Dream No Evil

"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.

DREAM NO EVIL is the perfect example of regional, independent features being far more interesting than Hollywood films from the same age. When studios and producer moguls get involved in a film, they ask questions. "Where are these people? How does any of this advance the plot? Why are they doing an Irish jig now?"

DREAM NO EVIL doesn't want to answer those questions, steadfastly refuses to, and is all the more interesting because of it. Notice I say "more interesting" and not "better": this misses the majority of shots it takes, the narration eviscerates the mood, and the shots and performance are stilted. But an undeniable charm still radiates, as long as you're into this kind of thing.

Could work as the B-side of LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH or MESSIAH OF EVIL for a double feature of outside-reality Americana horror.

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.

I have been an ardent admirer of the delightfully deviant, uniquely inspired genre filmmaker, John Hayes ever since I had the goodly fortune to enjoy his ominous, sporadically goofy, grievously Gothic oddity 'Grave of The Vampire' (1972). 'Dream No Evil' is arguably Hayes's most exquisitely eerie expression of his altogether singular filmmaking artistry. Not unlike fellow indie marvel, Robert Allen Schnitzer, I sincerely feel that these quality Blu-ray restorations will draw worthy scrutiny upon this somewhat unfairly neglected cinematic iconoclast, whose wonderfully off-beat, idiosyncratic visions are manifestly unlike any other filmmaker.

'Dream No Evil' opens tersely in an orphanage wherein a terrified young girl, Grace McDonald (Brooke Mills) has a screaming nightmare, crying out desperately for a father who may or may not still be alive, or if alive, may have simply abandoned her. While Grace grows up into a beautiful, physically healthy young woman her morbid obsession over her absent father warps her objectivity, ultimately sending her on a hallucinatory pilgrimage into a waking, techinicolor nightmare. Ice-cold corpses reanimate at will, intricate dreams become terrifyingly real and her darkly incestuous fantasies are so vividly rendered, she is wholly consumed by make believe. Grace's morbid fantasies prove to be anything but harmless, as they all too frequently say, be careful what you wish for!

The calamitous rupture in her tormented psyche is deftly orchestrated by Hayes, and the heady, evocative milieu of a barnstorming, roadside preacher with all its attendant hysteria is no less memorably staged. The inimitable, Michael Pataki imbuing the barnstorming role of Rev. Paul Jessie Bundy with all the unfiltered zeal such a flamboyant misfit requires! Dream No Evil's delirious final act is a suitably terrifying expose of a deranged, murderously-inclined psyche, both morbidly fascinating and existentially repellent at the same time. Grace's astonishingly angelic beauty, lustrous red hair and lissome charms belie an uncommonly vibrant, 3-dimensional, preternaturally destructive madness, 'Dream No Evil' remains a luridly immersive Freudian phantasmagoria one is unlikely to forget!

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.