"Strange Illusion" begins with a wacky young man having a very Freudian sort of repetitive dream about an evil man trying to steal his widowed mother. This seemingly Oedipal theme, however, turns out to instead be a sort of prescient warning, as his mother IS in trouble and it's up to this boy to save the day. How he KNEW what would happen was baffling--did his dead father send him these dreams, was he psychic or did he simply read the script!
This film has many elements that are quite interesting and could have made a great film. However, I found the film to be frustrating because at the same time there are elements that severely detract from the story and made it hard viewing. The biggest problem was the complete lack of subtlety as well as the film telegraphing what would occur. At no point was the audience in any doubt that the neurotic young man was correct--and having there be doubt would have made the film far more suspenseful and interesting. Second, if you can accept the idea of these incredibly detailed dreams 100% accurately predicting a coming danger (even though the guy did not even know that his mother was dating anyone--let alone an evil man), then you'll much more enjoy the film. I just felt it was all a lot of mumbo-jumbo.
For me, the film COULD have been great. As I said above, make the threat much less obvious and subtle--SUBTLE! And, get rid of the warning dreams completely--the film certainly didn't need this angle and the mother could have still been at risk from a creepy fiancé. Or, if all of what the kid later discovered was all a product of his disturbed and delusional mind--that could have been great. I wish I could have liked this film more. I think just by looking at it that the film was rushed into production and they just didn't give the plot problems much thought.
Oh, and by the way,...the ending totally sucked. Totally.
This film has many elements that are quite interesting and could have made a great film. However, I found the film to be frustrating because at the same time there are elements that severely detract from the story and made it hard viewing. The biggest problem was the complete lack of subtlety as well as the film telegraphing what would occur. At no point was the audience in any doubt that the neurotic young man was correct--and having there be doubt would have made the film far more suspenseful and interesting. Second, if you can accept the idea of these incredibly detailed dreams 100% accurately predicting a coming danger (even though the guy did not even know that his mother was dating anyone--let alone an evil man), then you'll much more enjoy the film. I just felt it was all a lot of mumbo-jumbo.
For me, the film COULD have been great. As I said above, make the threat much less obvious and subtle--SUBTLE! And, get rid of the warning dreams completely--the film certainly didn't need this angle and the mother could have still been at risk from a creepy fiancé. Or, if all of what the kid later discovered was all a product of his disturbed and delusional mind--that could have been great. I wish I could have liked this film more. I think just by looking at it that the film was rushed into production and they just didn't give the plot problems much thought.
Oh, and by the way,...the ending totally sucked. Totally.