User reviews

In the mid-70s,the members of the love cult Unity Fields sought the ultimate joining by dousing themselves with gasoline and committing mass suicide.A young girl blown clear of the fiery explosion was the only survivor.Thirteen years later,Cynthia(Jennifer Rubin)awakens from a coma inside a psychiatric hospital with only buried memories of that horrific day.But when her fellow patients start committing suicide one by one,her past slowly begins to come back to terrifying life..."Bad Dreams" is a pretty average horror flick.It's well-paced and visually interesting.The acting by Richard Lynch,Jennifer Rubin and Bruce Abbott,three actors ignored by the mainstream,is solid and there is plenty of blood and gore including knife through hand and some nasty self-mutilation.7 out of 10.

Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin) wakes up after being in a coma for thirteen years. She is the sole survivor of a religious sect who burned themselves up. But the leader of the sect (Richard Lynch) wants her back and will stop at nothing to get her from beyond the grave. There might be more to Cynthia's bad dreams but will those around her die before she finds out.

'Bad Dreams' is a better than average 80's flick with a good plot and a nifty twist. Populated by some horror vets (Rubins and Bruce Abbott) and put together well by director Andrew (The Craft) Fleming. 'Bad Dreams' deserves more attention than it gets and the new DVD release is just the ticket.

The First time I remember seeing this movie was back in the late 80s, when it was being played on HBO late one night. I remember at the time I thought the movie was pretty cool. I didnt see the movie again until about a year ago , when I picked up a used copy of it. Since then I have watched the movie a couple times, and I think its pretty awesome. its got some scary sences, and its definately got that old style 80s horror feel to it, which I miss. Its also crazy how similar this movie is to the 1987 masterpeice,A Nightmare on Elm Street 3- Dream Worriors. This movie's main star is Jennifer Ruben, who played Taryn in Nightmare 3...and just like in Nightmare 3, Bad Dreams is about a group of troubled kids who are in a mental institution, being haunted in there dreams by a burned boogeyman. It was cool to see Jennifer Ruben in another horror movie. This, and Nightmare 3, are the only two movies I can remember her in. Check out "Bad Dreams" if you want to see another cool late 80s horror movie.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently.

When my 7 year ol nephew asked me the plot, he being a small kid, he excitedly said that its a Nightmare on Elm Street copy aft hearing the plot.

I made him see Nightmare... but used to move away the screen during gory sequences.

This movie is very slow n not at all scary.

I dont kno what the makers were trying to achieve cos even one of the cop's name is Freddy and the lead actress Jennifer Rubin was a supporting actress in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

Coming back to this movie, they shud have focused more on the cult group but alas.

The settings of the cultist's house is good but the movie terrible.

I'm kind of caught here. I somewhat liked it, but came away rather under-whelmed because it was all too familiar and there was something more interesting within this strange horror/thriller premise than what was chalked up. Even with some creative cracks, it should've been better. The story's direction seems a little uneven if it wants to go out to shock (a good amount of blood splatter is spilt), or play its cards for psychological torment. Something about it never entirely fulfils. The performances are the main reason this one doesn't slip off the mind too quick. The beautiful Jennifer Rubin is exceptional in brining out a vulnerable side, which is counter-punched by determination. Alongside her are a very good Bruce Abbott and a towering Richard Lynch brings an uneasy subtly to his menacing character. Harris Yulin, Sy Richardson, Susan Ruttan and an amusingly batty Dean Cameron chip in with durable support. Andrew Fleming's leisured direction is stylish, but has that breakable quality to it. Good use of lighting, colouring and composition in pockets drips of atmosphere. The material is enjoyable (if minimal), as the protagonist tries to overcome the hallucinations that might be because of her unstable state of mind or the simple reality of being haunted by a restless spirit. There's some black humour evident, but the by-the-numbers script goes about things rather seriously. As well it has a fine and compelling soundtrack to boot. The special effects and make-up FX stands-up well enough. A decent little film.

