My Brother Has Bad Dreams

While it has all the ingredients for a memorable film, My Brother Has Bad Dreams keeps its pacing a bit too sluggish for most of its run time to ever generate much excitement. If nothing else, the characters and performances are genuinely weird.

Karl and his spinster sister, Emma, live together since their father murdered their mother and they're just a huge ball of sexual repression until a mysterious biker named Tony comes into their lives and all hell breaks loose. Well, it breaks loose slowly.

In horror, a strong and catchy title is almost half the work! And this crazed low-budget puppy from the early 70s has a great title! "My Brother Has Bad Dreams" is a great title, at least, because the alternate title "Scream Bloody Murder" is weak and derivative, pretty much like the film itself.

Carl is a very peculiar young man. The most normal things he does to fill his days are masturbating to his sister and going for skinny-dips with complete strangers. His slightly more disturbing hobbies are sleeping with mannequin dolls he calls mother and bashing in the skull of the friendly neighborhood mailman. The root of Carl's lunacy goes back to when he was a little boy and witnessed how his alcoholic father killed his paralyzed mother. Or is his loving sister keeping other secrets for Carl, maybe?

With nut-ball characters like these, and the "Psycho"-inspired plot, "My Brother Has Bad Dreams" easily could have been one of the gloriously demented highlights from the American exploitation era. Unfortunately, though, it became an intolerably slow-paced, overly talkative, and painfully dull psychological melodrama instead. Especially the first half is a true ordeal to sit through. The second half is much better, but still rather lame compared to what it could have been. During the climax there's a totally unnecessary police car chase, and out-of-the-blue shark attacks. A story like this one doesn't need car chases and sharks, but some more and juicier psycho-killer mayhem would have been welcome.

The kind of true insanity only a regional horror film from the 70's could conjure up. The plot is just Psycho with a twist (instead of a mother, we have a sister the lead character is obsessed with) and a little dash of homoeroticism. The lead actor is great at playing someone really cringey you want to look away from, but can't. He's wonderfully awkward. It has some pacing problems, but it's definitely not a movie one forgets as soon as the credits roll.

Karl is a man-child and he is traumatized by having witnessed his wheelchair bound mother's murder by his drunken father when he was a child.His older sister Emma takes care of him.Karl particularly enjoys talking to mannequins and sleeping with them.He founds another friend:a motorcycle-riding Vietnam vet Tony.Emma is a 28 year old virgin.She falls in love with Tony.This is the beginning of Karl's madness...Very downbeat and ugly horror movie shot in Florida.It offers some genuine shocks and surprises.The plot moves slowly and there are some scenes that drag a lot,but if you are in the mood for some odd chills give "My Brother Has Bad Dreams" a chance.8 mannequins out of 10.

"My Brother Has Bad Dreams" is an extremely obscure Drama/Horror movie about a demented/traumatized man that as a child witnessed how his father killed his ill mother. Years after, still traumatized by the events, he starts having "bad dreams" about the horrific events he went through so he decides to start an obsession for mannequins and starts a killing rampage. Yes, his motives are also extremely obscure.

His sister comes to live with him and she thinks his brother needs help! so she along with another male friend help him stop the horror but that's when things start to get horrible (literally).

Ah. Why bother? This is the kind of movie that you wish you never watched it. It's cheap, boring, and lacks of a feeling. I mean, it shouldn't even be considered a Thriller because most of the scenes are just too weird to be classified. There is minimal gore, scares, or nerve tense moments. I'm sure nobody is ever going to comment about it but if you are an unfortunate viewer, I warn you: this is a horrible, bad movie.

The title is intriguing but it may be the scariest thing about this rarity. Please, don't look out for this one, it's not worth your attention.