Psycho's Movie Reviews #303: The Curse Of Sleeping Beauty (2016)

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty is a 2016 American fantasy horror film directed by Pearry Reginald Teo and written by Teo alongside Josh Nadler. The film stars Ethan Peck, India Eisley and Natalie Hall. It is based on a comic book of the same name by Everette Hartsoe and the story Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault.

Filming took place in Los Angeles, California. The film was released by 2B Films on May 13, 2016.

Plot

Thomas Kaiser, a painter, has recurring dreams in which he sees a beautiful sleeping girl (India Eisley), but is unable to wake her. When he attempts to kiss her, he is always distracted by a vision of a strange building and wakes in sleep paralysis. One day, he receives a phone call from a law firm informing him of an inheritance from his estranged uncle, Clive.

Thomas is informed his uncle committed suicide, leaving him a letter and a property known as Kaiser Gardens. The letter tells him to never go to the lower levels of the building and that the family is cursed. Thomas is startled to find out the inherited property is the very same building from his dreams. While at Kaiser Gardens, Thomas runs into a realtor Linda (Natalie Hall) who gives him the keys and asks him a series of questions. That night while sleeping at the property he dreams of the sleeping girl and this time is able to kiss and awaken her. She tells him her name is Briar Rose and that they can communicate now that they are close in the physical world. He has a false awakening to an attack from the Veiled Demon. He wakes up from the nightmare to Billings (Scott Alan Smith) an appraiser knocking on the front door. The appraiser tells him many people went missing in the house, but the police found nothing. Thomas explores the house and finds mannequins and an unmovable door shrine.

Later, while researching the property, Thomas collapses. He discovers a note from Linda regarding a prior appraisal attempt. He confronts her and she informs him her brother went missing in the house. Thomas collapses again and dreams of Rose. She tells him he must awaken her and the property belongs to his bloodline. Thomas awakens, Linda informs him that based on her research he is now bound to the property supernaturally and will die if he leaves Kaiser Gardens too long. They return to the property and open the shrine door and, using Thomas' blood, revealing a room. They open a book with seals and are attacked by the mannequins in the house. They escape the house with the book and are rescued by Richard Meyers (Bruce Davison), a paranormal investigator, who is friends with Linda.

Richard tells Thomas they were attacked by a djinn and that the djinn can possess inanimate objects. Thomas believes he must wake Rose in order to break the curse. They hired Daniel (James Adam Lim), an acquaintance of Linda to decipher the book found in Kaiser Gardens. Billings returns to the property and is killed by the Veiled Demon. They discover that the family curse dates back to the Crusades and a djinn put Rose in an eternal sleep. The group deduces that Iblis wants her and they must kill the Veiled Demon and awaken Rose.

Thomas, Linda and Richard return to Kaiser Gardens and open a second door behind the shrine room. Linda and Richard distract the Veiled Demon while Thomas finds and attempts to wake Rose. Unable to wake Rose with a kiss, Thomas uses his blood. Rose awakens then kisses and attacks Thomas. Rose kills the Veiled Demon, but before doing so, it tells them that Thomas' bloodline 'stores' many demons, which Rose will summon to unleash upon the world. Rose states she will not kill them so they can see the darkness to come and begins to awaken the demons in Thomas' bloodline. Meanwhile, after the full text from the book is deciphered Daniel reads the curse that awakening the demons in Thomas' bloodline will trigger the Apocalypse.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film was released on May 13, 2016 (Friday the 13th) in the United States.

The film has been received mostly negative reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 15% based on 13 reviews and an average rating of 3.9/10. The film holds a 4.2/10 on iMDb. Luke Thompson of Forbes panned the film stating it "fractures more than a fairy tale". Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film as a "cheesy horror film enough to put anyone to sleep".

Box Office $34,453

My Review

A barefoot man walks the wasteland, looking lost and vulnerable. He eventually comes across a tent, elaborate statues outside of it. Upon entering the tent he sees a sleeping woman (Eisley). Naturally said man tries to kiss this sleeping beauty and as he is about to do so starts to suffer from some kind of convulsions and fits. He then immediately wakes up in his apartment.

Thomas (Peck) is an artist that spends far too much time indoors after the death of his partner. A friend comes round daily to check up on him and bring groceries. Whilst seeing his psychiatrist, we find out that these dreams are recurring and she thinks there are specific reasons for them and that he needs to move on with his life, a sentiment shared by his friend. Shortly afterwards, Thomas is informed that his uncle (who he has never spoke to) has died and left him his property, a very creepy old house with secrets yet to be discovered.

Now while I really enjoyed this film I'm struggling to put my finger on what exactly is wrong with it. Teo is obviously a talented director and one would imagine being from Singapore, that it is rather difficult to get noticed or taken seriously by the Hollywood elite. Thus as a director, his films seem to suffer from low budgets and I also think that trying to do the writing as well is hindering him. Hopefully his newer productions where he just directs will fare somewhat better. I'll certainly be checking them out at some point.

Anyway, based on the comic of the same name by Everette Hartsoe, which was loosely based up on the short story Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm, The Curse of Sleeping Beauty is a stylish and atmospheric tale. At times the atmosphere is good with good build ups. Story starts off well but at other times it is very cliched. The audio is reasonable for this kind of production and the music is fantastic, with many medieval type scores littered throughout.

The sets and locations are also fantastic, especially the washed out dream sequences which have a haunting quality all of their own, in stark contrast to the rest of the film. Cinematography is also better than one would expect, yet some of the quick cuts let an otherwise good production down. I would say that the script if anything lets the film down the most with some of it not being the best stuff you will have ever heard. Overall I thought this was a pretty good film that I had no prior knowledge of nor expectations. Sometimes going into a film blind can be a good thing.

My major gripe would be with the middle of the film and the ending (which is very sudden and open ended). I'm not sure what Teo was after here, either an open-ended, decide for yourself angle or possibly wanting a sequel at some point. The only problem here is that neither really work well withing the framework of the movie. Half way through, the film almost starts to become a different beast to what has come before (which is fantastic) and ends as something completely different. If the intention was a decide for yourself scenario, it feels much too rushed.

If the ending was supposed to be a set finale intending a sequel, then any sequel (given how this one ends) would end up being a completely different film in both style and story and I feel this just would not work either. Regardless, I like weird films and films that are a bit different to the Hollywood norm and this did strike a chord with me. I found it an enjoyable watch even if it is a little weak in places with questionable acting at times. 7.2/10