Sunburst

this is one of the darkest films i've ever seen. certainly, it's one of the most politically incorrect. it may have been packaged as a sex and violence exploitation thriller, but it could be thought of as more along the lines of an existential art film. it really goes beyond the need for a numerical rating; it practically inhabits a universe unto itself. yet at the same time it in some ways is VERY MUCH of its time. it's a post-"easy rider," post-youth culture seventies burnout epic. "good" doesn't triumph over "evil." in fact, the fact calls into question the validity of such categories. a woman is raped and learns to "accept" her ordeal as a part of life. the rapists are never punished and the crime never even appears to have been reported. as far as i am concerned, the film goes a BIT too far. it's existential acceptance of human suffering ends up as a kind of complacency. authentic existentialists generally see human suffering as largely meaningless and hence unjustified. yet director polakof seems to ask us to view suffering as justifiable, as part of "the plan," as part of "fate." nonetheless, he takes the viewer on a "realistic" journey instead of giving us fairy tales and revenge fantasies. as a result, "slashed dreams" stands apart from both common exploitation fodder and whatever kind of product the "mainstream" motion picture industry is putting out these days.

Probably the only reason this amateur hour snoozefest isn't on the IMDb Bottom 100 list is that almost no one has seen it. If they had, it would have easily surpassed "Manos: The Hands of Fate" and "Baby Geniuses 2" as the most excruciating home movie ever. In fact, "Manos" now looks like a profound work of art in comparison, and perhaps deserves a reevaluation.

There's almost no way to describe the incredible badness of "Slashed Dreams"/"Sunburst." It goes way beyond the Mystery Science Theater 3000 level... and of course never comes close to hitting that so-bad-it's-funny, level -- just goes on and on in an early '70s, 16mm Ektachrome so-bad-it's-painful mode. Like a couple of high school kids went out in the woods with a camera. But a couple of high school kids with prefrontal lobotomies. We're taking no story here. No pace. No connection to reality and no idea how a film is actually made... however they did manage to obey every single Stupid Rule of horror films ever invented: kids go into woods, kids are threatened by maniacs, kids don't even CONSIDER leaving woods -- check. Girl is raped by maniacs, guy does absolutely nothing, and then they STILL don't even consider leaving woods -- check.

And in the middle of this lobotomized "Deliverance"/"Easy Rider"/"Last House on the Left" hybrid with a "Friday the 13th" poster, who shows up but of course, Rudy Vallee. Yes folks, Rudy Vallee. Just made sense I guess for the legendary 1920s jazz crooner to be included in a home movie thriller about a woman being raped by inbred hillbillies. All the sense in the world.

But far worse than Anything Else is the screeching, shrew-like banshee wail of some Joan Baez wannabe plastered over the home movie footage every ten minutes or so in order to convey the Tragic and Sensitive Nature of this very Profound and Serious Film about Rape.

Nurse, please hand me the leucotome. And welcome to hell.

I can now add this worthless thing to my worst 10 movies. It is about as thoughtless and ill conceived as anything put to celluloid. The plot and the motivations are bad enough. But there are so many distractions, I couldn't believe it. First, what's with the old gang. What about the young hothead boyfriend? Shouldn't he have shown up somewhere in all of this? Why even have him get into a confrontation with the lead. Then there's the guy they're going to see. It's Freddy Krueger, playing a nice guy who spouts philosophy. He's some skinny dork who went to the woods. What about the bad guys. How do you know, "We'll never see them again"? Shouldn't someone report the rape and get after those guys. After being accosted by the two, shouldn't someone's guard have been up a bit, just a little bit? How can one analyze something so idiotic? Suffice it to say, this isn't even campy funny. I think a good conclusion would have been an enormous meteor landing on the entire bunch. Oh. I forgot Rudy Valee. What the hell is he doing there?

I saw this movie, as I think most people have these days, on the out of print Academy Home Entertainment videotape under the title Slashed Dreams. I doubt that is the original title, as it appears on the screen via a bad video effect, and appears to be blocking out the original title by being placed on a large green rectangle (probably Sunburst). The videotape dates from 1986, and since Robert Englund (who later played Freddy Kreuger) appears in it (albeit briefly, towards the end), the title is probably meant to suggest A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). None of the actors' names are mentioned on the box, although my box was cut, so maybe the names just got cut off. "Slashed Dreams" is probably also meant to suggest slasher films, but this is at most a proto-slasher; nobody gets killed, and the only slashing is of one bad guy by another.

