tdrish How do I begin to describe this? I have seen this title one time in my life, and that was one time too many. How do I describe that mess I saw? Okay, so we jump in the car, and take that trip down memory lane. I was 14 years old when I watched this...I suppose I was expecting a lot of suspense. What I got, was under and hour and a half of implausible chaos. Right around 1975, a bizarre cult that would talk you into suicide, led by Harris ( rest in peace, Mr. Lynch) leads his sheep into his world of belief. One girl survives, chickening out of the suicide ritual, when a fire erupts, leaving many casualties, and burning Harris alive. Now 13 years have passed, and the only survivor awakens from a long coma, only to awaken to a continuing nightmare...she is haunted by Harris, who still wants her dead. He won't kill her, he wants it to be a suicide. Wow! The high rating, people must be entertained, thinking teen suicide is a joke! What's a joke, is the fact that this was a successful movie back then. On the plus side, I admire that something new was tried here, back in 1988, when this was released, the market was battered by countless slasher and horror movies similar to its genre, Bad Dreams was at least something new. Almost 30 years later, I won't give this movie the time of day. It's uneven, I thought the story line was lacking, and it just depended way too much on soap opera drama. Not to mention...I thought everybody in this movie was weird, especially Dr. Karmen. What was there to like, when you can't even like a character in the movie? Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not convinced of it. There was more bad then good, from what I remember. All in all, I would encourage you to bypass this one up, it's not one of the better films, it's certainly not the worse, but just to save you some time if you're the average person...4 out of 10 stars from me. ( PS: THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE IS A MAJOR LET DOWN!)

Sam Panico Everyone likes to proclaim that the world is so much worse today than it ever has been. If you feel that way and weren't alive for the 1970s, allow me to debase you of this notion. The "Me Decade" was full of random violence, the fuel crisis, Three Mile Island, Watergate, Son of Sam, the end of Manson, Zodiac and religious orders that some would proclaim as cults, from the Process Church and the Moonies to Jonestown. We don't really have a modern analogue for these fringe groups that would spring up from time to time because it seems like the Hale-Bopp comet wiped the last of these off the planet.That's the world that Bad Dreams takes place in. In 1975, the Unity Fields cult decides to commit mass suicide by setting themselves on fire under the command of their leader, Franklin Harris (Richard Lynch of Invasion U.S.A., Sword and the Sorceror, Rob Zombie's Halloween and God Told Me To). Only one person survives, Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), who still a kid when Harris set everyone on fire. She's been in a coma for over 13 years before she awakens to flashbacks of Harris being interviewed on a TV program. The final thing she sees is his face telling her that she belongs to him and he'd be coming back to take her life. This entire sequence is really well edited, showing how the cult's teachings had been accepted by every member, intercut with Cynthia being wheeled through a hospital as doctors struggle to save her life, all to the ominous strains of The Electric Prunes' "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night."After awakening, Cynthia attends experimental group therapy sessions for borderline personality disorder, led by Dr. Alex Karmen (Bruce Abbott, the Re-Animator films). As she becomes more aware, she begins to remember more and more — including the thirty other people who died from dousing themselves in gasoline. Worse, she sees a burned and scarred Harris when she's trapped in an elevator, who reminds her that she is his property.What follows is an insane scene that shows the parallels between group therapy and cult behavior, as the discussion room becomes Unity Fields and Cynthia watches everyone ladle gasoline onto one another. Again, another hint is dropped that Cynthia is a "love child," as her mother is also part of the cult. One by one, the members walk to the front of the room and are baptized with gasoline, before Harris takes handfuls of the fuel and coats himself before lighting the room on fire. What starts as a peaceful embrace of death quickly turns into horror, as entire families go up in a blaze of pain, flames, and screams. Finally, Harris reappears to tell Cynthia that she and she alone screwed up and that her entire family is waiting for her, as they cannot move on without her death.Every waking moment is caught between reality and flashback, as even a simple shower brings back the violent baptism that brought Cynthia into Unity Fields. Directly after, another patient, one who wanted to know more about Unity's message, drowns herself in the pool. Another patient (the only one who has been nice to Cynthia) named Miriam attempts to escape the hospital. Helping her to an elevator, Cynthia waves goodbye, only to see Harris smiling and waving back. She gives chase, only to find Miriam's purse left behind…as Miriam jumps from a window, sending blood and glass all over the pavement.Read more at www.thatsnotcurrent.com/drugs-cults-burned- svengalis-bad-dreams-1988/

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.

Noel Barton Bad Dreams is a much better movie than it's given credit for. The problem is that it was a blatant attempt to cash in on the Nightmare On Elm St franchise and it's glaringly obvious, particularly with it's similarities to the third movie. I'll make my point with this list: 1. Bad guy gets burnt alive and comes back to haunt people in dreams (although in 'Bad Dreams' it's more hallucinations really so I don't know why they called it such other than to attract Elm St fans.) 2. Both 'Bad Dreams' and Elm St 3 are set in very similar looking hospitals where they have "group sessions" and one of the patients is played by Jennifer Rubin. The patients begin to see visions/dreams of a burnt man before dying.3. At one point needing a hall pass is mentioned which sounded like a reference to Elm St 1.4. A doctor in this is the same actor who plays a doctor in Elm St 1.5. In Elm St 3 Phillip falls from a high window to his death which appears like a suicide. The same happens with a character in this movie and the music in each of these two scenes are strikingly similar.I'm sure there were others but you get the picture. Otherwise they're really very different movies. Bad Dreams lacks the imaginative dream sequences and really over the top fantastic deaths of Elm St 3 but it plays things very seriously and a result is at least a much scarier horror movie. The villain is played by Richard Lynch which is the most perfect piece of casting as he looks scary to start with; you see visions of him both burnt and not burnt and the not burnt ones are actually scarier! What I don't understand is why they created so many similarities to Elm St 1 and 3 as the movie is very strong in it's own right and by the end you realise it has little in common otherwise. Maybe it was the production company asking for a new Elm St style movie so they tried a little too hard to please them. Maybe if it wasn't for the similarities this movie would be considered a classic. In any case, this is an underrated 80's horror gem with a great plot and scarier than average.