Dreamaniac

Dreamaniac was only my second viewing from the oeuvre of gay horror notable David DeCoteau, unless there are others that I've forgotten about. The first by the way was Puppetmaster 3: Toulon's Revenge, which is pretty great fun in the way that only a film with living puppets against Nazi's can be. This one though, sadly not so good. The film centres on a party gatecrashed by a kill happy succubus, but while there is a fair measure of potential interest in such a scenario the film opts for pretty much a generic slasher approach, livened in the final block by the introduction of zombies into the mix. Things kick off with mixed signals, a tilted camera watches a naked man walk down a pink lit hallway into a shower where he meets a bloody naked lass who sets about some brief clawing. Its intriguing enough, and the brief shot of bloody boobs is a definite plus, but on the other hand it does set up the films cheese, rampant 80's-ness and interest in male flesh. The film gets quickly into the party which occupies the rest of the runtime and here starts to sink into a disinterested fug of not all that much worth. We get plenty of horny youngsters, liberal doses of bitchy lines, unsatisfying sex and occasional killing, the killing steadily ramping up in regularity as things go on. The sex is unsatisfactory on two fronts, for one it's often interrupted either by other party goers or death, and for seconds we see a good deal of bare male chests, guys in just their pants and so on but no tits and ass or even male genitals. Wangs on display aren't even my kettle of piranhas but they might have given the scenes a bit more of an impact. Probably the most notable example of visual man love is an electrocution in which the camera gazes up at a guys tight Y-fronts as he expires, not really my kettle of fish like I said but it did make me chuckle. As far as the slaughter goes, there's more light blood spray than there is gore, though there are maybe two or three nice cheap gore shots in the last half hour including inspired use of a drill. This isn't the sort of film where any viewers are likely to be bothered about acting, characterisation and whatnot, but probably worth mentioning that Sylvia Summers (who?) does a nice enough job as the murderous demon, very much an 80's looking gal with trashy appeal and a suitably compelling lowbrow presence. Also, the female lead is played by Ashlyn Gere (credited as Kim McKamy), who went on to a successful porno career and also starred in another junky late 80's horror, the backwoods cannibal joint Lunch Meat. As well as being a fine looking lass she also contributes probably the best performance of the cast and it seems almost a shame that she departed the realms of genre cinema, but then I've never seen any of her adult work so it may well be inspiring stuff. Finally, the end of this one is pretty much nonsensical, somewhere between a giggle and a face-palm, people who dig idiotic endings will likely get a smile or two out of it. Altogether, this ain't really worth watching unless you absolutely have to see every crappy 80's horror out there or you really dig DeCoteau films. Still, its far from the worst out there, definitely better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick. See it if you must, but leagues away from essential.

The first annoying thing you immediately notice about "Dreamaniac" are its unimaginably overlong opening credits. Why is it necessary to singularly display the names of all the lousy people that were co-responsible for this piece of crap? Guided by such horrible music, to boot! The second annoying thing you notice is that writer/director David DeCouteau's alarming obsession with naked male butts and tidy white underpants was already there in the beginning of his career during the 1980's .The third thing you notice – and sadly this feeling remains throughout the entire running time – is that "Dreamaniac" is an unendurably terrible and pathetic flick without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Under the command of trash-emperor Charles Band, DeCouteau brings the dull tale of a heavy metal fanatic (apparently they looked like complete dorks back in the eighties) who summons a succubus because he's horny and can't control his hormones. This female demon goes on slaughtering a whole bunch of ugly and dim-witted frat boys and frat girls; guests at the sorority party thrown in the metal fanatic's house by his girlfriend and her sister. The plot sounds basic and straightforward enough to potentially have become an unpretentious 80's slasher, but DeCouteau and his crew even managed to ruin that. It's boring as hell, the characters are all insupportable idiots, the cheap & cheesy make-up effects are laughable instead of unsettling and the disco-soundtrack is downright infuriating. I mean, they could have at least put a couple of satanic metal bands on the soundtrack? In short, this is one of the lousiest horror flicks of the 1980's and that means A LOT, so avoid like the plague.

Really pretty boring shot-on-video horror movie ("too gory for the silver screen" boasts the distributor on the video box). A guy into heavy metal has dreams about a succubus, and he tries some kind of rituals to summon her. His sister has a party in their house, and a bunch of poorly differentiated characters arrive, and have a pretty lame party. The succubus kills people, and nobody seems to notice for a while.

Except for a few exterior shots of the house, I think the entire movie took place inside the main characters' house. The deaths were generally not terribly gory or interesting, except for a death by a power drill towards the end which was pretty well done. Apart from that, you have a bunch of actors who for the most part haven't acted in anything else. Despite some female nudity early on in the movie, and that all the characters are heterosexual, this movie does seem aimed at a gay male audience. There are lots of shots of guys with their shirts off, guys wearing nothing but white jockey shorts, guys completely baring their posteriors....

I would definitely recommend people not waste their time with this movie. Exceptions might be made for people who can be very forgiving of low-budget horror movies' limitations, aren't looking for anything original, have a soft spot for the 1980s, or really like director David DeCoteau's work.

Towards the end, there's a piece of paper on which is typed "SUCCUBUS" but part of the word is unreadable, so only "SUC" can be read. That about sums it up.

A heavy-metal musician (Thomas Bern, in his only role) makes a deal with a satanic succubus (Sylvia Summers) to make him successful with women, in return for the succubus being able to feed on the girls.

Before David DeCouteau was making low-budget homo-erotic films, he was making low-budget fodder for Charlie Band's Empire Pictures. While Empire made some good films (the work of Stuart Gordon), it made plenty of bad ones (such as DeCouteau's work). This film is a prime example of 1980s DeCouteau.

We start out with a very long credit sequence, each name lingering on a black screen. And then we go into a dream sequence with a naked man in a hallway. For a film that runs only 82 minutes, the time tends to go rather slowly. The script could not have added one additional scene or something to make this either longer or to have at least sped up the pace of the 82 minutes?

Another reviewer found it funny that the "heavy metal" guy wears a Def Leppard t-shirt and has posters for Poison and the Dead Kennedys. I would not find that strange normally, but it does seem odd for someone into devil worship -- more appropriate bands might be Venom, Bathory, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. The film's score also has no relation to this dark or metal claim. There is some dreamlike quality, I admit, but composer Don Great (who also did "Breeders") might have added a bit more edge. Okay, a lot more edge.

Dreamaniac may have the longest opening credits in horror movie history. Sadly, that's about the only thing it brings to the genre.

Adam is a musician who dabbles in the dark arts. He's supposed to be "heavy metal," I suppose, but he wears a Def Leppard shirt and has posters on his bedroom wall for both Jello Biafra and Poison, so who knows. One night while playing with his book of spells, he conjures a succubus named Lily who just happens to crash a party thrown by Adam's girlfriend's sister. There's lots of softcore sex, lingering shots of the bodies of the mostly unattractive males in the cast, very little blood and no reason for anyone to watch. I'm not even going to mention the stupid ending. Avoid.