Minna’s life is turned upside down when her dad’s new fiancée, Helena, and her daughter Jenny move in. Her new stepsister, Jenny, turns out to be a mean terror and Minna is frustrated. She wants her gone! One night Minna discovers a world behind her dreams, where dream builders create our dreams on theatre stages. Minna discovers that she can get back at Jenny by manipulating her dreams. But interfering with people’s dreams has dire consequences, and Minna goes too far, so Jenny ends up in a coma. Everyone says it’s an accident, but Minna knows it’s her fault. Minna must enter the dream world one final time to face the living nightmare she has created, in order to save Jenny and her new family.
This movie provides examples of:
- Big Sister Bully: Jenny goes out of her way to torment Minna, including threatening to have her hamster taken away. The plot of the film is kicked off by Minna trying to get Jenny to become nicer.
- Blended Family Drama: The conflict of the movie revolves around this. Step-siblings Minna and Jenny fail to get along, with Minna meddling in Jenny's dreams in an attempt to change her personality, with Jenny also refusing to acknowledge John as her father until she tries to drive a wedge between him and Minna.
- Daddy's Girl: Minna is very close to John, especially with her mother having left her. She's resistant towards the prospect of Helene and Jenny moving in, as she feels she and her father are family enough as it is. It's Jenny trying to spite Minna by becoming close to John that ultimately spurs Minna to try and get rid of her by scaring her away with a nightmare.
- Disappeared Dad: Jenny's father left her and Helene years ago. According to Jenny's dream, he blamed her for it.
- Dream Walker: Minna, upon discovering the dream world, uses it to interact with other people's dreams, particularly Jenny's.
- Dream Land: Every person has a dream stage, where the Dreambuilders design, script and act out their dreams, akin to shooting a film.
- Dream Weaver: The Dreambuilders, who are responsible for crafting people's dreams. Minna does this as well upon discovering the dream world.
- Giant Spider: Minna creates a giant mechanical one to scare Jenny during her nightmare. It later comes to life in the Dream Trash and attacks the two girls as they're trying to escape, until Minna shuts it down.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: How Minna learns that her "mother" is actually a Dreambuilder in disguise: she suggests that the two stay and play board games, whereupon Minna points out that her mother hated board games.
- Missing Mom: Minna's mother Karen left her and John years ago to pursue a career as a singer.
- Nightmare Weaver: When Jenny, who has found out that Minna is manipulating her dreams, attempts to make Minna jealous by getting close to her father, Minna retaliates by crafting a nightmare in which Jenny is terrorized by spiders. However, she goes too far and ends up destroying her dream stage, causing Jenny to fall into the Dream Stage below, rendering her real-world self comatose.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: Jenny spends most of her time on Instagram, much to Minna's aggravation, particularly when she finds out Jenny has been badmouthing her to her followers.
- Pushover Parents: Helene makes little attempt to correct Jenny's spoiled behavior and is quick to cater to her whims.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Jenny's Spoiled Brat demeanor serves as a mask for her feelings of abandonment from her father leaving her and her mother, especially as she feels he left because of her.
- Spiders Are Scary: Jenny certainly thinks so. Minna capitalizes on this by using spiders in Jenny's nightmare.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Jenny after her adventure with Minna in the dream world.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Jenny is terrified of spiders. Minna later takes advantage of this when designing Jenny's nigghtmare.
