Written and Directed by Racheal Cain, and from Yellow Veil Pictures, Somnium is an indie horror film about a woman named Gemma (Chloë Levine) who recently moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career after breaking up with her boyfriend back home and gets a job at an interesting sleep clinic.
After not finding a lot of immediate success at talent agencies, Gemma happens across a company with a “Now Hiring” ad outside. That company is “Somnium”. The job description seems simple enough. Act as a “sleep sitter”, and ensure that the clients at the facility remain asleep.
Somnium is a company that was founded by a former sports psychologist who had success coaching a lot of athletes and other professionals. It’s somewhat of a self-improvement program that works on a client’s subconscious while they sleep. Shortly after beginning to work there, Gemma is starting to find that something much darker is happening at this sleep clinic.
Gemma begins seeing a demon looking creature periodically after taking the job as well, so between her struggles with rent, work, and her baggage from Georgia, things aren’t going well for her. Gemma has a lot of flashbacks of her life in Georgia, and how her relationship with her boyfriend was falling apart while she struggles in Los Angeles
Somnium is a horror movie in a different way than your typical psychological horror. It explores more of a horror of deteriorating mental health, and battling your own demons just to try to make it through day to day. The Somnium company is an interesting concept in itself with the sleep programming and reminded us a lot of Total Recall, and there were some really good moments where you can really see Gemma falling apart through it all as well.
Overall, this was a pretty decent effort from Cain and the team and a great first feature film from Cain. There were some rough edges with the story, as there wasn’t enough time to really dive too much into the Somnium background and Gemma’s story and seemed somewhat spread thin in that sense. Aside from that, everything from the acting to the production was great. We definitely think this is worth a watch if you are into psychological horror, and hope to see more from Cain in the future.
Somnium releases on 9/9/2025 on streaming services everywhere
