Dream No Evil

I pride myself in being able to sit through some pretty awful movies. To me, low budget doesn't always equal garbage. There are a lot of hidden diamonds on the rough out there that the world passed by because they weren't marketed well or never got solid distribution. I'd hoped Dream No Evil would be one of those movies, but it's anything but. It's a tedious, slow journey into absolute nothingness.

A young orphan girl who suffers from bad dreams is eventually adopted, but she still longs to, one day, meet her real father. She grows up and becomes a flamboyant preacher's assistant in their church act which seems much more circus than the churches I've attended. She falls for a guy, she meets her real father, and then she goes insane and starts chasing people with an axe in the last 5 minutes of the film.

There's not a lot of logical story progression in Dream No Evil. There's an odd, fairy tale-esque voice over throughout that seems to have been added to help better explain what the hell is going on, but it's about as useful as buying a hooker for a nun. Character motivations come and go and you never know why anyone is doing anything.

I'm sad to report that Dream No Evil is a film better left buried.

"Dream No Evil" focuses on Grace, a woman who was orphaned as a child and adopted by a traveling circus/Evangelist act. Grace harbors a deep yearning to find her birth father, with whom she is deeply obsessed. Her fixation on finding her biological father leads her into an increasingly grim situation.

While it's clear that "Dream No Evil" has taken many notes from "Psycho," it is far more bizarre than Hitchcock's film could have dreamed of being. This low-budget effort is shot in a style reminiscent of 1970s TV movies, and it boasts a significant amount of atmospheric, dusty Inland Empire desert locales that are strangely captivating. Set against them are bizarre characters doing bizarre things, such as the lead, Grace, jumping from a high-dive as part of her adopted family's religious circus act, or hiding out in an abandoned farmhouse and regressing to her childhood self.

Befitting its title, "Dream No Evil" is in fact dreamlike--nightmarish, even at times. Screenplay-wise, the film is fairly straightforward, and the twist can be seen from a mile away (it is all very neatly tied together in the end, in a similarly didactic "Psycho"-esque way), but it is still fairly watchable despite this. While it is not high art, "Dream No Evil" is a minor but intriguing oddity. It certainly won't shock, but it will captivate with its weirdness. 7/10.

The DVD of this movie that was released as part of the Psychotronica collection encourages you to mock this movie. And heck you can mock it if you want to, I'm not here to judge how you view movies. I am here however, to tell you whether or not I liked it and why.

So yeah, I liked this movie. Why? Well, Brooke Mills is worth watching no matter what she is doing for one. What she's doing here is giving it her all to play a seriously screwed up woman in search of her father. Good stuff indeed.

Another reason I enjoyed this flick is that it is one of those low budget wonders where everything seems to take place in some weird uncharted part of America where everything is just a little off. Some people call that schlock, I call it home.

So watch Dream No Evil or don't, it makes no difference to me. If you do watch it I think you'll like it.

If David Byrne made a movie combining elements of European art cinema, Southern Gothic, a dash of Polansky, principles of Bertolt Brecht's estrangement effect, Eraserhead, and Irish Ceili Dancing, it would be this movie. It has to be seen to be believed. And be seen it must. I'm not kidding. You have to see this movie. Tubi is your friend.

Dream No Evil is made with such earnestness that you can't help but admire it. It's not a horror movie so much as a psychological drama with psychokiller elements (speaking of David Byrne). If you are a fan of bizarre, surreal, or just wackadoodle cinema, put this one at the top of your list. I understand the negative reviews, but if you don't take it too seriously this is a very entertaining movie.

This was one weird film. I recall seeing it on late-night TV as a kid, and then I rented it when I was in college. At least there are some decent actors in the cast (including Lawrence, who's slimier than a sack of snails). Worth a look on a slow evening.