Do you enjoy dream sequences on film? They get pretty outlandish, surreal and just plain freaky dont they? I know you guys enjoyed part I of this article, but just in case you missed it, heres a link for it: Dream A Little Dream: Memorable Dream Sequences On Film (Part I) So, just like I promised, here's a couple more Memorable Dream Sequences for your reading enjoyment! Let me know what you think of them, and throw a couple of your favorite dream sequences in as well! Thanks for reading!
Title: Bad Dreams (1988)
Director: Andrew Fleming
Synopsis: In this film, a young girl is the only survivor of
a crazy religious cult called ‘Unity’. The religious leader of this cult
teaches his followers that death is but a door, that emptiness is good and
other such psychobabble. Well, one day he decides that he is going to burn
himself alive and that he is taking all of his followers with him. He tells
them they will reunite in the proverbial ‘other side’. Cynthia decides she
wants nothing to do with this; she manages to escape just in time to escape the
burning flames that engulf the entire congregation! Unfortunately she also ends
up in a comma for thirteen years. But now she’s woken up. Is the nightmare
over? Or can Harris, the religious leader still exert some sort of power over
Cynthia’s subconscious? This one is a bit similar to the Nightmare on Elm Street
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Cynthia is riding an elevator when
suddenly all the lights start flickering, and the elevator starts to go crazy! Suddenly,
amongst the people in the elevator Cynthia sees Harris the crazy religious nut,
all burnt up and scarred!
Dream Talk: “Our love will never die!”
Title: Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
Director: Tim Burton
Synopsis: Some one has stolen Pee Wee’s bicycle and in Pee
Wee’s life this is a major disaster. You see, this isnt just any old bike. This
bike has many tricks up its sleeve! So naturally, Pee Wee decides to go on a
road trip to try and find his special bike. Along the way he makes many new
friends and acquaintances, he even gets a girlfriend! Will he ever find his
bike? Is it hidden deep within the basement of the Alamo
as Madame Ruby the crazy fortune teller suggested? Does the Alamo
even have a basement???
Stand Out Dream Sequence: There’s this disturbing dream
sequence in which Pee Wee takes his bike to these bicycle doctors who are
apparently going to perform major surgery on Pee Wee’s bike, to fix it. Problem
is that suddenly the surgeons turn into these evil looking clowns that work for
the devil! And they dip Pee Wee’s bike in a cauldron of fire!
Dream Talk: Simone:
“Do you have any dreams Pee Wee?” Pee Wee: “Yeah, I’m all alone, I’m rolling a
big donut, and this snake wearing a vest…”
Director: Charles Chaplin
Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin as ‘The Tramp’ suddenly stumbles
upon this abandoned baby whom nobody seems to want, and so he takes him in. The
Tramp doesn’t have much, he is poor beyond belief, making a living fixing glass
windows, but he takes the baby in anyways. It’s really endearing the way
Chaplin cares for the baby even though it isn’t his! The baby soon grows up
into a kid, and in order to survive in this cruel world together they work up a
scam: the kid breaks the windows, and then The Tramp miraculously shows up to
fix them. How long before the police catches on to their scam? How long before
the police realizes that The Tramp isn’t really the kids father?
Stand Out Dream Sequence: The Tramp and the kid are living
through harsh times, they are really poor, but they are really happy. Still,
The Tramp wishes he could give more to the kid, so he dreams up this sequence
in which every one is an angel (even the cops!) and The Tramp and the kid fly
around town happily, not a tear in sight!
Title: Akira Kurosawa’s Dream’s (1990)
Directors: Akira Kurosawa and Ishiro Honda
Synopsis: This film is made up of various short films, each
story is different, they are not interconnected by anything except for the fact
that they are all dreams. Some dreams are beautiful, others are scary and
horrifying, but all are amazing. All the dreams depicted in the film where
written by Kurosawa, but some segments of the film where directed by Ishiro
Honda, a director who is better known for having directed Gojira (1954) and
many more films in the Godzilla franchise.
Stand Out Dream Sequence: One dream sequence has a military
captain meeting the ghosts of all the soldiers that died under his command. One
moment he is walking in front of a tunnel, and suddenly, from inside the
darkness of the tunnel all the ghost soldiers come out marching in unison!
Title: Pans Labyrinth (2006)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Synopsis: Ofelia is a little girl who lives among fascists.
Her new step father is a military leader in Franco’s fascist army, during the
fascist regime of the 1940’s in Spain
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Ofelia dreams of a table filled
with tons of food and delicious dishes but is instructed by the Faun not to eat
a thing. At the end of the table, a hideous eye less monster sits, petrified,
like a statue. Ofelia sees no danger, so she decides to take some of the food
on the table. Unfortunately, as soon as she picks up some food, the eye less
monster awakens and quickly snatches up a fairy that was flying around and eats
its head! The monsters hunger grows so it now begins to follow Ofelia; presumably
to eat her!
