Since Paranormal Activity, Blumhouse Productions has helped stabilize and elevate the horror genre. It has also launched several promising horror careers, including one of my favorites, Mike Flanagan. Before I Wake has more issues than a normal Flanagan film, but like the director’s previous efforts, the man clearly knows how to anchor the supernatural to something real in order to deliver something emotionally satisfying.
Jessie (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (Thomas Jane) are a married couple hoping to adopt a kid. How fitting, since Cody (Jacob Tremblay) is a boy looking for a new family. The pair seem like a dream….especially Cody’s dreams which actually come to life. This can be amazing for the broken couple, but as we all know, the flip side of dreams are nightmares.
Before I Wake to most people could boil down to “Is This Scary?” The jump scares are pretty standard stuff for Flanagan: sadly nothing you haven’t seen before. The visual effects though are much more impressive on a small budget. The colors we get to see during the dream sequences are quite spectacular and inspiring. But those colors turn bleak and scary once Flangan’s monster appears. There’s a slow walk through a dark house that very effectively uses effects and set design to build tension and suspense.
However, Flanagan, like always, uses the horror in service of his story. His story isn’t as crisp this go around sadly: in service of brisk storytelling he cuts several intriguing plotlines and stories short. In part this is because of Flanagan wanting to hook us with that central family; the director has not lost his touch there. Kate Bosworth gets to actually show some surprisingly good acting chops playing Jessie. Jessie has very complicated feelings toward Cody because of her past, and we see a very rich and compelling arc for her as she learns how to become a great mother. Jacob Tremblay continues to show his talents, playing Cody like a kid with lots of baggage due to his past relationships with his family and several foster homes. Thomas Jane is as warm and loving as ever playing just a good guy as well. Flanagan’s knack for hiring talented but relatively unknown leads helps give some power to that central story. There is a sequence where Jessie tells Cody a bedtime story that all of a sudden caused my eyes to water.
Before I Wake should be requisite watching for all would be foster parents. Mike Flanagan, the auteur that he is, tells a sometimes frustrating but still very powerful story about just how hard it is for people with baggage, especially those poor kids, to become a flesh and blood family. What else would we expect from Flanagan? He made a mirror scary!!!