Acclaimed British director Bill Douglas finds his sleep disturbed by a homicidal maniac in SLEEPWALKER, Saxon Logan's little-seen mixture of gore and satire.


The diners return to Albion, where the secret of one couple is revealed—that is, repressed material is unleashed. It’s also a powerful metaphor of the introspection that traps the protagonists in their own obsessions, isolating them from life as it’s lived outside. I’d suggest that, like Buñuel and Bertolucci, Logan conflates politics and sexuality in his film— that is, he sees them as triangulating the personali- ties of his characters. The four retire to their beds, and the film is resolved (if it is) by a succession of murders and awakenings, some of them prefigured in the opening montage. Are the inhabitants of (and visitors to) Albion so enclosed in their dreams that nobody knows whose dream they’re stuck in? Cer- tainly the final cry of “Wake up” could well be ad- dressed to the audience, not just in 1984 (the year of production) but now. Once again, however, let me not downplay the pleasures of SLEEPWALKER as a bracingly individual yet allusive horror film. It ends with shots of a coin distortedly reflected in a pool of blood, both a political symbol and a tribute to the payoff of DEEP RED


The BFI release includes two earlier short films by the writer-director. “Stepping Out” (1977, 10m 16s) plays with identity and (absurdly) outraged its original audience. “Working Surface” (1979, 14m 56s) might almost be a first draft of SLEEP- WALKER, with which it shares not just thematic concerns but, except for Nickolas Grace, all the major players. Here Bill Douglas portrays a writer trying without success to control his characters, who ulti- mately turn on him. Both the stylized acting and


the narrative method subsume the example of Resnais in a way only THIS SPORTING LIFE had previously managed in Britain.


The disc also includes “The Insomniac” (1971, 44m 52s), a companion piece to SLEEPWALKER. Writer-director Rodney Giesler previously and sub- sequently directed industrial documentaries, but— much like Herk Harvey with CARNIVAL OF SOULS—he demonstrates a real feeling for the fan- tastic and macabre in his solitary fiction film. (Mind you, who knows how macabre his 1957 short “Watch That Trailing Cable” may have been?) Like Logan’s film, “The Insomniac” blurs the boundaries between dream and reality, and its images have the surreal purity of Buñuel; a chase through a forest by men in evening dress may bring similar juxtapositions in DEATH IN THE GARDEN to mind. A house party where all the guests wear sunglasses in daylight may suggest aristocracy as a kind of vampirism but stays satisfyingly enigmatic, a phrase that sums up the film. Like SLEEPWALKER, “The Insomniac” raises the question of whose dream it may be. The answer that the final scene appears to give makes the film—especially the erotic encounter between the protagonist (Morris Perry) and a young woman (Valerie Van Ost)—yet more disturbing. The disc is rounded off with a substantial inter- view with Saxon Logan about his career—really a monologue shot in very few takes. When he comes to the rediscovery of his film, he’s visibly moved. All the restorations are perfectly serviceable, and we can thank Nicolas Winding Refn for supporting them.


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