Bad Dreams (1988)

 

Director: Andrew Fleming

Screenplay: Andrew Fleming and Steven E. de Souza

Cast: Jennifer Rubin as Cynthia Weston; Bruce Abbott as Dr. Alex Karmen; Richard Lynch as Franklin Harris; Dean Cameron as Ralph Pesco; Harris Yulin as Dr. Berrisford; Susan Barnes as Connie; John Scott Clough as Victor; E. G. Daily as Lana; Damita Jo Freeman as Gilda; Louis Giambalvo as Ed; Susan Ruttan as Miriam

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

In the shadow of Nightmare on Elm Street becoming a huge horror franchise in the late eighties, 20th Century Fox joined among others on the supernatural horror bandwagon with Bad Dreams, in which the prologue, as you always want, introduces a cult actor like Richard Lynch in a prominent cast member, in this case as the head of a hippy cult, Franklin Harris, anointing members with what seemingly is ladles of water.

It is later revealed it was gasoline, the house exploding from the resulting fire, beginning the film with one survivor Cynthia, a young teen, having to bare the memories of what happened after the thirteen year coma she wakes from after the incident. This is a big film in context of this genre, in terms of the studio distributing it, just from the soundtrack -  I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) by The Electric Prunes, a punk cover of My Way, and more strikingly Guns 'n' Roses before they went big with Sweet Child of Mine, long before it become a radio staple even here in Britain - and there is a deliberately sense of this trying to match the success Nightmare on Elm Street had. Specifically, this was made after the third film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), which managed to figure out the tone of the series and become a favourite for fans, this explicitly riffing on its premise and re-casting Jennifer Rubin, a prominent side character in that film, as the lead Cynthia here. Prominently as well, with director Andrew Fleming starting here and continuing through the next decades in Hollywood, you have as his co-writer on the script Steven E. de Souza, a big figure in Hollywood who, also in 1988 when Bad Dreams was released, co-penned the script for Die Hard, which mid-way through a career with credits alongside other big actor films is arguably the hugest title for his entire career. Souza is someone I like, even when his directed and written attempt to adapt Street Fighter (1994) as a video game franchise to the big screen was seen as a failure, and you can spot his sense of humour and witticisms throughout this.

The Dream Warriors set up, of a group of patients being targeted one-by-one by an unnatural force, is obvious here, as with Harris the cult leader who, like Freddy Krueger with his burnt face make-up, occasionally appears burnt up to in the border beyond life and death. Like Dream Warriors, it is a series of set pieces where people are picked off with the only difference that, with the doctor running the group here, said male figure here is openly a sceptic to the scenario who is yet trying to rationalise the alarming number of freak deaths taking place one soon after another. Honestly, Bad Dreams is pure horror spectacle even in terms of being pure cheese as well as what works, with some flair but until its ending twist is going in an expected route for the set-up even in terms of the exaggerated takes on mental health by a game cast, such as the nervous wreck of a former newspaper reporter, for the equivalent of a Weekly World News where Bat Boy came from, who chain smokes like a furnace. They are picked off one-by-one in inventive deaths like Dream Warriors, the equivalent of a haunted house ride of a film, and your taste will entirely depend on whether you can appreciate this.

There are some memorable incidents, including someone seemingly deciding to play hit-and-run on their senior in the hospital car park and gleefully killing them, to the surprising level of gore such as the gruesome moment someone ends up going through the turbine in the boiler room and literally recreating the song Raining Blood from Slayer onscreen. Probably the most idiosyncratic aspect of this whole film does need major spoilers, but suffice to say, this set up with a supernatural slant becomes a more “rational” ending, which comes off more contrived than if ghosts were involved yet provides an appropriate heightened nature of a ludicrous murder twist. [Major Spoiler] I highly doubt even with the variety of side effects and causes medicines can induce in real life, any that can cause people to kill themselves as happens in this, or hallucinate about Richard Lynch would be allowed anywhere near a medical storage facility on a hospital unless you wanted a scandal. [Spoilers End] It comes off like a giallo twist, where attempting a rational route than taking a supernatural slant becomes stranger than accepting the idea of the unnatural over materialistic logic in a plot. It feels appropriate for the film, far from a criticism, and does provide a distinct touch for Bad Dreams. Even in among this too, remembering the film it was inspired by, this does thankfully play to some unnatural imagery as it subjectively pulls the rugs out from under a viewer a few times. In reference to something that is already talked of, without spoiling which scene mentioned it is, this manages to get away with the “it is all a dream” segment twist by having a moment so abrupt and jarring for a character to be involved with that it actually comes off as gleefully inspired in a sick humoured way.

Of course as well, it provides a fascinating tangent into the careers for those involved as Steven E. de Souza is a big name from this era of action and Hollywood blockbusters, making a rare jump into horror cinema, and Andrew Fleming, despite mostly staying out of the genre, if more well known for The Craft (1996), a film I will admit I always found disappointment in for how its ending seemingly conforms against the promise it has about all female tale about witchcraft, but had a legacy for people who caught it at the right age. This is a cool piece in their careers, not the best of these Elm Street inspired films but certainly a memorable one.