By Kristen Leer

Sleep is an essential part of horrors coming to life. It is where darkness overtakes light and the unconscious thoughts and impulses run free. Typically sleep transports people into a space where they are ever more vulnerable to the horrific entities that wait to consume them. From Nancy desperately trying to stay awake to avoid Freddy Kruger in her dreams (Nightmare on Elm Street 1984), to a young boy’s dreams manifesting in real life (Before I Wake, 2016) and students struggling to distinguish reality from after encountering green goop (Prince of Darkness, 1987). However, The Cell (2000) extends the anxieties of the dreamworld and subconscious landscape to explore desire, trauma, and destruction of the mind. 

The Cell (2000) depicts a team of scientists who are using experimental therapeutic technology to assist patients (e.g., patients in comatose and with severe mental illness) in reentering consciousness. As a serial killer, Carl recently has been located, but succumbs to a mental illness that triggers a comatose state, these researchers are relied upon to enter into his mind to save the life of one of his latest victims. Catherine is the female protagonist hired to conduct these experimental dreamscape reality treatments for patients, which allow her mind to go into and assist her patients’ minds. However, when dealing with an unpredictable, dark mind Catherine’s self of identity, consciousness, and trauma wound is in jeopardy. 

Upon its release, it received very mixed reviews with criticism aimed at its superficial narrative execution and a hyperfixation of violence and masochistic depictions. Nevertheless, it was praised for its stylistic execution. Here is where I believe the initial reviews missed when trying to locate the “depth” of the film, which doesn’t reside in the plot itself but in the dreamscape, where symbolic and thematic explorations of wounds are intricately woven in. A quick clarification: in public discourse “trauma” is used more frequently than it ever has in human history. Because of that, we must be strategic, clear, and careful of how we use this term especially when positioning it within media objects and representations. The term “trauma” itself comes from the Greek word “wound” so to say “trauma wound” is a bit repetitive–nevertheless, this phrasing aims to recall a specific psychological wound, that was so destructive, invasive, and disrupts the very identity of the person, to which their psychological selves and well-being is irrevocably altered. The Cell illuminates this within the serial killer, Carl, not necessarily to cancel out the horrible acts he has done to innocent victims but to showcase how the mind can so quickly and tragically lose itself to darker elements. Which is paired well thematically with dreamscapes. 

Though Catherine and Carl aren’t necessarily “dreaming,” to illustrate the (sub)consciousness between the two relies on dreamscapes to facilitate tangibility to the hidden desires, memories, and identities that she hopes to uncover in Carl. Freud believed that dreams allow people to express unconscious wishes they find unacceptable in real life (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899). However, as Carl is acting out unspeakable wishes in the real world, what becomes a “wish” for him is the ability to be free from his darkness. As Catherine is “walking” through the dark parts of Carl’s mind she discovers a young boy, seemingly who embodies young Carl before his horrific disturbed transformation. Through this young boy, Catherine begins to understand the origins of the dreamscape in which she is inhabiting–one that has been tortured physically and mentally since its adolescence which created disturbed ideas of life (e.g., the horse being divided into multiple pieces), of women (e.g., objectified in doll-like formations and “displayed”), and of power (e.g., the older version of Carl is molded into a dark deity-like figure). This is where the “depth” of the film comes into play as without the dreamscape allowing unique, altered symbology to emerge, this would have been just another black-and-white murder mystery narrative. The dreamscapes of The Cell heighten its thematic exploration of sleep where surreal sequences emphasize the boundaries between reality and the dream world and its unspeakable desires. 

Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D’Onofrio in The Cell (2000)

Sleep often represents vulnerability where control is surrendered and Catherine’s vulnerability is evident when she ventures into Carl’s mind. However, unbeknownst to the disturbed older Carl his own vulnerability surrenders to Catherine’s will. This power struggle reflects the interplay between being controlled by one’s mind versus mastering it. Carl, despite his mind being one that feeds into his desire, shows a clear struggle for complete control as a part of his mind, the young version of Carl, what to be free from such unconscious desires. Sleep has been portrayed as a restorative or a path to healing, and Catherine’s journey through Carl’s mind reflects this effort into hoping to redeem himself, at least the young version of himself, by helping her save his future victim. Despite attempting to save and rebirth the younger version of Carl into her own mind it becomes clear that these two parts of Carl cannot be severe and death becomes the ultimate rebirth and sleep for Carl’s disrupted self to end.  

What is important about this film is that just because Catherine unveils the origin, the initial innocence, of Carl who now is the killer which everyone knows him as outside of the dreamscape, it doesn’t cancel out the horrible pain and acts he has inflicted upon his victims. Instead, it shows the importance of how impressionable and fragile the mind can be–where killers are not born but made. As well by being engrossed and immersed in one’s subconscious desires there comes a danger of over-identifying with trauma and letting it consume the essence of oneself. This is evident in the conversation between Catherine and the FBI agent, talking about how people, despite experiencing horrible events/acts, can still turn out to be good people. And, the slippage of Catherine being entrapped within Carl’s mind and letting his desires overtake her consciousness. It is only by regrounding herself with her wound, the loss of her young brother to a coma, that she cannot only find herself but allow such an experience to motivate her actions and become a positive force rather than a destructive one like Carl.