The Sleep Experiment

The thing about the experiments carried out at Porton Down in the mid 20th Century – which followed, to an extent, in the same tradition as MK Ultra in the US – is that so much remains hidden about them, and there is so much denial surrounding them, that fiction writers can use them as a foundation for all sorts of things. Writer/director John Farrelly has claimed them as inspiration for this thriller about prisoners and sleep deprivation, but it has notable features in common with a similarly titled Creepypasta story. What gives it some weight regardless is its focus on Irish characters, which reflects other aspects of the troubled history of the British state and makes the central premise all too believable.

This concerns five men, hooded and marched into what looks like an underground bunker in the opening scenes. All serving lengthy prison sentences, they have been told that they will have them commuted if they cooperate in an experiment which involves an experimental gas. “You must stay awake for the next 30 days. You must complete all physical activities. You must obey any orders given to you without delay. Strictly no physical contact between each other,” intones a voice. The parameters of the experiment are clumsily drawn. It doesn’t seem likely to produce good quality data, but its flaws are in line with the approach of similar studies at the time, and there’s no reason to assume somebody would have intervened.

We watch events unfold at a distance, the idea being that events in the bunker were recorded on tapes and are being reviewed by detectives many years later. Farrelly’s shooting style doesn’t fit this narrative, so you will have to suspend disbelief, but the format enables him to jump back and forth, introducing new snippets of information wherever they are most effective from a dramatic perspective. One tape is missing, and yes, it does turn up right at the end. In the meantime, the detectives build on their observations from the tapes by interviewing psychologist Christopher Sampson (Tom Kerrisk), who designed the experiment.

Down there in the bunker in the past timeline are likeable, practical Edward (Rob James Capel), who is sympathetically presented as having committed murder only to avenge his murdered child; shy young Eric (Steven Jess), who immediately triggers Edward’s protective instincts; pushy but personable Sean (Brian Moore); tediously vacant psychopath Luke (Will Murphy); and peculiarly well-adjusted Patrick (Sam McGovern), who just wants to get it all over with and get out, but who may have a secret. Viewers will immediately suspect that these particular characters have been placed together for a reason which goes beyond what they’ve been told about, and indeed, they don’t need sleep deprivation to start getting on each other’s nerves. Knowing this, Farrelly reveals early on that something went horribly wrong, and has the detectives demand to know more about the men’s backgrounds and why they were chosen.

There’s a lot of potential here, and the result is a film which, whilst disastrous in some respects, works well in others. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Kerrisk’s acting, on which key aspects of the film depend, is terrible. The dialogue is pretty bad throughout, but where other actors mostly succeed in pulling it off, he’s hopeless, trotting out a bizarre description of what it means to be a psychopath as if reading from a Fifties textbook, contributing to the predictable and flaccid ‘twist’ ending in a style which recalls the Republic serial villains of the 1930s, totally at odds with the rest of the film. This is particularly frustrating because not only does it let down the good work elsewhere, it also risks making the whole thing so comical as to provide cover for real life equivalents.

By contrast, the drama in the bunker is quite well handled, with solid work from most of the actors, especially in the early stages. The film is at its strongest before it starts obliging them to show the effects of mental disintegration, but even then, some of it is quite effective, with Eric getting overwhelmed early on due to difficulty in filtering noise, something which many viewers will have experienced for themselves when under stress. Capel and Moore work well together and will leave you wanting to see more of the prisoners’ experience. There’s enough here to illustrate that Farrelly is not without talent. It’s just a shame that the cheesy, clumsily handled aspects of the film prevent it from achieving its potential.