Jessie Hobson (Kate Bosworth) and her husband Mark (Thomas Jane) adopt a new foster child, Cody (Jacob Tremblay) as part of their attempts to get their life back on track after their own son has died.

However, Cody is a child with a troubled past who was abandoned by his previously family and they soon realise that Cody’s reluctance to sleep is linked to an issue he has where whatever he dreams manifests itself in reality, but on the flip side his nightmares also appear and one repeat appearance is by a creature he calls ‘The Canker Man’. These nightmares are far more are deadly so Jessie and Mark begin to understand why Cody was abandoned and must figure out what to do to stop this process before they are killed.

There are some very well acted scenes between Jane and Tremblay which feel full of emotion and their developing relationship is the heart of the movie while Bosworth is still more focused on Cody being the replacement for her dead son as opposed to building a new bond and, maybe it was just me, but I found myself disliking her character up until the latter stages when she begins to show some redeeming features. Tremblay in general is once again superb and is completely believable as the troubled child. Coming off his performance in Room he is without doubt a very talented young actor.

Director Mike Flanagan has also recently given us the underrated Hush and while this is not as good as that film you can see plenty of similarities in the camerawork and scene setting but some of the plot is a little strange, such as, why would an agency place a child with a family who are still struggling to deal with the death of their own child, why doesn’t either parent want to report the fact that Cody is doing his best to stay awake every night and after a certain incident that occurs in the school they are so oblivious to the cause of the issue it’s baffling.

While the acting was fine, the concept was good and the ending tried to do something a little different for which it must be given credit, it just failed to raise itself to any level of greatness and can be best described as a good film elevated by some very good acting but there were times that the film drifted back to the old tropes of the horror genre which felt a bit unnecessary. While I would recommend checking it out, especially if you are a fan of the genre, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before so don’t expect anything outstanding.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5.5 Out Of 10