TUBI Horror! "Dreamaniac" (1986)
If you thought "Night of the Demons" was raunchy, wait until you see THIS!
By: Toxicka Shock
Twitter: @ToxickaShock
Instagram: @ToxickaShock
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Yes, there were plenty of great movies that came out that decade. And there was also a lot of great BAD horror movies. But by and large, *most* of the genre stuff that came out in the eighties was just plain mediocre - the kind of watch-em-once flicks that you forget about as soon as the end credits wrap up (assuming you even make it TO the end credits without dozing off.)
It seems like horror fans are *always* on the prowl for hidden gems - those less-heralded genre movies that feel like totally undiscovered mini-masterpieces of degenerate cinema.
In turn, that's led to a lot of fans over-celebrating fairly mediocre movies just BECAUSE they're obscure.
Well, "Dreamaniac" is a hidden gem in the truest sense of the term. Not only is it a fun little throwback that fairly few in the horror community have seen, it's probably on par with Reagan-era cult classics like "Evilspeak" and "Night of the Demons." I mean, it's no "Evil Dead" or "The Beyond," but how many movies are?
Whether or not the movie is any good is kind of a moot point, because the opening theme to this movie is absolute fuckin' FIRE and I'm not even being ironic. This thing opens with a GREAT synth rock tune and if the movie is even one-tenth as good as this song, the subsequent 90 minutes squandered won't be a net loss for any of us.
The establishing shot is VERY reminiscent of the opening of Halloween - that is, until a bare ass nekkid dude pops up and starts strutting his stuff all over the place while purple strobe lights pulse all over the place. So this one nekkid chick covered in blood emerges from the tub and they start kissing with their tongues and she scratches his back and SWERVE! Our main character wakes up, and just so you know this thing was made in the mid-80s, he's rockin' a dope Def Leppard tee and has a girlfriend with huge hair and no ass.
Seconds later, we've got outselves a VERY cheesy love-making scene, complete with even cheesier music. Then our hero starts strumming an acoustic guitar and smoking the marijuana, which as we all know by now, is the perfect prelude to conjuring up a demoness using candles and, uh, wooden cutting boards?
So our hero sees a ghostly bride holding a severed head in the attic. Then she emerges downstairs wearing lingerie and she starts open mouth kissing him and licking on his nipples. Cue the implied Satanic blow job, as we all knew was bound to happen.
Then his girlfriend with her side-ponytail and Jazzercise pants shows up and they smooch some more and they make pot brownies and this one snotty girl says she's "rich and shit" and what's his name's girlfriend makes fun of her for having small tits. Man, the 80s were so great.
Then a whole bunch of other girls with side ponytails show up, as well as a couple of preppy guys. So yeah, I suppose that's our fodder for the succubus. And they say stuff like "mondo bad planning," and it's yet another remainder that society should've just stopped around 1989.
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Judging from the actor's facial expression, either her breath must be terrible or he learned to kiss by practicing on a turnip. |
Up next, there's so more idle chatter and everybody snorts cocaine. The first victim ends up being a blonde valley girl, who gets a butcher knife run through her noggin while she's messing' around with one of those eyelash curling devices. Then the cast plays charades for a bit, then there's another love scene, then these two skanks get rip shit on vodka and one of them barfs all over this broad that stole her boyfriend and she calls her "a fuckin' cunt," then this dude in his underwear gets tied to a wooden pillar and is electrocuted to death by that lingerie demoness from earlier.
Then a couple stops making out so they can get snacks while another couple tries to locate a fuse box after the power conveniently goes kaput all of a sudden.
Just when you think this movie can't get any trashier, yep, it's time for that snack-searching couple to break out the whipped cream and start squirting all over one another's bodies. Then a devil literally in a blue dress stabs them both to death. Unprotected sex at the height of the AIDS crisis is one thing, but engaging in foodplay at a somebody else's kegger? Yeah, you pretty much HAVE to be killed for a party faux pas of such magnitude.
Then the demoness starts making out with this guy wearing suspenders over his naked torso and there is a LOT of tongue action going on. I swear to god, this movie has more French kissing in it than one of those Japanese spit fetish pornos. By the way, the succubus' M.O. in this movie isn't to steal her victim's souls with a kiss, but by BITING THEIR COCKS OFF AND DRINKING THE BLOOD.
Then we have naked zombies with their eyeballs plucked out showing up out of the blue and having seizures and barfing neon red blood all over he place until they have their brain stems punctured with ski poles, then that snooty rich bitch from earlier has her jugular sliced open with a barber's blade. I take it all the guys who have their Johnsons bitten off by the succubus come back as super evil sex murderers, which kinda makes this thing like an even scummier version of "Night of the Demons" - only it came out two years BEFORE that movie was released.
