“Dream Eater” (2025) is a found footage film. Based on doctor’s orders, documentarian girlfriend Mallory (Mallory Drumm, second credited of three codirectors and cowriters) documents her weeklong vacation with Alex (Alex Lee Williams, third credited of three codirectors and cowriters) at a cabin in the woods after he injures himself while sleepwalking. What could go wrong? His symptoms get worse, but based on his demeanor on day one, that was not a heavy lift. Even the supernatural cannot make a woman dump a man when neither party is good for the other. More tedious than terrifying, this horror film is the equivalent of what it is like to give someone advice, and that person never takes it but then is shocked when things go wrong.
While numerous found footage films work when the characters are annoying, it would be helpful if moviegoers could root for them. There is no trace of whether Mallory and Alex were ever a good couple. At least Alex has the excuse of preexisting conditions which may have the side effect of being insufferable and unwilling to do anything to improve his medical condition. Unemployed, suspicious of anyone who helps him, killer of his girlfriend’s filmmaking dreams and a bah humbug on all fun except on his terms, maybe Alex is tall or considered extremely attractive to outweigh his negative traits. He is the kind of person who insults everyone and grumbles at doing anything while Mallory does all the cooking, planning and caretaking. People attracted to men, consider it a cautionary tale. If a guy tells you to leave him alone and stop digging into his life, take the cue and leave. To add a little razzle dazzle, he is often verbally abusive and not above using “the implication” of violence through his physical outbursts.
Mallory is underwritten, and it is unclear what it is about her that feels as if she must cling to Alex. Other than her career, she has no life outside of Alex, and his life is not that great. “Dream Eater” would have been better if either they had a scintilla of chemistry at the beginning or Mallory had her own issues which explained why she was determined to make Alex into her project. While she is not exploitive, she does not respect his boundaries and keeps getting him medical attention and digging into his family without his permission. Another lesson: do not love anyone more than they love themselves. The cabin’s closed-circuit camera, her footage, screen casting of her videoconferences and an episode of a television show obviously a riff on “Unsolved Mysteries” called “Unresolved Mysteries,” but instead of Robert Culp, first credited of three codirectors and cowriters, Jay Drakulic, is the voice of the series. Without Mallory’s work, there is no movie. The found footage element works except the soundtrack does not make sense because it should only be diegetic sound, not a score.
In the movie’s mythology, there is a concept of women with PTSD and a history of parasomnia being ripe for a cult to use in a breeding ritual, but that theme is never explored in a meaningful way with Mallory’s storyline, which is a criminally missed opportunity. If they are just one in a long line of generational supernatural shenanigans, it would be helpful to feel that way. The way that Mallory communicates her findings to Alex are a red flag. She emphasizes what the woman did in the story, not the men. If “Dream Eater” is a horror movie about couples who should break up because neither partner is a whole person able to be in a relationship, it works well. If the film gets criticism for further pathologizing survivors or people with mental health issues as ticking time bombs, it would be fair.
“Dream Eater” often gets compared to “The Shining” (1980) in the dialogue, and nope. There is nothing remotely special about the location or if there is, it is easily missed. The isolation and season of winter overlap, but nothing else. It is an aspirational reference, especially considering that Wendy Torrance will choose herself when things come to a head. There is the problem of Alex sleepwalking in the snow and hurting himself through hypothermia, but again it kind of goes nowhere like Chekhov’s gun without bullets. Or maybe Chekhov’s garbage disposal. If Mallory and Alex are a perfect match, it is their mutual inclination to become drawn to isolation literal and metaphorical.
The mythology in “Dream Eater” is undercooked. A Greek god of nightmares, Phobetor, may be responsible for Alex’s condition. The idea of Greek gods being real and still active in the twenty-first century is a great idea, but nothing else is truly elaborated. It is kind of like “The Nun” (2018) (derogatory) where Phobetor’s goals seem pointless as if having a human body is better than his current existence. The more plausible horror that resonates is having a partner that turns on you. Alex has mommy issues, and Mallory is becoming frightened of Alex’s increasingly violent, animalistic behavior. If more was known about Phobetor to tie into this fear of a significant other, it could work, but just making Phobetor another demonic figure does not. When the movie offers a glimpse of Phobetor, he does not look like Alex’s description and just like an alien, which is annoying. Make gods divine again instead of fallen angels or demons who resent people. Flies, seriously? In the end, it borrows more from Freddy Krueger’s mythology than anything out of “Metamorphoses.” There are dream eater entities, but this Greek god does not seem to be one of them.
The idea of a dream eater is a potentially interesting one by exchanging nightmares for good dreams such as Mallory’s dream of having a vibrant film career or a family with Alex whereas Mallory is trying to be a good dream eater absorbing Alex’s bad dreams and trying to shield him from his waking and sleeping intrusive thoughts. A dream catcher gets thrown into the mix as a form of protection that is not allowed to function as designed and is destroyed before it is used. It is made from crystal, which is not its traditional material. Either way, depriving someone of sleep is a classic cult technique. “Dream Eater” had potential and a rich cultural history that it could have drawn from but neglected or only touched upon it in a slight manner.
If you are looking for a film where the girlfriend should have dumped the boyfriend and saved herself, but decides not to, see “Dream Eater” as a cautionary tale and maybe play it for the people in your life that you are hoping will go their separate ways. If you were hoping for supernatural scares and characters that you can root for, keep it pushing. While the filmmakers should be proud of making a film, and it is not bad, it also is not memorable, and it fails to stand out from the rest of the pack of found footage films. Without seeing their first film, it is impossible to tell if they are improving or experiencing a sophomore slump.