The video box suggests that the movie starts with a skinny-dipping scene, with the characters watched by someone with a knife, and then flashes back to how they got there. In fact, it's entirely presented in chronological order, starting with a bunch of young people in college. In a class, they talk about the meaning of life, and where people have their roots; "in the earth," one suggests, "in heaven," suggests another.

One of the students, Jenny, brings up her friend Michael, who'd dropped out of college and moved into the mountains. Her boyfriend doesn't think much of a dropout, and he doesn't like Jenny's lifelong brainy friend either. At a frat party, her boyfriend gets really belligerent, and Jenny and her old friend drive off to find Michael.

On the way, they get directions at a country store. The proprietor is found in a back room, rehearsing his night club act (he says), talking and singing on a microphone. He's a former radio star who's been forgotten (played by the crooner Rudy Vallee). He's about the most chipper old man to ever warn a couple of young people not to go in the woods! He presses some Licorice Nips on them, and tries to impress on them the need for a knife.

They pass on the knife, and make their way into the woods, where they encounter a bear, and find a cabin they think might be Michael's. It's made out of rather thin branches, so that it is possible to see right through the walls. There are also windows, and at least two large holes in the roof, so that when they say they wish they could lock the door, it sounds rather funny!

There's an odd sort of rape scene, in which one of the assailants seems to be at most dry humping a sleeping bag (and he couldn't get it up either, we learn), and the other also seems to be doing some dry humping, but also does some bruising face-slapping. Later, some strange advice is given to the victim, to "push the demons out" and to find some "truth" in what happened.

The movie ends with one of the characters taking a slim illustrated hardcover book down from a shelf in Michael's cabin, and reading: "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.... And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed." These are two different passages (on pain, and on friendship) from Kahlil Gibran's popular (more then than now, I think) book The Prophet.

Not much of a horror movie, and may not have been intended to be one. Between the opening scenes in the college classroom, and the reading from The Prophet, and some of the dialogue in between, it seems the filmmakers may have been trying to reach for something meaningful, but...

After dumping her jerk of a boyfriend, beautiful student Jenny (Kathrine Baumann) and her old friend Robert (Peter Hooten) decide to pay a visit to pal Michael (Robert Englund), who has 'dropped out' to live in a remote cabin in the mountains. The trip sees Jenny and Robert taking their relationship beyond being just good friends; unfortunately, the couple run into a pair of hillbilly rapists - Levon (James Keach) and Danker (David Pritchard) - who spoil the mood by beating Robert unconscious and attacking Jenny.

Following Deliverance and The Last House on the Left (but predating I Spit on Your Grave by three years), I expected Sunburst (AKA Slashed Dreams) to be a gritty backwoods rape/revenge movie, with Robert, Michael and Jenny using extreme violence to settle the score with Levon and Danker. But while Robert does attack the rapists in a fit of rage, the rednecks escape retribution, scurrying off into the woods before any real harm is done to them. Instead of 'an eye for an eye', the film's message appears to be 'don't dwell on the bad things in life', Jenny's eventual acceptance/dismissal of what has happened allowing her to move on.

It's well past the halfway mark before the hillbillies show up, with way too much time wasted on Jenny and Robert driving to the mountains and then hiking through the woods, the most exciting moment being when a bear eats their food. When the young couple decide to go skinny dipping, we get some welcome nudity from Baumann, but up to that point, the film is a real test of one's patience. The arrival of Danker and Levon adds a little tension, but the rape scene, when it happens, is fumbled by director James Polakof, who seems reluctant to disturb or offend the viewer, and everything that follows feels even more lacklustre. Englund - probably the main reason people will seek this film out these days - has very little screen-time and his character is a total wet blanket.

But the worst thing about the film isn't the crap ending or the dreadful pacing, but the soundtrack - a series of awful new-age folk songs by some flower child who mistakenly thinks that she is Joan Baez.

3/10.

N. B. The film's alternative title - Slashed Dreams - has got to be a desperate attempt to cash in on Englund's fame as Freddy Krueger.