Saturday, July 18, 2020

DREAMS COME TRUE (1984) **


Lee (Michael Sanville) is a shiftless factory worker who meets the girl of his dreams (Stephanie Shuford), quite literally.  They soon figure out their chance meeting was a product of astral projection that occurs whenever they have sex.  Eventually, the two lovebirds discover they’re able to whisk themselves away to far off places every time they do the deed.  
Dreams Come True is a low budget astral projection sex comedy/drama released by Troma, and it’s not nearly as exploitative (or fun) as their in-house productions.  Strangely enough, the version I saw had all the nudity cut out of it.  I can’t say that heaps of nudity would’ve salvaged the picture, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt.

At least the astral projection scenes have a kooky allure to them.  Every time the couple falls asleep, a glowing version of themselves rises up and begins spinning around towards the screen during a half-assed light show.  It kind of looks like a cross between outtakes from Xanadu and deleted scenes from an a-ha video.  These sequences are repeated often, but they do help break up the monotony of the ho-hum drama between the pair of paranormal paramours.  

While the comedy portions of the film are largely unfunny (like when they steal a pizza), it works much better than the awkwardly handled scenes of Shuford confronting her rapist uncle.  These scenes are unappealing and give the otherwise harmless movie a tinge of unnecessary unpleasantness.  It also doesn’t help that the matter is resolved in such an unsatisfying manner.

My favorite scene comes when the couple go to the movies and see The Children.  Later, while making love, they accidentally astral project themselves INTO the movie and are attacked by the ghoulish boys and girls from that classic killer kiddie flick.  That scene alone is enough to keep this one from being a total washout.  (Which makes sense since both films were from the same director.)

Oh, and the music for the movie was provided by the band Spooner, whose members later went on to form Garbage, so I guess that’s something. 

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