Stephen King's Forgotten '90s Monster Movie On Netflix Is Perfect For Horror Fans

Mick Garris' 1992 horror flick "Sleepwalkers" was written by Stephen King, and boy howdy, is it ever stupid. It follows the on-the-road adventures of Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his mother Mary (Alice Krige), a pair of shape-shifting were-cats who can suck the life out of virgin women. Life-sucking cats seem to be something of a preoccupation with King, as evidenced by the undead kitty seen in "Pet Sematary" and its film adaptations. King also wrote "Cat's Eye," although that film featured a heroic house cat that bravely murders a troll monster that aimed to kill Drew Barrymore. 

The monsters in "Sleepwalkers," while appearing human, are largely malevolent, and they have to drift from town to town to sustain themselves. They also have a raft of superpowers. They can make themselves "dim," aka turn invisible, and they can revert to their natural form whenever they want, appearing as monstrous upright cat people. They can also project illusions and seem to have mild telekinetic powers. Also, to make sure the monsters are notably unsavory, they seem to live in incestuous bliss, with mother and son constantly canoodling. 

It's easy to spot Charles and Mary, though, because they freak out whenever they encounter a house cat. In a notable scene in "Sleepwalkers," Charles is fleeing a cop in his car, and the cop happens to have a pet tabby in the front seat. Charles takes one look at the tabby, and briefly reverts to his cat-man form. 

The movie is corny and silly, but one cannot fault it for originality. It's also, at the end of the day, fun to watch. There's a wild, earnest, B-movie quality to the picture that horror fans know and love, and the movie is currently streaming on Netflix.

The story of "Sleepwalkers" picks up after Charles and Mary have relocated to a small Indiana town after murdering a girl in California. Charles looks like a teenager (well, by Hollywood standards; actor Brian Krause was 23 at the time), so he moves into the local high school to look for potential victims of his and his mom's life-sucking powers. He zeroes in on Tanya (Mädchen Amick), a perfectly bland young woman who finds Charles unbearably handsome. There's a subplot involving a teacher at the high school (Glenn Shadix) who seems to sense that something is up. 

Ron Perlman and Mark Hamill have small roles as cops (so memorable that Hamill forgot about the experience), and a kitty named Sparks stars as the featured house cat Clovis. King and Garris also managed to rope in a lot of notable horror figures for small cameos. King himself turns up as a gravedigger, but also keep an eye out for Clive Barker ("Hellraiser") and Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chain Saw Massacre") as lab technicians. Joe Dante ("Gremlins") also appeared in a lab coat. 

It's worth noting that "Sleepwalkers" was the first film written by Stephen King that he didn't adapt from one of his novels or short stories. It was wholly original for the big screen. It's hard to say what tone King and Garris were going for, however, as "Sleepwalkers" is a monster movie, but it's also so absurd, one might be tempted to think it was a horror/comedy. It doesn't help that the main monsters are terrified of house cats; when their lawn fills with little striped felines, it's more adorable than threatening. Audiences are tempted to wade in and start petting the animals rather than running in terror.

Fans of 1990s horror kind of love "Sleepwalkers." Sure, it's a little absurd, but it takes big swings. Keep in mind that slasher movies were almost entirely dead by the early 1990s, and no dominant trends seemed to be emerging. Films like "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" and John Carpenter's overlooked "In the Mouth of Madness" were selling a new kind of self-aware meta-narrative, noting that horror had come to reflect on itself. Old formulae weren't going to work anymore, and filmmakers had to try new things. Stephen King and Mick Garris attempted to make a new kind of monster, something with a new set of rules and a new kind of experience. Vampires were out, werewolves had been done, but soul-sucking were-cats with a bent for incest? That hadn't been tried before too many times. 

Critics were very unkind to "Sleepwalkers," and it has a mere 29% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on a scant 17 reviews. Horror fans know, however, that negative reviews can sometimes be an endorsement. On the Cinema Crazed website, critic Felix Vasquez, Jr. hit the nail on the head by writing that "'Sleepwalkers' is not a good movie, nor a scary one, but you're guaranteed a good time with its inherent stupidity and silliness." We horror fans want a good time, and that's not always copacetic with quality. 

"Sleepwalkers" wasn't a total dud, making $30.5 million on its $15 million budget. It also kicked off a long-standing collaboration between Garris and King that lasts to this day. Garris would go on to direct the celebrated 1994 miniseries adaptation of King's novel "The Stand," the 1997 miniseries version of "The Shining," "Quicksilver Highway," and "Desperation." And to think we have all those cute li'l kitties to thank.