Before I Wake (2016)

Well.... After the trailer that happened sometime last year I have been looking forward to this one as it looked awesome! The verdict? Dude seriously! Horror films should NOT have a happy ending or try to carry some sort of message - they should be pure gore and scare. Full stop.

So the concept. Amazing. Kate Bosworth and (back with a vengeance at the moment for some reason) Thomas Jane are a couple that lost their child (another common theme with horror at the moment) and adopt a young boy, Cody.

Cody is obviously an oddball - he never sleeps. When he does he dreams and the dreams come true - like really true at the time when he's dreaming them. We have a bunch of fairy-light butterflies flapping about and that sort of stuff. It's sweet.

However his nightmares come true as well. Including his personal demon "The Kanker Man" who...is scary as hell and eats people. After a few nightmares The Kanker Man actually eats the locals..nom nom nom.

With the couple missing their son, they realise that if they get Cody to dream about him, he returns for a brief period. This little trick by the way, has been tried and tested with Cody's previous foster parents. But when they get the nice, they get the nasty - including, you guessed it - The Kanker Man.

So this is the premise. It's great and we have some awesome creepy bits. As Cody can only dream up what he's seen and as he's quite young there are some awesome bits such as a dead wife from his imagination, with a spooky fixed-smile doll face. A woman gouging eyes out of a child etc.

However - the plot goes into the area of......lame!

There's a reason for The Kanker Man, there's a reason for everything, and when we get to the end and it tries to go into happy-ending mode, turn off. This ruins the whole movie, last 20mins should literally be fed to The Kanker Man.

Great concept, ruined by the Hollywood style ending.

6/10 Masks.