Dream Talk: “A long
time ago, in the underground realm, where there are no lies or pain, there
lived a Princess who dreamed of the human world. She dreamed of blue skies,
soft breeze and sunshine”
Title: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Director: David Lynch
Synopsis: This is a difficult movie to summarize because the
story is all sorts of crazy. But basically, this is the story of Laura Palmer,
a really messed up girl who loves to do all sorts of crazy things. She snorts
coke like a madman; she likes to hang out in the darkest, seediest kinds of
pubs with the strangest most sadomasochistic bastards! Why does she have such self
destructive behavior? Is she hiding some sort of deep dark secret?
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Laura stares blankly at a picture
of a horse in her bed room wall, before we know it, as the camera zooms in on
the picture, we enter Laura’s dream land. Laura dreams of this weird long
haired dude called ‘Bob’ who sneaks into her room at night and tries to rape
her.
Dream Talk: “It was a dream! We live inside a dream!”
Title: Mirrormask (2005)
Director: Dave McKean
Synopsis: Helena
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Like The Wizard of Oz, Pans
Labyrinth or Alice in Wonderland, the whole film is one big dream sequence.
Various scenes stand out, but my favorite is the one where Helena
Title: Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1992)
Director: James Cameron
Synopsis: In the future, the computers became self conscious
and decided to blow humanity away with nuclear weapons. But a group of surviving
human rebels remain and continue to fight against the machines! One human leads
them: John Connor, the leader of the resistance! The robots have devised a way
to eliminate John Connor: by traveling back in time and killing him in his
childhood. They tried it in the first film and failed, so they try it in the sequel
just in case. Various elements make this the best in the franchise: James
Cameron was a seasoned veteran by the time he made this one, he had a bigger
budget for action and fx, and Arnold
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Sarah Connor can only thinks about
the dreaded Doomsday; the day when humanity is going to be blown to smithereens
by a nuclear holocaust. It’s not easy living with the knowledge of the exact
day in which humanity is going to be eradicated. Her nightmares are a thing of
horror! One of her nightmares begins with children playing in a park on the out
skirts of the city when suddenly, the sky lights up and a nuclear blast turns
them into ashes! We see how the blast burns Sarahs flesh clean off and turns
her into a skeleton.
Dream Talk: “You’re the one living in a fucking dream
Silberman, because I know when it happens! It happens! ”
Director: Richard Kelly
Synopsis: Donnie is one messed up teenager. He has
existential issues at a very young age. He questions the existence of god. He
sleepwalks at night and dreams of a man dressed in a green bunny suit that
warns him of the day when the world is going to end. Hell, I’d be messed up
having these kinds of dreams as well. Will Donnie ever find out what the bunny
is trying to tell him?
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Again, this is one of those films
where we can argue that the whole film is one long dream sequence (or not?) but
one of my favorite scenes is the one where Donnie falls asleep in a movie
theater while watching The Evil Dead and he ends up having a conversation with
Frank, the man wearing the bunny suit. Donnie asks the man: “Why do you wear
that stupid bunny suit?” and the man asks Donnie: “Why are you wearing that
stupid man suit?” Then, a black hole forms on the screen of the movie theater!
Dream Talk: “28 Days, 6 Hours, 42 Minutes, 12 Seconds…that
is when the world will end.”
Title: Aliens (1986)
Director: James Cameron
Synopsis: Fifty years after the events of the first film
Ripley’s escape vessel has been found wondering aimlessly through space.
Ripley’s been sleeping in cryogenic sleep all that time! Now the company wants
her to go back to LV-426, a colony that’s stationed on the planet where Ripley
first encountered the aliens; apparently they’ve lost contact with the colony.
What could probably have gone wrong? Maybe the aliens ate everybody? This time
Ripley is ready for these ‘acid for blood’ bastards! She’s got the corps with
her and some serious firepower!
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Just before Ripley awakens from
her fifty year old slumber, she has a dreadful dream in which something is
pushing out of her stomach! It stretches and stretches her skin, apparently an
alien is about to burst out! We soon discover it’s not an alien, its Ripley’s
cat!
Dream Talk: “Are we going to sleep all the way home? Can I
dream?”
Title: Total Recall (1990)
Director: Paul Veerhoven
Synopsis: Quaid lives a pretty normal life as a construction
worker, he has a nice place, a beautiful wife, but he can only think about one
thing, going to mars! Since his wife doesn’t want to take the trip he goes to a
company called Rekall. Supposedly, the company can sell you fake memories and
implant them on to your brain, which you won’t be able to differentiate from
real life! Unfortunately, the company has a reputation for messing with peoples
minds and giving them brain embolisms! But Quaid is so desperate to see mars
that he doesn’t care, so he buys the ticket and takes the ride. But something
goes wrong, apparently Quaid isnt Quaid, he’s some douche bag called Houser! The
process of messing with Quaid’s brain in order to implant the fake memories has
awakened his real persona! And Houser wants his life back! This multi million
dollar sci-fi adventure was directed by Robocop (1987) director Paul Veerhoven.
