As her marriage to decorated war hero Oliver draws near, well-heeled Diana moves into an apartment within an otherwise unoccupied, sprawling London house where she starts to experience strange and terrifying nightmares. But are these troubling night terrors merely the symptom of an unsettled mind, or the sign of something far more sinister at work? Hounded by a pair of sleazy journalists, Diana soon crosses paths with American tourist Jenny, who appears to have a strange connection to the foreboding house and its dark past.
Similar titles
Reviews
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.
A British stab at the popular dream subgenre in the 80s that ends up coming off like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET mixed with REPULSION. Virginal Diana (Jemma Redgrave) is preparing to get married when she begins having a number of vivid dreams that end up having effects on the real world. Directed by Harley Cokeliss, DREAM DEMON does have one thing going for it in that it perfectly captures the surreal nature of dreams. I can't tell you the number of times I have dreamt of pushing my hand through someones pus filled face, only to fall down a pit a few seconds later and have a guy on fire run out of nowhere (seriously). The film also attempts to have a mystery involving the house where Diana lives but it is put together so haphazardly that little of it makes sense. Is the house evil? If so, how is the house evil? Is Diana possessed? We never really know. Regardless, it is worth checking out once if you are starved for some of the bizarre dreams and visuals.
Two women - one about to be married, the other having returned to the area recently - find they are able to bring each other into their dreams, and that their dreams are connected with a house one of the women is due to move into.Though it might require more than one viewing to work it all out, this film is a first-rate ghost story. It is nothing too demanding, but still manages to be entertaining, creepy, well-written and filled with surrealism. Especially good are the nightmare images, many of which involve two unsavoury reporters (played by Jimmy Nail and Timothy Spall) who are sucked into the dreams and start becoming more nightmarish with each encounter.
Because this was British and starred Jemma Redgrave, I expected it to be classier. It's another of those dream horror movies where things happen according to no logical sequence but whenever the director feels like it. Yet it does have one great idea, which I know I've seen used in a story somewhere: the existence of a real house and its dream counterpart, connected in some occult way. In one scene of this movie the heroine's friend and partner becomes lost in the dream house, looking for a way to get out, while the heroine searches for her in the real one, looking for a way to get through. To me this is quite scary and evocative. But the idea only works if the two houses stay separate throughout; these dream horror movies rely on the shock of the dreams breaking through into the real world, or their mock-up of the real world. Some day a filmmaker with more restraint should take the idea and do it right.
