"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.