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Since Quaid only thinks about
going to Mars, when he sleeps, he dreams of walking on the surface of Mars with
his wife. On this dream, he walks peacefully on Mars’s rocky surface, but he
has a misstep and begins to tumble down a mountain of red rock! When he reaches
the bottom of the mountain he breaks his helmet with a rock and his face begins
to swell up, his eyes bulge and it seems as if his whole head is about to
burst!
Dream Talk: “Your dream began in the middle of the implant
procedure and everything that followed, the chases, the trip to mars, the suite
at the Hilton was all part of your holiday and ego trip, you paid to be a
secret agent”
Title: Labyrinth (1986)
Director: Jim Henson
Synopsis: Sarah is a young girl that takes most things in
life for granted. She hates her stepmother, she hates her baby step brother
Toby, basically she hates her life. She wishes everything could be like in the
fantasy books she’s always reading. One day, when her baby brother was being
particularly cruel to her, she says the right magic words that make Jareth, The
Goblin King and his goblins appear. They’ve come to take the baby away just
like she asked. Of course, she really didn’t mean it, she was just venting
steam. But as Jareth tells her “what’s said is said”. Thankfullly, not
everything is bad news, The Goblin King gives Sarah a chance! All she has to do
is reach the castle at the center of the labyrinth before the clock strikes 13,
or her baby brother becomes a gobbling forever! Such a pity…
Stand Out Dream Sequence: The Goblin King is really secretly
in love with Sarah, so he gives her an apple that makes her fall asleep, so
that they can meet in her dreams. Sarah ends up dreaming that she’s in a
masquerade ball, amongst the dancers is Jareth who whisks her away and dances
with her to the tune of David Bowies “As the World Falls Down”.
Dream Talk: “I’ve brought you a gift. It’s a crystal,
nothing more. But if you turn it this way, it will show you your dreams”
Title: Invaders from Mars (1986)
Director: Tobe Hooper
Synopsis: Aliens have landed in David Gardner’s own
backyard, but no one believes him! Slowly but surely the aliens are taking over
his town! Can David convince the army to help him enter the alien spaceship and
destroy the invaders? This movie is really fun because it has that feeling of
paranoia about it, I’m sure the original 1953 film was made to reflect America’s
fear of being wiped out by a nuclear holocaust during the 50’s. Tobe Hooper’s 1986
remake has the same feeling of paranoia, that feeling that you just can’t trust
anyone because they’ve all turned into something else. Maybe it’s communism
that’s taken over their minds? I kid, I kid. But seriously, this remake is
pretty fun stuff. It has awesome make up and monster effects from the one and
only Stan Winston. It has a fun vibe going for it and retains that old school
sci-fi feel to it. It’s only draw back is the annoying kid they chose as the
lead actor, but if you can ignore that, you should have yourself a pretty good
time.
Stand Out Dream Sequence: David Gardener manages to enter
the Martians spaceship and encounters the Martians leader who looks like an
exposed brain with a face!
Title: Altered States (1980)
Director: Ken Russell
Synopsis: Dr. Eddie Jessup is doing experiments that explore
our genetic memory. His theory says that supposedly we have memories of our
ancestors in our DNA and that all we need to explore those memories (which can
go as far back as the cavemen days!) is the help of mind altering drugs.
Basically he takes a heavy dose of hallucinogenic drugs and locks himself
inside of a sensory depravation chamber where his body floats on water in the
dark. While in the sense depravation chamber, he tries to reconnect with his
previous lives. Is Dr. Jessup simply going nuts? Is he tripping on the drugs? Or
is there any validity to his research? I love this film because it gets really
existential. It explores those big questions and asks even bigger ones! A film
that explores such deep themes doesn’t surprise me coming from Paddy Chayevsky,
one of my favorite screenwriters. Chayevsky was never afraid to ask big scary
questions in his films, a true thinker!
Stand Out Dream Sequence: This being a Ken Russell film,
what else can you expect but crazy messed up dream sequences? I can’t even
start to explain the dream sequences on this film because they are surreal to
the extreme, but I’ll leave it at this: you’ll see Jesus Christ with a goat
head that has six eyes! How’s that for a whacked out dream sequence?
