Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The acting in this movie is really good.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's predictable. It's full of clichés, and you'll see every death coming in advance. Still, the concept is pretty good. The thought of some evil force attacking you as you sleep, sounds like another famous, far better, horror movie. The monster was more subtle in appearance than Freddy Krueger. She was basically a much older version of The Ring girl. The director clearly drew inspiration from The Ring and told the actress, "You remember The Ring? Yeah, Crawl on the floor toward the camera like that!"

As someone who has experienced sleep paralysis countless times, I can say the ordeal is extremely terrifying. The concept & real life experiences could have made this a very decent movie, but it completely missed the mark. This movie doesn't even deserve one star, but I that's the lowest I could rate it. I wasn't expecting one of the greatest movies ever made, but I at least thought I would have a jump moment, feel tension, anything. I just found myself checking to see how much time was left.

The film opens with the definition of "sleep paralysis." And don't worry if you missed it it is repeated by Dr. Tank Girl (Lori Petty). Beth has it and her twin sister Kate (Jocelin Donahue) doesn't. Soon Beth doesn't have it and Kate does as does nearly everyone around her. During this time they are visited by a hag who chokes them. Sometimes they die. Like Santa, you must either believe or be very pretty for it to come visit.Go to sleep and see a hag. Not as interesting as a Freddie film, where you move around in your sleep trying to escape. Face it, people laying there getting choked by a hag is low energy. The cover scene was interesting as a spider lowers itself on the open eye of the paralyzed girl, except we see her move her eyelids afterwards...something I might have done with a spider descending into my eye and not wait until I am choked. The sister relationships didn't work for me, it seems they were not developed properly as if they cut a scene. It wasn't until the end that we got the real story. And the final scene with Tank Girl should have come in the middle of the film and been part of the feature.That is the formula we want to see. I didn't find the film scary, but if you have sleep paralysis it might scare the bejesus out of you. And would you sleep around a guy who looked like Hassan (Jesse Borrego)? Hey, Hassan, as long as you are not sleeping, go take a shower and wash your greasy stringy hair.Guide: infrequent F-word. No sex. Brief blurred butt body double nudity.Winner of Best Thriller Feature Film Award at Shriekfest 2016.

"Dead Awake" centers around two sisters (both played by Jocelin Donahue). One is a recovering addict, the other is a social worker. After they both start having the same nightmare (which involves dying during sleep paralysis), some digging is done and it seems there have been many people dying under these same circumstances.I did not find anything original in this movie. The "monster" looks like it crawled--literally--out of "The Ring" franchise. One scene was practically stolen from the original "Nightmare on Elm Street." I'm glad those involved with this POS decided to be sure everyone knows when something bad is going to happen because each victim is treated to a "lights-off; lights-on" trick.I had to laugh at one reviewers summation, especially when they warned about watching out if you are drinking or eating something because you may spill your drink or you might drop your food. Funny, the only thing I thought about during the movie was how I could keep my food and drink DOWN.Rated R (couldn't tell you why) and not recommended.