DREAM DEMON (UK - 1988; US release 1993) Directed by Harley Cokliss. Written by Christopher Wicking, Harley Cokliss and Catherine de Pury. Cast: Kathleen Wilhoite, Jemma Redgrave, Timothy Spall, Jimmy Nail, Nickolas Grace, Susan Fleetwood, Mark Greenstreet, Annabelle Lanyon. (Unrated, director's cut: 88 mins; theatrical cut: 89 mins) The British horror film DREAM DEMON got some pre-release hype in Fangoria and already established its genre bona fides with a script co-written by Christopher Wicking (SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB) before going on to do decent business in the UK in the fall of 1988. But it ran into one obstacle after another on its bumpy road to an American release. It was picked up by indie Spectrafilm but they went bankrupt before they could release it. Then it was acquired by a financially-strapped Vestron and they folded as well. It languished in legal limbo for some time until Warner Bros. bought it, sat on it for a while, and eventually gave it a stealth direct-to-video release in 1993, by which time the two franchises that obviously influenced it--A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and HELLRAISER--had already commercially peaked. On the basis of its title alone, much like 1988's BAD DREAMS, it's easy to dismiss DREAM DEMON as a blatant ELM STREET knockoff. It's not altogether successful, but it's got some interesting ideas of its own that go a little beyond simply cribbing from Wes Craven and Clive Barker. Some of those ideas are a little too British to really go over with American audiences, which was likely another factor in its long-delayed US release.
It's anchored by a pair of strong performances that give it a little more credibility than your standard-issue ELM STREET ripoff. In her film debut, Jemma Redgrave (of the legendary acting dynasty--she's Corin's daughter and the niece of Vanessa and Lynn) is Diana Markham, a repressed, virginal London schoolteacher and the daughter of wealthy parents who have just bought her a large house with multiple flats as an early wedding gift. She's engaged to Oliver (Mark Greenstreet), a career military man and beloved Falklands War hero, which makes her a regular target of sleazy tabloid reporter Paul (Jimmy Nail) and his repulsive photographer Peck (Timothy Spall). Diana has been plagued by disturbing nightmares in which she sees a little girl surrounded by fire and bleeding cracks in the wall that ooze flesh, imagines violent sexual assaults by Oliver, and senses some kind of presence drawing her to the basement. Her doctor (Susan Fleetwood, Mick's sister) tells her it's just pre-wedding jitters (the film's best moment is a nightmare nuptial sequence at the beginning), and an inattentive, unconcerned Oliver tells her to "just take a pill." But she knows it's something more, a feeling that's cemented by brash American visitor Jenny (Kathleen Wilhoite), who's just arrived from L.A. trying to sort out the identity of her deceased birth parents, a trail that's led her to Diana's house. Jenny was adopted as a child and knows she lived in the house, but has no memory of what happened to her parents or why she was sent to America. The two become fast friends, with Jenny sticking around to help her handle the persistent tabloid guys when Oliver is called away for the weekend. Even Jenny dismisses Diana's nightmares--in which she sees Peck metamorphosed into a disgusting pseudo-Mr. Creosote--until she herself starts seeing the same visions of the little girl and fire and finds herself lost in some alternate netherworld in the basement, with Diana somehow having an ability to pull Jenny into her dreams and into a world that she can't leave until Diana wakes up.
It's almost exactly the midpoint when DREAM DEMON switches gears from ELM STREET to HELLRAISER or, more specifically, becomes distinctly "Clive Barker-esque," with the basement grotesqueries involving Peck and Paul prefiguring some of the Midian imagery of 1990's NIGHTBREED. It tries to establish some serious character depth with the dual repressions of its female protagonists, but it loses the thread along the way and is ambiguous to a fault. Wicking and American director/co-writer Harley Cokeliss (BLACK MOON RISING, MALONE)--back when he was still going by "Harley Cokliss" and likely added the "e" later on to prevent the kind of childish giggling such as when 13-year-old me saw his name on the BLACK MOON RISING poster--never seem to settle on whether it's the house that's causing Diana's dreams or if it's her dreams that have opened a portal of some kind. It backs them into a corner to some extent, prompting a sudden shift in focus through the third act as the film becomes less about Diana and more about what happened to Jenny in the house when she was a child. Just out on an extras-packed Blu-ray from Arrow (because physical media is dead), DREAM DEMON is presented in a newly-restored, breathtakingly pristine transfer that marks the home video debut of Cokeliss' intended director's cut, which is actually one minute shorter than what got released decades ago. Both versions are on the Blu-ray, and the only difference is that the director's cut loses a final, almost comic relief scene involving Paul and Peck, probably put there in 1988 since Nail and a pre-Mike Leigh Spall were both well-known from the popular mid '80s British ITV comedy series AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET.
