Before I WakeMovies like Before I Wake
- Key Features:
- Orphan, Nightmares, Psychological horror, Foster care, Grief, Family drama, Child protagonist, Supernatural, Creature feature, Fear of the unknown, Trauma, Loss, Parental love, Redemption
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Horror fans, Psychological thriller enthusiasts, Viewers interested in family dramas, Fans of supernatural themes
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Dread → Hope
Before I Wake

An orphaned child's dreams—and nightmares—manifest physically as he sleeps.
Before I Wake
A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past. One day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.

At the lowest point in his life, Richie gets a call from his estranged sister, asking him to look after his eleven-year-old niece, Sophia, for a few hours. During a nighttime odyssey through New York City, the two begin to bond.

In post–War England, a writer and sometime-ghost hunter investigates a reported haunting at a boys boarding school.

After losing their baby, a married couple adopt 9-year old Esther, who may not be as innocent as she seems.

A family discovers that dark spirits have invaded their home after their son inexplicably falls into an endless sleep. When they reach out to a professional for help, they learn things are a lot more personal than they thought.

The tale of a ten-year-old boy in a Catholic school who, following the death of his beloved grandfather, embarks on a quest to discover the meaning of life.

After moving into a cottage together, two young lovers confront horrors of a forgotten childhood.

Belle, her little sister, and her comatose twin brother move into a new house with their single mother in order to save money to help pay for her brother's expensive healthcare. But when strange phenomena begin to occur including the miraculous recovery of her brother, Belle begins to suspect her mother isn't telling her everything and soon learns they moved into the infamous Amityville house.

Samantha Kingston has everything. Then, everything changes. After one fateful night, she wakes up with no future at all. Trapped into reliving the same day over and over, she begins to question just how perfect her life really was.

When twin brothers arrive home to find their mother’s demeanor altered and face covered in surgical bandages, they begin to suspect the woman beneath the gauze might not be their mother.

A young couple's dream of starting a family shatters as they descend into the depths of paranoia and must struggle to survive an evil presence that wants nothing more than their very own lives.

Not long after John Chambers and his family arrive at their new home in a small country town of Pennsylvania, John begins to experience sleep paralysis. Lying there paralyzed, trapped within his own nightmare, other-worldly beings visit John. They are entities which exist in the darkest shadows of the night and can only be seen out of the corner of one's eye. These encounters begin to haunt John, transforming to complete terror as he discovers the entities' sole purpose... the abduction of his seven year old son. In the end, John will uncover the town's horrific secret, a portal on his land, and make one last attempt to save his son before the shadow people permanently take him away to their world.

Teenagers Nancy, Quentin, Kris, Jesse and Dean are all neighborhood friends who begin having the same dream of a horribly disfigured man who wears a tattered sweater and a glove made of knives. The man terrorizes them in their dreams, and the only escape is to wake up. But when, one by one, they start dying violently, the friends realize that what happens in the dream world is real, and the only way to stay alive is to stay awake.

When a young boy contracts a mysterious illness, his mother must decide how far she will go to protect him from terrifying forces in her past.

Before Alice went to Wonderland, and before Peter became Pan, they were brother and sister. When their eldest brother dies in a tragic accident, they each seek to save their parents from their downward spirals of despair until finally they are forced to choose between home and imagination, setting the stage for their iconic journeys into Wonderland and Neverland.

Leah, 10, has terrible nightmares. Her mother seems distant somehow, lost in her thoughts. A small, nightly visitor brings Leah comfort, but soon Leah will realize that her little visitor offers knowledge that might be very, very dangerous.

A man wakes in a hospital bed with no recollection of who he is, and learns that he's wanted by the police for a committing a series of murders.

A man's family brought back from the verge of death, he then discovers he can identify people who are about to die.

A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.

A young couples lives are turned upside down when the birth of their first child is accompanied by terrifying entities that threaten their newly formed family.

June is different from all other nine-year old girls. She is an orphan hiding a secret. Bad things happen when she gets upset, supernatural things. June has been in many foster homes usually leaving them destroyed. But this time it will be different. June has a new foster home and she really likes her new parents. She will have to face the force within her to protect her new parents and to save herself.

Mikey just needs a good stable home. He's bounced from foster home to foster home his whole life. He finally lands himself with a new loving family, but their perfect little child is not what he appears to be. His previous caretakers all died of mysterious "accidents" that weren't really accidents at all. Mikey is a cold blooded killer, and it doesn't take long for him to aim his sights on his new adoptive family and anyone else who stands in his way.

Every culture has one – the horrible monster fueling young children's nightmares. But for Tim, the Boogeyman still lives in his memories as a creature that devoured his father 16 years ago. Is the Boogeyman real, or did Tim make it up to explain why his father abandoned his family?

