Non Ho Sonno, or Sleepless as it's commonly known to English speaking audiences, starts in 'Turin, 1983' where a young boy named Giacomo (Daniele Angius) has just witnessed his mother (Francesca Vettori) being brutally murdered by an unseen assailant, Chief Inspector Ulisse Moretti (Max von Sydow) promises Giacomo that he will find his mother's killer even if it takes him the rest of his life. It's now' Turin, Today' & a prostitute named Angela (Barbara Lerici) refuses to comply with her clients disgusting demands & in her hurry to leave their apartment knocks over a table out of which falls some large dangerous looking knives & a blue folder which she accidentally puts into her bag in her rush. On the train home Angela looks inside the folder & finds evidence that her client is a murder & somehow connected to the 'dwarf murders' back in '83. Angela phones her friend Amanda (Conchita Puglisi) to pick her up at the train station but Angela is brutally murdered before the train arrives, outside the station Amanda is also murdered. The current Chief Inspector, Manni (Paolo Maria Scalondro) is on the case, he talks with the now retired Moretti about the dwarf murders but finds out little except that the man thought responsible Vincenzo De Fabritiis (Luca Faglioli) committed suicide. A dancer at the 'Zoo' club named Mel (Elena Marchesini) is the next to be murdered. Giacomo (Stefano Dionisi) now lives in Rome but receives a phone call from an old friend named Lorenzo (Roberto Zibetti) who tells him that the dwarf murders may have started again. With the possibility of his mother's killer striking again Giacomo travels back to Turin where he teams up with Moretti & a friend named Gloria (Chiara Caselli) to try & solve the dwarf murders once & for all...<br /><br />This Italian production was co-written, produced & directed by Dario Argento I must admit in my humble opinion this is his worst film to date that I've seen. Many hailed it as a return to form, well I'm not having any of that as this can't compare to Argento's best. The script by Argento & Franco Ferrini while Carlo Lucarelli has a 'collaboration' credit has all the classic Argento ingredients like the black gloved killer, the ultra shiny selection of knives & blades, a ridiculous plot & a few glimpses of his unique style. Unfortunately Non Ho Sonno came in a lull in Argento's career coming after his widely panned Phantom of the Opera (1998) remake. Non Ho Sonno feels like a commercial attempt at making a film that utilises what Argento is best known for but at the same time he was under pressure to make it a success, while this is undeniably a Giallo I felt that it tried to incorporate elements from American teen horror that was proving very successful at the time like Scream (1996), I know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Urban Legend (1998), Final Destination (2000) & their various sequels & imitators. The largely teenage cast that populate the film, would Tenebre (1982) been as good if it featured a cast of teens? The hip locations including a rave & local pub where one of the teens even drinks non alcoholic drink. The good looking teen hero & his girlfriend who becomes the damsel in distress & who both manage to solve the murders even though the combined efforts of the Italian police can't & check out the 'crowd pleasing' comedy scene with the dwarfs in the police station. The eventual & obligatory twist ending is flat & had little impact as far as I was concerned. Non Ho Sonno is far too slow at almost 2 hours, there are few murders & none really stay in the memory. There are brief glimpses of Argento's class, the nicely lit blue tones as Mel is killed, or the sequence when Argento's camera pans across the floor for what seems like an eternity with lots of people walking past to come to rest on the killers & their victims feet by which a few seconds later her decapitated head lands but these scenes are few & far between as although technically Non Ho Sonno is good it's all pretty bland & forgettable for most of it's duration. I even found the gore disappointing, a few cut off fingers, a graphic bullet through someones head, someone being gorily killed with an English horn, a decapitation, a pen stuck in someones temple, someone has their face bashed in & a few quick stabbings. It all sounds better than it actually is, it's very spread out & isn't particularly graphic. There is some brief full frontal nudity but nothing to get too excited about. The acting is OK but the dubbing doesn't help, Max von Sydow adds a touch of elegance & class Non Ho Sonno definitely doesn't deserve. Overall a very disappointing effort from Argento, there is very little I can recommend in this film. Watch Tenebre, The Stendahl Syndrome (1996), Opera (1987), Suspiria (1977) or Deep Red (1975) again instead & remember the good times which don't look like they'll return anytime soon...