Bad Dreams starts in the 70's where the Unity Fields cult, who believe in a perfect society created by love & trust, lead by a nutter called Harris (Richard Lynch) decide to make the ultimate sacrifice & commit suicide together. Except that is for a girl named Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin) who understandably isn't too keen on the idea, so while all the Unity Fields members are burning she manages to escape & is saved by the local emergency services. Jump forward thirteen years later & Cynthia wakes from a coma she has been in for all those years, having to adjust to late 80's culture & come to terms with the situation she is put under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Berrisford (Harris Yulin) & his assistant Dr. Karmen (Bruce Abbott) & regularly take part in therapy sessions. However it's not long before her old cult leader Harris comes back from beyond the grave to claim her & reunite her with those who sacrificed themselves...
Co-written & directed by Andrew Fleming when I sat down to watch this last night I had never heard of Bad Dreams before & thought it sounded like some recent cheap generic low budget shot on videotape horror flick & expected the worse, as the film started the 20th Century Fox film logo came up & my interest instantly peaked & I thought 'wow, a major Hollywood studio, this might be decent', the titles ran & I noticed a few familiar names like Bruce Abbott from the Re-Animator (1985) series of films, Gale Anne Hurd who produced a lot of James Cameron's films like The Terminator (1984) & Aliens (1986) produced it while Steven E. de Souza who had only a few years previously wrote the likes of 48 Hrs. (1982), Commando (1985) & The Running Man (1987) co-wrote it in the same year he would write the absolute classic Die Hard (1988) so there was definitely some pedigree both in front & behind the camera here & it show's as Bad Dreams is a surprisingly little known decent horror flick. The script by Souza & Fleming borrows heavily from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of films, a main villain who is burned & as a ghost comes back from beyond the grave to terrorise & kill people although one has to say despite the title he never turns up in people's dreams as he appears as a ghostly entity. The similarity with A Nightmmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) in particular is striking, the group of psychiatric patients fighting against a villain from beyond the grave, the doctors who won't believe them & the two films in general feel & look very alike. Then just when you think you have it all worked out as a simple Elm Street rip-off the film springs an effective if unlikely twist ending which comes out of nowhere & no reasonable explanation for it is given but it's certainly memorable. The character's are good, the dialogue is amusing & sharp, it moves along at a decent pace & there's one or two nicely gory set-pieces too. Much better than expected although I went into it with zero expectations so that wasn't exactly difficult.
Director Fleming makes his directorial debut here (his only other horror film of note would be The Craft (1996)) & does a good job, the film looks nice enough with some nice sequences. The scene inside the Unity Fields house where everyone is set on fire is very effective & the special effects during this scene are also very good. There's some gore here, someone jumps out of a window & splats on the pavement below, someone slices their arms with scalpels & then stabs themselves in the stomach, there are burned faces, there's a ventilation system full of blood that spurts it out everywhere & there's a severed hand.
With a very healthy sounding budget of about $4,000,000 this is well made with good production values & the special effects are impressive. The acting is good from a competent cast.
Bad Dreams sounds like some cheap dull horror flick & at first it seems like an Elm Street film rip-off but it's more than that & once it's got you thinking you know exactly what's going to happen it springs a twist ending out of nowhere, I just wish it made a bit more sense. Definitely well worth a watch I reckon.
Co-written & directed by Andrew Fleming when I sat down to watch this last night I had never heard of Bad Dreams before & thought it sounded like some recent cheap generic low budget shot on videotape horror flick & expected the worse, as the film started the 20th Century Fox film logo came up & my interest instantly peaked & I thought 'wow, a major Hollywood studio, this might be decent', the titles ran & I noticed a few familiar names like Bruce Abbott from the Re-Animator (1985) series of films, Gale Anne Hurd who produced a lot of James Cameron's films like The Terminator (1984) & Aliens (1986) produced it while Steven E. de Souza who had only a few years previously wrote the likes of 48 Hrs. (1982), Commando (1985) & The Running Man (1987) co-wrote it in the same year he would write the absolute classic Die Hard (1988) so there was definitely some pedigree both in front & behind the camera here & it show's as Bad Dreams is a surprisingly little known decent horror flick. The script by Souza & Fleming borrows heavily from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of films, a main villain who is burned & as a ghost comes back from beyond the grave to terrorise & kill people although one has to say despite the title he never turns up in people's dreams as he appears as a ghostly entity. The similarity with A Nightmmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) in particular is striking, the group of psychiatric patients fighting against a villain from beyond the grave, the doctors who won't believe them & the two films in general feel & look very alike. Then just when you think you have it all worked out as a simple Elm Street rip-off the film springs an effective if unlikely twist ending which comes out of nowhere & no reasonable explanation for it is given but it's certainly memorable. The character's are good, the dialogue is amusing & sharp, it moves along at a decent pace & there's one or two nicely gory set-pieces too. Much better than expected although I went into it with zero expectations so that wasn't exactly difficult.
Director Fleming makes his directorial debut here (his only other horror film of note would be The Craft (1996)) & does a good job, the film looks nice enough with some nice sequences. The scene inside the Unity Fields house where everyone is set on fire is very effective & the special effects during this scene are also very good. There's some gore here, someone jumps out of a window & splats on the pavement below, someone slices their arms with scalpels & then stabs themselves in the stomach, there are burned faces, there's a ventilation system full of blood that spurts it out everywhere & there's a severed hand.
With a very healthy sounding budget of about $4,000,000 this is well made with good production values & the special effects are impressive. The acting is good from a competent cast.
Bad Dreams sounds like some cheap dull horror flick & at first it seems like an Elm Street film rip-off but it's more than that & once it's got you thinking you know exactly what's going to happen it springs a twist ending out of nowhere, I just wish it made a bit more sense. Definitely well worth a watch I reckon.