10 Horror Movie Nightmares WITHIN Nightmares

8. Cage Falls Asleep On A Bench - The Wicker Man (2006)

AMERICAN WEREWOLF in London
Warner Bros

OK, yeah, alright, we know. If ever there was one film to be committed to Room 101 it is Neil LaBute's catastrophic disaster that DARES to call itself The Wicker Man. The original is a bonafide masterpiece, so really don't bother too much with this one, apart from this nightmare sequence, which is actually genius, just not for the reasons you think.

Cage plays Edward, a traumatised cop who's asked by his ex to find her missing daughter. She lives on Summersisle, a rural matriarchal community off the coast of New England and before long, Edward finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy. Why do people who are planning to murder a cop behave so suspiciously? Is that really Aaron Eckhart in the diner at the beginning for all of two seconds? How do you un-see this film?

Anyway, Cage manages to fall asleep on a bench by the harbour (we know how he feels) and dreams of seeing Rowan floating lifelessly in the water. He removes his jacket and performing one of the strangest 45 degree angle dives into the water ever put on film, he swims toward the floating corpse. All of a sudden, he wakes from the nightmare, still on the harbour and looks down to see the sopping body is now on his lap and wakes for a second time - a clear as day, a nightmare within nightmare.

The best part, however, is Cage shouting "GODAMM!T!" as he recovers. Unintentionally, utterly hilarious.

Contributor
Contributor

A lifelong aficionado of horror films and Gothic novels with literary delusions of grandeur...