Exclusive Trailer: Sleep Paralysis Horror, Echoes

We’ve previously noted how 2015 seems to be the year of the nightmare. In films like Horsehead, The Nightmare and Echoes, filmmakers are looking to not just give you bad dreams, but plant their feet firmly in them. The latter two concern Sleep Paralysis, a condition which takes many hallucinatory forms, but is defined by someone being unable to move, speak or react as falling asleep or awakening. As the phenomenon exists on some line between sleep and being awake, so does Rodney Ascher’s The Nightmare straddle documentary and fictional recreation. Echoes meanwhile is a full on horror feature, one Shock presents your first look at, in an exclusive trailer below. 

Echoes, the feature debut of Nils Timm, sees Anna (Kate French), “a young writer struggling with horrifying, sleep-paralysis induced visions. Anna retreats with her boyfriend (Steven Brand) to an isolated yet beautiful glass house in the desert. Hoping that the desert vistas surrounding her will spur her creative juices, she welcomes the opportunity to stay behind when her boyfriend must return to the city for urgent business. However, Anna’s sleep paralysis does not abate, despite the calming environment. And now, her attacks are accompanied by a mysterious figure, caked with dirt as if it was made of sand itself. As the visions intensify, she finds herself on the verge of losing her mind…or is she being lead to uncover a life-threatening secret?”

Timm seems to explore all manner of hallucinatory haunts, from the dreamscape to the true anxiety of Sleep Paralysis, being unable to move as something unnatural hovers, watches and reaches out.

Anchor Bay releases Echoes to DVD & Blu-ray this April 14^th.

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