this is a documentary about sleep paralysis, not an educational film on the medical science and history of the phenomenon, but a series of narratives by people who have experienced it firsthand and their interpretations of their experiences the documentary is intended to scare, with an accompaniment to the interviews and short re-enactments of primarily minimalist, suspenseful synth and droning/pulsating percussive noise by composer Jonathan Snipes. the interviewees are all fairly articulate, the film is well-edited and the monster/(dream) entity designs and costumes for the re-enactments are artfully haunting the film is very effective at what it sets out to do, namely exploring a phenomena people throughout the world, including the director, have experienced and its effects on their beliefs and personalities it inspires a large enough fraction of the fear and contemplation in the viewer that the phenomena itself must inspire in those who experience it firsthand to make it well worth watching and recommending

I didn't even realize this was supposed to be a documentary until like 15 minutes into it. I thought it was your average B-/C category movie to entertain me for a moment. Sleep paralysis is scary and creepy, but not once during the time I actually managed to watch this, was it correctly explained. There is a scientific explanation for sleep paralysis and all the creepy aspects of it. Granted, I didn't last very long into the movie,but those explanations were never once approached. I didn't last even 20 minutes into this "documentary" and I am very forgiving when it comes to entertainment. This is only getting 2 stars because the cinematography was actually quite all right.

Sleep paralysis is not fun for those suffering from it. So was it time to do a documentary about it, to raise awareness for it? Maybe - or maybe not, especially considering that there is no real solution at hand. But maybe just the fact that the people who suffer had a chance to talk about this publicly helped them or their families a little bit (though don't get it twisted, cure is not in sight).This is no documentary as you come to know them. There is a lot of things that are being visualized, for the viewers benefit. So they can "feel" what the interviewees are going through. That kind of works, but also may set a horror frame, that some people were not expecting to get. So while this is not declared a horror movie, it may be seen as such by some. Be aware of that ... also this references a couple of movies, some handling sleep paralysis (even in small dialog like in the Original Nightmare on Elm Street). Still while all is sort of interesting to a point, I'm not sure there is enough to hold your attention for the whole running time ...

I've had sleep paralysis (SP) for ages, since I was a boy. It is a recurrent thing for me. Yes, SP can be a terrifying experience. It can create a very vivid and a extremely intense feeling of dread and horror.But once one learns that SP is a sleep disorder, it is only one's brain playing tricks and that it is a benign experience (no one dies of it) and that it is not supernatural and there are no devils, evil spirits involved, it gets much easier to deal with it. But in this pseudo-documentary, the producers, writers decided to use a mystical, religious bias to describe and interpret SP. There is very little science, no actual effort is made to explain SP in scientific terms.This documentary is for the folks who do not believe in evolution and still think that Earth is flat, and that SP is related to alien abductions, spiritual events or all this new age mumbo-jumbo. The Wikipedia page about Sleep Paralysis is much, much better and more enlightening than this pseudo-documentary made, it seems, in the dark ages.