Dae-ho, an investigative journalist, seeks to track down the whereabouts of his son who was abducted three years ago. With the help of a detective and a psychiatrist friend, he will retrace his memory of the incident through the use of lucid dreaming techniques.

A sleep doctor tries to protect a family from a demon that feeds on people in their nightmares.

In the aftermath of a car crash, a man discovers his dreams are tied to a stranger's sleepwalking.

Female protagonist’s brother dies under mysterious circumstances. Extremely vivid nightmares begin to haunt her and she decides to turn to the Institute of somnology for help. Along with other patients, they are induced into a «collective lucid dream». But at the dawn, they will awake to a completely different reality that is more horrifying than any nightmare.

When Simon awakens in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal accident, amnesia has erased the last two years from his memory. He learns that his brother was killed, he has married a woman he doesn't remember and he's haunted by strange visions of the woman he loved.

Criminal psychologist Kate Fuller is assigned to the murder of a man who has seemingly been strangled in his sleep by his wife and the only witness is their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie. As Kate digs into the mystery of an ancient demon which kills people in their sleep, she experiences the same petrifying symptoms as all previous victims and spirals through a chilling nightmare to save herself and Sophie before she dares fall asleep again.

Deep in the throes of a global pandemic, up and coming TV star, Ava Boone, is forced to flee the mounting chaos in Los Angeles and return to her rural hometown. But as she struggles to acclimate to a way of life she left behind long ago, her homecoming attracts a dangerous figure from her past – threatening both her and the family that serves as her only sanctuary.

Two parents deal with the effects when their son is accused of murdering his girlfriend.

The story of a man who wakes up in bed suffering from memory loss after being in an accident, only to begin to suspect that his wife may not be his real wife and that a web of lies and deceit deepen inside the house where he soon finds himself a prisoner.

The pregnant Alice finds Freddy Krueger striking through the sleeping mind of her unborn child, hoping to be reborn into the real world.

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.

Kate Bowman (Jocelin Donahue) is an average social worker who, after the sudden death of her twin sister, is investigating the mysterious deaths of other people who died in their sleep. Shortly before their deaths, the victims all reported a supernatural force that appeared to them while they were suffering from sleep paralysis. When Kate investigates further into the case, she opens herself up to the creature's wrath and soon finds herself and her family suffering from an ancient evil.

Eight year old Peter is plagued by a mysterious, constant tapping from inside his bedroom wall—one that his parents insist is all in his imagination. As Peter's fear intensifies, he believes that his parents could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions their trustworthiness.

A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage, intent on reopening it. Before long, her son starts to communicate with a new invisible friend.

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

Traumatized since childhood by her brother's accidental death, Danika Merrick hallucinates a bank robbery and quits her job. Despite support from her three children and loving husband, Danika continues to experience unnerving visions. She seeks help from therapist Evelyn Harris but pervasive reports of violent incidents involving children make Danika fear for her own family, and she grows increasingly paranoid, worrying she may be going insane.

A psychology student who experienced night terrors as a child must face the chilling realization that her nightmares were not all in her head.

At dawn, Clarisse takes a last look at her husband and two sleeping children, hesitates to leave a note, and hits the road. A desperate escape that gradually reveals its layers as Clarisse — who seems to have an extra-sensory connection to the family she has left behind — loses herself in the world.

Looking for an escape from her recurring nightmares, 18-year-old Sarah submits to a university sleep study, but soon realizes she's become the conduit to a frightening new discovery.

A man awakes-- without memory -- in a pit full of bodies and must figure out if the people who rescued him are the killers, or if he is the murderer.

When her boyfriend is arrested for marijuana possession, Joleen Reedy and her 11-year-old daughter, Tara, take refuge with Joleen's aimless brother, James. Joleen soon runs off with a truck driver, and James is unable to meet his responsibilities. After Child Protective Services takes possession of Tara, James abducts her from a foster home, and the two travel from California to Utah, where his abusive father lives.

Publisher Will Atenton quits a lucrative job in New York to relocate his wife, Libby, and their daughters to a quaint town in New England. However, as they settle into their home the Atentons discover that a woman and her children were murdered there, and the surviving husband is the town's prime suspect. With help from a neighbor who was close to the murdered family, Will pieces together a horrifying chain of events.

A burgeoning stand-up comedian struggles with the stress of a stalled career, a stale relationship, and the wild spurts of severe sleepwalking he is desperate to ignore.

A young student is haunted by recurring dreams of her mother murdering her father, but her nightmare is just beginning as she tries to prove to her loved ones that she is not insane.

