This past Halloween we shared news about Sleep Tight a new web series from Awesomeness TV. As promised we are back with more details about this creepy horror collection. Episodes are now available to watch by clicking here.

Premiering this past October, the new horror anthology web series, Sleep Tight has proven to be a well-crafted innovative anthology. Holding the ingredients to our Nightmares, the series pays homage to a new generation of viewers and does a crafty job of speaking to adolescent fears by introducing metaphors that represent our newly found culture structured behind social media and technology. Sleep Tight offers fans of the genre something old and something new, catering to everyone. These stories spew out alluring cultural meaningfulness, suspense, mystery, and terror as it leaves behind a distinctive mark, that gratifying feeling of wanting to be told again, this series does a phenomenal job accomplishing this. The episodes run about 10-12 minutes in length, and each one is its own separate horror story.

“SLEEP TIGHT season one is a horror anthology in 8 parts airing exclusively on Verizon’s Go90 mobile network. The series explores classic and modern horror tropes through the lens of young woman in contemporary society. Dealing with real-world issues like an uber ride gone wrong and body image issues to more supernatural fare like a brainwashing mobile game and a cat fishing vampire SLEEP TIGHT pays homage tuning a new generation of horror fans into the genre,” says Executive Producer and Show Runner Jason Perlman.

Season 1 Episode Guide:

Episode 1: Feed. Aidan (Beau Brooks) meets his dream girl online and can’t wait to meet her face to face. But when he gets her alone he quickly discovers that she isn’t the girl he thought she was… she may not even be human.

Episode 2: The House. Griffin (Matt Shively), Chloe (Meg DeAngelis), and their friends rent an unexpectedly creepy house for their spring break trip. The friends realize the house may be the least of their problems when their fun turns deadly.

Episode 3: Riding With The Devil. Tina (lliana Raykovski) & Amy (Alyx Weiss) are late to a concert, so they pull up a ride-share app to get there fast. The ride takes an unexpected turn when Tina realizes that their driver (Tim Karasaw) may not be who they think he is.

Episode 4: Special Red. Emily (Jen McAllister) & Hannah’s (Alex Losey) friendship is put to the test when the mobile gaming app “Special Red” arrives at their school. Emily’s obsession with the app starts to take up more than just her time as Hannah notices Emily’s clothing, interests, and personality changing to exclude her.

Episode 5: Blacklight. To Harmony (Maddie Bragg) nothing is more important than her art. She uses her artwork to overcome her deepest insecurities and demons, but after she betrays her best friend’s trust her biggest fear reaches out of the canvas to claim her.

Episode 6: Teeth. The closer Lucy (Griffin Arnlund) gets to prom the more self-conscious she feels about not having a date, fitting into her dress, and the massive pimple growing on her forehead. But when her teeth begin to fall out she realizes her prom anxiety is the least of her worries.

Episode 7: Exorsitter. Marianne (Jessica Garcia) and Bobby’s (Rickey Thompson) friendship is put to the test when she calls him to help her perform an exorcism on the little girl she’s babysitting.

Episode 8: Scout. After the death of their mother, Hazel (Carrie Rad) & Celia (Chloe East) move into a new house with their dad and dog — Scout — to get a fresh start. But Hazel realizes something might be wrong with the house when Scout starts acting strange. She begins to wonder, can Scout see something that they can’t?

Check Out The Trailer Below

A Few Words With Executive Producer And Showrunner Jason Perlman.

I was very excited to speak with showrunner and executive producer Jason Perlman on his project Sleep Tight and the horror genre. Our conversation lasted about an hour and still, we have much more to talk about (expect more follow-ups).

iHorror: Sleep Tight appease to a large audience. Was this created specifically for Awesomeness TV?

Jason Perlman: I am in the in-house director for Awesomeness TV. I have worked with the company for about four years. My first year I was mainly a free-lancer, I had just been hired and was creating a bunch of sketch comedy. My second year I was still doing comedy, my third-year I became a full-time employee and I was a director and producer doing branded stuff, mainly comedy and docu-series. From the moment I got in I knew that there was a niche that is was not being exploited here and that is a horror thriller. I want to own that for Awesomeness because I love the genre. So I immediately tried to figure out “how do I pitch this?” They were like, “Jason you’re not scary, you’re not scary.” I used to spend nights and weekends writing shorts and getting a lot of “no” to these shorts trying to build out what would be known as Sleep Tight. They eventually said yes, but not because they loved the content or idea it was because we had owned a consumer product line FlHaunt and it was Hot Topic style clothing for girls, and they needed a content strategy for the clothes. They were like, “Hasn’t Jason been begging us to do a horror show?” They wanted me to do the show on the agreement that I would build around the clothing line. I was fine with that because I wanted to do anything to prove to them and to get some money to actually make something good, and this just happened last year.

