I am constantly amazed at how many people confuse their childhood enthusiasm for something with its legitimate value. I LOVE the 'Planet of the Apes' movies...but I don't think they're at all 'good.' I'll watch them time and again, and subject friends and family to them, but I'd never suggest they're decent films! So, it seems, is the case with 'Don't Go to Sleep.' Almost all the comments here are positive...no, not just 'positive': glowing! There are reviews here calling this the 'best horror movie ever made.' Really. Just look. It is not. It is not even a good horror movie. However, it is a LOT of fun to watch. 'Don't Go to Sleep' follows a family into a new home and life after the elder sister has died in (we find out later) a fiery car accident (a la 'Simpsons'). Now, the younger sister is haunted by the 'ghost' of her dead sibling, and this leads her to pick off every member of the family in a series of deftly orchestrated accidents until only her mother (Valerie Harper) remains. My wife, like so many writers here, saw this movie when she was young and it stayed with her (mainly, I suspect, because of the bad little girls), so I bought a copy of it for her. We've watched it over and over, to the point that I can recite lines from it verbatim (a house favourite: 'I'm ALWAYS nice'). She takes offense to my low assessment of this movie, even though she doesn't place it quite as highly as some IMDb reviewers. This was made for TV in the early '80s...and it really looks it. Think 'Tales from the Darkside' with the same degree of guest talent (in addition to Harper, we get the delightful Ruth Gordon and the baffling Dennis Weaver) and slightly higher production value, but the same corny kind of writing. A perfect example of how ridiculous this movie can be: the family moves into a house with the number 13666. You KNOW some bad stuff is going to go down if you move into a house with such a SPOOOOKY number, right? Truly, this is made-for-TV garbage, and how it escaped the attentions of the MST3K gang is beyond me. But, if you are able to watch it, do it with friends and make your own running commentary...because that's all this is good for. But at least it's not '"Manos"...'
Review of Don't Go to Sleep
