Scream Dream

by far the greatest film of our generation.

rick-o-shea is stunning as well

thanks to the late Mr. Donald Farmer

your legacy continues long after your death

This movie for the most part seems like a combination of a junior high school play and a home movie. While some of it is scary, for the most part it seems amateurish, especially the acting, editing, and writing. It deals mostly with the lead singer of a rock band who is fired for her dabbling in the occult, which she uses to get her revenge. Not too good.

* 1/2 out of ****

Yeah, I saw the movie and believe me it wasn't at the drive-in! The movie starts with a girl getting sawed in two with a chainsaw in her bed. Why was she killed? Your guess is as good as mine, no mention of it was in the rest of the film. The rest of the film portays a female rock singer, Michele Shock, who gets fired due to bad media about the suspicion of her witchcraft. The band gets a new lead singer Jamie Summers (Melissa Moore, former Playboy Playmate, just about the only spark of light in the film), and that really takes Michele over the edge. Understandable, only she ends up dead (why at that point in the movie?), and a little demon is seen running around TRYING to wreak havoc. Jamie stumbles onto Michele's lifeless body and is mesmerized by some evil force that compells her to taste her blood that spreads the demonic contagion. Jamie from then on turns into a pretty ugly demon whenever she's the tiniest bit aggravated and kills whoever pushed her buttons. Film ends with Jamie's boyfriend having the cheesiest nightmare. He woke up screaming, I would have woke up laughing. Film is about ten minutes shorter than the average movie, was produced in Tennessee, good creature effects, but the death scenes could have used a little more work. Scream Dream was also the name of a song that was sung by Michele in the movie, not bad, but definitely not good.

My review was written in March 1990 after watching the feature on Interamerican Entertainment video cassette.

This shot-on-video gore flick fills the bill for fans whose taste in horror veers toward the "Blood Feast" genre.

Donald Farmer continues to work in the video medium rather than film, and this Tennessee-lense effort suggests he needs to upgrade his script before making the jump to the big time.

Story is set in the music world, with plenty of nondescript rock performances to pad the abbreviated running time. Satanic singer Carol Carr is fired from her band and goes on a killing rampage. She's actually a witch and her spirit possesses her replacement to the band, lovely Melissa Moore.

Item is poorly photographed in a manner closer to the porno than the horror genre, though content never exceeds a soft X level.

Donald Farmer, the writer and director of Scream Dream, is so enamoured with the godawful rock theme song for this film that he lets the band Rikk-o-shay perform it in its entirety, and then plays snippets of it throughout the rest of the movie. In addition to the overuse of really bad music, we get weak acting, laughable special effects, and a lousy script with diabolical dialogue.

The film opens promisingly enough, with a woman in bed grabbed by several hands and then being sliced up by a chainsaw that emerges from the mattress. This scene turns out to be part of a music promo for controversial heavy metal singer Michelle Shock (Carol Carr), whose wild shows and satanic lyrics have seen her accused of witchcraft and devil worship. Shock is, in fact, a demonic creature that preys on young male groupies; when one of her backing singers refuses to become another of her victims and kills her with an axe, she proceeds to possess her replacement, Jamie Summers (Melissa Moore), and continues with her unholy activities.

I'm a huge fan of both low-budget horror and heavy metal, but this one stinks on both counts. There are a few unintentional laughs to be had -- the crowds at Shock's shows being described as hardcore heavy metal freaks, when they're nothing of the sort, is hilarious, and a rubber hand-puppet monster is good for some giggles -- but mostly this is just inept and amateurish nonsense that bores more than it entertains.

1.5/10, rounded up to 2 for blonde babe Melissa Moore, who provides the gratuitous nudity.

N. B. The characters of Michelle and Linnea were most likely named after '80s scream queens Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley.