Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2024) Review
Breaking Glass Pictures has unleashed the ultimate cosmic horror experience with UNSPEAKABLE: BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP, the chilling final chapter in Chad Ferrin’s Lovecraftian trilogy. Starring Edward Furlong (TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY), Robert Miano, and Susan Priver, this genre-bending fever dream debuts worldwide on March 4, 2025.
Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s terrifying short story, the film follows Ambrose London (Furlong), a world-renowned oneirologist summoned to Arkham Asylum to investigate a deeply disturbing case—a man possessed by a 122-year-old colonial peasant. But when Ambrose’s “Dream Machine” accidentally opens a portal to an alien entity hellbent on world annihilation, all hell breaks loose in a twisted, nightmarish descent into madness.
Any movie that is inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft-inspired with the author’s surreal material often proving an uneasy bedfellow with the medium of film. That said, the late great Stuart Gordon pulled it off with, especially with his classic 1985 flick RE-ANIMATOR, but of late, and aside from the terrific 2023 Greek flick MINORE, little else has succeeded.
The opening moments of Chad Ferrin’s UNSPEAKABLE: BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP initially signalled that this was going to be a major misfire whereby a prison-related incident sees male genitals, oral sex and the tearing off with teeth of a man’s baby maker redacted. Whether this was just for the review copy I received or how the film was meant to play out, I don’t know. What I can say is that later, UNSPEAKABLE has no qualms about showing EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING!
Against all the odds stacked against it – a low budget, a sometimes over-bearing soundtrack and head-scratching plot concerns – UNSPEAKABLE works! It makes for a fun and refreshingly perverse entertainment that is never slow in coming forward. From the well-endowed mutant penises that bare teeth, which remind one of the chestburster from Ridley Scott’s ALIEN to the pleasingly over-the-top gore and violence, Chad Ferrin’s movie is a guilty pleasure and truly something to behold. It may not match the brilliance of Stuart Gordon’s Lovecraft-related treasurers, but it still puts a smile on one’s face all the same.