Indeed, Before I Wake embraces its smaller budget to make an intimate portrait of not only the terror felt by children after the night light has been turned off, but in the wonder and dread of the parents who are tasked with keeping those babes safe—and shaping the fancies that dance in their heads. With a focus on characterization and the blurring line between dreams and reality that has become such a staple in thrillers over the years, Before I Wake conjures some breathtaking images that can rise above the film’s other more conventional daytime foilibles. However, it’s quick to see why this bad run of luck has trailed the lad. During the day, Cody is sweet and affectionate. He’s even almost absurdly well-adjusted given all the tragedy he’s witnessed. But at night, Jessie and Mark discover an initially enchanting secret: whatever Cody dreams becomes a reality. So the boy who love butterflies can manifest with merely his thoughts a Christmas tree bedazzled with glowing insects of green and red and blue. Yet the real rub of it is not just that Cody dreams up fantasies; he can also dream yours too… provided he has the right encouragement. Hence in the film’s most intriguing conceit, Jessie, much to her husband’s apprehension, begins showing her new son home movies of their lost child, bringing back the visage of the boy who died as if he were the Ghost of Christmas Past. But Cody brings with these dreams more than just implanted phantoms, and as Jessie urges him to dream, the closer she comes to meeting the ghoulish and skeletal figure who haunts Cody’s nightmares. Soon if Jessie is to keep her future safe, all she’ll have to do is stop an eight-year-old boy from ever having another nightmare. Before I Wake enjoys a dogged fascination with its characters. They’re people who this film is as interested in building up as its several delirious dream set-pieces. The result is a vision of a family in genesis, foregoing past crises to deal with a current one that just so happens to feature a dream demon who would not look out of place in a Tim Burton animation. With a premise reminiscent of Jerome Bixby’s “It’s a Good Life”—which in turn was adapted into one of the more memorable The Twilight Zone episodes in which a kid’s temper tantrum causes adults be “sent into the cornfield”—Before I Wake has a potentially comical setup about parents walking on eggshells around a child, lest they provoke a night terror that will come for them. However, Flanagan who is working from a screenplay by himself and Jeff Howard, grounds the picture in clever pathos by making it as much about the parents’ fear of failing a ward as it is of fearing the boy’s powers. The film openly invites viewers to question the parenting skills of Jessie and Mark, as one undeniably uses her adopted son’s powers to soothe her own grief and pain. The sophistication in its characterization only heightens dreams which are channeled mostly out of prosthetic effects that are striking in their wonderment, if not ever fully convincing in their verisimilitude. But in a story that emphasizes parenthood over the life and times of children, Bosworth and Jane bring needed authenticity to a film, grounding the sentimentality in a believable wistfulness. Jane is especially poignant as the morose and sullen hubby whose reaction to loss is to grow his hair out like a surfer, as if he can float away in his despair. Their crucible, coupled with the movie’s visual splendor of flights off frightening fancy, elevates Before I Wake above its humdrum narrative beats, making this the kind of film horror enthusiasts should pine for, particularly in the dreamless doldrums of winter.