In the beginning, they only wanted to do four episodes, do one with me and three with other people. I did not like that idea because it was mine, I had been pushing it forever, I wanted at least half the order. They ended up doing really well. At that point we needed to rebrand it, FlHaunt was not going to work; we needed something new. I was originally trying to call the series No Such Thing, which I liked it had an Urban Legend feel to it. They hated it. So I came up with about 80 different titles; eventually, the one that they liked was Sleep Tight, and so I developed it internally for Awesomeness TV really over the last 2 ½ – 3 years.

iH: That very much does answer the question. I had never heard of this channel; this is all very new to me.

JP: The majority of the content that we produce is like vlog style stuff, lifestyle, or beauty stuff. This company comes from this traditional background. The CEO of the company is Brian Robbins. He did Smallville, One Three Hill, What I Like About You, The Amanda Show, andVarsity Blues. He had a company called Varsity Pictures, and they were developing movies and TV shows. The company has since been restructured to become a digital media production company. Now Sleep Tight has been re packaged and what you see on Go90 are these 8-12-minute horror shorts, and they are all stand alone. They basically came to me when I was half way done with the order and wanted to take the original four FlHaunt episodes and combined them and made 6 -22- minute episodes; they figured they could sell it internationally. Basically, I wrote a connective tissue that ties together every episode through the eyes of a young woman who is creating a documentary about people who have survived horrifying supernatural trauma and the deal with her is that she has been a victim of an intense supernatural like an attack.

iH: Is it ever going to release in the US?

JP: I think that it will eventually be released in the US. So that is my deepest hope and desire for at least Season 1.

iH: Are you going for a Season 2?

JP: I am trying. I am begging. Because it airs on Go90, we do not know how many people have watched it yet. I do believe that Sleep Tight deserves another shot.

iH: I totally agree, I binged watched all of them. You describe a low budget; I did not have that feel at all. The episodes were very wall crafted. The final episode, Scout, made me jump! They were good, I have read comments that people were leaving and they were not negative. I saw a few, “This episode was not as scary as the others, but I still enjoyed it.” To me, that is a win!

JP: Thank you!

iH: Where did you film?

JP: All over the place. We filmed some of ‘Feed’ over at the Awesomeness TV’s offices in West LA. That alley is a much wider alley. I had my production designer build a giant brick wall along one side of it. So one side is real, and one side is fake. Some interior shots were filmed on stage space. ‘Scout’ was shot in a really cool house I think in Santa Clarita. When you have no money, you just make it work with what you have around you.

iH: That house in ‘Scout’ was pretty cool, I picked up on that immediately. It was unique.

JP: Yeah it was definitely a find, and we got it for a good price. Believe it or not, that house was part of a home make over interior design show. Every contestant had to make over a room, and that house is a result of that show, the people that owned it was great too. The lady that played the ghost in ‘Scout’ her name is Lydia Muijen. We needed someone with such interesting bone structure. Not only is she very beautiful and unique looking, but she is also double jointed. Her arms are like turned all the way around, and her mouth is just so wide. The thing about her is that she stayed in character the whole time. She was never not in character as the ghost. She would be sitting behind me smiling just starting at the back of my head. It was amazing. She really made that scary; she created a role out of nothing.

iH: that was pretty freaky! She did play a very unnerving character. I really enjoyed that episode.

JP: With that story, I really wanted to create a horror story that felt like a family drama. The supernatural stuff was a metaphor for the family falling apart. Using the sixth sense from the dog’s perspective really brought everything together. This one along with Special Red are my favorites.

iH: Sleep Tight does have the potential to serve as a stepping stone for many people, there is really great story telling behind all these episodes.

JP: There is nothing more that I would like to do than look back on this experience of Sleep Tight after ten seasons deep or a few seasons deep and be able to say “look at all of the great people we have worked with”

iH: I really had a good time. I was a bit skeptical going in, but I wanted and needed more when I finished the last one. If you do a Season 2 are you looking to extend the run time of these episodes at all? Or keep them about the same?

JP: I think that we would keep them about the same. I would like to see that documentary storyline along with the shorts. The documentarian storyline is really cool. It really gives it an interesting focus and framework that does elevate the stories. You’re getting to meet your main characters or supporting characters after the event that has happened to them. You can see how they have changed and have to deal with what happened to them. This is something that we really do not get a chance to see in horror. It is like the quote-unquote real world ramifications of this unexplainable thing happening. That was important to me. I would want to bring that into the Season 2 and not split it up the way that we did this year, where one platform only airs the shorts and another platform airs the whole thing.

Jason, it was great speaking with you! I look forward to the future of Sleep Tight and speaking with you more about the show and your passion.

 

Enjoy The Sleep Tight photo gallery below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Season 1 episodes are now available to stream on the Go90 app & Go90.com

 

 

Sleep Tight Artwork Courtesy of Devon Whitehead 

 

 

 

 

-ABOUT THE AUTHOR-

Ryan T. Cusick is a writer for ihorror.com and very much enjoys conversation and writing about anything within the horror genre. Horror first sparked his interest after watching the original, The Amityville Horror when he was the tender age of three. Ryan lives in California with his wife and Eleven-year-old daughter, who is also expressing interest in the horror genre. Ryan recently received his Master’s Degree in Psychology and has aspirations to write a novel. Ryan can be followed on Twitter @Nytmare112