Deadly Dreams

My review was written in November 1988 after watching the movie on Virgin Vision video cassette.

An interesting low-budget horror pic , "Deadly Dreams" provides an okay switch on the genre's morbid family in-fighting theme. Itg was released direct-to-video around Halloween time.

Mitchell Andeson's parents were killed on Christmas Eve 10 years ago by a hunter wearing an animal mask, who turned out to be an embittered ex-business partner who then committed suicice. Grown up, Anderson is plagued with recurring nightmares involving the hunter.

With adequate hints planted by screenwiter Thom Babbes (who co-stars as Anderson's best friend), the story paints a deadly conspiracy working against our hero, involving his older brother and girlfriend. Final plot twists are morbid enough to qualify the pic as film noir, resulting in a cold, vengeful finale.

Helmer Kristine Peterson, previously handling second unit work on Roger Corman pics, does a good job of maintaining the downbeat mood of the piece and even includes a somewhat daring sex scene that is relevant to the storyline. No-name cast is effective, including a cameo by one of Corman's '50s regulars, Beach Dickerson.

Deadly Dreams has mastered the art of...boring someone to death! The title says it all: dreams. The entire first hour of the film is nothing but a series of bad dreams. Over and over again. It really gets monotonous; Nothing real ever happens. The characters are dumb, most of the action that did take place just seemed to be filler stuff, and apparently everyone carries a rifle with them at all times. Not to mention that it's all totally PREDICTABLE. The entire time I was watching it, I just wanted it to end. Don't expect too much going into this one. As a matter of fact, don't even bother.

This movie is as its title says....Dreams....ugggghhhh....

The movie is so confusing at times you never know when the dreams are real or not. The movie generally revolves around a man who was in the house with his parents the night they were murdered by a hunter in (I'm guessing) a wolf's head mask.

The movie moves along at all the velocity of a golf cart, with no real twists or turns. There is the underlying story of the main characters both in love with the same woman, who's playing both sides in order to get ahead (can you say gold-digger?) I'll give it a 3 out of 10, because it does have some nice nude scenes, with a very cool ending despite its slow story. However if you are looking for a great horror film, look away at another one instead.

Troubled by strange dreams, a man tries to get to the bottom of everything with the help of his friends and new girlfriend to figure out why he's been seeing the masked killer who traumatized him as a child only for a series of cruel developments to hinder his progress.

Overall, this was a fairly solid if somewhat troubling genre effort. Among the better features here come from the strong setup that allows for the film to be a highly effective psychological genre effort. With a fantastic starting point including the harrowing murder of his parents by the killer in a chilling wolf mask and just barely escaping, this type of encounter affects him later in life to the point of still hallucinating the encounter or dreaming about the killer returning in his dreams. These encounters are built up nicely throughout here to the point of starting to genuinely believe that the situation has started to affect him and that his unhinged nature at the center of this one has come to pass. With it leading into a fun finale with some striking twists and some fine goer effects that help to establish the central plotline of this one, there are some good points to this one. There are some big problems here keeping this one down. The main issue is the fact that there's just not a whole lot else going on here while it's building up this psychological breakdown. This type of idea works far better as a short with the idea of him still being tormented by the dreams but unable to prove it so things like the idea of him going around seeing the hunter at his house, in the gym, or stalking trips with his girlfriend tend to meander around without a whole lot o purpose. Even though the trauma is somewhat justifiable and reasonable to still be struggling with, there's nothing here that keeps it interesting beyond waiting to see where the whole thing goes and gets resolved. This also causes the film to rely so much on the nature of being unable to tell dreams from reality that the attempts at curtailing his mental state fall into a somewhat neverending series of freakouts over things that may or may not be there to then realize it was a dream-within-a-dream that comes about way too often to be effective. Even with the idea of there being a genuine killer there, this tactic becomes far too irritating and repetitive dragging the pacing out. Also rather dragging is the tired cliche about the true purpose behind everything which comes across as quite overbearing and doesn't have the kind of sting expected of it due to following the expected revelation which gives this a somewhat large series of drawbacks to overcome the positives.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Full Nudity, Graphic Violence, a sex scene, and drug use.

A promising premise, but not all that successful in gelling everything together hampered this twisted, grim little unknown psychological thriller. It's strange and disjointed as the narrative moves back and forth where our main Alex is plagued by visions of his past where as a child he witnessed his mother and father brutally gunned down by a hunter wearing a skinned wolf mask. However what's screwing with his mind, is that he believes he's seeing the hunter for real despite that he's parent's killer shot himself soon after the murders. The plot is made-up of a collection of recurring flashes and bad nightmares, each one more jarring then the first. But these nightmares just seem too real. Is Alex just losing his sanity (as outside his nightmare he's seeing the masked killer) or is there something more devious going on. The slow-winding material is quite knotty, but simply too vague despite the predictably of the circumstances. It's all familiar; soapy dramatics tied amongst a shady web of paranoia and deceit with a twist upon a twist, although one of those revelations comes midway through it. The momentum can be quite bumpy (as some sequences can feel drawn out to only pad out what might have been better suited as a short film or a TV episode for such shows as "The Twilight Zone" or "Tales From the Crypt"), where the suspense only lasts in short bursts (due to the idea of dreams and reality blurring together) and from that the chills / shock tactics come to the forefront. There are solid bunch of performances; Mitchell Anderson is suitably fitting as the neurotic Alex. Juliette Cummins and Thom Babbes are acceptable as his worried girlfriend / and friend. Xander Berkeley keeps a bitter attitude as Alex's older brother. Director Kristine Peterson's sober handling didn't entirely do the production any favours, as while capable it just lacked the liveliness that was needed. "Deadly Dreams" is an interesting, but leadenly flawed low-budget oddity.