The function of sleep, one of the things that we all have in common, has been mined for horror since horror has existed. Whether it’s school janitors invading our nightmares or body snatchers taking over our corporeal form, the one place one would expect to be relaxed, safe, and comfortable has been ripe with danger in horror films. In Jason Yu’s Sleep, the very act of sleep transforms those who succumb to it into ruthless automatons, sleep-rampaging through the waking world.
Happy soon-to-be parents Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) and Soo-Jin (Jung Yu-mi) have a comfortable life, both on the verge of success and the next phase of their lives. Soo-Jin works in the corporate world, which is neatly encapsulated by showing her giving PowerPoint presentations. Incidentally, this may be the first horror film to use PowerPoint, late in the third act, to unravel something insidious. It’s oddly satisfying for those of us who stare at slides every day. Hyun-su pursues an acting career with some success, largely due to his wife’s unwavering support. After a series of strange middle-of-the-night mutterings from Hyun-su escalate into wandering around the apartment, eating raw meat out of the refrigerator, to self-harm, and worse, both he and Soo-Jin begin to fear for their unborn child. Soo-jin feels compelled to find the source of her husband’s behaviour, while tumbling down a rabbit hole.
There’s a considerable mystery at play in Sleep, along with classic scares that happen on a predictable schedule (at night) that keep the story hurtling towards an inevitable but unpredictable climax. The POVs we’re given aren’t always reliable, and there’s misdirection in many forms, like a half-remembered fever dream, peppered throughout. Sleep takes the form of a delicious mystery above all else, one that worms its way into your mind like, well, a parasite.
I think what works best about Sleep, like so many great horrors and films in general, is that Hyun-su and Soo-Jin are so darn likeable. You’re rooting for them to make it, not to get pulled under by the sleep disorder and the darkness that comes with it. This relationship feels like something that so many films (especially horrors) try, and too-often fail at cultivating. That’s certainly in the writing, but owes at least as much to the chemistry between Jung Yu-mi and Lee Sun-kyun, who put forth performances here that are easily within the conversation with their work in Parasite and Train To Busan, respectively.
For a first feature, there’s a confidence to Jason Yu’s direction that you rarely see this early in a filmmaker’s career. You can clearly see that he’s spent some time under the learning tree of his filmmaking mentor, Bong Joon-ho, who has passed on his unique ability to blend dark humour into the darkest kinds of horror. Both filmmakers do it with character-forward scripts, and let the scares come organically from there. As in Bong’s films like The Host and Parasite, considerable time is spent setting up the leads in Sleep in order to tear them down later, and though the film could be tagged with the much-maligned ‘slow burn’ label, it’s for Sleep’s benefit in the end when things really come to a head.
There are many mysteries to unravel in Sleep, all of them satisfying once revealed, and I think once it becomes available widely, it will incentivize multiple viewings. Title aside, you’d be doing yourself a disservice to sleep on this one, or any of Jason Yu’s future projects.
Jason Yu’s Sleep premiered at the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival from Magnet Releasing.
