Remember When Stephen King Wrote A Movie About Incestuous Werecats?
"It's your basic down-and-dirty horror movie. It has one purpose, which is to scare you, and entertain you, and give you that funhouse experience where you scream your head off and then you laugh because you feel kind of silly."
So said Stephen King about "Sleepwalkers," the first screenplay he wrote directly for the screen. This was not an adaptation of one of his works — this was something he penned specifically for the movies, and that was the selling point. We weren't just getting a new Stephen King movie — it was Stephen King's first original screenplay! The poster even boasts that this is "The first Stephen King story written expressly for the scream." (That last bit isn't a typo, they're being cheeky.) And what was this original tale of terror about? Incestuous werecats, of course! We're talkin' deeply horny cat-monsters.
"Sleepwalkers" is indeed a down-and-dirty horror movie. And it is kind of silly. It's a sleazy, cheesy bit of pop art, brought to life by nice guy filmmaker Mick Garris, who has helmed several other King-related works, including the miniseries adaptations of "The Stand" and "The Shining." I don't know if you can call Garris an auteur, but he compliments King's work, the jelly to King's peanut butter, the ham to King's cheese. "He always left the filmmaking decisions up to me," Garris said of working with King. "He understands the process and the role of the director. He never once told me how he thought I should handle the scene. He never once said to me that he didn't like the way I was doing this or that."
The cat monster and the popcorn girl
"Sleepwalkers" is a classic story of a teenager who bangs his mom. Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his mother Mary (Alice Krige) are ancient shape-shifting energy vampires. They also have sex with each other. Most of the time, they look like attractive humans, but their true forms resemble giant bipedal sphinx cats — you know, those weird felines with no fur. Picture that, but huge, and horny, and you get the idea. As "Sleepwalkers" begins, Charles and Mary have fled California after killing a young girl. Now, they're in the small town of Travis, which is located in flat Indiana even though every shot of the place shows the mountains of California.
Charles is an ancient energy vampire (side-note: it's very funny that an ancient energy vampire is named "Charles"), but he also attends high school, just like the vamps in "Twilight." Now enrolled in classes, Charles — who, like King, has a predilection for writing stories — has set his sights on classmate Tanya (Mädchen Amick), who works as a "popcorn girl" at the local movie theater. Charles plans to suck the energy out of Tanya and then transfer it, via sex, to his mother. I should add that I'm not making any of this up, I swear. This is a real movie. And it's perhaps a testament to Stephen King's popularity in the '90s that a movie with this premise exists at all.
King was unstoppable at this point — any book that boasted his name was bound to be a best-seller, and Hollywood very much wanted to be in the Stephen King business. So much so that we got movies like "The Lawnmower Man," which has absolutely nothing to do with the King short story that inspired it but was sold under the premise of being a Stephen King adaptation (King actually successfully sued to have his name taken off the picture). It was junk like "Lawnmower Man" that partially inspired King to write an original screenplay, and the fact that this is what he came up with — a movie about horny mother and son cat monsters who have sex with each other — and got away with it is kind of incredible. Even if you don't like the finished film, you have to admire its audacity.
Clovis the Attack Cat
Charles is the film's villain, and Tanya is a damsel in distress. So who is the film's hero?
A cat.
Clovis — who sports a collar that proclaims his full name to be CLOVIS – THE ATTACK CAT — is introduced as the loyal companion/partner of Deputy Andy Simpson (Dan Martin). He rides along with the deputy, always vigilant, unless he's taking a nap in a little cat bed that also happens to be in the car. I should add that even though Charles and Mary are both cat monsters themselves, they also hate cats. In fact, when cats scratch them, the monsters begin smoking, as if they're demons doused with holy water. Why, exactly, would cat-monsters be allergic to cats? I don't know, you'll have to ask Stephen King. Only he can truly unlock the deep mysteries of "Sleepwalkers."
After Charles dispatches Andy, Clovis, like any good partner, wants revenge, and the cat ends up becoming the hero of the story. Tanya is a rather passive character, dragged around like a ragdoll. It's up to Clovis to save the day. In fact, it's fair to say that if Clovis the cat weren't around, the evil incestuous cat monsters would succeed in their dastardly plan to suck the life out of the innocent popcorn girl. So let's quickly recap: "Sleepwalkers" is about incestuous cat-people vampires and the hero of the movie is also a cat. Thank you, Stephen King, for giving us the gift of cinema.
As for King, he pops up in a cameo as a cranky cemetery caretaker. And he's not the only cameo — filmmakers John Landis, Joe Dante, Clive Barker, and Tobe Hooper all make appearances, as does an uncredited Mark Hamill in the film's prologue. All the stars came out for "Sleepwalkers"!
A cult classic?
Critics did not love "Sleepwalkers" (it sits at 29% on Rotten Tomatoes), but the allure of the Stephen King brand was strong enough to net the flick $30.5 million on a $15 million budget. Not exactly a blockbuster, but not a total flop, either. But where does "Sleepwalker" stand today? It's probably fair to say the film has a cult following — Garris spoke about it in detail several times on his now-concluded podcast "Post Mortem with Mick Garris," and the flick even got a special Blu-ray release from Shout! Factory. But I don't think anyone holds this up as a King classic. It's more of an oddity, up there with his sole directorial effort, the killer trucks movie "Maximum Overdrive."
And yet there's something special about "Sleepwalkers." The fact that it exists at all — that a major studio produced a movie in which mother and son monsters have passionate sex on screen — seems almost unthinkable these days. Throw in a scene where Mary stabs a cop to death with an ear of corn, and then quips, "No vegetables, no dessert!", and you've got a unique work of trash-art on your hands. It may not be the best Stephen King movie, but it is, perhaps, the strangest. And horniest.
"Sleepwalkers" is now streaming on The Criterion Channel.