User Reviews

The final Series of Thriller opened with Sleepwalker, it's quite obvious that Brian Clemens writing changed as time went on, his darker taste for the macabre and obscure was very evident here. Like one or two others it's an episode that would have perhaps felt more at home in the Hammer House of Horror box set, a thriller in the broadest sense of the word, more like psychological horror. I can imagine that it's a little dated for some, but the quality in the writing is very evident, so many strands, so much going on, just so clever, forcing someone to wonder if their dreams are reality, and indeed if dreams can be shared. A few good suspects on display, and you don't quite know what's happening until the end. It's well acted, Darleen Carr is very good, Michael Kitchen as always was excellent, I hadn't realised how prolific an actor he was in his youth. Some aspects are a little dated, the dream phase filming looks shoddy by today's standard, but it's all wonderfully atmospheric.

Enjoyed it, 8/10

This is a series that for some reason features a lot of Americans visiting or living in London. This time, an author with a taste for the macabre is here working on his next book. Dan Summers is a widower of five years, and he has brought his daughter with him. She is a fairly delicate young thing who has a propensity to sleepwalk. This isn't such a problem, but only if she doesn't end up clutching a knife, which appears to come with the territory.

It isn't the knife in her hand that causes her consternation though, rather the one in the back of the old man in her dream. Picking up a love interest, who just happens to be a psychology student, he goes in search of rational explanations while a not-so-rational one stumbles across her path, well, throws himself in front of her to be precise. He is someone who has been having the same dream, and he insists they have to solve the riddle by a direct approach.

So what exactly is going on here? There is an excellent twist at the climax of this far from probable tale, but if you ignore the silliness, you won't be disappointed.

'Sleepwalker' opened Thriller's final series in April 1976. Like the series five closer, 'Murder Motel', 'Sleepwalker' is a comparatively weak installment which occupies a lowly position in the episodes' overall ranking.

Darleen Carr stars a Katey Summers, daughter of an American author Dan who has taken a house in England for a few months. Like the title suggests she is a sleepwalker who frequently leaves her bed and wanders. In addition she begins to experience nightmares, one which is set in an old-fashioned room where a wizened man kisses a bible and proclaims his fortune and the fact that it is unlikely to be discovered. A subsequent dream sees this old man being murdered by a youth in Victorian costume. Katey bares her soul to a young man named Barnstaple with whom she has struck up a romance. Her father is a kindly man but is preoccupied with his writing while the two servants Esme and Parsons are publicly sympathetic but privately disdainful (particularly the unimaginative Esme) of their employers.

The plot thickens when the Victorian costume-clad man turns up on Katey's door and convinces her that he has had the same dream. A cursory examination of her wardrobe leads to a Narnia-like discovery and an unconvincing climax.

Nevertheless the dream sequences are well handled and an air of mystery pervades throughout. Plus it's got John Challis as a friend of Dan's so all is not lost.

I saw this on TV as a child and found it very creepy. Since I have not been able to find it from that time, I cannot say if my views have changed. My memory is a little vague, but, as I recall, a woman has problems with somnambulism--she walks in her sleep. One night while sleepwalking, she discovers a secret passage in the house where she stays. From some sort of a balcony, she witnesses a murder. When she awakes, she is uncertain of whether it is real or a dream. Everyone else dismisses it as a dream. Apparently, she cannot positively identify the murderer, so she does not know who to trust. I have always thought this was part of Hammer's House of Horror series, but apparently it is not, yet it very much has the same look and feel. I would like to have given a better review, but since I cannot find it, it is difficult to remember the details. I DO know that I liked it. Since no one else has yet to review it, I thought perhaps my review might spark the memory of someone else who has seen it and might review it in more accurate detail.

Like the above three reviews, I too watched this movie sometime in the last 70s or early 80s and loved it! Granted I would have been about 12, so my taste in movies was probably a bit juvenile. For many years now, I thought it was a dream as I only have very wispy memories of this movie, but the only thing I could recall was that the actress was the same girl who played in the Streets of San Francisco with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas. From there, I learned that the actress I was thinking of was Darlene Carr and that led me to IMDb and to the title of the movie, Sleepwalker. I would love to see this movie again even if it does disappoint me now. Hey, maybe my daughter would love it?

I just thought of this film while on YouTube and decided to google the synopsis to see if I could find anything. I saw a link with a description much like one of the film for which I was searching. When I clicked on it, it brought me here, and the description I saw was the one I wrote over 11 years ago. Lol. This is the film, I'm sure. YouTube wasn't around 11 years ago, so I guess I can finally look it up. But do I want to? Like Bahamamama mentioned above, so many films do not hold up to our childhood memories and somehow lose the magic. Still, I've been trying to figure this out for years. Curiosity killed the cat, right? Wow. I was 5 when I first saw this.

Like velvetelvis below, I, too saw this on TV when I was a child, and boy did it scare me! I must have been only five or six, which would have put the year at 1980 or 1981, so it must have been a repeat. I remember catching it on TV twice after, by chance, but I was still really little, so probably the last time I saw it before recently finding it again was 1984 or so.

I'd been trying to track this down for years - I still remember the creepy opening titles, and the old man in the dream. Finding this has become an obsession for the past couple of years, and today I FINALLY got a copy and re-watched. It's amazing that I still remembered so much of it.

But, alas, my worst fears were realized. This wasn't scary at all - the story was clichéd and downright moronic at times, cheesy '70's production values and hysterical overacting. Not in the slightest bit scary or even creepy, though it can be enjoyed for it's camp value.

I have to say, I'm a little bit sorry I've seen this as an adult, my fond memories of being terrorized by this are spoilt now. Ah well! such is life! Velvetelvis, if you have the chance to see this again, skip it. Instead, remember this as it was to you when you were young!

The one bonus: The UK DVD's have the US opening and closing titles of the episodes as bonus features, so I got to see the creepy titles I remembered after all these years.