Review: DREAM CREEP
By John Spencer Post
If you’ve ever drifted into that shadowy space between wakefulness and sleep, where the
familiar world around you suddenly feels unfamiliar, then you probably know that any sudden
noise or shadow on the wall can deepen the experience into a living nightmare. Most times we
wake up and realize that the fear we’re experiencing isn’t real, and our mind is playing tricks on
us. But in Carlos A.F. Lopez’s DREAM CREEP, the nightmare is real.
David (Ian Edlund) discovers that his wife, Suzy’s (Sidney Jayne Hunt) panicked voice that
stirred him awake is coming from her earhole while she is also seemingly asleep. David is at
first bewildered by Suzy’s new talent to speak through her ear, but things turn grave when Suzy
tells David that if she wakes up, she will die. From then on David begins to take orders from
Suzy’s voice, and this when the nightmare truly begins.
Set entirely within David and Suzy’s bedroom, DREAM CREEP unfolds in an intimately familiar
space that is suddenly interrupted by something uncanny and terrifying, which is a formula for
horror films we all know and love. By constantly keeping us guessing as to whether or not
David should be listening to Suzy’s voice, Lopez creates an air of suspense, leaving us in
unease through most of the picture’s runtime. Ian Edlund injects a very distraught desperation
as David that we instantly empathize with, but it’s Sidney Jayne’s Hunt’s performance as Suzy
that ultimately rewards us, as Lopez throws us into a chaotic, bludgeoning finale that will leave
audiences disturbed and delighted.
Great horror films constantly keep you guessing. They make us question the characters’ reality
before confronting the uncanny. But the best horror films are the ones that push us headfirst
into the reality after teasing us with just the right amount of suspense, usually in spaces that we
consider mundane. DREAM CREEP accomplishes this with aplomb, as Carlos A.F. Lopez has
created an effective and disturbing fright flick that will leave audiences gleeful and grossed out,
one whose premise certainly earns its description as…eerie.
