There is a blood dripping scene in Bad Dreams (one of the oldest tricks in the horror movie book but one which does not seem to ever diminish with each succeeding horror film, even up to today) that turns out to be probably the, um, chunkiest one that I've ever seen. Effective, I suppose, on a morbid level, since it avoids being nothing but a typical revelation of a brutally murdered body, but tiring in the way that it is executed (the scene, not the body, and no pun intended, of course). For some reason this reminds me of the scene in Joe Dirt where David Spade finds himself with a missile shaped septic tank strapped to his back, which ends up spewing its gooey contents onto his astonished head, and instead of attempting to prevent the sludge from bathing him from head to foot, he stands motionless, going `Wah! Wah! Wah!' and subjecting himself to the onslaught of the pasty substance. This is something that is easily avoided in real life (even if you DO somehow manage to wind up with a septic tank on your back), and the fact that Dirt makes not even the slightest attempt to avoid it reveals the scene as a weak effort to get a cheap laugh. Any blood-dripping scene in a horror film, similarly, is an equally weak effort to get a scare. In this case, a gross out scare, a brand which is inherently weak in itself.
The blood-dripping scene in Bad Dreams strikes me, for the main reason, because the rest of the movie is not much of a horror film except for the occasional appearance of the cult leader from the beginning of the film turning up as a horribly burned corpse, haunting poor Cynthia, the lone survivor (as usual) of the tragic event at the beginning of the film. The movie starts off with one of those goofball cult meetings, where everyone decides to commit mass suicide in order to become one with each other, or some other such nonsense. It starts off by making a comment about the destructive power of stupid people in large groups, but then turns into this weird horror/thriller for the rest of the movie.
There are a few effective scenes in the film, such as, ironically, the scene where Ralph, one of Cynthia's new roommates at the mental institution, tells her that whenever it gets to be too much for him, he just makes a little hole and it all goes away. He lifts up his shirt and reveals a map of scars traveling up his belly and chest, which is a huge turn from the horny teenage goofball that he had been portraying up to that point in the film (probably something that helped in getting him the role of Dave in the Ski School films of the early and mid 1990s, the films that he is probably best known for). But for the most part this is a pretty weak film.
Bad Dreams fails as a horror film because not a single new idea can be found in the movie, which renders its horror content completely predictable and almost entirely without effect, and it fails as a thriller (although not as much as it fails as a horror film), because it crosses the thin line between horror and thriller, inserting too much gore and supernatural antagonism where it doesn't belong, and thereby coming off as campy at best. It is, however, more entertaining than other bad movies I've found in the horror section lately, such as Neon Maniacs, which has cemented itself as one of the worst horror films I've ever seen, and not even bad in that good way, like They Live or Texas Chainsaw or some of the Friday the 13th or Nightmare of Elm Street sequels.
The tagline for Bad Dreams (the one on the top of the cover box, not the goofy `It's A Scream!' at the bottom) is a little interesting, in the way that it creates interest in the movie since you just have a natural urge to find out why someone would wish they were dead upon waking up (although this is also a pretty weak way create interest in a movie, especially a horror movie), but it also has nothing to do with the movie itself. Anytime a movie has a tagline that turns out to be a figure of speech, it tends to have the effect of leaving a bad aftertaste. The entirety of the suspense in the film, in fact, is derived from the fact that Cynthia does NOT wish she were dead upon awakening. The cult leader coming after her is the one that wishes she were dead, so if she really wished she was dead so badly all she had to do was give in and let him take her.
This is, of course, not the case, and so we have a movie. But the strange thing about it is that, despite having almost no strengths at all, it makes me wonder if maybe horror films are SUPPOSED to be bad, at least to be memorable. This one wasn't all that terrible, but makes little to no impression. The acting is weak from everyone involved (even from the beautiful Jennifer Rubin, who strikes me as an actor who should have had a more visible career than she has had so far), and the directing is little more than pointing and shooting, but the movie is almost immediately forgettable. Maybe in swaying on the line between horror and thriller, Bad Dreams made the unfortunate mistake of landing right in that limbo zone between a truly great horror film and a truly awful one the zone of oblivion.
The blood-dripping scene in Bad Dreams strikes me, for the main reason, because the rest of the movie is not much of a horror film except for the occasional appearance of the cult leader from the beginning of the film turning up as a horribly burned corpse, haunting poor Cynthia, the lone survivor (as usual) of the tragic event at the beginning of the film. The movie starts off with one of those goofball cult meetings, where everyone decides to commit mass suicide in order to become one with each other, or some other such nonsense. It starts off by making a comment about the destructive power of stupid people in large groups, but then turns into this weird horror/thriller for the rest of the movie.
There are a few effective scenes in the film, such as, ironically, the scene where Ralph, one of Cynthia's new roommates at the mental institution, tells her that whenever it gets to be too much for him, he just makes a little hole and it all goes away. He lifts up his shirt and reveals a map of scars traveling up his belly and chest, which is a huge turn from the horny teenage goofball that he had been portraying up to that point in the film (probably something that helped in getting him the role of Dave in the Ski School films of the early and mid 1990s, the films that he is probably best known for). But for the most part this is a pretty weak film.
Bad Dreams fails as a horror film because not a single new idea can be found in the movie, which renders its horror content completely predictable and almost entirely without effect, and it fails as a thriller (although not as much as it fails as a horror film), because it crosses the thin line between horror and thriller, inserting too much gore and supernatural antagonism where it doesn't belong, and thereby coming off as campy at best. It is, however, more entertaining than other bad movies I've found in the horror section lately, such as Neon Maniacs, which has cemented itself as one of the worst horror films I've ever seen, and not even bad in that good way, like They Live or Texas Chainsaw or some of the Friday the 13th or Nightmare of Elm Street sequels.
The tagline for Bad Dreams (the one on the top of the cover box, not the goofy `It's A Scream!' at the bottom) is a little interesting, in the way that it creates interest in the movie since you just have a natural urge to find out why someone would wish they were dead upon waking up (although this is also a pretty weak way create interest in a movie, especially a horror movie), but it also has nothing to do with the movie itself. Anytime a movie has a tagline that turns out to be a figure of speech, it tends to have the effect of leaving a bad aftertaste. The entirety of the suspense in the film, in fact, is derived from the fact that Cynthia does NOT wish she were dead upon awakening. The cult leader coming after her is the one that wishes she were dead, so if she really wished she was dead so badly all she had to do was give in and let him take her.
This is, of course, not the case, and so we have a movie. But the strange thing about it is that, despite having almost no strengths at all, it makes me wonder if maybe horror films are SUPPOSED to be bad, at least to be memorable. This one wasn't all that terrible, but makes little to no impression. The acting is weak from everyone involved (even from the beautiful Jennifer Rubin, who strikes me as an actor who should have had a more visible career than she has had so far), and the directing is little more than pointing and shooting, but the movie is almost immediately forgettable. Maybe in swaying on the line between horror and thriller, Bad Dreams made the unfortunate mistake of landing right in that limbo zone between a truly great horror film and a truly awful one the zone of oblivion.