Dreamaniac - Sogno maniacale

"Dreamaniac" is apparently the first non-pornographic movie David DeCoteau made. Unfortunately he had certainly not found his feet as a director of mainstream films when he made it. The movie is stylistically indistinguishable from porn: filmed claustrophobically in only one location, poorly shot apparently on video with badly lit scenes, and even the dialogue is badly recorded like in a porn flick, either mumbled and hard to make out because it was recorded on scene, or much too loud and ear-jarring because it was obviously re-done in post-production.

We only know it's not a porno because it doesn't feature actual sex. It seems like DeCoteau decided to use the location and crew from one of his porno flicks to try and see if he could make a feature film. It's as though after the cast/crew from his previous "New Wave Hustlers" or "Boys Just Want to Have Sex" had gone home, DeCoteau called up some friends in the night and asked them to come over to make his dream of mainstream film direction a reality.

This is not to say that the movie doesn't have any sex. It has so many sex scenes it could almost be softcore porn, except for the fact that there's no attempt at eroticism, and no female nudity. That's right: it's a low-budget slasher without boobs. All the nudity is male: bare butts, and of course DeCoteau using the opportunity to indulge his tighty-whitie fetish. You can barely see any nudity anyway, because the movie looks like it was filmed through mud and shot exclusively at night with barely any lighting. In one scene, characters were supposed to be having sex, but then I realised the actress was still fully clothed.

The plot is allegedly about a heavy metal musician who summons a succubus with some candles and spooky words and she helps him get girls so she can kill them. This plot sounds like b-movie gold, but the movie doesn't bring it to life. The guy seems to have a girlfriend, so apparently he doesn't even need any supernatural assistance in getting female attention. Obviously they should have made him a clueless yet charming dork, desperate for love, so that we could understand his motivations and maybe root for him, and also understand the movie itself. Instead the whole thing is really distancing.

When the succubus or whatever she's supposed to be starts killing people, it's typical low-budget, shot-on-video slasher movie fare, with extreme close ups of the victim's faces with blood sprays to hide the lack of any real gore effects. But get this: half way through the movie we see someone getting stabbed in the eye in a close-up. Did they spend all of the movie's $500-or-so budget on that one shot?

Nah. There's actually a couple more gore shots toward the end, with a drill bit going through a guy's hand, and a late-term decapitation. Then there's some attempt at a twist ending that no one ever would have seen because no one possibly could have been paying attention by that time. I know I wasn't. This movie taxed me. I'm glad it's over.

I was going to watch more David DeCoteau but now I don't know if I have the endurance for it. This was a horror movie but its only sense of tension was gained from the fact that it being entirely shot on video in a house made me feel like I was stuck in the house with the people in the movie. Like I, too, was having to take part in making this garbage. Nightmare fuel.

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.

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 college-age musician/writer rents a house to get some work done, but his girlfriend insists on throwing a sorority party with guest frat boys. Things go awry, however, when a succubus crashes the party.

"Dreamaniac" (1986) was the director's first real film and originally called "Succubus," but this changed after the success of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," which explains the tagline: 'You don't have to live on Elm Street to have a nightmare.' While it opens with a dark dream and there are surreal moments reminiscent of that popular film & franchise, it's at heart a cabin-in-the-woods slasher with the variation of a succubus as the antagonist.

The problem is that it's too one-note. The entire movie takes place in this house, mostly at night, which can be explained by the budget of $60,000 (equivalent to $176,000 today, factoring inflation). In other words, the production didn't have the funds for multiple locations. So, the events in the house had better be interesting enough to maintain the viewer's interest, but that's hardly the case.

The 80's ambiance is great, though, and the gore's well done, if that's your thang. Plus, there are several good-lookin' females, such as Kim McKamy as Pat (aka Ashlyn Gere), Sylvia Summers as Lily and Linda Watts as Jan (aka Linda Denise Martin), not to mention a couple of amusingly obnoxious ones, like Cynthia Crass as Francis. But the flick's strapped with too much male nudity (which is unsurprising given the director's orientation). The few positives simply aren't enough to make it worth the time. Speaking of which...

It runs 1 hour, 22 minutes, and was shot in Los Angeles.

GRADE: C-/D+

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.