Saturday, March 13, 2021

New Movie Review: Come True

Dreams are scary.  The laws of physics and logic normally go out the window when you're dreaming, so just about anything can happen.  Dream monsters are unencumbered by the limits of the real world, and as movies like the entire A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise make amply clear, that unpredictability is fertile ground for horror films.

That's why I was intrigued by Come True.  It's a sci-fi horror film about a teenage runaway named Sarah who enrolls in a sleep study, and while the study begins innocently enough, it soon turns into a real nightmare (pun totally not intended....I promise) for her and the scientists involved.  It originally premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival last year, and it was released to the general public through VOD on March 12.

This movie is a pretty slow burn, so you don't get any real horror until about the halfway point.  Before that, you get a few hints that the people behind the sleep study may be a bit more sinister than they appear, and one particular thing they do seems to have a very adverse effect on Sarah.  But other than that, the first half relies entirely on three elements: the atmosphere, the acting, and the creepy dream imagery.  Thankfully, none of these let you down.

To begin, Come True is soaked in a dreamy atmosphere, and most of it comes from the ambient score.  In some ways, the music reminded me of It Follows and Mandy, but it's far from a carbon copy of either of them.  It's an almost constant, hypnotic drone that matches the story perfectly and makes you feel like you're watching a dream unfold right before your very eyes.  It's hands down the best thing about the film, and it has an eerie, enchanting quality that glues your eyes to the screen and makes you want to keep watching.

As for the acting, it's pretty solid.  None of the characters are super developed, but the performances make them all quite enjoyable to watch.  In particular, actress Julia Sarah Stone does a really good job as Sarah.  She hits all the emotional beats perfectly, so you care about her character and you genuinely feel for her when things start to go south.

And finally, there's the creepy dream imagery.  Every once in a while, the movie shows you Sarah's nightmares, and they look like a cross between an alien landscape, a dungeon, and a gothic mansion.  I know that  probably sounds like total nonsense, but if you watch the film, you'll know what I mean.  It looks really cool, and while it has some familiar features, they come together in a way that's unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Those three elements continue into the second half as well, but when you hit the halfway point, the movie begins to pull back the curtain and show you what's really going on.  At first you only get a glimpse into the truth, so you're still not quite sure what the sleep study is actually about.  All you know is that the movie is building towards something sinister.  After that initial glimpse, the story gets weirder and weirder, and the anticipation for the big reveal just grows and grows.  You really want to find out what's going on with this shady sleep study, and the film does a great job of immersing you in the mystery and keeping you intrigued until the very last shot.

But with that final shot, Come True lost me.  I can't say much without spoiling it, so I'm going to be really vague here.  The end answers all your questions and explains everything that's been going on, but it does it in the worst way possible.  To be fair, from a certain point of view, it actually makes a lot of sense, so I can understand why they went that route, but it's still a terrible narrative decision.  And that's a real shame.  I was really enjoying this movie up until then, but the ending just ruined the whole thing for me.

So at the end of the day, would I recommend this film?  It's tough to say.  On the one hand, everything up until the very end is really good, so regardless of how I felt when the credits began to roll, it's still a mostly fun ride.  On the other hand, that final shot was enough to make me not like the movie overall, and it's tough for me to recommend a movie I didn't like.  So take that for what it's worth and make up your own mind about whether you think this film seems worth your time and money.  Personally, I have no desire to ever watch Come True again, and I'm putting it down in my book as a bad movie.

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