Then a particularly effeminate fella' gets choked to death in a car (if the movie was made today he almost certainly would've been the comedic relief gay best friend stock character), then the blonde demoness chokes another broad to death and another blonde chick says "I love some dope" when her guy pal lights up a doobie. God this movie is so great.
So we've killed off the cast to the point that we have just two girls left to battle the titular "Dreamaniac" to the death. And you know it's going to be a great finale, because one of the girls arms herself with a power drill while the other one defends herself with ... a spatula.
I don't want to spoil the big twist ending to the movie, but let's just say it's one of the most unexpected "meta" twists you'll ever see in a horror movie; which, of course, comes with its own twist on top of a twist ending that's even fuckin' better.
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French kissing and french fries, together at last! |
Yeah, I can't sing the praises of "Dreamaniac" enough, folx. As far as I'm concerned, it's a no-budget almost-classic easily on par with such highly revered flicks as "Maniac" and "Bloody Birthday," and in some ways, it's even MORE eighties-tastic than those films.
The interesting thing about the film to me is that it was written by - gasp - A WOMAN. That's right, the super-horny and lewd horror-comedy-sex-farce was spawned from the mind of Helen Robinson, and per the IMDB this is her only film writing credit to date.
Of course, the director of the film - David DeCoteau - is a little more famous. After "Dreamaniac" he went onto direct 1987's "Creepozoids" and 1988's "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama" and today he's STILL making movies. In fact, the infalliable IMDB says he has no less then THREE movies under his directorial belt alone in 2022, so yeah, he ain't hurting for a paycheck it seems.
The actress who played the succubus is named Sylvia Summers. Per IMDB, she had just ONE film role after "Dreamaniac," which is a real shame since she had all the makings of a great straight-to-video scream queen. For leading man Thomas Bern, this was his ONLY film credit, while Ashlyn Gere (who played Pat) went onto have a pretty noteworthy career in the 1990s, starring in such fare as 1990's "Sweet Angel Ass", 1991's "Bush Pilots II: Deeper in the Bush" and, of couse 1999's legendary "Cock Smokers 12." Amazingly, she also managed to land a couple of roles on some pretty big TV shows like "Sillk Stalkings" and "The X-Files," too, so apparently, she had a better agent than most porno starlets of the Bill Clinton years.
To say that "Dreamaniac" embodies the times is putting it mildly. It's crude and crass and filled with a ton of un-P.C. humor, but it's such a fun horndog horror yarn that you can't help but be charmed by the low-budget allure of it all. If you're looking for a raunchy, gory, eighties-to-the-max horror spoof that DEFINITELY provides the T&A, than "Dreamaniac" is the kinda' sleazeball ephemera you need to check out ASAP.
The interesting thing about the film to me is that it was written by - gasp - A WOMAN. That's right, the super-horny and lewd horror-comedy-sex-farce was spawned from the mind of Helen Robinson, and per the IMDB this is her only film writing credit to date.
Of course, the director of the film - David DeCoteau - is a little more famous. After "Dreamaniac" he went onto direct 1987's "Creepozoids" and 1988's "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama" and today he's STILL making movies. In fact, the infalliable IMDB says he has no less then THREE movies under his directorial belt alone in 2022, so yeah, he ain't hurting for a paycheck it seems.
The actress who played the succubus is named Sylvia Summers. Per IMDB, she had just ONE film role after "Dreamaniac," which is a real shame since she had all the makings of a great straight-to-video scream queen. For leading man Thomas Bern, this was his ONLY film credit, while Ashlyn Gere (who played Pat) went onto have a pretty noteworthy career in the 1990s, starring in such fare as 1990's "Sweet Angel Ass", 1991's "Bush Pilots II: Deeper in the Bush" and, of couse 1999's legendary "Cock Smokers 12." Amazingly, she also managed to land a couple of roles on some pretty big TV shows like "Sillk Stalkings" and "The X-Files," too, so apparently, she had a better agent than most porno starlets of the Bill Clinton years.
To say that "Dreamaniac" embodies the times is putting it mildly. It's crude and crass and filled with a ton of un-P.C. humor, but it's such a fun horndog horror yarn that you can't help but be charmed by the low-budget allure of it all. If you're looking for a raunchy, gory, eighties-to-the-max horror spoof that DEFINITELY provides the T&A, than "Dreamaniac" is the kinda' sleazeball ephemera you need to check out ASAP.
XOXO, Toxicka
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