Night Terror (2025)

 

"Visually Impressive Wes Craven Wannabe Falters By Being a Bit Dull"

Music video director Colin Tilley's debut feature is getting a digital release from Signature. It's a film that shows that, while Mr Tilley has a good eye (and all the right influences), he still needs to learn a bit about pacing and characterisation.

Opening with a clunky poem that could have used a few rewrites to get it to scan better and make it less convoluted, we are introduced to the legend of Mr Sandman. If you're bullied and you carve that bully's name into a specific tree Mr Sandman will hound that bully with dreams until either they repent or he eats their eyeballs.

We're then introduced to Anna (Whitney Peak) whose parents have died in a car crash. She goes to live with her blind grandmother (aha!) and gets friendly with local kids Julie (Laken Giles) and Shawn (Finn Bennett) who drink and smoke, and Shawn's a bully, causing little Conner (Carson Minniear) to break his arm. Soon (but not too soon - we are nearly halfway into the film by this stage) Conner is venturing into the forest on his own to do some carving to set Mr Sandman on the three of them.

Released in the US as EYE FOR AN EYE, there's something of Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET about this one (and a bit of SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW as well). There are some excellent creepy locations, as well as some arresting visuals near the end. What unfortunately kills NIGHT TERROR stone dead is the film's pacing, which is so dull and relentlessly one-note the urge to hit the fast forward button quickly becomes pretty much irresistible. There's no sense of urgency or threat to Conner's bullying, Anna's two friends are very much ciphers rather than characters, and despite her backstory Anna herself isn't especially involving either. As with so much of modern horror better music could have punched this up a notch but instead it's happy to go with the all-too-monotonous flow. That doesn't mean I won't watch Colin Tilley's next film because he does have a good eye, but next time he needs to look to Wes Craven's effortless storytelling technique as well as some of his ideas. Here's a trailer which, as is the nature of these things, makes the film look better than it is:

NIGHT TERROR is out on Digital from Signature Entertainment on Monday 14th July 2025