Dream Eater

Directed by Jay Drakulic, Mallory Drumm, and Alex Lee Williams, Dream Eater follows a couple (Drumm’s Mallory and Williams’ Alex) as they arrive at a remote cabin to recuperate after Alex’s suicide attempt. It’s familiar territory that’s employed to periodically creepy yet mostly lackluster effect by the filmmakers, as Dream Eater‘s found-footage structure paves the way for a padded-out endeavor that suffers from many of the problems and distractions one associates with the genre – including (and especially) amateurish lead performances and a sluggish, repetitive midsection in which nothing of much interest seems to occur. And while the picture admittedly does contain a very small handful of legitimately frightening images and set-pieces, with most of these arriving within the comparatively eventful third act, Dream Eater, by and large, comes off as a generic piece of work that could only have succeeded within the context of a much, much shorter running time (ie this would’ve been terrific as a segment in the V/H/S series).

*1/2 out of ****