Written by Elisa Victoria and Michael Tully
Directed by Colin Tilley

Follows the story of Anna who grieves the death of her parents as she moves from New York to Florida to stay with her grandmother. She falls in with some other teens, but when she sees a grisly act of violence, she finds herself trapped. (IMDB)

Night Terror/Eye for an Eye opens with a bright and peppy cheerleading number that could be straight out of one of Tilley’s music videos.

However, all is not entirely cheery.

The scene effortlessly lulls the audience with a sense of cheeky fun, before plunging the viewer into horror as lead cheerleader, May (S. Epatha Makerson) meets with an unpleasant accident and wakes from her dream with considerably fewer eyes than when she went to sleep.

But hey, at least who (or whatever) took them was kind enough to sew up the sockets afterwards!

Fast forward to the present day and May, now elderly and living on her own, welcomes her granddaughter, Anna (Whitney Peak) into her home, following the deaths of Anna’s parents in a tragic car accident. Displaced and discombobulated (maybe an understatement, but it is a great word) Anna explores her new home and stumbles across Julie (Laken Giles) and Shawn (Finn Bennett), teenagers equally adrift in this backwater bayou. From the off, Shawn comes across as a wrong ‘un, but Anna’s options are limited, and she soon finds herself spending time drinking and smoking weed with her new friends.

Eventually, Shawn takes his “bad boy” schtick one step too far, taunting a local kid, Conner (Carson Minniear) so hard he ends up roller-skating over the side of a bridge, breaking his arm. Taking Conner to hospital, Julie and Shawn skedaddle after threatening the kid to keep silent, while Julie tries to do the right thing and help him inside.

Conner does keep quiet, but his anger boils over and, after hearing of local legend “The Sandman,” he carves the three teenagers’ names into a mysterious tree in the woodlands near Anna’s new home. According to the legend, this ritual will summon The Sandman to wreak revenge on those named, unless they can prove they have redeemed themselves. Redemption is definitely something to strive towards as, for reasons that become apparent later, The Sandman has a thing about eyes; especially other peoples’ eyes. He is very likely the entity, ghost, goblin, or ghoul that took May’s eyes 50 years before. Can Anna, Julie and Shawn break the curse before time runs out and he claims their eyes?

Night Terror is a solid folk horror set in the bayou, which follows an appropriately laid-back approach to unravelling its story. Anna’s new home looks like the sort of place where you probably need to shower three times a day; hot and humid and no one is going to want to do anything quickly. Maybe the heat and humidity are what make Shawn such a dick, or perhaps he always was but, either way, he is the catalyst for The Sandman’s return and the start of the horror that unfolds as death comes to the bayou.

As the name of the movie might suggest, when dealing with The Sandman, falling asleep is not a good idea and Night Terror plays around with the audience’s perception of what is real and what is a dream throughout. It’s not difficult to follow, but there are some moments when you might not be sure and, as the film progresses and The Sandman gets into his stride, Anna finds herself drifting in and out of reality, taking the viewer on a journey where we might not necessarily be sure where we are. The dream sequences themselves are creepy and weird and use Anna’s trauma against her. That could be seen as cliche, but they are all pretty good and it’s not everyday you see a swimming pool full of floating eyeballs!

There are clear influences from some great movies in here. A Nightmare on Elm Street is the obvious one with the reliance on dreams as a weapon and, as the film progresses, the motif is used well, even if it could be claimed to be a little derivative. There are elements of films like Pumpkinhead, or Sleepy Hollow, even Jeepers Creepers with the emphasis on the eyeballs. I would even hazard a guess that the team are fans of Paranorman. (I mean, who isn’t a fan of Paranorman?)

Night Terror knows its influences and wears them well.

While it might not reach the heady heights of a classic like Nightmare, Night Terror does a decent job of standing on its own two feet. It’s possible to celebrate similarities as well as criticise them and Night Terror never feels like the filmmakers are clutching at coattails, rather they are paying respectful homage to the pioneers who have gone before (if you discount a certain director).