Ten years have passed since the world's children fell into a coma. Tonight they're waking up and all hell is breaking loose. An unholy battle between the generations is being waged, and time is not on the side of adults.

A young girl discovers a secret map to the dreamworld of Slumberland, and with the help of an eccentric outlaw, she traverses dreams and flees nightmares, with the hope that she will be able to see her late father again.

A number of children are being well fed, taken care of, and pampered at a very meticulate and managed orphanage. The facility and grounds are impressive, but the wall acting as a barrier is high. There is a secret to the place and once revealed to several orphans, they're desperate to escape.

After a massive party one evening, 17-year-old Tina begins experiencing nightmares in which she is haunted by an unusual creature.

Following an unexpected tragedy, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe meets a nine year old boy named Cole Sear, who is hiding a dark secret.

Following a terrible car crash, a woman awakes to find an enigmatic mortician preparing her for burial.

Teenage Marie lives on a small island with her father and catatonic mother. Virtually friendless and sullen, Marie begins to experience frightening changes in her body that mark her as a dangerous threat.

A small town girl is caught between dead-end jobs. A high-profile, successful man becomes wheelchair bound following an accident. The man decides his life is not worth living until the girl is hired for six months to be his new caretaker. Worlds apart and trapped together by circumstance, the two get off to a rocky start. But the girl becomes determined to prove to the man that life is worth living and as they embark on a series of adventures together, each finds their world changing in ways neither of them could begin to imagine.

A young girl lost in the loneliness and boredom of reality finds solace in an ill boy, whom she can visit in a surreal dream world that she drew in her school composition book.

After a young couple moves into a remote farmhouse with their infant son, the woman's struggles with postpartum psychosis begin to intensify... as the house reveals secrets of its own.

A socially awkward teenager is blindsided when her mother introduces her to her new fiancée. At first, his charm, intelligence, and beauty seem too good to be true, and after a series of strange occurrences, the teenage daughter realizes that this new member of their family is not exactly who he seems.

A mother concerned about her young son's disturbing behavior thinks something supernatural may be affecting him.

In order to diagnose the psychic traumas suffered by his patients, Dr. Paul Novotny gets young Alex Gardner to enter their dreams.

Rebecca must unlock the terror behind her little brother's experiences that once tested her sanity, bringing her face to face with a supernatural spirit attached to their mother.

An exorcist comes up against an evil from his past when he uses his skills to enter the mind of a nine year old boy.

Due to a near-fatal accident that has left her incapacitated and depleted of her long-term memory, a temporarily wheelchair-bound woman returns home after being abroad for six years accompanied by her bohemian boyfriend, the apparent cause of the accident. Unable to remember her family or her own childhood, she sets out, with the help of her boyfriend, to find the reason for her leaving all those years ago and quickly discovers her relatives may not be as loving as she’d thought

Since her childhood, Jessica has been haunted by recurrent nightmares whose meaning escapes her. This peculiarity has led her to study the psychophysiology of dreams and to follow a therapy with Sean, her mentor and boyfriend, to try and understand the origin of her nightmares. Following the death of her maternal grandmother she hardly knew, Jessica reluctantly returns to the family home. Jessica then begins to wander in a nightmarish world inhabited by twisted versions of her family members. She gradually improves her skills as a lucid dreamer and investigates to solve the mystery that gnaws her and haunts the family home...

The 19 years old Thomas wakes up in a hospital after three years in a coma. He doesn't remember anything. The psychologist Anna tells him that his family has been murdered and that he is the only survivor of the massacre while his sister Laura is still missing.

A young woman moves to Paris and has a brush with disaster. Grown-up at last, an accomplished woman thought she was safe from her own past. Gradually, these characters come together to form a single heroine.

A young actress rehearsing for a play about human trafficking begins to relive terrifying scenes that may be dreams -- or an alternate reality.

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

A teenager who went missing and was presumed dead returns home after eight years to find a family deeply affected by his disappearance. Gradually, doubts arise about whether he really is the missing boy or an impostor.

A monster from a little girl's nightmares comes to life and attacks anyone who would harm her.

Awaking from a coma to discover his wife has been killed in a car accident, Ben's world may as well have come to an end. A few weeks later, Ben's out of hospital and, attempting to start a new life, he moves home and is befriended by a beautiful young neighbour Charlotte. His life may be turning around but all is not what it seems and, haunted by visions of his dead wife, Ben starts to lose his grip on reality.

Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities with a mysterious tie to her past.

Still scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance faces the ghosts of the past when he meets Abra, a courageous teen who desperately needs his help -- and who possesses a powerful extrasensory ability called the "shine".

A young man and his three younger siblings are plagued by a sinister presence in the sprawling manor in which they live.

