turns out to be us? What if there’s no one there who loves us as much to deal with it? And how will we fight the demons that possess us when we don’t even know what they want? Jason Yu gives us a lot to think about in this film, so how the heck are we supposed to go back to bed after that?

Sleep will debut in select theaters and on Digital platforms on September 27, 2024, courtesy of Magnet Releasing.