The cast are all decent, particularly Peak who does a fantastic job as Anna. Bennett is also great as Shawn, if a little too good, signposting the fact he is clearly unhinged almost as soon as you see him onscreen, so much so that you don’t necessarily feel sorry for him being stalked by an eye-stealing demon. Gile’s portrayal of Julie presents her as a bit of an airhead, but she has a heart, and you get a real sense she feels trapped by Shawn while Anna provides a possible way out for her. Whether she makes it or not remains to be seen.

Merkerson plays May as slightly batty and a little creepy, which is to be expected considering her past, but not just in relation to The Sandman. Patti (Golda Rosheuval) her sister seems suspicious and wary of May, hinting at other issues from their childhood; there is little love lost here. How all this history pans out is for the movie to tell you and, while it’s not always 100% clear, Night Terror’s script does a pretty good job of feeding you enough information without becoming deliberately confusing. There are some things that could have done with a bit more clarity, but nothing that should ruin your enjoyment of the movie and may well have just been me having an off day.

As a horror, the film plays to its strengths, focusing on the creepiness of the dreams but I wouldn’t consider this to be a particularly scary film. It does have its moments, and a couple of decent jump scares, but Night Terror is more about the creeping dread and growing threat of the Sandman. I didn’t feel Night Terror quite pulled this off; that creeping dread never quite hitting the heights it could have done.

There is a pretty low body count in Night Terror which does mean a slight lack of tension to the film, and it could have worked better if there had been a bit more of a build up to the Sandman coming and doing his business. Going back to A Nightmare on Elm Street, that film builds the tension for the kids and the audience by introducing Freddie into their dreams and allowing them to slowly work out what is going on. Anna seems to make the connections in Night Terror quite quickly and we go from, “I had a bad dream” to, “The Sandman took my eyes!” perhaps a little too quickly?

However, that is a small complaint and there is some additional complexity added to the story through May and Patti’s relationship. The Sandman isn’t the only danger in this movie; old wounds and personal demons are just as dangerous, and we see this as May’s behaviour becomes increasingly strange once she realises the thing that took her eyes might be coming back for more.

Of course, when you’re plucking eyes from heads, you are going to get some gore, but it isn’t excessive and the effects are decent enough for the most part, especially when practical. I think I did see some CGI blood early on, but it was a fleeting glimpse and didn’t detract too much.

What I did really like was the back story about The Sandman and this is where I think the influence from Paranorman might have come into play? I felt it was presented well and the animated elements added to the sad tale of The Sandman’s origins. When you think about it, the back story is crazy, but I loved it, and it gives a suitable nutty reason for The Sandman’s preoccupation with eyeballs! If I had one more criticism of the movie, I might bemoan the small amount of screentime a fun character like this gets. I appreciate I said we needed to capitalise on the tension of the potential arrival of the Sandman, but we also want to see him let rip when he does arrive! But, hey, perhaps we can see more in a sequel that leans into the legend a bit more?

The ending of the movie may feel a little rushed and slightly flat for some. It felt a little convenient, but the end result is probably what most of the audience were hoping for and, while I was expecting a stinger to play with the audience’s perception of what was real or not, I was generally happy with the outcome. You have to be very careful with films like this not to end with a “it was all a dream” coda as that can be very easy to get wrong and can leave your audience feeling cheated, so I think Night Terror goes in the right direction. Most of the story threads are closed but some perhaps lack ‘closure;’ I have to say, someone is going to have an awful lot of explaining to do to the police.

Night Terror is a solid, if not 100% original movie. However, I didn’t feel it was a lazy copy, but a respectful homage with an intriguing bogeyman, who just didn’t quite get enough screentime for me.

For me….

You know the drill by now, Your Mileage May Vary!

But I have no issue at all recommending a stream of Night Terror which, at time of writing, is sitting with a pretty health 6.6 on IMDB which is very respectable for a lower budget horror.

Night Terror, a.k.a. Eye for an Eye is available to stream from 14th July from Signature Entertainment.