The flames of damnation are replaced with the fumes of gasoline and pizza in writer/director James Hilger’s netherworld indie feature Sleepyhead. Lillo Fante (Lillo Brancato) likes to bowl in his spare time and loves his pet parrot. His co-workers at the utility company are pissed off at him for something he did. He is directed to go down a manhole and the next thing he knows he is coming to on the pavement at night with no wallet. He is on the wrong side of the river, which is boiling hot for some reason. A ferryman in a flashing skull mask (Joseph Vincent Gay) agrees to take him across, but only if Lillo sings him Happy Birthday.
Across the river, nothing makes sense at first. Lillo gets thrown out of corner markets and accosted by all sorts of strange characters. A voice at a fast food drive-thru informs him, “You’re dead. So, want a cheeseburger?” As Lillo makes his way through this strange tri-state area of Hades, he has to make bargains with lost souls as he has no money. All he wants is a way out so he can get home and feed his parrot. He is told the price will be a wine bottle with the blood of Jesus in it. So Lillo takes off down the sidewalks of Hell, looking for the best bottle of booze that ever was…
Back in college in the 90s, I would walk to Yonkers to get suitcases of beer and rent splatter VHS tapes. On the border of the Italian Bronx, Yonkers oozes that New York feels like oil and vinegar from a deli hoagie. It is far from any Hell, which makes it such an interesting place for Hilger to put one. So Sleepyhead gets a big recommendation for its rich location cinematography, shot by Waleed Sokkar. The footage delivers one gorgeous slice of mid-century east coast urbanism after another. You would swear you were watching Mean Streets. The lighting is fantastic as well, with impressive stylized colors applied to location shooting, very hard to pull off.
“All he wants is a way out so he can get home and feed his parrot.
There is also a good level of humor maintained throughout. The sequence in the park with the witches is hilarious, particularly when they are raping the tied-up creep. 99% of the time, rape jokes are unwatchable, but this is Hell, after all. Most of the scenes in Sleepyhead seem non-sequential like they could have been put into the movie in any order. It is to Hilger’s credit to have the overall motivation of Brancato to get back to his parrot to add drive to the whole thing.
The big flaw with Hilger’s script is his execution of having Brancato never define what it is that he did to be sent to Hell. I am not disagreeing with the choice of not revealing this, I think Hilger has a good impulse by leaving it up to the viewer’s imagination. When it first comes up with the co-workers commenting on the unnamed messed-up act, the ambiguity worked. However, there is a difference between being ambiguous and being incomplete. Later on, a demon requires as a prize that Brancato tell him the worst thing he ever did. Then the scene ends with no further follow-up. At least Hilger could have had Brancato tell the demon but not let the viewer access what is told. Just cutting away makes it feel undone.
Also, the ending doesn’t work, and I think Hilger knows it. There seems to be audio dubbed in post-production to try to make the climax make more sense. I got it, but it was a stretch. It should be a lot more clear, especially when it explains why the movie is called Sleepyhead. Overall, Hilger has turned in a decent indie film with the subject matter most will have a hell of a time with.
