Film Review: Scream Dream (1989)

SYNOPSIS:
One of the girls in a rock band is fired from the band. She is, in reality, a witch, and possesses the body of the girl who replaces her in order to take revenge on the rest of the band.
REVIEW:
I seriously hate hearing a rotten song and having in stuck in your head for hours, or even days at a time. Today it happened again after watching the film “Scream Dream”. The films title song, which is played throughout the movie at least a half dozen times, is still echoing in my head. Even worse, I have no idea what the lyrics are but the chorus just repeats “Scream Dream” over and over. It won’ stop. I guess that says something about the film. You won’t forget about it right away. And since I am a HUGE fan of the “rocksploitation” genre, then it’s worth watching this amateurish mess. “Rocksploitation” is a genre of film, I’m sure everyone has their own definition that includes not just horror, but action and comedy as well. Everything from “Hard Days Night”, “Phantom of the Paradise”, “Rock n Roll High School”, and “Trick or Treat” all are prime examples. This is one of my favorite subgenres and “Scream Dream” was one I had never heard of. Directed by Donald Farmer (Dorm of the Dead) this film is drudged from the bottom of the barrel.

Michelle Shock (Carol Carr) is a demon worshipping heavy metal rock star who ends up being too much to handle for her management when word gets out to the press that fans have been mysteriously disappearing after shows. Michelle’s bandmate and ex Derrick (Nikki Riggins) finds out her secret and destroys her. The band’s manager Lou (Gene Amonette) replaces her with Jamie Summers (Melissa Moore) who becomes possessed by Michelle who goes on a final rampage.

I will make no apologies when I say that this is seriously a very horrible movie. I can’t even remember the last time I have seen a feature film come off as being so amateurish. The lighting was horrible, dialogue is ridiculous, atrocious acting, and the worst 80’s hair band I have ever seen. I’m not even sure this film had a script that was more than thirty or forty pages since the runtime was 68min, barely a feature, and filled in with overly long musical numbers. I can’t even fathom why this film would be thought of as being a good idea. “Scream Dream” is an utter and complete mess from beginning to end.

The funny thing though is that I RECOMMEND this movie. Especially, if you’re a fan of “rocksploitation” and rock n roll horror films. I can’t get enough of them though there are more bad ones than good ones. Those other ones had icons though, something that stood out, like Sammi Curr from “Trick or Treat” was a great villain. “Rock and Roll Nightmare” had the presence of Thor, and “Shock Em Dead” had Tracy Lords. This one was lacking that iconic touch, though lead Melissa Moore looks like the most PERFECT 80’s rocker chick I have seen since, well, the 80’s. She isn’t afraid to show off her assets as well as rub them a bit with a ridiculous looking rubber demon hand. I will give it up to effects artist Rick Gonzales, since the demon costume looked halfway decent. Other than that, everything else was a pretty hard sell, especially the little sock/hand puppet demon. The band that performs all of the songs in the film, Rikk-O-Shay, do a decent job though the songs aren’t so good.

There is no best worst movie, not as far as I am concerned. I have many bad films in my library that I love. I don’t love this one but it is pretty entertaining and good for a few laughs. We need more “rocksploitation” films, not a plethora, just more of them and I am happy to have had the chance to view it. At least it will tie me over until I finish my script for the ultimate “rocksploitation” horror film I have been mulling over for the last several years.