Sleepwalkers

Sleepwalkers ★★★½

Solid mid-budget US horror from the time when digital morphing FX were all the rage. Which means that, had I seen this at the time (and this is probably the reason I didn't), I'd have been fuming that it only takes a second or two for a human to transform into a monster, instead of it filling several gruesome minutes of screen time. But I'm more forgiving of that now, especially when the movie is as entertaining as this. It's about a beautiful mother and her teenage son Charles, new arrivals in a rural town, who are not only secretly incestuous, but the titular supernatural creatures. It's never explained exactly what "sleepwalkers" are, but their feline facial features (when not in human form) suggests were-cats, yet they're either terrified of or allergic to regular domestic cats. Also, they can make themselves and their cars disappear, but they're less good at ensuring that mirrors don't reveal their true nature. They're very flawed, in short. The movie's tone is similarly strange, generally serious but deploying humour to stop things getting too dark, which means that a scene in which Charles attacks his girlfriend in the woods - with all its undertones of date rape - comes across as oddly jaunty. Some good gore and a nice lightness of touch complete the agreeable package.

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