Horror Movie Review: He Sees You When You’re Sleeping (2024)

Written by David Lenik and directed by Charlie Steeds, He Sees You When You’re Sleeping is a festive horror film that can be summed up as unremarkable in almost every way. There’s nothing obviously terrible here, but there’s nothing that good either, so the result is a film that ends up being wholly forgettable.

The clues are there from the start too, even if the ‘cold opening’ has some entertainment value. Beginning with a young boy named Chester who is being traumatised by his uncle, who is telling him a nice festive story about Santa coming into their house and murdering them all. Just the sort of thing a young boy needs to hear on Christmas, especially as the news is reporting that an escaped mental patient is considered armed and dangerous and was last spotted a few miles away from the family’s house. An escaped mental patient that recently killed a local Santa and took their outfit too.

Can you see where this is going? Of course, Chester’s family is slaughtered, and he is left traumatised by the sight of Santa on a murderous rampage.

Cut to years later, and Chester is now a young man played by David Lenik. He has spent years dealing with his trauma and as part of his continued recovery, he has decided to return to his family home with his girlfriend, Afton (Nellie Spackman). The plan is to spend Christmas with his aunt Marion (Caroline Williams) and cousin (Cedric Gegel), who now live in the house as his tenants.

He doesn’t really want to as he doesn’t particularly like his aunt and cousin, but it is important to his recovery, and Afton does encourage him. Of course, his worries prove to be well-founded as his cousin treats him with disdain and his aunt is more concerned that Chester will decide to take the house away from them. Dysfunctional doesn’t quite sum it up, and then Chester starts to get threatening notes and thinks he sees someone in Santa outfit around the house.

Of course, no-one believes him, especially as every bit of proof he gets hold of, disappears. Is it all in his head, has the killer come back to finish the job, or is there something sinister going on?

It doesn’t take deep concentration to work out early that it’s the latter and his aunt and cousin are trying to set him up to get the house from him. However, as predictable as this is, He Sees You When You’re Sleeping does have a few more twists that are harder to see coming. Although considering the questions these raise, it’s hard to be too positive about the film not being utterly predictable.

Likewise, it’s hard to care too much either as He Sees You When You’re Sleeping just isn’t exciting or interesting to watch. It plods along hitting unremarkable beat after unremarkable beat, failing to give most characters any life, and in the case of the lead, making him wholly unlikable.

It’s not just me, right? Chester is really unlikable, right? The way he speaks to certain people, his constant sarcasm, whining, and the way he drools over his childhood friend in front of his girlfriend makes him hard to root for. The latter coming well before we find out that his girlfriend has her own motivations too. In fact, the whole film is made up of unlikable characters who spend most of the film bickering and snipping at each other. Fun, right?

Around all the familial drama, we have a ‘meh’ slasher mystery, and nothing more. By the time it finally drags itself over the finish line, most will have mentally checked out long before the killer reveal comes in uninspiring fashion. As forgettable as everything else, He Sees You When You’re Sleeping is just so average.