Review: Bad Dreams

Jennifer Rubin plays the only survivor of a suicide cult incident where cult leader Richard Lynch inspired his followers to join him in a kerosene-fuelled (see what I did there?) mass suicide. Rubin, who chickened out on Lynch’s fantastic voyage to the afterlife, awakens from a coma 13 years later to go under the watch of psychiatrists Bruce Abbott and Harris Yulin, who run group therapy for damaged and scarred misfits like herself. Unfortunately, it appears Lynch is tormenting Rubin from the grave, whilst also killing her fellow patients one by one. No one will listen to her, chalking up the deaths as suicides, and her rantings as that of a disturbed mind. E.G. Daily, Dean Cameron, and Louis Giambalvo play a few of the mental patients, and Sy Richardson is a perplexed cop.

Some pretty well-known names are attached to this 1988 stinker, even director Andrew Fleming has a few semi-prominent and varied credits to his name like “Dick”, “Threesome”, and “The Craft”. This was his inauspicious directorial debut, and it’s amazing he recovered from this crap to take on the aforementioned projects (each of which had their moments, but weren’t especially memorable). The most important name to consider here, however, is lead actress Jennifer Rubin, because this film plays as almost entirely a rip-off of “Nightmare on Elm St. 3: Dream Warriors” (the best of the sequels, despite being a bit reminiscent of “Dreamscape”). The whole thing looks different to that film, and yet it’s kinda the same film (boogeyman targets patients in an asylum, toying with them in their dreams but also killing them for real), minus a twist in the tail here that is awfully unconvincing (if well-intended). All the same notes are being played in largely the same order, albeit by a third-rate orchestra who are all seemingly on downers. Even the Jay Ferguson (“Pulse”) music score sounds familiar.

Rubin, having played a junkie punk in “Dream Warriors” gets to take on the lead in this, to Richard Lynch’s Freddy Krueger (by way of Jim Jones/Charles Manson). About the only thing here that works better than in “Dream Warriors” is Rubin herself, who was one of the only sore spots in the earlier film...she doesn’t suck as much this time. I still don’t like her as an actress. She’s well-cast in both films, but fitting a role isn’t a guarantee of a good performance and Rubin wouldn’t know how to act her way out of a paper bag. She’s always come across as amateurish. The fact that Steven E. de Souza co-wrote this really boggles my mind. Sure he scripted and directed the terrible flop “Street Fighter”, but this is the guy who wrote great action flicks like “Commando”, “48HRS”, “Die Hard”, and “The Running Man”. What in the hell is he doing here collaborating on a plagiaristic script with director Fleming? Even though the script is based on a story by Fleming, Michael Dick, P.J. Pettiette, and Yuri Zeitzsen, I think it’s de Souza who should be ashamed of himself here. He knows better than this. Then again, the film was produced by Gale Ann Hurd, and she definitely should know better, having produced the likes of action classics “The Terminator” and “Aliens”. How could such seemingly smart people get it so wrong here? Maybe action movie alum ought not venture into horror territory? I dunno, but this film gives such an argument decent weight.

This is boring, unoriginal and unimaginative, though the gory makeup by Michele Burke (later to win an Oscar for “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, having previously won for “Quest for Fire”) isn’t bad. The gore scenes have merit, especially when a maintenance man goes to investigate a ventilation problem and a whole bunch of blood and guts from a giant fan fall on top of him. Then a bit later, blood spurts out of the ceiling ventilation and all over everyone. Nice. I’m not going to lie, Burke’s work isn’t the only positive here. Harris Yulin, Richard Lynch, and a seriously balding Sy Richardson (in the best performance) are all fine genre hands who try their best. Lynch, however, is a bit of a sticking point. He’s perfectly cast for the role, but he’s so hammy that if this film were any good he’d stand out like a sore thumb. So whilst he gives the most entertaining performance in the film (and the physical resemblance between Lynch and Yulin is a nice pick-up, by the way), if you dared to look at this film seriously, he’s clearly not convincing. But compared to the rest of these jokers? At least he’s memorable. Bruce Abbott was the second lead opposite Jeffrey Combs in the cult classic “Re-Animator”. Beware any film that features the ‘other’ guy from “Re-Animator” because there’s the possibility that Combs had already passed on the project. Do you really want to ponder what kind of script Jeffrey Combs would turn down? Abbott (who looks a bit like Elias Koteas) is uber-bland, showing no hint of charisma or personality whatsoever. Meanwhile, the goofballs Rubin is surrounded by all seem like they’re auditioning for “The Dream Team” (minus the laughs), not a “Dream Warriors” rip-off. They’re insulting to anyone with a real mental illness. Whenever I hear the infantile voice of E.G. Daily, all I can think of is Chucky from “Rugrats”. No wonder she turned to doing kids voice-over work, because she always makes her adult characters in films like this seem intellectually disabled (Look out for Charles Fleischer, as an unscrupulous pharmacist. He’s better known as the voice of “Roger Rabbit”).

An unambitious yet overblown failure, and a bloody big mess. There is the kernel of a good idea about cults here, and the film might have had some merit if it focused on Rubin’s de-programming and re-integration into normal society. Instead it wants to jump on the Freddy Krueger bandwagon, and entertaining or not, the hammy performances contribute to the unconvincing treatment of something that kinda had potential. As a result, it’s boring, flagrantly stupid, unoriginal, and unimaginative, four cardinal sins.

Rating: F