Sleepless Movie Review 317

Sleepless is a 2001 Italian horror/thriller directed by Dario Argento and starring Max Von Sydow.

In 1983, Detective Ulisse Moretti(Von Sydow) is investigating murders in Turin. They call the murders The Dwarf Murders and they have a suspect in mind. He is called Vincenzo de Fabritiis and he is a writer. When he dies, the case seems closed as the cops think that he was the killer. Cut to modern day and a prostitute is brutally murdered along with her friend by an unknown killer. The cops come and they wonder if this is the same killer from years ago. They call to Moretti for help, but he has now retired and he is not interested in helping. When another woman is murdered, Moretti has a change of heart and he shows up at the crime scene. He is sure that it is the killer from 1983.A guy called Giacomo(Stefano Dionisi) comes to stay with his friend Lorenzo(Roberto Zibetti). Giacomo knows Moretti as his mother was murdered by the original Dwarf murderer and he calls in to see him.

They talk and they go to Vincenzo de Fabrititiis' house to look for clues on the killer. They don't find much. They then go to the train station where the prostitute was killed and see if they can find anything. There is a dead guy at the station who had the killers pen. Moretti is told to back off now by the cops.Lorenzo gets poisoned on a night out when his drink is spiked but he doesn't die. There is something strange afoot.Was it meant for Giacomo? Moretti and Giacomo go back to de Fabritiis' house and find a nursery rhyme the killer was using in his killings. His mother is there and she tells them that she killed her son after he was accused of the killings and she gets them the gun that she used. She thinks that her son was not the killer now. But she falls from a balcony when she thinks that she sees him. They discover that an old hobo is using a dwarf puppet to make people think that the dwarf is still in the house. Moretti and Giacomo follow him to see who he is working for. They find Lorenzo's father there and the whole sordid story unravels. It turns out that Lorenzo was the killer all of this time. He was just a child in 1983 and the police thought that it was a dwarf, not thinking that it could be a child. He has resumed his killing ways and his dad was trying to protect him. The cops show up and they shoot Lorenzo.

An interesting thriller from Argento. I liked it. It was a whodunit and there were some great kills in it.
I hadn't heard much about this film before I watched it, but I think that it is worth a watch and it is entertaining. I had an idea who the killer was early on, but that didn't spoil the film at all. I recommend this to all fans of horror/thriller. It gets a 7/10.