‘Stage One – the eyes close…’
When you consider that a nightmare is generally the most frightening day to day thing that will happen to most people, it is astonishing how few horror films deal with the subject. Perhaps Frederick Krueger has cornered that particular market, but it feels like there should be room for other movies to explore what is, after all, an endless and terrifying prospect. Come True attempts to capture the feel of a nightmare, and in that one respect, it massively succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s the only win here…
Sarah Dunne (Julia Sarah Stone) takes part in a sleep study for reasons that never really become clear. Under the watchful eye of a shady team of doctors and medical professionals, Sarah casts dark visions of shadowy figures lurking in corners.
There are going to be spoilers here, but truthfully, director Anthony Scott Burns has already spoiled Come True with his pretentions musings and ponderous pacing. And this is a shame because the moments in which we are taken inside Sarah’s nightmares are incredibly inventive and shudder inducing. It’s a difficult thing to render something that is, by its nature, outside the realm of the metaphysical, but Burns does a fantastic job in creating ambitious and frightening representations of nightmares here. This, combined with the chilling score, ensures that Come True does have unnerving moments, but ultimately, the lofty concept is too much of a stretch for the whole thing to work. Plus the fact that the ending pretty much amounts to ‘this was all a dream’ is borderline insulting.
I’ll be watching Burns’ next project with interest as there is clearly loads of potential here, but on this occasion, that potential has been squandered.