Dr Sander's Sleep Cure (2025)

"Quirky and Creative Anthology Movie That's Set a New Guinness World Record"

Here's something a bit different from Estonia. DR SANDER'S SLEEP CURE has just been released on digital in the United States, with a UK release date currently awaited, and it has indeed broken a Guinness world record, about which more in a bit.

The brainchild of writer-director and star Mart Sander, the film uses the anthology format, telling eight weird stories and using the framework of a man (Sander in one of many roles) who suffers from insomnia trying to get to sleep with the aid of a cassette tape that is the 'cure' of the title.

The stories themselves range from excellent (the first) to slight, with one story, the fourth, being a ghost tale told entirely in German with no subtitles. However, apart from the acting being a little flat and a couple of the stories not quite hitting the mark this is actually quite the achievement for a low budget independent film. Sets and costumes are excellent (there's a fair bit of green screen as well) and Sander knows how to set up and move the camera well to tell his tales.

As for the tales themselves, they all tale place in the realm of the fantastical. Some tend more towards horror, at least one is comedy (and so is the framework), and there's even some very peculiar science fiction in there as well. Despite the film being quite a ragbag of ideas Sander's style pulls everything together nicely and the entire endeavour both looks gorgeous and is graced with a well chosen soundtrack of library music. 

As for the Guinness World Record that the film has already achieved? That's actually addressed by the film itself at the end and is for the most roles played by a single actor in a film. The previous record was 45. Sander manages a few more than that in a film that's well worth checking out if you fancy something a little bit different. Here's the trailer:

Mart Sander's DR SANDER'S SLEEP CURE is distributed by Octane Multimedia and is streaming from all major VOD retailers in the US right now, with UK dates to be announced later.

November (2017)

"Compellingly Beautiful Weird Art House Fantasy"

Beautifully shot black and white fairy tale weirdness abounds as Eureka brings out Rainer Sarnet's film version of Andrus Kivirähk's bestselling novel Rehepapp on Blu-ray.

We're in the pagan Estonian equivalent of Brothers Grimm fairytale land. Plague roams the land - literally, when it isn't asking to be carried across a river in the form of a beautiful girl or taking on various animal forms. When a young Baroness comes to visit the local chateau owned by Dieter HUMAN CENTIPEDE Laser, young village lad Hans falls head over heels in love with her. 

Young village lass Lina is in love with Hans and soon both of them are making deals with shady witches and possibly even Satan himself in exchange for love potions and spells to make things even more complicated.

Meanwhile it turns out you can escape the plague if you wear your trousers on your head because then the pestilence will be confused and think you have two bottoms. And then there are the supernatural kraats - creatures made from discarded bones and tree branches - who have to be kept busy or they turn nasty.

NOVEMBER is two hours of gorgeous, hypnotic, compelling black and white cinematography. The plot doesn't exactly take centre stage here but the imagery is so glorious it doesn't really matter. As you may have gathered from the above the movie has a Terry Gilliam by way of Carl Dreyer feel - a bizarre and off-kilter mix of scatological gags and dreamlike shots that make you want to freeze frame.

Eureka's disc offers you the option of switching off the subtitles and there's a trailer. Purchasers of the first pressing will also get a booklet with an essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. 

NOVEMBER is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 13th May 2019