The Sleeping Room

The Sleeping Room premièred at the London Frightfest festival back in August 2014 to what was mostly positive reviews. The Sleeping Room stars Leila Mimmack as Blu, an orphaned call girl living in Brighton. Against the rules of her pimp, Blu becomes smitten with a rather nice, young client named Bill (Joseph Beattie) who owns a flat that harbours a terrible secret. Bill and Blu find a mystery room and become determined to find out about the house's dark history.

The Sleeping Room gets off to a positive start, Brighton is expertly shot and the chemistry between Leila Mimmack and Joseph Beattie is excellent as their character's growing relationship is engaging and well written. Blu makes for a likeable and engaging character and there is a strong feeling of sympathy for her because she has to deal with such a brute (brilliantly played by David Sibley). There is also a morbid fascination surrounding the snuff videos as the film builds a chilling and uneasy mystery. It's just a shame then that the film's screenplay loses all sense of narrative coherence and logic once it gets into the final act. The screenwriters seem to deem it fit of overwhelm the viewer with twist after twist at the expense of a coherent conclusion. It's a shame because I was really liking it until that point.

3/5 (I rounded up).