Ahead of the film's June 5th release from Gravitas Ventures, The Nightmare is teased in a new trailer that gives you an idea of what to expect from Rodney Ascher's latest horror documentary.

"THE NIGHTMARE, the unique horror documentary from director Rodney Ascher (ROOM 237) will be unleashed in North America in theaters and on Video on Demand (VOD) on June 5, 2015 courtesy of Gravitas Ventures. The critically acclaimed film left Sundance audiences afraid to turn out the lights after its world premiere in January. The film screens at the SXSW Film Festival, in the Midnight section today, Friday 13th.

Imagine that when you slept, you sensed that something was watching you in the darkness. Worse still, when you suddenly woke up, you were paralyzed and helpless, as a shadowy presence came inexorably closer to you. Welcome to THE NIGHTMARE from Rodney Ascher, who last rocked audiences with his portrait of the Kubrick-obsessed, ROOM 237. In this new film, he uses atmospheric, cinematic recreations to get the audience into the heads of everyday people suffering from “sleep paralysis”, a condition in which they regain consciousness but are unable to move or cry out for help. Frequently they hear menacing noises and voices and even see intruders (human or otherwise) in the room with them. The prevalence of sleep paralysis in the general population is surprisingly high, approximately 6.2%, a statistic borne out by a dramatic show of hands (and one tearful testimonial) at the film’s park City premiere.

THE NIGHTMARE’S subjects hail from different backgrounds and walks of life, but share eerily similar visions of malevolent, near-human beings that grow increasingly aggressive the longer the sleep paralysis recurs. Are these just random hallucinations or something more? Rational explanations get challenged by the similarities of the “shadow people” multiple subjects describe looming over them. Ascher, who has first hand knowledge of sleep paralysis, brings the full intensity of this experience to the screen while maintaining empathy and respect for his subjects. As the film unfolds, distinctions between the documentary and horror genres fade as do easy lines between reality and the imagination."

  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.