It's one of those cult-suicide films were one of the members decided to back out of the mass cult suicide, which was death by fire in this case, she was the only survivor and ended up in a coma for 13 years in a hospital. They tried to find her family with no luck and when she awoke her mind was still in the 1970s not the late 1980s where it should have been. She was kept in the hospital but the cult leader came back to "haunt" her in a literal way - he wants her to commit suicide to join the cult on the other side. People end up dead when the cult leader tries to scare and drive her to suicide. Her psychiatrist falls in love with her and tries to help her.

It's an OK movie... I've seen much worse than this!! It held my interest for about an hour and a half anyway.

5/10

This film definitely had the 1980's vibe going strong in it's look and feel. Usually, if you are one to like the 'Classic' Slasher films of that time period, you pretty much know what to expect. Unfortunately, although there ARE some scattered good moments in the film, overall I honestly got the impression that overall it just didn't hold together terribly well. The IDEA was pretty good, and for me anyway, ANY film that starts with almost a full rendition of The Electric Prunes 'I Had too Much to Dream Last Night' is pretty damn awesome.

Some of the soundtrack choices were effective too. And, at times the director did create a nice mood. But, I don't know exactly what it was, probably the direction since the director usually has final control of how the movie comes across, flows, and ties together. You kind of got the feeling that the actors were just not quite really into it and I feel that that comes across in the performances. Also, there are many awkward moments where the patients would be acting odd or doing their thing, but to me, it didn't come across as believable. To me, many times it seemed like a number of odd, sub-par performances roughly strung together.

Most decent Slashers usually keep a good pace and keep the action going so that the story moves quickly for the audience. I didn't get that here... I think that perhaps if it could have be tightened up a bit and if the performances elicited by the director and maybe the specific shots used had been done better, than the movie would have been much more involving and more entertaining. The only way I can think of to put it, to explain the overall feel that it gave me, is that it just didn't seem to 'Flow' quite right. But, like I said, it definitely had it's moments. But, I think just too many scenes were weak. For example, not giving anything away, but one scene with the hyper patient towards the end when he took Jennifer Rubin with him down into the basement or somewhere, the scene where he was throwing a fit dragged on and on and on and just really seemed like padding and was pretty stupid. Unfortunately, there were just too many weak moments, maybe not QUITE as bad as that scene, but weak all the same.

Also, without saying too much, the 'twist' towards the end was an excellent idea and gave a nice added punch to the story. But again, it was almost too little too late... I really like the guy playing the young doctor (wasn't he the romantic lead in 'REANIMATOR') but even he seemed like he was trying REALLY hard not to sleepwalk through the film. Jennifer Rubin didn't impress very much; she just looked kind of stoned the whole time. She was a HELL of a lot better in 'NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3' Also, it would have been nice to see E.G. Daily do a bit more too.

So... just rating this against other Slashers, I really can't get too worked up by it. I felt that even though the premise was very good and even though there WERE some good moments in it, overall compared to most other average to decent Slashers, I just found this one a bit limp, mainly because it just didn't seem that sharply put together. The current rating of '5.5' is about right; I gave it a '5' because I couldn't quite give it a '6' In my honest, lowly and wretched opinion, I truly think that there are a LOT better Slasher films out there...

For some odd reason I was the hugest fan of this film when it first came out. I made my father take me to see it over and over again. And to this say I still watch it every once in a while.I guess the main appeal of it when I was younger is that the villain somewhat resembled Freddy Krueger and the lead actress Jenifer Rubin was from A Nightmare on Elm st. 3. The film doesn't offer much in the way of truly effective horror. But it makes up for it in creativity. It veers from the typical horror route going into a slightly more intellectual one and trying to induce psychological scares. Sometime they work and sometimes they won't. But at any rate the film is quite enjoyable with one hell of a twist ending. Maybe it's the nostalgia I feel towards it or maybe it's still because it has such a kick ass poster.

I've never heard about this film until my friend told me about it, so I decided to check it out. It wasn't too bad. It was a bit different than the usual horror I'm used to. I'm not sure if this would be classified as horror though. Maybe more of a thriller or something. Can't say I was really dissapointed with it, but it could have had more stuff.

Starts off with this weird '70s cult gathering around an old house. Turns out they're getting ready to be burned to death by their faithful leader and they actually want it to happen. It's supposed to help them all become one with each other. What a waste. Everyone pretty much gets killed except one young girl, who ends up in a coma for 13 years. When she finally wakes up she starts seeing weird visions of the leader of the group and she believes he's after her.