Dream Talk: “You saved me; you redeemed me from the pit. I
was in it Emily. I was in that ultimate moment of terror that is the beginning
of life. It is nothing, simple, hideous nothing. The final truth of all things
is that there is no truth. Truth is transitory; it’s human life that is real”
Title: City of Lost Children (1995)
Director: Jean Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro
Synopsis: Krank is a scientist who cannot dream, so what
does he do? He steals dreams! From children no less! He gets a hold of these
children through a religious cult composed entirely of Cyclops! In order to
belong to this cult, you have to loose your own eye sight so that you can see
the way the Cyclops see. Now the Cyclops have kidnapped Dunree, One’s baby
brother. One, the hero of this film, must begin a journey with his new friend
Miette to rescue Dunree from the clutches of the Cyclops and ultimately Krank
himself. Krank wants Dunree and all of the children of the city for himself, so
he can steal their dreams!
Stand Out Dream Sequence: The film opens with a child in a
play pen, it’s Christmas time and so the house is decorated with all sorts of
Christmas ornaments. Suddenly, from the chimney Santa Claus appears! But this isn’t
the merry old fat man, this Santa Claus is skinny and scary looking! Suddenly,
the whole room is inundated with many more scary looking Santa Clauses! Even
Santa’s Reindeer show up to take a dump on the floor as the little baby in the
play pen cries in horror!
Dream Talk: “Who stole the child’s dreams? Krank, in his
evil schemes”
Director: Don Coscarelli
Synopsis: A young boy named Mike looses his parents in an
accident and is having a hard time coping with death. He now lives with his
older brother, whom he worships. At the same time, Mike notices that the
undertaker at the local cemetery is one mysterious dude. He can lift coffins on
his own! At the same time, corpses are disappearing from their graves! Did the
old man just swipe Mike’s parent’s bodies to use them for some ulterior motive?
Just what the hell is going on in Morning
Side Cemetery
Stand Out Dream Sequence: Mike is sleeping on his bed,
slowly, the camera pans back and we see Mikes bed is actually in the middle of
a dark forest. Behind the bed, the mysterious ‘Tall Man’ watches over Mike as
he sleeps. Suddenly, without a warning two zombies come out of the ground and
grab Mike as he screams uncontrollably!
8 comments:
If you're feeling philosophical you could say that almost all of the Phantasm movies are one long dream.
They certainly feel that way Jack! Coscarelli apparently wanted that vibe for the whole series, and I think we could safely say he achieved it! Still, I think you could deferentiate when Mike is dreaming, and when things are really happening.
For example, the first films ending, with the Tall Man breaking out of the mirror, that had to be a dream because Mike later re-appears in part II.
I think what the films do is play a game of ping-pong between dreams and reality, I love these films for precisely that, you're never really quite sure what the hell is going on.
Part IV is good too, Phans of the series really finally get some answers!
Yeah, I watched them all back to back a year ago so my memory is a bit hazy. But I remember Part 4 ended on a very cool scene Mike and Reggie driving in the ice cream talking and it finishes on the line - "Nothing, it was just the wind".
I took that to mean that the scene wasn't a flashback but rather the point where Mike wakes up from his day dream. The whole series was one long bizarre day dream by a 10 year old kid trying to get over his brother's death. The Tall Man was nothing more than the Mike's imagination trying to process the concept of death. Rather than accept the truth he retreated into this fantastic fiction.
What I love about the series is that Coscarelli paints everything so elliptically that you can probably draw any theory you want out of the films. That's mine but others are equally valid too.
Agree with you man, I love how part four includes all those deleted scenes from the first Phantasm that Coscarelli unearthed from the vaults, it was a great ending to the whole thing.
I like your take on the movie, that certainly is one way of looking at it. Coscarelli gives you little things that you could interpret in your own way, really it could go either way. It could be a dream, or it could also be that the Tall Man really is an alien being coming to earth to steal our dead and conquer our planet, town by town, cemetary by cemetary.
I love that scene in part four where Mike travels to an alternate future in which The Tall Man walks through tempty city streets as a news paper flies by with a headline that says something about a Plague taking over the earth; which apparently is what The Tall Man was going to use to erradicate the human race.
A part V was going to have Reggie and Mike enter the tall mans kingdom after his destroyed all of humanity...but that film never came to be sadly.
Absolutely, considering part 4 was mostly outtakes from the original and had a budget of half a million it made a pleasing (and fitting) ending to the series.
That said I would love to see a part 5 - Coscarelli created such a rich and vivid world with the Phantasm series.
Hoping his latest "John Dies at the End" does well. I'm half way through reading the book. There's a lot of similarities with characters slipping in and out of imagined scenarios.
I admire Coscarelli a lot, specially when we consider how he makes most of his films with such low budgets! The highest he ever went was Phantasm II, and it shows, to me its the best in the series. It has the most polished look and the best effects.
I'm looking forward to seeing John Dies at the End, Coscarelli is one of my favorite horror directors.
You are indeed prolific my friend and this one is exceptional as always.
Sff
Glad you enjoyed SFF!
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