Marketing executive Desmond Caine is stricken with a bizarre form of insomnia, spending his nights walking the city's dangerous streets at night. Caine ends up at a local deli where he encounters some unusual chracters: a nice, if bit lost, young woman and a slightly deranged man who looks homeless, and an anti-social policeman. During one of his half-hallucinogenic journeys, Caine witnesses a brutal murder. He finds the victim's watch and goes to the police. Returning to the scene, there is no sign of the crime. Stranger still, Caine's girlfriend is completely unaware that he gets up at night and wanders the city, while his personal assistant seems to know all about his exploits. The police discover that the murdered man was connected to Caine's girlfriend; no longer only a witness, he is now the prime suspect... in 2009
Cast
Stephen Baldwin as Desmond Caine
Macha Grenon as W.D.
Michael Ironside as Skay
Maxim Roy as Chaney Streeter
Janet Kidder as Kimberly 'Kick' Birmingham
Genre
In July 2000, Dead Awake was described as "a thriller with a dark twist of comedy".
Production
Background
Locomotion Films, part of the Montreal Exponent Group, comprising commercial houses La Fabrique d'Images and S.W.A.T Films, and post and digital effects house Buzz Image Group, was officially launched in 1999 with a view to developing English- and French-track feature films, television series, and dramatic shorts. Director and co-producer Marc S. Grenier said he and his colleagues were ready "to do something entirely serious", moving into fiction after working many years in commercials. Dead Awake was made for television, and was Locomotion's second feature production for the year 2000 with a budget of $4.2 million.
Writing
The screenplay was written by Chicago-based Terry Abrahamson. Two working titles for the film were Wild Awake and Dead of Night.
Filming
took place over twenty days in Montreal, June 9 to July 6, 2000, under the working titleDead of Night. Grenier said that cinematographer David Franco used a lot of interesting wide angle shots, giving the film "an unusual and edgy look." Grenier elaborated: "The whole movie is like a maze. You know there's an exit but it seems unreachable and everything just keeps getting weirder and weirder."
Release and reception
Dead Awake was first broadcast on November 6, 2001.
The author of Critic Online calls Dead Awake one of the better Canadian thrillers of the early 2000s because of its interesting characters, and one of Stephen Baldwin's best films, because "it incorporates his morose acting style into the script." The Great CanadianMovie Guide assigns the film 3 stars, praising the unconventional performances and imaginative story. Johnny Betts was "surprised" to find that Dead Awake "is actually a decent little movie" with "a plot and doesn't rely on women taking off their clothes every two minutes." Betts also praised the "mix of plot twists, dark humor, and weirdness."
