The Dreaming

The Dreaming stars Penny Cook as doctor Cathy Thornton, whose father, archaeologist Professor Bernard Thornton (Arthur Dignam), disturbs an Aboriginal burial ground on a remote island, which causes all sorts of strange occurrences. Before long, Cathy is experiencing bizarre dreams in which centuries old whalers slaughter indigenous people with metal hockey sticks. Seeking answers, she visits her father on the island, only for dad to turn into a deranged killer.

A large percentage of this film consists of confusing hallucinations and nightmares, but even the stuff between the dreams is difficult to fathom; by the end of the film, I was none the wiser. There are a couple of cool visual moments - an animated x-ray and a cloud of mist clearing to reveal a kid impaled on scaffolding poles - but the film is, by and large, a boring and impenetrable mess.

Picturesque and technically sound but abysmally boring Ozploitation 'thriller' attempts to leverage the contemporary popularity of Penny Cook (fresh from 'A Country Practice' duties), but fails to excite. It's reminiscent of 'The Omen' in some imagery, and whilst the basic plot (concerning possession) is coherent, the pacing is tedious and the characters shallow.

Peroxided surgeon Penny Cook spends most of the film confused by the apparent apparitions she's begun seeing, the result of her archaeologist father's (Arthur Dignam) selfish (almost megalomaniacal) obsession with the excavation of an ancient Aboriginal burial ground. Gary Sweet also featured as Cook's legal eagle husband, becoming increasingly concerned by his wife's hysteria as it starts to impact both their apparently successful careers.

The water bill from the rain-making machines must've accounted for half the film's budget, trying in vain to cultivate a mysterious ambience which the laboured plot can't conjure. Heavy-handed symbolism denies the film any momentum, whilst cliched and over-used audio-visual cues (squeaky doors, creaking floorboards, howling winds) attempt cheap thrills which leave the film looking superficial and amateurish.

I'm not sure if the makers were attempting to make a deeper statement on colonialism, but the only dreaming I found myself doing was wishing I'd watched something else.

The Dreaming is a very boring and uneventful Australian horror/thriller. The whole film is basically loads of dream-like sequences which a woman has, as she attempts to uncover what lies behind it all. There is one good scene where an x-ray of a skull starts moving about and screaming, but other than everything is boring. There is no gore or suspense, the acting is limp, and the rather obvious conclusion is pathetic.

Don't even bother trying to seek this out, there are tons of more interesting films out there, even the really low budget ones.

2/10

Snappy as any Hitchcock film.

Beautiful as a retro Maxell cassette ad.

Acted so subtly that I KNOW those people from my life, even though most people only get a few solid moments to establish their character.

This one's good. Don't skip it.

(skip the first 3 minutes of intro credits though, gd)

"The Dreaming" follows a doctor, Cathy Thornton, whose archeologist father uncovers an aborigine tomb on an island off Australia's south coast. Simultaneously, Cathy treats a dying young aborigine girl who succumbs to unexplained injuries. Almost immediately after, Cathy is haunted by nightmarish visions of boorish whalers torturing members of an aborigine tribe.

This Australian effort hits on a common theme endemic to the country, highlighting the clashes between the indigenous and Europeans, but "The Dreaming" takes it a step beyond the physical horror of the aborigines' slaughter, highlighting the metaphysical rift such violence inflicts on a spiritual landscape.

While this metaphysical theme is not exactly well-developed and sort of backslides into obliqueness as the film progresses, what "The Dreaming" succeeds at is a pervasive sense of dread. The entire film boasts gritty, dark cinematography--murky and off-putting interiors are countered by equally moody exterior cinematography, the latter of which is often shadowy and dark blue in hue. Within these settings are a number of chilling slow-motion hallucination/dream sequences the protagonist bears witness to, which are extremely effective and at times outright scary. The film's overall look is oppressive and gritty, and it visually has much more in common with the hard-edged horror films of the 1970s than it does of the decade in which it was made (I, for one, would never have assumed it was a late-'80s production had I not been made aware of it before).

Penny Cook makes for a likable lead here as the troubled doctor, while Arthur Dignam (known to genre fans for his role in 1981's "Strange Behavior") gives a mysterious performance as her archeologist father. The film does stumble a bit in the final act, which takes place on the storm-ridden island, at least in the sense that it seems to abandon its central theme without any clear resolution, instead morphing into a quasi-slasher flick.

The film makes a noble attempt at reaching a fever pitch in the last ten minutes, though it doesn't feel totally earned. Irrespective of this, "The Dreaming" is no less a haunting and menacing psychological horror film, and contains several truly nightmarish sequences that will etch into your memory. 7/10.