Before I Wake Summary and Review - Dreams That Touch the Waking World

Before I Wake opens with a tense, unsettling scene that immediately establishes the stakes. A distraught man enters a child’s bedroom with a gun, seemingly moments away from shooting the sleeping boy, only to be interrupted at the last moment. It’s an arresting start that sets up the film’s blend of mystery and emotional unease.

Rebuilding Lives

We then shift to Jess and Mark, a married couple dealing with unimaginable grief after the accidental death of their young son. Hoping to rebuild their lives, they decide to foster a child. Their first placement is Cody, an eight-year-old boy whose background is patchy at best: his mother died when he was three, and both of his previous foster placements ended with the unexplained disappearance of one or both guardians.

Jess attends a support group n an effort to work through her grief, while Mark prefers to manage his privately, but the couple seem united in their desire to provide Cody with stability and regain a sense of normality for all of them. What they don’t yet know is that their home is about to become the centre of something far more dangerous than unresolved trauma.

The Canker Man

Cody seems like the perfect child but soon reveals that he fears a figure he calls the “Canker Man,” insisting the entity visits him whenever he falls asleep. Terrified, he tries desperately to stay awake. It isn’t long before Jess and Mark discover the reason behind his insomnia: Cody’s dreams manifest physically, filling their home with startling, sometimes beautiful visions. But his nightmares materialise too—and they’re far deadlier.

The film’s middle section slows considerably as the couple bond with Cody and attempt to understand his ability. These quieter stretches are peppered with effective moments of uncertainty that maintain a sense of dread. As Jess and Mark begin to benefit from Cody’s dream manifestations, their grief softens. But this new emotional comfort comes at a cost.

Jess’s longing to reconnect with what she’s lost clouds her judgement and leads her to make decisions that leave Cody vulnerable. When his nightmares gain the upper hand, they escalate with terrifying speed, pushing Jess into a race to uncover the truth behind Cody’s past and the origin of the Canker Man before it’s too late.

A Blend of Fantasy, Fear, and Feeling

Before I Wake relies more on atmosphere than outright terror. There are a few effective jolts, but the film is driven mostly by creeping tension and an emotional undercurrent rooted in loss. The contrast between Cody’s soothing dream apparitions and the darkness of his nightmares gives the story a mix of fantasy and horror reminiscent of Guillermo del Toro.

It wasn’t until the end that I realised the film was directed by Mike Flanagan—which explained the sophisticated aesthetic choices. The cinematography favours clean, graphic-novel-inspired compositions with a muted neutral palette, touched warmed by copper tones, even if some of the CGI moments now look a little dated. The creature design, at least, remains effectively eerie.

The film explores familiar themes—grief, trauma, and the fragile boundary between dreams and reality—and while it doesn’t break new ground, Flanagan keeps it engaging. There are, however, moments of narrative inconsistency. Jess suffers a major emotional blow that should devastate her, yet her reaction is strangely muted. Similarly, the mysterious disappearances linked to Cody’s previous foster homes would almost certainly spark investigations, yet the film brushes past it. The ending also feels too neatly resolved, given what the characters have gone through although its fairytale quality does align with the film’s fantasy elements and—to be generous—it was hard to see where else they could have gone with it.

Before I Wake may not be the scariest entry in Flanagan’s filmography, but it’s a stylish, heartfelt piece that blends sorrow and supernatural threat in a way that stays with you. The core plotline may lack originality but Flanagan makes this into something distinctive, delivering a story that's both touching and unsettling that could easily have been more mundane in less capable hands.

3/5

Characters & Production

Jess Hobson: Kate Bosworth
Mark Hobson: Thomas Jane
Cody Morgan: Jacob Tremblay
Natalie: Annabeth Gish
Whelan: Dash Mihock

Writer: Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard
Director: Mike Flanagan
Year of Release: 2016
Runtime: 97 minutes