Deadly Dreams

One of Roger Corman’s least heralded contributions to Hollywood is allowing women directors to make films just as cheap, exploitative, and dumb as male directors sometimes do. Kristine Peterson made her directing debut with this thriller released by Corman’s Concorde Pictures that focuses on the frequently sweaty bare torso of the supremely unlikable Mitchell Anderson (DOOGIE HOWSER, M.D.).

Poor chain-smoking Anderson has a lot of nightmares about a killer with a shotgun and a wolf mask chasing him through the bleak woods. That this actually sorta happened to him when he was ten years old (the killer murdered his parents right in front of him) has made Anderson understandably neurotic.

His stoner pal Thom Babbes (also the film’s screenwriter) and his older brother Xander Berkeley (24) are fairly worthless, leaving him to turn to his new girlfriend Juliette Cummins (FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING) when he needs to be talked down from another bad dream. Or are they dreams? Are Anderson’s visions of a wolf-masked killer actually real? Could somebody be trying to gaslight Anderson to get his inheritance? Is this an unimaginative direct-to-video thriller?

Anderson doesn’t seem to be into his sex scene with a topless Cummins, but maybe he’s just dizzy from Peterson spinning the bed around on a platform. That’s about as visually stylish as DEADLY DREAMS gets, despite a title that predicts fantasy. At least the dream sequences allow Peterson to kill her cast members over and over, though the gore factor barely tips into R territory. It also gives us 32 shots of Anderson sitting up in bed screaming. May as well get in all the cliches.

Frankly, there just isn’t much of a story here. With only four characters to play with — none of them likable — and a weak story, Peterson needs something to generate interest. A couple of outrageous third-act plot twists are a good start, but one is predictable (like really predictable) and the other is stupid. Cummins isn’t bad here, and she’s sexy as hell. Corman gave Peterson another chance to direct BODY CHEMISTRY, which was a major Concorde hit. Her biggest film was CRITTERS 3 for New Line.