DVD Review -The Sleeping Room (2014)

A fine sense of place runs through John Shackleton’s directorial debut The Sleeping Room, a haunted house tale set in that most enduring of seaside towns, Brighton. At times bleakly windswept and occasionally alluring, the alleys and pebbled beaches of the Sussex town provide a fascinating backdrop to the working class chills of this little English thriller. A times it this feels like an ironic advert for the local tourist board, a cynical postcard or ode to the greying, washed-out former glory of this country’s seaside holiday spots. What’s lacking however is a genuine sense of fright to compliment the setting; some downright terror to add to the moments of despair in the story.

Orphaned prostitute Blue (Leila Mimmack) is sent to the disarmingly intriguing Bill (Joseph Beattie), a man who’s redeveloping a grand seafront property with a sordid history as the local brothel. Inside she discovers a hidden room which, along with a mysterious and alarming antique Ludoscope, points to sinister goings-on at the property over the years. As she investigates the history of the building, Blue discovers a macabre secret interlinked with her own, tragic childhood and some malevolent force begins to take hold of Bill.

There’s a commendable, downtrodden, kitchen-sink mentality to much of this which is pretty nice to see. The difficult issue of modern-day slavery is broached with a maturity that you might fear would be lacking from a schlocky piece of horror. Blue seems to be, at least on the surface, a genuinely contradictory character; patently trapped in an abusive, desperate state of affairs by her cruel pimp (David Sibley), but with a single-mindedness and intelligence that sidesteps any damsel-in-distress stereotypes. As an example of gritty drama it’s pretty watchable, as a piece of ghostly horror its falls apart fairly rapidly.

The Stone Tape-style haunting of the stately brothel manifests itself through the sepia-toned footage watched in the Ludoscope. Aiming at vintage creepiness, the end result bears more resemblance to a smoke-stained Pinterest album and never really elicits anything like the amount of horror needed. Sibley commendably turns up the wick as the violent, controlling pimp and injects a much-appreciated sense of verbal nastiness into the proceedings; but when Beattie begins wielding an enormous angle grinder like a man possessed, and the spooky Ludoscope visions begin encroaching into the real world, one feels like Shackleton is grasping a little at thin air.

In fairness, The Sleeping Room does take its time to bed-in and Shackleton attempts to build a sustained sense of menace, rather than opting for cheap scares. It would be churlish, if not downright unfair, to deny this a degree of credit and acknowledge some of the solid-ish work that’s been done. Horror aficionados will watch a burgeoning career with interest, but the casual viewer may find little to cling to over its modest running time. This grim love letter to Brighton needs, absolutely needs, to be scarier.