In The Nightmare, director Rodney Ascher (Room 237) has done just that. The film explores the condition commonly referred to as “sleep paralysis.” That’s a condition where someone is in bed, but totally physically immobilized. Some who suffer from the condition – including the eight subjects in this documentary – feel they are visited by something evil during these periods. Ascher lets these subjects tell their stories, then we watch them play out on screen. It’s absolutely horrifying, if not wholly rewarding.
When a mysterious virus created by a Japanese doctor in Tokyo escapes containment, the world spirals into chaos. A medical anomaly quickly mutates into a global phenomenon-manifesting in eerie, unpredictable forms across two continents.
