September 19, 2009
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The Night Walker (1964).
Written by horror master Edward Bloch.
Directed by William Castle.
With Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, Irene Trent, Joyce Holland, and Hayden Rorke.
After her covetous, jealous, and suspicious husband allegedly burns to death in a mysterious laboratory explosion, a wealthy widow (Stanwyck) has recurrent nightmares featuring an imaginary lover (Bochner). He appears to her at night while she is dreaming and takes her on hellish journeys into the macabre. She dreams repeatedly that she falls asleep and then "awakens" to this nightmare while still within a dream.
Each time, the nightmares begin with the lover awakening her at her bedside after she falls asleep. Every night, her clocks indicate that she has awoken from her sleep into the recurrent nightmare at the same time that she went to bed. Bochner eerily tells her, "Time stands still when you're with me!"
The mysterious stranger drives her through a haunting Los Angeles nightscape to a a creepy, delapidated chapel where sinister, animated wax figures play the organ and conduct a bizarre and puzzling wedding service. One night she awakens from the recurrent nightmare, only to find Bochner again in her room. She concludes that she has only dreamed that she has woken up, and is trapped in a nightmare from which there is no release. Driven to the brink of madness by this ceaseless paradox, she dramatically shrieks over and over, "I can't wake up! I can't wake up!"
Her scheming, apparently disbelieving lawyer attempts to help her unravel the mystery. But does he know more than he is telling her? Is everyone in her life really who they appear to be? Is she going crazy? Stanwyk's character struggles to unravel the mystery of what she is experiencing as she attempts to retain her dwindling shreds of sanity.
William Castle employs no pedestrian gimmicks in this surreal, haunting film. By this point in his career he demonstrates that he has honed his skills as a competent director of horror. Stanwyk is as stunning, convincing and naturally suited for her role in this mysterious noir as she is in her haunting film roles in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and Double Indemnity.
Released on VHS.
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