Karry
Best movie of this year hands down!
BeSummers
Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.
Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Coventry
The first annoying thing you immediately notice about "Dreamaniac" are its unimaginably overlong opening credits. Why is it necessary to singularly display the names of all the lousy people that were co-responsible for this piece of crap? Guided by such horrible music, to boot! The second annoying thing you notice is that writer/director David DeCouteau's alarming obsession with naked male butts and tidy white underpants was already there in the beginning of his career during the 1980's .The third thing you notice – and sadly this feeling remains throughout the entire running time – is that "Dreamaniac" is an unendurably terrible and pathetic flick without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Under the command of trash-emperor Charles Band, DeCouteau brings the dull tale of a heavy metal fanatic (apparently they looked like complete dorks back in the eighties) who summons a succubus because he's horny and can't control his hormones. This female demon goes on slaughtering a whole bunch of ugly and dim-witted frat boys and frat girls; guests at the sorority party thrown in the metal fanatic's house by his girlfriend and her sister. The plot sounds basic and straightforward enough to potentially have become an unpretentious 80's slasher, but DeCouteau and his crew even managed to ruin that. It's boring as hell, the characters are all insupportable idiots, the cheap & cheesy make-up effects are laughable instead of unsettling and the disco-soundtrack is downright infuriating. I mean, they could have at least put a couple of satanic metal bands on the soundtrack? In short, this is one of the lousiest horror flicks of the 1980's and that means A LOT, so avoid like the plague.
Bloodwank
Dreamaniac was only my second viewing from the oeuvre of gay horror notable David DeCoteau, unless there are others that I've forgotten about. The first by the way was Puppetmaster 3: Toulon's Revenge, which is pretty great fun in the way that only a film with living puppets against Nazi's can be. This one though, sadly not so good. The film centres on a party gatecrashed by a kill happy succubus, but while there is a fair measure of potential interest in such a scenario the film opts for pretty much a generic slasher approach, livened in the final block by the introduction of zombies into the mix. Things kick off with mixed signals, a tilted camera watches a naked man walk down a pink lit hallway into a shower where he meets a bloody naked lass who sets about some brief clawing. Its intriguing enough, and the brief shot of bloody boobs is a definite plus, but on the other hand it does set up the films cheese, rampant 80's-ness and interest in male flesh. The film gets quickly into the party which occupies the rest of the runtime and here starts to sink into a disinterested fug of not all that much worth. We get plenty of horny youngsters, liberal doses of bitchy lines, unsatisfying sex and occasional killing, the killing steadily ramping up in regularity as things go on. The sex is unsatisfactory on two fronts, for one it's often interrupted either by other party goers or death, and for seconds we see a good deal of bare male chests, guys in just their pants and so on but no tits and ass or even male genitals. Wangs on display aren't even my kettle of piranhas but they might have given the scenes a bit more of an impact. Probably the most notable example of visual man love is an electrocution in which the camera gazes up at a guys tight Y-fronts as he expires, not really my kettle of fish like I said but it did make me chuckle. As far as the slaughter goes, there's more light blood spray than there is gore, though there are maybe two or three nice cheap gore shots in the last half hour including inspired use of a drill. This isn't the sort of film where any viewers are likely to be bothered about acting, characterisation and whatnot, but probably worth mentioning that Sylvia Summers (who?) does a nice enough job as the murderous demon, very much an 80's looking gal with trashy appeal and a suitably compelling lowbrow presence. Also, the female lead is played by Ashlyn Gere (credited as Kim McKamy), who went on to a successful porno career and also starred in another junky late 80's horror, the backwoods cannibal joint Lunch Meat. As well as being a fine looking lass she also contributes probably the best performance of the cast and it seems almost a shame that she departed the realms of genre cinema, but then I've never seen any of her adult work so it may well be inspiring stuff. Finally, the end of this one is pretty much nonsensical, somewhere between a giggle and a face-palm, people who dig idiotic endings will likely get a smile or two out of it. Altogether, this ain't really worth watching unless you absolutely have to see every crappy 80's horror out there or you really dig DeCoteau films. Still, its far from the worst out there, definitely better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick. See it if you must, but leagues away from essential.
Pretentious_crap
The movie is full of ugly women who are supposed to be hot, and nudity scenes where there aren't any female full frontals, but hairy weasel man-ass. Some of the gore is okay; there's a few scenes where a dude or two suffers genital injuries during oral sex, but the camera cuts to the dudes facial expressions of pleasure then pain, and then the chick spitting blood. Also there's a scene where a characters head is decapitated by an electric drill.The movie's about this wannabe satanist, who gives incantations to Satan while sitting at his bedside wearing his Def Leppard t-shirt, then dreams of this ugly chick who is supposed to be Satan incarnate, or a succubus. Later, this evil horse faced succubus crashes his girlfriend's-sister's lame sorority party of eight people. Most of the film the power is out.Not in the least bit entertaining. Wash your dishes instead.The VHS cover's a laugh though, it says that is was too gory for TV, that's why it went straight to video-- yeah, try to prop up that fragile ego of your's Mr. Filmmaker.
HumanoidOfFlesh
"Dreamaniac" is a typical 80's slasher directed by David DeCoteau("Nightmare Sisters","Witchouse").Another thing that ensues it's place in the history of horror is that the female lead is the lady who would go on to be known as Ashlyn Gere,one of the more attractive porn stars in recent years.The plot is simple:Adam,a heavy metal fan manages to summon Lily,a succubus.His girlfriend Pat talks him into letting her sister use his apartment to throw a party.When the party begins,the bloodbath ensues..."Dreamaniac" is pretty stupid,but there is plenty of gore...particularly the drill decapitation scene,lots of sex but little nudity and a lot of cheese.Don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.My rating:6 out of 10.