I'm a pretty positive person. I always try to see the bright side of things especially for an indie horror film - one of my favorite genres. So there are some positive things that can be said about Insomnium. For instance, some reviews said this film was a cure for insomnia but I had very different experience. Insomnium kept me guessing the whole time. Questions like: "It's daytime, right? Or is it night? I can't tell." And "Who throws toothbrushes at someone??" "Why do they only make video-calls?" "Who the heck is SHE?" And so many other questions right up to the end.
I like Brad Pennington (although I can't think of anything he was in) so I was kind of routing for this film. That's why I gave it such a high rating - 2 stars. I'm sure he did his best with the script he was given. And I wish Scott Powers the best in all of his future endeavors.
Another positive thing I can say about Insomnium is that it has a plot. Somewhere, mid way through the movie, I figured that there was nothing more to the plot than "sleeping roommate causes tension." (A side note: The roommate with insomnia is asleep through most of the movie. Don't let that detail distract you.) In the end, in the last seen, the last shot in fact, I realized that there was a much more complicated plot. This little surprise was craftily hidden from the viewer. Most filmmakers rely on devices like foreshadowing to keep the viewer interested. Not so here. Of course, I will not spoil the film for you by trying to explain. You'll have to watch to the end, like I did, to catch this clever twist.
All in all I felt that I had been, somehow, cheated out of 80 minutes that I could never get back. But as I thought about this film all the next day (which is usually my indicator of a great film for me) I realized that Insomnium showed me how important the little details are. The tiny little scenes that denote the passage of time or explains the presence of a new character, the dialog that sets up a protagonist's explosive reaction to a situation... Insomnium emphasizes these little clips by their omission. I have to admit, I enjoyed this film more than any other awful film I've seen.