This wasn't a bad film. It had a pretty original plot and the death scenes were cool. There was an interesting twist at the end that made everything fall perfectly into place. The acting was pulled off well and it was a first to see actor Bruce Abbott in another horror film. Last time I saw him it was in the Re-Animator films.

What I didn't like about the movie was the fact that it didn't have as much stuff going on as it could have. I just felt the film was missing something. There weren't any scary or creepy parts. Nothing that will really make the audience jump. I was rather dissapointed with that.

Would have given this film a higher rating if more stuff was going on. Would have given it a lower rating, but I did find it interesting to watch and it did keep my attention going for a while. The twist at the end wasn't bad, but I was kind of dissapointed by it.

Bad Dreams (1988) Director: Andrew Fleming (The Craft) ***out of**** Review After barely escaping crazy cult guru's (able Richard Lynch) fiery suicide pact, Cynthia (the very gorgeous and likable Jennifer Rubin) finds herself awaking 13 years later, in year 1988. Trying to get on with her life, she starts to realize that her fellow patients in the mental hospital start dying in brutal ways, and start seeing hallucinations/dreams/visions of Harris, the burnt up cult leader. Is he back from the grave, vowing revenge for Cynthia's survival, or is something more sinister going on? Rather then going the cliché way in my review and bashing this movie for its direct influences from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, I'll just say that they never got in the way of my enjoyment of this film. A lot of movies rip off others all the time, so I don't seem to ever get annoyed by these.

The film has top notch production values, a very entertaining cast, and some warped out death scenes. You can see how the movie just wants to be a good thriller and does so almost effortlessly. I remember my dad buying a old VHS copy when I was 9 or so and not really liking it's cover, but since I didn't want to hurt my dad's feelings I stuck it up and pretended to be excited, and watched it, and ever since then I have a place in my (movie watching) heart for this, perhaps just based on that back story alone.

One thing that I really enjoy is the actors. Lot's of familiar and likable faces in the house. I invested more into the movie by that way. I do admit the characters of the mental patients aren't fully developed enough though, I wanted to know more and see more about them, like the very sympathetic Lana (played quite well by Elizabeth Daily). She has a scene where she opens up her heart and I started liking her, but the movie is quick to get to the gore and kills and her plight is cut way to short. Same could be said for Dean Cameron and Susan Barnes.

The directing by Andrew Fleming is basically there to serve the story, nothing to stand out. I would have preferred to see a director with a more unique visual voice (all of the Flemings movies never have stand out visuals) it would have made the movie more stand out, and his angles are pretty bland. Good scene transitions though.

The soundtrack by Jay Ferguson was much appreciated and quite dreamy. Far better then his over the top attempt with Nightmare 5: Dream Child.

The kills and gore are very queasy, and people who have dealt with a suicide or (god forbid) seen a suicide will surly be offended by this movie, but since I'm a avid horror fan I was never offended, but they certainly had cruel streak.

Some flaws that hurt the movie are the lack of character development (as stated) and the movie's ending felt rushed, forced, and cut short. What happened to our survivors? I hate endings that never show the characters reactions after the events are over. One thing I will compare to Nightmare 3 is the ending, which was done there was well. Please take at least 4 or so minutes to better resolve our characters. The "surprise" in the end wasn't fully explored either, it somewhat didn't make much sense to me. What is this persons final goal when he succeeds? So maybe because I didn't want to hurt my dad's feelings at an early age, makes me warm up to this easier, or maybe it is just decent effort that can be watched from time to time. But be warned, this movie deals with suicide in a crude manner and surely will offend some.

Bad Dreams is the story of a young woman named Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin) who survives a cult suicide pact and is in a coma for years. Cynthia comes out of her coma and is in a mental institution where she starts to see the dead cult leader and patients begin to die. These deaths are not suicides but something more sinister.

Bad Dreams is an interesting film with a great cast led by Rubin and Bruce Abbott as one of the doctors who wants to help Rubin's Cynthia. The twist of the film isn't anything special but it is still worth a watch and also it's worth hanging around for the end credits because the Guns N Roses song Sweet Child O' Mine plays the film out and that's always worth a listen.

