Emotional punches, largely at the hands of Alix Wilton Regan as Mary Shelley, keep the viewer jolted awake, even if the story itself falls into a drowsy stupor.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 3, 2024

Achingly painful, A Nightmare Wakes is a must-watch for those looking for a horror film that is refreshing and innovative.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 10, 2022

May be full of spine-chilling dreams and the odd jump scare, but its real scares come from the psychological downward spiral that we watch Mary go through.

| Original Score: 3 / 5 | Jun 26, 2021

Good times are few and far between as Lord Byron invites his pals to the literary equivalent of Camp Arawak...

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 18, 2021

It might have been merely dull and slipshod, but A Nightmare Wake's ahistorical and insulting portrayal of Shelley is what truly rankles.

| Original Score: D | Mar 2, 2021

Nora Unkel's feature-film debut thoughtfully dramatizes the moments before a classic story came to be, highlighted by Alix Wilton Regan's layered performance.

| Original Score: 3.0/5.0 | Feb 22, 2021

With a lifeless cast and an even more lifeless script, A Nightmare Wakes is a bad dream you'll wish to wake up from.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Feb 17, 2021

A Nightmare Wakes is an interesting take on the Frankenstein tale and the story of its creation. However, the concept isn't enough to make up for flat characters and a lack of the horror that was promised.

| Feb 16, 2021

At best, this is a misguided attempt to make a gothic horror story about the most famous gothic horror story writer in history. At worst, it's an insult to the legacy of that very same genius.

| Feb 15, 2021

Unkel, who also wrote the screenplay, evokes with great sensuality the daily experience of life in the 19th century.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 13, 2021

Tackles a familiar story from an unusual angle, with mixed results.

| Feb 11, 2021

A Nightmare Wakes filters a biopic through the lens of a horror movie, painting a heartbreaking portrait of one woman's pain and the enduring piece of art that it led her to create.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 11, 2021

This take on the story behind the novel is tragic while enlightening.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 11, 2021

Proves to be another bad film on the writing of "Frankenstein."

| Original Score: C+ | Feb 9, 2021

A Nightmare Wakes is a dry and detached drama, broken up with the occasional nightmare or sex scene.

| Feb 9, 2021

A Nightmare Wakes uniquely melds historical fiction and literary adaptation into one film, but it loses Mary Shelley's spirit in the process.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Feb 7, 2021

A Nightmare Wakes is a good film. It's an intimate film. And ultimately, it feels like a personal film for Unkel.

| Original Score: 6.5/10 | Feb 6, 2021

A respectable effort nonetheless, albeit one not quite transporting enough to fully pull off a somewhat muddled conceptual agenda...

| Feb 6, 2021

Judicious editing would improve it.

| Feb 5, 2021

Mary Shelley had a complicated and often tumultuous life; A Nightmare Wakes echoes it.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 5, 2021