Review of Bad Dreams (1988) by Noel B — 19 May 2010

Bad Dreams is a much better movie than itâ??s given credit for. The problem is that it was a blatant attempt to cash in on the Nightmare On Elm St franchise and itâ??s glaringly obvious, particularly with itâ??s similarities to the third movie. Iâ??ll make my point with this list:

1. Bad guy gets burnt alive and comes back to haunt people in dreams (although in â??Bad Dreamsâ?? itâ??s more hallucinations really so I donâ??t know why they called it such other than to attract Elm St fans.).

2. Both â??Bad Dreamsâ?? and Elm St 3 are set in very similar looking hospitals where they have â??group sessionsâ?? 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.

Iâ??m sure there were others but you get the picture. Otherwise theyâ??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 donâ??t understand is why they created so many similarities to Elm St 1 and 3 as the movie is very strong in itâ??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 wasnâ??t for the similarities this movie would be considered a classic. In any case, this is an underrated 80â??s horror gem with a great plot and scarier than average.