A young woman seeks help from a sleep clinic for her insomnia, but soon deals with her entire life being turned upside down.

12-year-old Conor encounters an ancient tree monster who proceeds to help him cope with his mother's terminal illness and being bullied in school.

Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.

As the 15th anniversary of a fatal high school shooting approaches, former pupil Diana McFee is haunted by memories of the tragedy. After losing her best friend Maureen in the attack, Diana has been profoundly affected by the incident - her seemingly perfect life shaped by the events of that day.

Following the murder of her family at the hands of her father in the wake of World War I, a young woman is sent to live in a convent. However, the demons that plagued her father follow, reawakening the nightmares of her past.

Sophie is snatched from her orphanage early one morning by the BFG (Big Friendly Giant), whom she witnesses engaged in mysterious activities. She is soon put at ease, as she learns that BFG's job is to collect, catalog and deliver pleasant dreams to children. She joins him that night, but a mean giants follow them, planning to eat the children of the world.

Brought together at their childhood home over their dying mother, an estranged family is thrust into a deadly fight for their own survival.

Thomas Kaiser inherits an ancestral mansion that has been in his family for generations — only to learn that he has also inherited an ancient curse stemming back to the Crusades. Forced into his new role as “protector” — the guardian appointed to keep the evil demons in the house at bay — Thomas teams with an ambitious local realtor and paranormal cleric to unravel the mystery of the house, while struggling to awaken the beautiful Briar Rose, held captive in a terrifying netherworld seen previously in his dreams.

After a sudden global event wipes out all electronics and takes away humankind’s ability to sleep, chaos quickly begins to consume the world. Only Jill, an ex-soldier with a troubled past, may hold the key to a cure in the form of her own daughter. The question is, can Jill safely deliver her daughter and save the world before she herself loses her mind.

The arrival of a newborn girl causes the gradual disintegration of the Cairn family; particularly for 9-year-old Joshua, an eccentric boy whose proper upbringing and refined tastes both take a sinister turn.

Jack and Melissa are frightened by their son's bizarre and violent behavior; they soon learn that he is the gateway to the Apocalypse, and it will happen on his birthday, 11-11-11.

An orphan boy named Tim is afraid of the dark. However, when the stars start going out in the sky, he finds himself exploring the world of the night, alongside his new friend, the Cat Shepherd.

Haunted by memories of a patient's death, a nurse takes a job at an antiquated hospital for children. Soon she learns that the kids fear a ghost that prowls the floors and will not allow anyone to leave. Amy tries to protect them and convince the other staffers of the evil that lurks there.

Newlyweds Cory and Sarah Morgan take Cory's 7-year-old son Liam up to the country for some much needed family time. When it appears as if Liam has run away, psychological suspense becomes straight-out horror, as Sarah and Cory must now confront a sadistic cult-like family who have been hiding in the house all along and have taken Liam for themselves.

A grieving couple move to a remote Irish village in the wake of their baby daughter's death. They soon take in an orphaned autistic girl, only to become involved in a series of strange occurrences.

Young babysitter Amanda arrives at the Lloyd residence to spend the evening looking after their young son. Soon after the Lloyds leave, a series of frightening occurrences in the gloomy old house have Amanda's nerves on edge. The real terror begins, however, when the child's biological father appears after recently escaping from a nearby mental institution.

Alex, blind since the age of two, dreams of running for his school's cross-country team. His father, a probation officer, finds a running partner who spends his time 'running' from the law.

When Ruby and Rhett's parents are killed in a car accident, their carefree teenage lives are suddenly shattered. Moving to an incredible house in Malibu with the Glasses', old friends of the family, seems to be the beginning of a new life for them.

A relaxing Christmas vacation turns into a terrifying fight for survival as the children begin to turn on their parents.

Jess, a newly separated mother and nurse, moves into her old family farmhouse with Tyler, her teenage daughter, and Owen, her eight-year-old son. One night, the family dog senses something in the woods and runs off to find it. He returns a couple of days later and attacks Owen, savagely biting him before Jess is able to intervene. Owen is rushed to the hospital. His condition worsens, and no one can figure out why... until Jess discovers a disturbing cure...

Samantha has lived her whole life in different foster homes. Now living in a small town, she never feels like she quite fits in, even with her own current foster family who might adopt her, or the boy who follows her around doing her classwork. So, it’s perhaps natural that she doesn’t know what to do with a curious tagalong little sister named Olivia. One day, Sam callously ditches Olivia, who wanders off into the woods on her own and disappears.

While exploring the neighboring woods, 13-year-old John discovers an unfinished bunker — a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents and older sister and drags their unconscious bodies into the bunker, where he holds them captive. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally do what he wants.



