SOMNIUM
**
Directed by Racheal Cain.
Starring Chloë Levine, Grace Van Dien, Johnathon Schaech, Will Peltz, Peter Vack, Gillian White.
Science-Fiction, USA , 92 mins, Cert 15
Available on demand in the UK via Lightbulb Film Distribution on 8th September 2025.
The world of dreams has been a rich source of inspiration for many movies over the years, and seeing as we all have to sleep, you would imagine it would be fairly simple to come up with something both relatable and terrifying. SOMNIUM is the directorial debut of Racheal Cain that attempts to delve into the murky world of dreams – both the sleepy and the ambitious kind – merging them together to create a world that is both familiar and uncanny at the same time.
Gemma (Chloë Levine) is an aspiring actress who has moved from a small town in Georgia to the big city of Los Angeles to fulfil her dream of stardom. Looking for a day job to pay her rent, she applies for the position of ‘sleep sitter’ for Somnium, a sleep clinic that prides itself on ‘making your dreams come true’, i.e. manifesting your dreams to become a reality via experimental sleep techniques. Gemma’s job means she has to keep a watch over the patients who are sleeping and wired into Somnium’s complex machinery, which is a night shift so she can go to auditions in the daytime. All sounds too good to be true, especially when Somnium employee Noah (Will Peltz) offers to make Gemma’s dreams of stardom become a reality.
Apparently, based on director Racheal Cain’s own experiences of trying to make it in the movie business, there is a solid psychological horror story somewhere inside SOMNIUM. However, it is too busy fighting with the character studies and introspective moments that seem to have been pushed to the forefront in what seems like an attempt to pack out the overly-long runtime.
When the horror elements do get a look in, the setup is one of a dreamscape that is at once familiar and alien to Gemma. In execution, those scenes are more than reminiscent of The Further of the INSIDIOUS movies - a dark landscape with creepy mutants lurking in the shadows and turning very quickly towards the camera in a burst of jolting sound effects - not necessarily a bad thing but we have seen this before, and more than once given how many sequels that movie has.
Elsewhere, there just isn’t really enough meat on the bone for genre fans to get overly excited about. The introduction of the Somnium company is very Cronenberg-ian in its setup, but the corporate side of things never really gets explored outside of Noah’s exposition, which is mostly soundbites meant to sound profound and mysterious but is actually vague words that sound like they might mean something... but don’t.
However, there is good here as Chloë Levine puts in a strong performance as Gemma. She fills in the gaps that the script and the seemingly endless, lamentable flashbacks to her relationship breakup with her boyfriend fail to do, lifting the (very thin) material higher than the often derivative direction most of it goes in.
Again, there is a solid horror movie about dreams and reality blurring together here. Racheal Cain clearly has stories to tell and some creative ideas, but they are buried too far down in the mix to be really effective when there is so much crammed in that just doesn’t gel. Strip away the lost love stuff that feels like a late ‘90s alt-rock video, focus on the Somnium corporation itself, which clearly has more to it and was the more interesting plot device that, weirdly, got sidelined, and maybe the more original ideas would have gotten more traction. As it is, SOMNIUM is a movie with potential but whose own identity is lost beneath the glaring metaphors and overstuffed, but underdeveloped, plot.
Chris Ward