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Slumberland | 2022 | PG | – 3.3.3

content-ratingsWhy is “Slumberland” rated PG? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “peril, action, language, some thematic elements and suggestive references.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes some suggestive remarks, several scenes of people in danger in stormy seas with one leading to the death of a man, references to the death of loved ones, magical dreamscapes with unusual and sometimes threatening characters, arguments, and some moderate language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.


A young girl (Marlow Barkley) and a colorful outlaw (Jason Mamoa) explore a secret, magical dream world, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the girl’s deceased father (Kyle Chandler). Also with Weruche Opia, India de Beaufort and Chris O’Dowd. Directed by Francis Lawrence. A few lines of dialogue are spoken in Spanish with English subtitles. [Running Time: 1:57]

Slumberland SEX/NUDITY 3

 – In a dream, a woman wearing in a tight-fitting dress shimmies (we see cleavage, and the skirt is made of strips of cloth that reveal thong underwear and partial buttocks); the woman awakens and we see that she is a nun in church.
 A man introduces himself as “A troubling mix of father-figure and pent-up masculinity.” A man flirts with a woman by smiling and calling her Sassy Cindy. A man flirts with a woman by stealing her watch, smiling, and inviting her to go sailing. A man that escapes from a monster says, “I thought I was gonna get groped.” A man says that his favorite things are wine, women and waffles.

Slumberland VIOLENCE/GORE 3

 – A lonely young girl has dreams and we see her bed grow long, spider-like legs, crawl out a window and swim in the sea back to her former home in a lighthouse; in this dream, she meets a big, smelly man with a big belly, painted nails, pointy teeth, ram’s horns, a pink suit and he says he is an outlaw thief who hunts magical wish-granting pearls and that he needs the girl’s father’s secret map, which they argue over, but she eventually produces it and they travel through a place called Slumberland with odd places and sinister but silly “dream police.” A huge dark, squid-like cloud creature chases a young girl throughout Slumberland and a “secret agent of the unconscious” pursues her throughout the film, telling her “Nightmares will kill you, chasing you until they succeed.” A squid creature envelopes furniture, flips over a piano, and destroys a few walls, but no people are shown being harmed. A young girl dreams of her electricity going out and her windows icing over, and she finds herself in dark waters while a cloudy squid-creature chases her down a whirlpool and she finds the spine and rib cage of a dead whale; she awakens and gasps.
 In a series of dreams, a girl and a horned man enter a large room where butterflies gather in clumps that imitate people dancing, and as singers, band members playing instruments, and an announcer; a squid-creature chases them and they escape through a magic door, they run to the back of a garbage truck, climb into the cab and find a young boy driving, and the truck weaves erratically, spins, drives through a narrow alley between glass buildings, and slams through two glass walls, shattering glass that covers the ground (no one is hurt). A truck with three people inside drives into a body of water and the people swim away from a squid creature and they come out of a toilet tank in a large washroom, where a man screams at them and runs away. A horned man and girl walk through a door into a snowy mountain scene, where a woman pursuing them dodges snowballs and the man with the girl and another man fly away on huge geese; the man with the girl lands and they enter a small cabin, where they find a strong windstorm, lightning, and crashing waves as a loud explosion occurs in the background and we see a fireball briefly. An airplane chases a horned man, buzzes him, returns, taxis behind him and stops; the horned man punches the pilot unconscious and flies the plane away as a squid creature attacks, but the plane flies into a large bathroom where the horned man and a girl jump into a toilet tank, followed by a couple of other people and they find themselves in the cab of a garbage truck with a little boy; the truck crashes through two glass walls, shattering glass loudly over a floor while butterflies fly overhead (no one is injured); the dream changes to the horned man pulling the girl out of deep water and placing her on the shore of a lighthouse, where she is fine, and she finds her dead father and he tells her to go back to real life.
 A young child lives in an isolated lighthouse with her father and he tells her bedtime stories about the adventures of a large man who has long hair and curled ram horns; a large swarm of flies follows him everywhere, he eats two of them with chopsticks, and there’s a bad smell about him. A man heads out to rescue people one stormy night at sea and does not return, leaving his child an orphan (presumably an accident occurs off-screen) and she is sent to live with her estranged uncle, who is isolated, boring and awkward. After an argument with her uncle, a young girl sails to a lighthouse in a rainstorm, but is knocked out by the metal arm at the base of the sail; she dreams that she found magic glowing pearls in a wrecked mid-size yacht and kept two of them, a squid creature tries to grab her through a broken boat window, but escapes as a man with horns appears and is grabbed away instead.
 A sailboat floods and a young girl in it begins slipping out of it as her uncle calls the Coast Guard and goes with them in driving rain to find her; he stands on the front of the ship, jumps off, and finds her floating underwater, he pulls her up and onto land, where a woman does CPR and revives her after several seconds. A man kicks a young girl out of the frame and then knocks her down, but she is unharmed. A woman points a ray gun at a man and a young girl in half a dozen scenes, fires a shock wave to make them freeze in position, and fires a cable at the man to tie up his ankles as he hangs out the back of a garbage truck (he escapes). A young girl takes a ray gun, fires it at a woman, and makes her freeze in position after the woman sucker punches a man unconscious. A woman drives a car into a glass wall, shattering glass loudly and denting the car, but as she drives away, it comes back into perfect condition.
 A man in a dream is locked into a jail cell with a thick glass door and large lock; a young girl in the dream awakens, borrows lock picks, returns to the dream, and lets the man out of the cell. A girl in middle school hangs a hammock in the school basement so she can sleep during the day; a counselor discovers her and calls a meeting with her and her uncle, and a brief argument occurs. A stuffed toy pig comes to life in several dream scenes, oinking and grunting; in additional dream scenes, it burps and spits out a butterfly, a ball of wet feathers, a rock, and two glowing white pearls. In two dream flashbacks, we see a young girl floating underwater at sea, reaching out to her father, who disappears, and reaching out to a toy pig that floats away.
 A woman tells an 11-year-old girl her father died at sea and the girl cries. We hear that an 11-year-old girl’s mother died when she was very young. We see a memorial on a dock, where a man recites, “Crossing the Bar” and a girl tosses flowers into the water. A man argues with a girl and blows two “raspberries” with his tongue. In a dream, a man looks at a girl’s pet pig and says, “I love bacon.” A young girl argues with a man with horns in a dream several times and we hear shouting and screaming. A young girl argues a few times with her uncle with raised voices.
 A young girl splits logs with a long-handled ax. A boy trips over a tuba case and almost falls. A man does fake karate moves and shouts in front of a young girl to show off, but she is unimpressed. A young girl wishes on a magic pearl and asks that a horned man awaken from a dream, and he disappears.

Slumberland LANGUAGE 3

 – 1 scatological term, 4 anatomical terms, 4 mild obscenities, name-calling (rude, pathetic, maniac, stupid, suckers, man-boy, smart alec, monster, bozos, Sassy Cindy, Girl Scout), exclamations (heck, jeez, frickin’, flippin’, oh my gosh, what the flip, what the…, oh my, oh man, oh boy, oh great, whoa, wow, whoo, whoo-hoo, hey, ugh, awesome applesauce), 3 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, Holy moley). | profanity glossary |

Slumberland SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man says he will look for a bar and drink until he forgets who he is, but never finds a bar.

Slumberland DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Death, loss, grief, homeschooling, isolation, regret, emotions, dreams and nightmares, fitting in, conflict, reconciliation, communication, acceptance, family.

Slumberland MESSAGE

 – Dreams can help children, as well as adults, cope with unimaginable grief.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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