Everyone likes to proclaim that the world is so much worse today than it ever has been. If you feel that way and weren't alive for the 1970s, allow me to debase you of this notion. The "Me Decade" was full of random violence, the fuel crisis, Three Mile Island, Watergate, Son of Sam, the end of Manson, Zodiac and religious orders that some would proclaim as cults, from the Process Church and the Moonies to Jonestown. We don't really have a modern analogue for these fringe groups that would spring up from time to time because it seems like the Hale-Bopp comet wiped the last of these off the planet.
That's the world that Bad Dreams takes place in. In 1975, the Unity Fields cult decides to commit mass suicide by setting themselves on fire under the command of their leader, Franklin Harris (Richard Lynch of Invasion U.S.A., Sword and the Sorceror, Rob Zombie's Halloween and God Told Me To). Only one person survives, Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), who still a kid when Harris set everyone on fire. She's been in a coma for over 13 years before she awakens to flashbacks of Harris being interviewed on a TV program. The final thing she sees is his face telling her that she belongs to him and he'd be coming back to take her life. This entire sequence is really well edited, showing how the cult's teachings had been accepted by every member, intercut with Cynthia being wheeled through a hospital as doctors struggle to save her life, all to the ominous strains of The Electric Prunes' "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night."
After awakening, Cynthia attends experimental group therapy sessions for borderline personality disorder, led by Dr. Alex Karmen (Bruce Abbott, the Re-Animator films). As she becomes more aware, she begins to remember more and more — including the thirty other people who died from dousing themselves in gasoline. Worse, she sees a burned and scarred Harris when she's trapped in an elevator, who reminds her that she is his property.
What follows is an insane scene that shows the parallels between group therapy and cult behavior, as the discussion room becomes Unity Fields and Cynthia watches everyone ladle gasoline onto one another. Again, another hint is dropped that Cynthia is a "love child," as her mother is also part of the cult. One by one, the members walk to the front of the room and are baptized with gasoline, before Harris takes handfuls of the fuel and coats himself before lighting the room on fire. What starts as a peaceful embrace of death quickly turns into horror, as entire families go up in a blaze of pain, flames, and screams. Finally, Harris reappears to tell Cynthia that she and she alone screwed up and that her entire family is waiting for her, as they cannot move on without her death.
Every waking moment is caught between reality and flashback, as even a simple shower brings back the violent baptism that brought Cynthia into Unity Fields. Directly after, another patient, one who wanted to know more about Unity's message, drowns herself in the pool. Another patient (the only one who has been nice to Cynthia) named Miriam attempts to escape the hospital. Helping her to an elevator, Cynthia waves goodbye, only to see Harris smiling and waving back. She gives chase, only to find Miriam's purse left behind
as Miriam jumps from a window, sending blood and glass all over the pavement.
