Sleep (2023)

The expecting "Min Jeong" (Kim Gook Hee) is getting a little concerned when her actor husband "Hyun-su" (Yoon Kyung-ho) wakes up one morning having badly scratched his face in his sleep. He just puts it down to nerves but some peculiar midnight snacking habits coupled with some rather perilous somnambulist activity now ensue making a visit to the doctor (Soon Kyung-ho) inevitable. After a bit of monitoring, he discovers that his REM sleep pattern is all over the place so some medication is prescribed and that ought to be that. Except, things actually become more bizarre - especially if you are their yapping dog. When a new neighbour (Jung Yu-mi) moves in downstairs and it turns to that she happens to be the daughter of the flat's previous occupant with whom our couple didn't get on, things start to become quite engagingly sinister with both starting to wonder if they are simply going mad or is there something more supernatural going on? At times this is quite enjoyably surreal, with Kim Gook Hee and Lee Sun-kyun gelling well as the story quirkily develops with some dark humour peppering the plot and I did really quite like the last ten minutes - daft as they were. Given the generally predictable and dull direction taken by so much of the light-horror genre recently, this offers a different take on a theme that packs quite a lot of fun, mysticism and daftness into ninety minutes. No, it's not remotely scary and maybe you ought make sure you keep your rechargeable tools under firm lock and key!