‘Somnium’ (2024)

‘Somnium’ follows young Gemma (Chloë Levine), a girl who has decided to leave behind her small home town in search for stardom in LA. Dreaming big, the girl faces hardship as her auditions yield no results. Resolving to working the graveyard shift at a sleep clinic – Somnium – Gemma makes due as she tries to pursue her dream of becoming an actress during the day, and monitors the sleeping clients at night.

Not an unfamiliar premise, ‘young woman goes to Hollywood in search of fame’ is a story well explored, be it dramatic, romanticised or turned into a musical. ‘Somnium’ leans towards horror, trying to base itself in the realms of science fiction. The sleep lab, advertised to help their clients achieve their dreams, acts as Gemma’s lifeline, both literally and metaphorically.

Earning her keep at the lab helps her keep her dream of staying in LA alive. The parallels of Gemma striving towards her aspirations whilst working in a ‘sleep clinic’ may quickly invite more knowledgeable horror film fans to start theorising about how reliable a narrator Levine’s Gemma actually is.

Things soon take a turn for the more sinister as Gemma’s resilience is tested. She goes to multiple auditions and never hears back from anyone. With her sanity starting to deteriorate, the question is again invited – is what Gemma is going through actually happening, or are we seeing a sleep session at Somnium gone wrong?

The film does not choose to take this path. Instead Gemma’s slow descent into despair is brought on purely by being isolated and friendless in a new place and trying and repeatedly failing to achieve her goals, despite every effort made on her part. The descent is interesting to watch unfold, as the young woman is in parallel tormented by well-timed inserts of memories of her life back home paralleled with genuine frights in the present day.

The horror takes form of a humanoid ghoul, appearing to Gemma as it skulks around the dark hallways at her work and invading her home. Used convincingly, the creature is well designed, but more importantly – kept well out of sight until the third act. Delivering very strong scares as the thing appears very briefly to jolt the audience awake, the terrors can be anticipated, but are nevertheless effective.

Exploring Gemma’s loneliness, she comes across an older man named Brooks (Johnathon Schaech). A more critical viewer could instantly assume sinister motives on Brooks behalf as he mysteriously appears and disappears, inviting to show Gemma around and inviting her to parties. In an act of desperation, Gemma forces herself on him, assuming that that’s what he’d want. Brooks rejects her advances, with the story thread leading nowhere.

The writer and director of the feature Racheal Cain has created a thought provoking and mesmerising sci-fi story that examines self-worth, resilience and persistence, yet the narrative feels a little confused at times. With the Brooks thread leading nowhere and the film reiterating a few of the same points at times, the story can feel a little straining towards the end. Rather than having created a clear downwards spiral for Gemma, she circles back round to the same stop a few times, reaching the same conclusion she had before.

Levine delivers a cogent performance as young and hopeful actor Gemma. Her trials and tribulations place her amongst contemporary scream queens and solidifies her as a strong pick for a horror flick. Levine manages to convey the harsh reality of the film industry by constantly relying on her memories from back home as both a heartfelt reminder of what once was, but also of what can no longer ever be.

The story concludes on one of the Somnium employees turning out to be conducting his own unauthorised experiments. Subjecting Gemma to a highly volatile procedure, he leaves her mind to be destroyed as she is trapped in her own dreamworld. Accompanied by great editing, the amazing use of low light and tastefully used digitally generated imagery creates the perfect illusion of the ‘dream’ world. Choosing to confront her fears instead, Gemma emerges victorious, with the criminal behind bars and her eventually securing an acting job.

With an unexpectedly positive outcome to the feature, ‘Somnium’ does suffer a few muddled story points but ultimately delivers a handful of well executed scares and an interesting sci-fi concept. For some, ending on an upshot could come across as too vanilla and less than exciting, with a somewhat pitiable rather than likeable protagonist. Regardless, ‘Somnium’ paints a singular dreamworld uniquely in its own colours, delivering both a compelling story on personal development and a horrifying concept of being trapped in one’s own nightmares.

Score: 3/4