Dreamaniac — Dreamaniac(DVD)

After making around ten or so low- budget adult films in the early 1980’s Dreamaniac was the first horror film directed by B movie Auteur David DeCoteau- who went onto 80’s make cheesy cult classics like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Creepozoids, and Dr Alien. And while Dreamaniac, doesn’t rise to the often cheesy/ bad glory of his late work- it’s a serviceable enough, if at times slight slow 1980’s slasher- that in it’s promotion/ title very much nods towards a certain Elm Street, and a Mr Fred Krueger. Here from Full Moon, as part of their Grindhouse series is a region free DVD of the film.

Appearing in late 1986 on Charles Bands Wizard Video Dreamaniac- is somewhat of a wobbly & uneven horror debut, with Decoteu trying to cram & blend a fair bit of visual & musical elements together- so at times ones left rather tonal puzzled. The film is centred around well spoken & decidedly clean cut metal-head Adam- who decides to rise satanic succubus, and then invite some friend round for a party. And what we get is a selection of OTT clichéd 80’s characters, often stilted-though at times amusingly campy dialogue, dry ice & neon light filters, and later some impressive/ fairly intense gory- taking in stabbings, drillings, and decapitations.

Things start off in fine unbalancing/ bizarre 80’s manner- with Adam awakening naked to walk down dry ice & Neon licked corridor to reach the bathroom, finding a blood-drenched naked women writhing.  Fairly soon he awakes, and it’s clear this was a dream- and really aside from mentions of his bad dreams, this is the only real connection with the dream stalking of Elm Street. I’d say Dreamaniac is best described as a supernatural slasher.

Sadly after the fairly strong start, we move into a blend of mawkish romantic scenes- soundtracked by extremely gratingly nice synth fair. Soapy banter and decidedly annoying characters. Add to this the film's pacing seems very uneven, and at times it really does drag. Things do improve around the three-quarter mark- when the high heeled & shades-wearing succubus finally appears at the party- as we get some surprisingly blood stabbings, drills through hands & necks, etc. Sadly Dreamaniac doesn’t have enough memorable or quirky character, general weirdness, or bizarre-ness to make it a good-bad movie- instead, you very much get the feeling that DeCoteau is trying out stuff, some hit’s the mark, sadly a lot doesn’t. I have a lot of time for much DeCoteau classic 80’s output- and I’m glad to finally see Dreamaniac, but I can’t see my self revisiting it that often.

Moving onto this reissue- the print really looks like tidy up VHS print, and at times is very dark, with from time-to-time tape rolls appearing- so I guess it certainly has an ‘old-school’ feel. We get an eight-minute featurette from Charles Band discussing the general concept behind the Grindhouse series, a trailer for the early releases in the series, and a general selection of Full Moon trailers.

I’d say if your either a slasher film completists, or a fan of DeCoteau's output of the 1980’s Dreamaniac- just don’t expect too much, as this really does feel like he’s often trying to learn the horror/cult movie ropes.