The nightmare begins when you open your eyes.
Chasing Sleep is a 2000 Psychological Thriller directed by Michael Walker and starring Jeff Daniels, Julian McMahon, Emily Bergl, and Gil Bellows.Professor Ed Saxon wakes up one morning to find his wife isn’t home. In between calling the police to find her and arguing next door neighbors, he begins suffering from insomnia. As the line blurs, clues appear that may explain her disappearance, and who’s responsible for it.
Tropes used include:
- Addled Addict: Ed, his psychiatrist, the lead detective and a beat officer all take the same pills, which help them cope with the stresses of their jobs. Ed takes handfuls of them as his guilty conscience and hallucinations get worse.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: George is this. Throughout the movie he’s openly hostile towards Ed over Ed’s wife.
- The Grotesque: The hallucination Saxon has of the unborn child in the bathtub is depicted as such, a hint in his mind that his wife cheated on him and the child wasn’t his.
- Madness Mantra: It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.
- Meaningful Name: Eve's animalistic lover George, who beats Ed up, has the last name "Simian."
- My God, What Have I Done?
- Never My Fault: Despite the horrific hallucinations, evidence pointing in his direction and that he’d killed off George, Saxon refuses to admit he killed his wife and unborn child
- Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: The bathtub overflows with it hinting if not outright confirming that’s where Saxon killed his wife.
- Psychological Torment Zone: The house itself represents the slow slippage of sanity.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Ed starts one with one of his students, Sadie after she comes to check on him.
- Through the Eyes of Madness
