‘Stranger Things’ and ‘The OA’ Stars Check Into ‘Somnium’ in New Look at Sci-Fi Thriller [Exclusive]

Now isn’t the time to close your eyes and go to sleep, as the indie sci-fi thriller Somnium is coming to theaters in a few short weeks. From first-time director Racheal Cain, the film has been building buzz on the festival circuit, winning audience awards at the 2024 Chattanooga Film Festival, where it premiered, and the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, as well as a Best Actress Award at FilmQuest for its big star, The OA alum Chloë Levine. She stars as Gemma, a small-town girl with big dreams moving to Los Angeles to start life anew. To make ends meet, though, she gets a job at the titular sleep clinic that supposedly makes dreams a reality, albeit with some ominous secrets hidden in its walls. We’re excited to include the film as part of Collider’s Exclusive Preview event and feature two new images featuring Levine and her co-star, Stranger Things‘s Grace Van Dien.

In the first image, Gemma is working the front desk at Somnium and staring at what appears to be another employee. Given the look on her face, though, she doesn’t appear to be paying too close attention to what’s being said. She certainly has a lot on her mind after moving out west following a painful break-up. Somnium follows her attempts at rushing headfirst into the cutthroat world of Hollywood in hopes of becoming a star, only for unsettling phenomena to creep into her life as the pressure to succeed mounts and the secrets of the clinic become clear. There’s a reason the position she’s taken has been a nightmare to fill, and that sinister spiral may swallow her too.

The other still sees Van Dien dressed like a Hollywood starlet, albeit with a look of worry at whatever is off in the distance. If the trailer is any indication, she has a role to play in the nightly descent into dreaming that Gemma goes through while working at Somnium. The film is a creeping thriller that watches as her grip on reality begins to warp the longer she stays in the clinic, slowly realizing the horrifying realities of manufacturing her dreams of the high life. Levine and Van Dien are accompanied into the David Cronenberg-like waking nightmare by Peter Vack (Mozart in the Jungle), Will Peltz (Unfriended), and Johnathon Schaech (Suitable Flesh).

‘Somnium’ Is the Horrific Hit of Director Racheal Cain’s Dreams

The road to Somnium was long for Cain, who both wrote and directed her debut feature. Work on the script began back in 2011, though she wouldn’t actually get the cameras rolling until 2018, when a successful crowdfunding campaign finally gave her the means to make her dreams a reality. Even then, only the flashback sequences were shot that year, with the present-day scenes waiting until roughly four years later, in 2021 and 2022, to film. The positive reaction to her over a decade of effort was more than she could ever imagine, with a perfect 100% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes in addition to the aforementioned accolades.

“I couldn’t have dreamt Somnium would end up in theaters just a few miles from where I started writing it all those years ago,” she said about her debut’s upcoming release. “This film has clawed its way into existence over the last decade, and I can only hope viewers find it was worth the wait.” Her nightmare-inducing feature will now add more prestige to a year that has been packed with acclaimed horror titles, from Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners to Danny and Michael Philippou‘s Bring Her Back.

Somnium awakens in select theaters on August 28, starting with a screening at the Laemmle Royal, before getting a run in New York on September 6. The film will then be available to rent or buy in digital HD on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home starting on September 9.

Stay tuned here at Collider for more exciting reveals throughout the rest of our preview week.

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