I found this for me unknown flick at a sell-out of a rental shop. Somehow it attracted me and let me say this, I didn't regret it. The main lead and for most part in visual is Jeff Daniels. He already had a lot of movies but none of them was made for me. It was with a bit of fear that I plugged it in just to see an average thriller or maybe a horror. Let me tell you it's not average. It's a superb performance by Daniels. Chasing Sleep was also the work of Michael Walker writer and director. And being his first full feature well he's someone to look forward to. But 10 years later he's still hasn't made another flick, well, one in post-production...The movie isn't really made for everybody. It's a slow story but every minute works. You can guess what's going on but again, slowly the story evolves. And the camera work is also slowly, wide-angle slowly zooming in. Some parts did remind me of David Lynch. The weirdness of the story. Every actor is so believable. The fragility of Sadie (Emily Bergl). I really enjoyed it from the first second until the end credits. You are really into it from the beginning. I wasn't 'chasing sleep' while watching it.

To say it straight away: I am German and try hard to comment on films here, that I like most. So forgive any mistakes please.... this film will give you no slaughter and bloody horror feeling, but something to think about and interpret, mostly shown in metaphoric scenes. The tension builts up and there will be some turn-arounds in your mind while you will try to understand what has happened. So....the story starts with a college professor whose wife has nor returned from work. It is already late at night and he starts to worry and make some calls to find her. He has got no sleep for a long time and his taking pills to get some sleep makes him loose some time periods. He is trying hard to be master of the situation, but sometimes it seems to slip away in dream periods and how could we foresee: just when he needes it not the hell of a lot then a lot of courious things will happen. Like a female student adoring him and trying hard to come near to him. The whole story takes place in the professor's house, watching the growing chaos. Police, friends of his wife, her lover, his affectionate student and so on...all of them ring the doorbell or call on the phone while he is doddering around in his house, trying to ....yes what...is he the commiter or the victim? To conclude: all who won't get a hint STOP here reading!!!!!! ...... but to me all the film remembered me of Edgar Allan Poe's: The Tell-Tale Heart.....

Wouldn't this be a better world if today's talented thriller-makers knew how to end their films as well as they know how to start them and keep them going? Most of the time you'll be thinking "where has this movie been hiding all these years?", but at the end you'll almost be sorry that you invested the time to watch it in the first place. There is an undeniable mastery in the way Walker directs: first he grounds the film in reality, then he allows it to go on bizarre trips into the surreal, and all the time he moves the camera gracefully through the limited sets. Then comes the "say what?", non-explanatory ending, and it all goes to pieces. (**1/2)

IMHO, I think a lot of people have missed the point to this movie. What it's really about is how much trouble you can get in if you don't take care of your plumbing properly. Remember that Eve comments in her diary that Ed has been acting strangely for quite a while - this is clearly due to the unbearable burden of his plumbing problems which he is not able to handle, and which eventually drive him crazy. The murder of his wife, her unborn child, all the hallucinations, and finally the attempted suicide with all those pills - all because he didn't consult a licensed plumber in time. And on one level, of course, Ed knows this, and it is his tremendous guilt at not taking proper care of his pipes that drives him over the edge. He even anthropomorphizes his plumbing, resulting in all that blood pouring out of everywhere. (This analysis may even give one reason to reevaluate what's really happening in "The Shining".) Never have I seen a movie that so effectively drives home the importance of good plumbing maintenance.This movie should be a warning to us all.