Hot Docs 2015: The Nightmare

Is Rodney Ascher’s new documentary The Nightmare essentially about Stanley Kubrick? The ostensible subject is sleep paralysis… but I actually think it continues his previous doc Room 237 by looking at Kubrick’s lessons and how they apply to the modern world. Even in Ascher’s description of his own sleep paralysis what he describes is pure 2001. In The Nightmare Ascher explores the subliminal messages behind Danny’s hallucinations in The Shining and the nightmare secret society of Eyes Wide Shut. What exactly was Danny seeing in the Overlook? What was Bill Hartford closing his eyes towards? What was Kubrick trying to warn us of? The Nightmare, actually very similar to the recent It Follows, shows a world under attack by these supernatural forces. Save yourself if you can.