Movie is well made and decently acted, but it isn't fun... It's perfectly watchable and has some snippets of enjoyment here and there, but is ultimately very boring and even resorts to jump scares. Main character is cute, but not very likable due to the premise of the whole plot (she also hurts probably the most cute character in the whole movie). It pains me to state all of this, as the movie is visibly well made and isn't just thrown together. I give it 5.8/10 and I don't recommend it, but let it be said that it isn't the worst thing you can watch.

Although the film is called 'Bad Dreams', it is not about dreams in the true sense of the word. Instead, they are flashbacks, memories, and visions.

A young girl, Cynthia (Jennifer Ruben) survives a mass suicide as part of an obscure sect. The sect's leader is Harris (Richard Lynch) who believes life and death to merely be different stages, and that the human mind (in its entirety and even in human form) lives on. After being comatose for 13 years, Cynthia regains consciousness, but is still haunted by that fateful night.

The film is set in a psychiatric hospital, and I liked the idea of the confinement. Essentially a slasher, it doesn't really feel like one thanks to the good storytelling. 'Bad Dreams' was a nice surprise and turned out much better than expected. The acting in general was very good and I enjoyed Bruce Abbott from 'Re-Animator' fame in the role of Dr. Alex Carmen. The characters were not merely added to increase the bodycount (being a slasher film). Instead they are nicely fleshed out characters I cared about.

'Bad Dreams' had that distinct 'Nightmare on Elm Street' feel to it (in particular 'Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'). I actually really enjoyed this.

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.

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.

Masterful horror exquisite debut of Andrew Fleming! Excellent description found on google. > Unity Field, a "free love" cult from the '70s, is mostly remembered for its notorious mass suicide led by Harris (Richard Lynch), its charismatic leader. While all members are supposed to burn in a fire together, young Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin) is spared by chance. Years later, the nightmare of Unity Field remains buried in her mind. But when those around Cynthia start killing themselves, and she begins having visions of Harris, she may be forced to confront the past -- before it confronts her.

The film tell the story of the sole survivor of an interesting hippie-like commune/cult led by a David Koreshish type leader. Yet "Bad Dreams" is a cut above for many reasons. The first being that the film is filled with surrealistic arresting images-in particular, the house where the mass suicide took place is an intriguing looking building, tragically beautiful. Secondly, "Bad Dreams" encompasses a fascinating character in the African American female mental patient who frequently says mysterious and pseudo religious things and seems to be the only one who knows whats going on. Thirdly, the acting by all involved is really superior to what you find in most horror films. Rubin is especially good at emoting and I am mystified why I never heard of her before I watched this film.

This movie actually, was more a psychological thriller than it was a horror, yet it had elements of both which is what I like in a movie. I want to be challenged more in my mind than I want to be scared out of my wits. This is why Bad Dreams scores on all fronts. Bruce Abbott does well as the young psychiatrist who counsels his seven patients. It was written, produced and directed well. I can think of no flaws in the movie. The attention to detail was flawless like when after the blood sprays all over the hospital in later scenes you see workers scrubbing the blood from the floors and walls and ventilation shafts. That was realistic! They did not just assume that the blood was gone. Jennifer Rubin's portrayal of Cynthia, a naive yet scared girl hit on all cylinders. I so wish that she had not given up acting. She was by far one of the best actresses of her generation. From A Woman Her Men and a Futon to "Miami Vice," she could do it all and she shines bright in this psychological-horror movie. See the movie for her portrayal alone.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Ghastly horror item, which may have represented a dead-end for the slasher genre before Wes Craven revived it in the '90s, has cult-suicide survivor Jennifer Rubin spending thirteen years in a coma, only to awaken to a bizarre rash of deaths in her hospital ward. Although Jennifer shows promise in her role, and Susan Ruttan does well in a small part as a mental patient, this cruddy-looking B-flick is far more unpleasant than scary--what with tasteless asides, cheap effects, and googly-eyed Richard Lynch attempting to pull a Jim Jones. Good supporting players E.G. Daily, Damita Jo Freeman and Harris Yulin are sadly wasted. NO STARS from ****