Scott LeBrun
Watchable, sometimes offbeat and humorous horror film that seems as if it intends to coast on the success of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series but ends up going on its own merry path. It works best when our heroine is still trying to make sense of macabre events and is not sure what the truth is. The writing is silly at times, but there are also fun moments. Some of the special effects are bad, yet at the same time there's some hilarious over the top gore. Making it entertaining enough to watch are some great lines and a number of amusing, attention-getting performances.The movie stars "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" cast member Jennifer Rubin as Cynthia, who as a child had survived a suicide pact engineered by ultra creepy cult leader Harris (Richard Lynch at his best). Now she's a 20 something adult who's just awakened from a coma, and she's put into group therapy run by kindly Alex Karmen (Bruce Abbott of "Re- Animator" fame). Soon the people in this group start to die horrible deaths and Cynthia is convinced that Harris's spirit (which sometimes appears to her as a nastily charred corpse) is the one killing them.Rubin is appealing if not that good as an actress; at least she conveys a sense of naivety and innocence. Abbott is good, as is the excellent character actor Harris Yulin - a man who's always excelled at playing unbelievably smug and pompous jerks - as Karmens' colleague. Dean Cameron ("Summer School") supplies a lot of the comedy, improvising most of his best lines (you have to pay attention to catch one of them). Susan Barnes and Sy Richardson (both from "Repo Man"), Louis Giambalvo ("Weekend at Bernie's"), ever adorable actress / singer / voice over artist Elizabeth Daily, Susan Ruttan ('L.A. Law'), and Charles "voice of Roger Rabbit" Fleischer all put in appearances as well.Co-written and directed by Andrew Fleming ("The Craft"), this is intriguing for a while - with a memorable "revenge" / black comedy sequence near the end - but ultimately comes to a humdrum conclusion. It does show off Rubins' beauty to great effect and can boast some good visual tricks and scene transitions. Oscar winner Michele Burke does the nicely grisly makeup effects.Overall, not bad; it may be worth viewing for devotees of 80s genre fare.Six out of 10.
videorama-759-859391
I had just recently viewed this again, and I must say, it was another fun view. Bad Dreams is like another side of Elm Street. What I dig about, is it's intriguing storyline. Surviving a mass cult suicide, beautiful, innocent, virtuous Cynthia, Jennifer Rubin, wakes up after a thirteen year coma, (apparently we learn the longest is 37 years). She starts off her recovery in a mental ward, still clinging to her dead friends, one big happy family at the beautiful Unity Fields, out yonder, where they swallow all of that, you know. And one thing you'll never forget about Unity Fields, the devoted cult leader, Harris, played by the evil faced, Richard Lynch, an ugly Rutger Hauer'ish looking guy, the one true acting standout in this. Cynthia strikes up a kind of relationship, with her principal psychiatrist, Alan (Bruce Re-animator Abbott) the only one who really agrees this is the wrong environment for her. Cynthia's sanity isn't really helped, or convincing to others of the medical field, when starts seeing things, mainly a resurrected Harris, who keeps reappearing, sometimes in not the most the healthy states. Or poor young Cynthia could be delusional. And why are the patients, suiciding, one by one, some of them in pretty gruesome ways, a couple making a death pact, choosing to go through a mini turbine creating a blood shower, as you will. Is it Harris, taking them, for Cynthia not holding up her end of the bargain. I don't want to give anymore more away, just to say, Bad Dreams works just as well as a horror as it does a thriller. The familiar actors, though you would have to be more of a eighties type to know 'em, give their mentally unbalanced characters, spark and oomph, especially Dean Cameron, a comedic asset to this slick horror, that will surprise and appease gore hounds who hasn't vide'd this one. Harris Yulin, an acting treasure again gives a fine, performance, as a shady veteran shrink. You wouldn't think this film of b grade appeal, barely making a showing at the cinema back in 88, would surprise you with such an effortful storyline, but Bad Dreams does, it's title indeed one of sarcasm. It's a short nifty horror, that's bloody entertaining, especially thanks to that handful of patients, and Harris.
BA_Harrison
Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin), the only survivor of a mass suicide by hippie cult Unity Field, wakes from a 13-year coma to find the spirit of cult leader Harris (Richard Lynch) urging her to take her life to so that he can finally deliver the eternal bliss he promised to his followers. When she refuses, he starts to attack those around her.If you've seen A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, then you're going to get a strong sense of deja-vu watching Bad Dreams: with a horribly disfigured bogeyman who kills from beyond the grave, a group of mentally unstable people in an institution suffering inexplicably nasty fates, and Elm Street 3 actress Jennifer Rubin in the lead, the similarities are too obvious to ignore.After plenty of unexceptional Elm-street style death scenes, the film eventually attempts to distance itself from Wes Craven's iconic series by revealing its seemingly supernatural occurrences to be the result of mind-altering drugs dished out by an evil doctor; it's an ending that makes very little sense (precisely what the doctor is trying to achieve is unclear) and one which does nothing to alter the fact that this is a derivative horror at its most mediocre.4.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 5 for the spectacular fire scene at the beginning, which features some cool special effects and a few impressive burn stunts.
