Synopsis
While treating a policewoman for smoking, hypnotherapist Michael Strother has a telepathic vision of a young girl floating beneath the surface of a stream. The escaped victim of a ritualistic serial killer, the girl has become mute, and Michael is called upon by Scotland Yard to unlock the secrets she holds in order to catch a man who believes he has discovered the key to immortality.
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Cast
- Goran VisnjicMichael Strother
- Shirley HendersonJanet Losey
- Miranda OttoClara Strother
- Paddy ConsidineElliot Spruggs
- Corin RedgraveChief Inspector Clements
- Claire RushbrookGrace
- Andrew FrenchPolice Detective
- Sophie StuckeyHeather
- John RoganFrancis Paladine
- Josh RichardsKeith
Recommendations
- 75
Christian Science Monitor
Strong acting and smartly tuned-in directing turn a run-of-the-mill detective story into a striking, sometimes harrowing blend of horror and suspense. - 70
Variety
An enjoyable throwback to the occult psychological horror-thrillers of the late 1970s. While it flirts often with campy excess, the film remains compelling thanks to its chilly mood, stylish visuals and polished production values. - 63
New York Post
If you can overlook its TV-episode look, occasional lapses in logic and detours into lurid overkill, this old-school psychological thriller, which marries a tracking-the-serial-killer narrative with occult themes, is a creepy diversion. - 60
L.A. Weekly
As Willing moves the movie along its well-worn, Ruth Rendell–ish path, it accrues a certain fusty British charm, along with the requisite (and, for this reviewer, most satisfying) amounts of satanic symbolism, creepy mute children and abandoned gothic churches. - 58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Visnjic is charismatic, sympathetic and believable in the role, and the first part of the film -- in which he's being drawn into the case against his will and then use his hypnotic skills to get inside the mind of the little girl -- is quite riveting. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
Before it goes down in a soggy mess of scary movie cliches and insultingly stupid plot contrivances, director and co-writer Nick Willing's adaptation of Madison Smartt Bell's novel Dr. Sleep gets in some good, seriously creepy licks. - 30
Village Voice
Willing's confused procedural -- derived from a novel by Madison Smartt Bell -- is a hasty throwback to the sado-medieval Exorcist descendants of the turn of the millennium (Stigmata, Stir of Echoes, Lost Souls). The somnolent cast can't keep the faith. - 30
Washington Post
The plot, loosely derived from Madison Smartt Bell's "Doctor Sleep," is utterly stale. On their way to confront ancient evil, Strother and Losey keep tripping over timeworn cliches.
