Oct 31, 2025
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BLOGTOBER 10/24/2023: DREAM DEMON (1988)
This is one of those movies I really deeply enjoyed, but if you asked me what it was about you'd think I was lying because I'd have a hard time telling you! It has kind of a Freddy Kreugerish premise as you might expect, in which a pair of young women are dragged bodily into one another's nightmares where they are pursued by deranged perverts; they have to unravel the mystery of what is causing this phenomenon, which has something to do with the dark history of the house where they are staying. The actual solution to this mystery is really confusing, and so is the path to the final revelation, which is mostly pretty aimless--but thankfully it is also tense and terrifying, with wonderful makeup and special effects and overall great design sense, and honestly two of the most adorable gal pals you have ever seen.
I feel to need to say that I'm a straight woman and so when I speak about the adorableness of Jemma Redgrave and Kathleen Wilhoite, I'm not being infantilizing or just boning out. I realize I'm being very "no homo" right now, but there's plenty of film fans whose viewing habits are directed by the fact that certain performers make them horny, which is like normal and all but I think not a very interesting way to watch movies or even enjoy performances. Unless we're talking about Jeffrey Combs or Peter Cushing or someone I personally think is hot, then all bets are off obviously. But Jemma Redgrave and Kathleen Wilhoite are just so very adorable! It is just a fact.
Meanwhile Jimmy Nail and Timothy Spall are extraordinarily frightening and intense, but especially Timothy Spall. I love that he's a sophisticated enough actor to be in things like SPENCER and LIFE IS SWEET, but also fully capable of playing horrible fucking creatures in weird genre movies. I like imagining that the Queen had to watch all of his movies including DREAM DEMON before making him Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
And speaking of the Queen, the characters Nail and Spall play are incredibly sinister, intrusive paparazzi who prey upon "Diana" (Redgrave), the pretty, virginal blonde fiancee of an aristocratic Falklands War hero. It's impossible not to assume that this was inspired by Diana Spencer's ill-fated induction into the royal family in 1981, and chilling to think that DREAM DEMON was made 9 years before her essential murder at the hands of the press. All of the scenes with Spall and Nail are thoroughly hair-raising--the one thing this movie has over ELM STREET is that we have to sort of backburner Freddy's pedophilia in order to enjoy that series, while the sexual violence and scenes of child abuse in DREAM DEMON are right in your face and highly effective; but the paparazzi thing becomes really disturbing because of the real-life event that it seems to foretell. Basically, I'm saying that I highly recommend this movie, even if it's hard to describe what it is literally about!
The 1970s Witchsploitation classic, Cry Of The Banshee – starring Vincent Price at his most deliciously despicable, as a powerful Elizabethan magistrate who has made witch hunting a career choice – cast a spell in theaters on July 22, 1970.
Hammer’s Vampirella – A Live Script Reading
De Montfort University’s Cinema and Television History Institute and Hammer Films present a live-script reading of one of the most infamous unmade British films of all time.
In 1975, Hammer Films mounted an expensive and ambitious adaptation of the hit comic book Vampirella. The film failed to make it into production, but for one night only, an incredible cast including Georgina Dugdale, Jonathan Rigby and Hammer legend Caroline Munro perform a live reading of the original Christopher Wicking script.
October 17, 2019
Tickets here: https://tinyurl.com/HammerVampirella
Hammer’s Vampirella – A Live Script Reading
De Montfort University’s Cinema and Television History Institute and Hammer Films present a live-script reading of one of the most infamous unmade British films of all time.
In 1975, Hammer Films mounted an expensive and ambitious adaptation of the hit comic book Vampirella. The film failed to make it into production, but for one night only, an incredible cast including Georgina Dugdale, Jonathan Rigby and Hammer legend Caroline Munro perform a live reading of the original Christopher Wicking script.
October 17, 2019
Tickets here: https://tinyurl.com/HammerVampirella