By Melissa Garza
As a child, this was my favorite movie and every time it aired I would be glued to the television from beginning to end, and then I wouldn’t sleep right for weeks to come.
The film follows a family whose eldest daughter Jennifer (Kristin Cumming) is the single casualty of a car crash where nearly everyone else is to blame. Her younger siblings Mary (Robin Ignico) and Kevin (Oliver Robins) tied her shoelaces together as a prank making it impossible for her to escape as the car went up in flames. Her father, Phillip (Dennis Weaver) had a few too many before driving. Laura (Valerie Harper), her mother argued with her husband about the drinking but didn’t stop him; and grandmother, Bernice (Ruth Gordon) kept encouraging Phil to have one more “for the road.”
No one fully recovers from the death and nearly everyone blames themselves and each other. Soon, the ghost of Jennifer reveals herself to her younger sister and convinces her to keep it a secret. Mary filled with so much guilt about the death reluctantly agrees. Quickly, Jennifer’s sinister plans become known. She tells Mary that the family doesn’t want her around and has forgotten about her. One by one, she convinces the young girl to kill nearly everyone in the family. In the beginning, most are called accidents but as the death toll rises, it becomes evident that something more is going on.
Amazingly, this was a made for TV movie. More amazing, is that it is as unsettling now as it was when I first saw it. The acting is superb. Ruth Gordon famous for “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Harold and Maude” was perfectly cast as the annoying, bitter grandmother. Even the children in the movie did a great job. Generally, kid actors can hinder a movie however in this case it was just the opposite. They helped the flow, and it was impossible not to sympathize with Mary. The ending has to be one of the eeriest ever thought of. It is one that will sit with the viewer long after the credits roll.
It is a complete mystery why movies today with ridiculous budgets can’t create a film as compelling as this. Hopefully, imagination and creativity can find its way back to the mainstream. In the meantime, we do have “Don’t Go To Sleep,” on DVD.
Scared Stiff Review: 7.5/10
