I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Movies So Bad They Make You Say "What In The Blazes Did I Just Watch?" 


Don't Go To Sleep (1984) Made For TV

Having neither the strength, health or brain power to handle yet another conflicted, obtuse horror film with shades of demons or psychos, I decided with an older movie that, as one described it 'has a good story for a horror film and no gore'. That should have alerted me right away that this would totally suck. But it sounded brainless enough and that's what I needed. One, it was made for TV, so it's something your parents (or grandparents depending on your age) watched on a Sunday night when they had the movie-of-the-week format. To say this is horror is merely misspelling horrible. It was produced by Aaron Spelling and Douglas Cramer, and if you're old enough you're already saying to yourself 'Oh this was a REAL piece of crap.' Yup, that it was.


Despite top names (for 1982) like Dennis Weaver, Valerie Harper and Ruth Gordon, it stunk more than the tea tree oil I'm having to use at the moment. Meleleuca and this film are still in my nostrils. Both made me sick. Wish I could find the person who said this was a good story, they deserve a severe beating. We have a family moving to a new town with a new house, the father a new job, and as a bonus, his mother-in-law moving in. Oh goody. The address is 13666 whatever street (nice and subtle there Spelling) and they move in to make a new start. See, they have two kids when they used to have three - but a drunk driving accident took the life of their oldest girl, Jennifer. Father's fault - or was it? (Dum dum dum... and I DO mean dumb!)

From the start it sucks there. The first night, the remaining daughter Sarah starts hearing voices and her bed catches on fire. A faulty wire seems to be at fault, so she bunks with her brother Kevin. She has night terrors and 'acts weird' according to Kevin but this being the typical movie, no one believes him. She tries to tell everyone she's seeing 'Jennifer' and talking and playing with her. No one believes her either. Duh. So let the dying begin - slowly, boringly and as was pointed out, without any gore (this is TV after all). 'Jennifer' has supposedly told Sarah that the whole family had wanted her to go away so they must pay.

First on the please-die-now list is grandma. She's scared to death by an iguana (which they kept calling a lizard because I guess they didn't think we would be smart enough to recognize an iguana). She has a heart attack and dies. Second on the menu is little brother Kevin. Playing Frisbee Sarah throws it high on the roof, and like a dumb movie-type kid he climbs up to get it. Something unseen opens the window he's in front of and scares him into falling off. Bye Kevin. But the family carries on as if 'oh well, more room for us'. But then daddy has an 'accident' involving a radio and the bathtub. Bye daddy. Mommy freaks, realizes her daughter is coming after her (wait, I thought... oh never mind) with a pizza cutter (and we all know how sharp THOSE are) and falls down the stairs. Unfortunately for Valerie Harper, she gets to stay until the end of the movie so she lives. Sarah, recognized as certifiable, is placed in a straitjacket in a padded room (yeah, that happens to little girls all the time). And the true boring story is revealed.

The night of the accident, grandma 'made' daddy drink too much and then he insisted on driving home. Grandma obviously loved Jennifer the most, she gets all the kisses, and the others are only told to 'mind everything she tells you'. Way to parent and grandparent guys. Kevin and Sarah, more than a little put out, pull the innocent prank of tying Jennifer's shoelaces together. Then daddy swerves into traffic and broadsides a van. He gets out, so does mommy, Kevin and Sarah, but Jennifer can't move (What, is the rest of her tied up too?) and, unseen, Sarah closes the car door on her. When daddy asks if everybody's okay, Sarah makes a fuss that Jennifer's still in the car - and it explodes because hey, this is a movie and every car that has an accident immediately becomes incendiary. Bye Jennifer. For now. So I guess this is Jennifer's revenge, kind of. After spilling her guts Sarah is carted off to life in a looney bin. Meanwhile mommy is drugged up at home (She wants to live there still?) but a nurse is watching her. Until she hears sounds, looks down at the foot of the bed, and there's Jennifer, winking at her. The scene (and movie) ends with Valerie screaming her lungs out. Yee hah, the movie's over.

And what the hell did the title have to do with absolutely anything? I know this is a throw-away movie-of-the-week but there was nothing dangerous about going to sleep anywhere in the film. Everybody dies wide awake. Sleep has no danger here. The only danger is losing a few brain cells having to watch this thing and hear Weaver say things like 'You dig?' <shudders>