Review: Dream Lover


Kristy McNichol stars as a NY jazz flautist, newly moved into the area with boyfriend Justin Deas. One night she is attacked in her apartment and nearly raped, before she fatally stabs the intruder. Unfortunately, the nightmare has only begun for her- she’s literally having nightmares about the incident. It doesn’t help that Deas cheats on her, and there’s something not quite right with her relationship with dad Paul Shenar, either (Kissing on the lips for one thing). Along comes Ben Masters, a handsome dream analysis researcher who wants McNichol to be a part of his experiments. And hey, if it cures her of her problems, that’s a bonus. Unfortunately, it looks as though it’ll only make things worse. John McMartin and Gayle Hunnicutt play family friends (who are only in the film to cast aspersions on Mr. Shenar for possible red herring purposes).

 

Not the crowning achievement in the career of director Alan J. Pakula (“Klute”, “All the President’s Men”, “Sophie’s Choice”), this 1986 psycho-drama/quasi-horror film is pretty poorly done. Star Kristy McNichol is usually a charismatic presence on screen, but she seems completely uninterested in being here, and given the subpar Brian De Palma-esque nature of the material, I don’t really blame her. Scripted by Jon Boorstin (who worked for Pakula in various technical capacities over the years, but has become mostly a TV writer since the 90s), the film’s idea of reading a person’s dreams on a graph is absurd. How can you tell what exactly she was dreaming about just by looking at a graph? You can’t get specific info like that from a simple graph. “Spellbound” this ain’t, it’s more like the dated “Brainstorm” and “Dreamscape”, but much worse (Apparently there was a ‘technical consultant’ involved, but my guess is their expertise was in hydroponics, not dream analysis). Then again, this is a film that shows McNichol, already miscast as a jazz flautist, getting a record deal in 1986 playing the flute and attempting to scat. Um…no, sweetie. Just no.

 

The wonderfully surreal, dream-like cinematography by ace Sven Nykvist (“Persona”, “Cries and Whispers”, “Chaplin”, “Sleepless in Seattle”) is a major asset, but despite not being easy to predict the ending, the film is still bloody awful. It’s shockingly edited (including some appallingly amateurish night/day/night gaffes), confusingly plotted, drab, and ultimately pointless. McNichol looks sensational in teeny weeny cotton panties, though. That’s an important detail.

 

I’m really not sure what Pakula saw in this material, and you’d have to be a die-hard McNichol fan to get much out of this misfire which eschews chills and horrors for wannabe-Bergman dry pretentiousness and goober jazz flute lameness.

 

Rating: D+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more