Dream Demon

British Working-Man Film-Maker Harley Cokeliss has a Frenzied Touch for Glossy Visuals.

But has a Tendency Here to Beat-the-Drum One Too Many Times Echoing the Samo-Samo Reveals Over and Over.

You Will Lose Count of the Number of Times Doors are Opened and the Fake Surprise of the 2 Heroines Enter the Identical Maze of Rooms, Stairs, and Mirrors Again and Again.

By the End it is an Irritant Prolonging the Movies End and is Just Puzzling in its Insecurity that the Audience Needs More and More Repeated Information or Another Similar Trope.

The Girls (Jemma Redgrave and Kathleen Wilhoit) are Fine but the "Comedy Relief" of (Jimmy Nail and Timothy Spall) again Outstay Their Welcome Going Over the Same Ground and Makes You Want it to STOP!... End the Damn Thing Already.

The Scare Resonate the First Time, as Does Yucky Vomit Wearing Timothy Spall the 1st Time He Shovels Food in His Mouth, but Wears the Upchuck Suit Way too Long and the "Humor" Beaten to Death's Door Until YOU may Do Your Own Purging.

Despite Returning to the Same Gags and the Same Mystery...it's Still...

Worth a Watch

Note...For the Fans who insist on claiming a "Nightmare On Elm Street" (1984) Rip-Off...let's be kind for all the effort and call it a "Homage".

Sort of a send-up of "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Dream Demon" must be the only horror flick that references the Falklands War. The plot is pretty routine - woman starts having nightmares and it turns out that they relate to her past - but I liked the gag that they pulled in the opening scene; seriously, not even the Evil Dead movies thought of that! The only cast member whom I recognized is Timothy Spall (Wormtail in the Harry Potter movies). His character got to experience the REALLY ugly stuff, and I suspect that it was fun to create those makeup effects. Overall, this movie is probably worth seeing once.

PS: at the 1988 Fantasporto festival (held in Porto, Portugal), "Dream Demon" got nominated for Best Foreign Film.

The musical scores reminded me of Hellraiser. There was a lot of effort put into making the movie look and feel like a nightmare which I thought was great. Almost a crossover between Hellraiser (1987) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

The lead character Diana played by Jemma Redgrave reminded me a lot of the character Kirsty from Hellraiser who was played by Ashley Laurence. The similarities where uncanny.

Dream Demon could easily fall into the category of weird horror. There is a lot of strange imagery through out the movie a lot of which ends up making sense at the end. Fun and enjoyable.

Despite being saddled with one of those supremely irritating "dream vs. reality" type plots, DREAM DEMON is a surprisingly well-made British horror film which could be considered the British equivalent of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The budget may have been low (especially considering the state of British cinema in the '80s) but the producers of this movie picked some fairly good actors and mixed them into a complicated plot involving a girl's dreams which become reality. This is a film which manages to be pretty suspenseful in places and even - wow! - scary on occasion. I wouldn't consider it a great movie but it passes the time nicely and has some over-the-top splatter for gore fans to enjoy, while displaying an imagination usually lacking in late '80s cinema.

Opening with a superbly crafted shock scene involving a decapitation at a wedding of all places, the film alternates between reality and dreamscapes repeatedly with the lines between the two becoming ever more blurred. Shots of heroines running down weirdly-lit netherworldly corridors deserve a nod to HELLRAISER, that other major late '80s British horror movie, but the script remains unpredictable at all times. The cast is an interesting one, with Jemma Redgrave giving a powerful performance in the leading role as the dreamer, with Kathleen Wilhoite as her imported American friend (shame about that dated haircut though). Surprisingly the heavies are played by Timothy Spall and Jimmy Nail, two well-known British comedy actors. The surprising thing is that they're actually very good as the two loathsome reporters, with Spall being particularly repulsive.

The splatter effects are kept to a minimum but tend to go over-the-top when they do appear. In all the film doesn't really make much sense (at least to this viewer), and with the flashback to the burning figure I wasn't really sure how that linked to all of the terror. Still, there is plenty to be entertained by for the horror fan including walls which crack and bleed and lots of shadowy menace. An intriguing effort.

"Dream Demon" follows Diana, a Londoner about to be married to a prominent man, who is suffering from disturbing nightmares after having moved in to her new house. She soon meets Jenny, a tourist from Los Angeles who claims Diana's new home was her biological parents' last address; she has no memories of her parents or her early years spent there, but feels drawn to them. Diana's powerful and terrifying dreams begin to impact reality, and the two women begin to delve into the home's history and Jenny's connection to it.

A relatively unknown British-set offering by American director Harley Cokeliss, "Dream Demon" is in the same league as a number of over-the-top supernatural horror films from the late 1980s, such as "Night of the Demons," "Mirror, Mirror," and "Witchboard" (the latter of which Kathleen Wilhoite, portraying Jenny here, also appeared in). The distinction with "Dream Demon" is that the film has a particularly English bent to it that borders on gothic at times.

Another distinguishing element here, and perhaps the film's most interesting feature, is that it toys with narrative quite cleverly as Diana's grasp on reality begins to tunnel in on itself, to the point that she (and eventually Jenny) cannot discern waking life from Diana's lethal slumber. There are elements redolent of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" in this case--Diana's dreams begin to impact her physical environment, endangering those around her (including a pair of crude journalists harassing her). Though not the most original idea, it is orchestrated nicely here, and keeps the viewer on their toes as the two characters venture through a topsy-turvy world.

Jemma Redgrave turns in a solid and understated performance here as the tormented Diana, and Kathleen Wilhoite offers a spunky performance as the mouthy California punkster who joins her. Things start to coalesce in the final act of the film, and the fragments from Diana's dreams begin to paint a picture of why the two women have been united in the first place. Though not really a twist per se, the revelation feels appropriate and I left the film satisfied despite a few loose ends.

Overall, "Dream Demon" is worth a viewing for fans of late '80s supernatural films, as it features a similar aesthetic and premise to its peers. The English bent adds a distinct flavor, while the screenplay is clever, if not entirely perfect. Recommended for genre fans. 8/10.