This review is dedicated to my friend Richard Lynch. I call him a friend because he appeared in my 2nd film, Corpses Are Forever, but in all honesty I didn't keep in touch with him as I should have and I regret that. We were really just co-workers, but I would like to think we were friends and that is how I will remember him. Richard passed away recently at the age of 76 and I will forever remember the few weeks we spent together making cinema magic. So submitted for your approval, here is my take on Richard's seminal horror film Bad Dreams.

Richard plays Harris, a less-than-charismatic cult leader of a group calling themselves Unity Fields. One of the members of this group, a young girl named Cynthia, is present the night the group decides to commit mass suicide by ladling gasoline over their heads like a baptismal font and setting themselves on fire. Cynthia abstains from the immolation and survives, but winds up in a coma. 13 years later Cynthia wakes up and is now being played by actress Jennifer Rubin (Transmorphers 2, Screamers). She has wound up in a mental hospital, which doesn't make sense since she's been in a coma and the status of her mental state could not be thoroughly corroborate. But I digress...

Cynthia awakens and we meet a cast of motley mental cases who are sadly not very interesting or fun. The best one is E.G. Daily, who was the voice of Tommy in Rugrats and Pee-Wee's girlfriend in his Big Adventure, but she dies first and off camera, which gets the movie's real plot moving along. Mysterious deaths are happening off camera (I know, I know, it disappointed me too) to the patients and Dr. Berrisford (played by actor Harris Yulin, from 24 and Scarface) begins to suspect that maybe Cynthia, who has been brainwashed by the cult, may be responsible for all the deaths. But Cynthia keeps seeing the ghost of Harris (Lynch, not Yulin) in normal face and then in burnt up zombie face appearing and disappearing around her. So the audience knows, or is supposed to suspect that her old cult leader boyfriend has returned from the grave to make sure she joins the rest of the Unity Field flock in fiery oblivion.

The film boils down into a run and hide ending where the truth is revealed and I won't spoil it for you folks here, but it is completely disappointing. The horror film turns into a thriller with cops and shit and the entire meat of the scares are worried off the bones quickly. An alternate ending does exist, and if you buy the film through Shout Factory's double disc with Visiting Hours (itself a stunning masterpiece of a maniac run amok, find my review for it on the site here) then you will be able to see a better, more fleshed out ending for Cynthia, but it still retains the lame "surprise" ending.

The film plays out like a rip-off of Nightmare on Elm Street, what with all the dream stuff and a mysterious burned killer, but ultimately falls flat on its face by its toothlessness. The Nightmare comparison isn't completely off, either, since Jennifer Rubin was just in Nightmare 3, a year before she filmed this movie in 1988...so maybe the producers were hoping to attract the same audience and possibly start a franchise by copying Freddy's mojo. However, by the end of the film you realize there really is no logical way to extend the story, because there really IS no story. Richard is great as always, but the film's main problem is that it doesn't go where it needs to go. There are times when it can't, or it would give away the surprise ending, but the fact that all the deaths happen off camera and are fairly bloodless (except for the blood rain sequence), makes the film dull. And you want to know what else makes the film dull? Nothing really happens for a long time and all we do is listen to crazy people talk about how crazy they are! This is not as strong a picture as I remember it, and that is a shame. Richard, I will remember you always, but maybe for Invasion USA, because this was not your best work, my friend. I can always watch Trancers 2, as well. Rest in Peace, from all of us at Strictly Splatter, pal.

- Jose Prendes