Deadly Dreams (1988)
Directed by Kristine Peterson
Ever have Amazon purchase regret? I have, more than a few times. Deadly Dreams is one of those regrets. I’m not going to keep my thoughts until the end of this review because this movie wasn’t good. I had high expectations for this, not sure why. I guess because I’ve seen the damn cover/poster a million times online while researching slashers, or maybe because I saw it on a “overlooked slashers” list a couple times. Not sure but either way I’m a moron and I hate that I bought this.
Deadly Dreams is about this guy named Alex (who looks like Steve Zahn and Helen Hunt’s effeminate son), who has about 5 million dreams of people dying, he has those for the first fucking hour of the movie. All the kills are dreams, which is great! I want every horror movie to be like that now! Notice I didn’t call this a slasher movie, because it isn’t. Most of the “kills” are done with a rifle, by some dipshit wearing a skinned wolf face on his face. Its like face off with one guy being a wolf, which the back of the box calls a fox, for reasons. The moron in the wolf face looks down the scope of the rifle, with the mask on, which has small eye openings! So yeah, his accuracy would be in the area of stormtrooper if this was real. Apparently, Alex saw his mother and father blown away by some rival business man on Christmas as a kid. Now Alex is having reoccurring nightmares over it. At least I believe that’s what is going on, who knows because it’s so damn confusing! Alex has a girlfriend named Maggie, which is surprising because Alex is so obviously gay. We are talking Jesse from Nightmare on Elm Street 2 levels of obviously gay. Nothing wrong with that but his character looks incredibly weak throughout. I told my wife watching this “I guarantee you that Mitchell Anderson, the actor playing Alex is gay” and yeah he is, again no judgement but it was so obvious. Anyway, this Maggie was also banging Alex’s brother Jack, whom looks like Danny Elfman meets the daycare guy Jim Halpert walks in on in the bathroom on the Office. Yeah, I know that’s kind of a reach but whatever. So Jack and Maggie are working together to push Alex over the edge, for reasons. I’m thinking maybe so they can take over the parents’ company? Who knows? Anyway, the wolf face guy that terrorizes Alex is his brother? Or is it his friend Danny? Or is it Brutus the Barber Beefcake? Could be anyone I guess, I think it was Danny. So we’ll just say it’s Danny for shits and giggles. He snorts a big line of coke and goes off to kill Alex, and he succeeds. The end shows Maggie talking on the phone to someone and then wolfy mcwolf face kills Jack, hooray twist ending that makes no sense!
TV Guide said Deadly Dreams is “surprising and refreshingly taut low-budget horror film offers what most run of the mill slasher films don’t, a good story with a surprise ending.” Well a few things are wrong with that. 1, it’s not a slasher film 2, the story isn’t good, in fact it blows and 3 the ending was nonsensical not really a surprise. The acting in this movie sucks. Mitchell Anderson was such a whiny bitch as Alex that I couldn’t take him seriously. He’s always bitching about something and being overly dramatic. Juliette Cummins as Maggie was meh as well, she played Robin in Friday the 13thPart V and Sheila in Slumber Party Massacre 2. She was also meh in those roles so it’s not surprising. Xander Berkeley plays Jack he was ok, not great but not as bad as the others. Lastly Danny is played by Thom (lame spelling) Babbes, whom was also the writer. He’s passable at best, he plays the annoying douche friend the way you’d expect it from the genre.
The story was so boring, and the constant dream sequences were frustrating. The first hour of this movie, NOTHING HAPPENS. I wanted someone to truly die because at least that meant something would change. It was a cycle of Alex and Danny going to the bar, talking about Alex’s dreams and Alex dreaming again. Throw in Maggie, now Alex hangs out with her and Danny then talking about his dreams, and him dreaming. Repetitive, boring, confusing and dull all around. The camera work is ok, nothing to really mention because nothing stands out. The cast is so small, maybe because of the small budget(approx. $400,00), but it just doesn’t have much going for it. How about the special effects? They’re average. There’s no over the top kills, just a bunch of gunshots and a few stabbings, but it’s all a dream so who the hell cares?
I did not enjoy this movie, obviously and actually the second I finished it, I put the DVD on eBay to sell. It probably wont sell, but I’ll never watch this again and I spent $13 on it. I hate myself since I found it streaming online, for free. Then I would just be angry wasting 1 hour and 19 minutes and not money too. This was the longest 1 hour and 19 minutes of my movie watching life. It dragged on and the dream sequences were so frequent that I started throwing up my hands in anger each time. I had to finish this movie, but I wish I wouldn’t have. I give Deadly Dreams an F. I wouldn’t suggest anyone watch this, and especially wouldn’t if you’re a slasher movie fan because it’s not a slasher movie at all. The Terminator is more of a slasher movie than this.
