It was ages ago when I had the pleasure of enjoying "Pontypool" for the first time, and it is still my favorite Bruce McDonald movie, favorite Stephen McHattie movie, one favorite Canadian horror movies, and horror movies in general. So you bet I was excited for "Dreamland", a movie that potentially has the makings of my beloved genre of arthouse, and has "Pontypool's" front team - director, writer and lead actor. It was a trip. A mighty flawed one, but soaked in weirdness, and we love the oddballs, yes we do.
"Dreamland" happens in a rather funky universe, which takes place in Luxembourg. Stephen McHattie portrays a killer for hire working for the grotesque gang boss Hercules or Henry Rollins, and things are set in motion when the killer is sent to collect a finger from a fading, drug-addicted jazz legend, also portrayed by Stephen McHattie. On the same day, a strange and freaky wedding is about to take place under the helm of town's richest, the Countess, brought to us by Juliette Lewis.
"Dreamland" is a movie that, in my view, is completely unashamed of itself and its odd antics, some props have to be given for the fact that it felt like they carried on exactly as they wished to. The story, environment and its inhabitants, the way everything plays out, feels really rather poetic, almost like a theatre play adapted into a screenplay. Shakespearean - is a word that kept coming to me. The rather bare story bones are thoroughly covered with philosophical pandering, lots of interpret-it-yourself notes. It'd seem that Bruce McDonald and the screenwriters have set out to exercise in existentialism, approaching it through the scope of surrealism, dry satire and perhaps trying to mix some David Lynch in the middle, while also forcing hand at making a violent killer/crime underworld thriller. In the end, "Dreamland" also feels like it couldn't decide on one main thing, so it went a little with all of it, which makes the movie feel too episodic and weakly weaved together, which consequently makes the pacing suffer, which is, in my opinion, its biggest flaw. The next would be its contents, so weird and arguably insubstantial, the kind of stuff that really gets split when it comes to subjectivism, taste, preferences and individual philosophies.
"Dreamland" looks and feels as indie as it gets, certainly a B budget movie, but pretty good one at that. The cast is superb, Stephen McHattie alone provides, and I had no idea he's playing a dual role. An underappreciated and amazing actor, I really recommend checking out some of his work. Given the fact that one of the characters is a trompetist, it comes as no surprise that the original score is solid and fitting, reminding slightly of the kind you'd hear in "Sin City". And cinematography's great, dynamic, with some low budget solutions here and there, and no worries on violence and FX, there's a fair amount of it.
"Dreamland" is a movie that generally will probably be received rather poorly, but it has a lot of oddities going for it, which is something I'm always on the lookout for, and there really are not nearly enough movies led by Stephen McHattie. This one deserves a 6/10 from me, and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys the many shades of weird.
