[Review] 'Sleepless Beauty' is Tame Torture Porn that Sacrifices Story in Favor of Style

ques●tion / ˈkwɛs tʃən / n. a sentence in interrogative form, addressed to a person in order to obtain information in reply...

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...One of the biggest takeaways from the above definition is the intention of procuring an answer. Often a film will raise questions for its audience, drawing on their powers of deduction or ability to extrapolate, sometimes using metaphor or symbolism to help guide us toward our final solution. Some films use these implements to raise questions they have no intention of ever answering, and on occasion it becomes apparent to the audience that their own intellectual shortcomings are not to blame; the filmmakers themselves simply do not have the answers either.
 
Writer Aleksandra Khvaleeva and director Pavel Khvaleev spend most of Sleepless Beauty’s 83-minute runtime raising questions that either remain unanswered or result in answers that only raise further questions. Were the questions heady and rich, thick on the bone for one to pick and chew over, it might be laudable.
 
In fairness to the filmmakers, the torture porn genre is an inherently shallow pool in which to dive. The biggest and most interesting questions of the subgenre have all been, for the most part, previously raised and answered by the likes of Saw and Hostel. That’s not to say a retread of those old haunting grounds has no merit, but one must learn from the mistakes and victories of the past.
 
Sleepless Beauty wastes very little time before kicking into gear. We follow Mila (Polina Davydova), as she returns to her apartment after visiting the most uninviting concrete aquatic pet shop. After dumping a handful of rocks and her new ichthyoid into a woefully undersized fish tank, a plastic bag is placed over her head rendering her unconscious.
 
Mila awakens in another seemingly standard-issue dismal concrete room that could easily have been the back room of the fish shop. Exposed piping and harsh fluorescent lighting line the walls, an old loud-speaker is mounted above a locked door, and a chair with restraints sits at the center. A robotic female voice comes over the speaker informing her that she’s been inducted into a program called Recreation. The cardinal rule is simple: no sleeping. Any of Mila’s attempts to sleep will be interrupted. She’s placed on a schedule that’s quickly abandoned, save for the nightly virtual reality headset forced on her as she remains strapped to the chair. What prevents her from simply closing her eyes while they are obscured by the VR headset? That’s a good question.

Other activities involve bizarre and pointless games that play out like an episode of Jeopardy only where the person who answers wrong gets a bullet through their skull. Or how about the coffin with the rats poured in? When Mila is removed from the coffin the rats appear dead, although exactly how they died remains unclear. Did Mila eat them? Or did she simply mash her fists about the coffin as best she could until she squashed one? Who can say?
 
Meanwhile, Mila’s parents, who seem to know exceedingly little about their daughter, spend their time being questioned by insanely casually-dressed detectives. Nobody seems to know too much about Mila or her life.
 
Back in Torture Town, Mila’s subjected to more strange indignities before things take an experimental turn that involves drills, cables, operating rooms, and a really trippy, well done flash animation sequence that’s a mashup of animator David Firth (Salad Fingers and Spoilsbury Toast Boy) and legendary biomech surrealist H. R. Giger. Frankly, the animation sequence was the highlight of the film, at least for this reviewer.
 
While the subject matter is not for the faint of heart, the execution is rather timid, at least when compared to the subgenre’s existing catalogue. It doesn’t lean too hard into narrative or philosophy nor into its exploitative components. By genre standards, the gore is mild, the torture methods meek. Yes, there’s cattle prodding, restraint, confinement, a headshot, and hammer bashing, but when you’ve seen eyes blowtorched out of heads or bodies halved by pendulum it’s hard to blink at rats and bondage.
 
Such restraint could be a welcome thing for the torture subgenre were the filmmakers to make a solid case for character, plot, and philosophical or moral ponderings. But Sleepless Beauty really does none of that, to the detriment of the final product.
 
Sleepless isn’t without merit. The camera work and lighting are top notch. Everything is imbued with that bleak and sickly greenish hue that fluorescents achieve so perfectly. It’s all wonderfully dismal. Davydova turns a worthy performance as Mila, selling the terror, disgust, anguish, and ultimate emotional vacancy.
 
The nightmarish sequences, both live-action and animated, are choreographed and executed with a deftness I long to see in more horror films that utilize such implements. It’s a film on level with its contemporaries from a technical standpoint, it simply lacks the narrative heft and cohesion.
 
Per usual, I’d be interested to see this team of professionals tackle a more straightforward horror project. Something with a concise A to B structure that would allow them to funnel all of their visual acumen into the spooks and motifs. With Sleepless the visuals did most of the heavy lifting and it’s fair to say that this Beauty won’t be keeping me up tonight. 

Sleepless Beauty comes to VOD and digital from Epic Pictures November 10th and arrives on blu-ray November 17th. 

By Paul Bauer