Neither ending is very satisfying, and the early invocation of the Falklands War and the heavy-handed way the film has the tabloid guys hounding Diana as a way of satirizing the media's obsession with Princess Diana (isn't giving her the same name a little too on-the-nose?) is something that probably played better with British audiences but still doesn't really have much bearing on anything that follows. Still, there's enough good things in DREAM DEMON with the general mood and atmosphere (the house is a very effective location that gives the proceedings a nice Hammer/Amicus vibe) that you wish it turned out better than it does. It also gets a considerable boost from the excellent work by Redgrave, who bears a striking resemblance to her cousin Natasha Richardson, and Wilhoite, playing very much the "Kathleen Wilhoite" persona that she established as a potty-mouthed young criminal opposite Charles Bronson in MURPHY'S LAW and as the scene-stealing "just some more psychic humor!" clairvoyant Zarabeth in WITCHBOARD. She even gets to Wilhoite it up as Jenny scoffs at the doctor talking about astral projection as a way to explain Diana pulling her into her dreams, blurting "C'mon, I've only known her for two days! This astral body shit's for hippies!"
Timothy Spall and director Harley Cokeliss on the set of DREAM DEMON
MALONE (US - 1987) Directed by Harley Cokliss. Written by Christopher Frank. Cast: Burt Reynolds, Cliff Robertson, Lauren Hutton, Kenneth McMillan, Cynthia Gibb, Scott Wilson, Philip Anglim, Tracey Walter, Dennis Burkley, Alex Diakun, Brooks Gardner, Mike Kirton, Blu Mankuma, Don Davis. (R, 92 mins) "Got a name?" "Malone." "Got a first name?" "Yeah."
From the late '70s and into the early '80s, Burt Reynolds was the top box-office draw in America. The busy actor appeared in two to three movies a year, and there was rarely a time when a Burt movie wasn't in theaters. But after a while, his base grew fatigued with increasingly lazy efforts like 1983's STROKER ACE and 1984's CANNONBALL RUN II. 1984's CITY HEAT, a much-anticipated teaming with Clint Eastwood, the other biggest movie star in America, proved to be a disappointment for both actors, but it would be far more devastating to Reynolds than your average box-office underperformer. While filming a fight scene, Reynolds was supposed to be hit across the face with a lightweight, breakaway prop chair. Somehow, the prop chair was replaced with a real one and Reynolds was hit in the face with it at full force. His jaw broke on impact, requiring extensive surgery that kept his mouth wired shut for months, forcing him on a liquid diet and later resulting in an addiction to painkillers. It took over two years for him to recover, during which time Hollywood and many of his friends abandoned him and tabloids had a field day with the rumors about his health and his weight loss. Reports stated that he was dying of either cancer or AIDS. Reynolds had his long-delayed Elmore Leonard adaptation STICK in theaters in 1985, but it was actually shot in late 1983, prior to CITY HEAT and the jaw incident. Other than a cameo in his buddy Mel Tillis' 1986 comedy UPHILL ALL THE WAY, Reynolds was offscreen until the release of HEAT in March 1987. Savaged by critics and ignored by audiences, HEAT was a troubled production that cycled through three directors--Robert Altman quit after one day, his replacement Dick Richards made most of the film before quitting after an on-set physical altercation with Reynolds, and then TV vet Jerry Jameson finished it; director credit went to "R.M. Richards"--and opened in 11th place. In three years, Reynolds went from box office king to Hollywood pariah. Burt was back and he was in good shape, healthy, and fully recovered, but HEAT's paltry gross left little doubt: nobody cared.
HEAT was the first of three comeback vehicles Reynolds had lined up for 1987. The second was MALONE, opening less than two months after HEAT. The results were almost identical: MALONE opened in 11th place and grossed $3 million before quickly disappearing from theaters. HEAT grossed just under $3 million but both were stunning freefalls from the blockbuster revenue generated by Reynolds films over the preceding decade or so (even CANNONBALL RUN II grossed $28 million in theaters and that was considered weak by Reynolds standards in 1984). HEAT and MALONE bombed so badly that the third Burt comeback movie, RENT-A-COP, which paired him with Liza Minnelli, saw its wide release nixed and was unceremoniously bumped to January 1988, grossing $300,000 on just 200 screens. The idea of a megastar like Reynolds being downgraded to a limited release was almost unheard-of in 1988, but the message came through loud and clear: moviegoers no longer gave a shit about Burt Reynolds.
Of course, Reynolds has proven himself to be nothing if not resilient. There was an undeniable "pile-on" mindset in the way critics approached Reynolds films during his 1987-and-onward return to the big screen, and these films during his darkest period (at least to that time) aren't nearly as bad as their reputations would suggest. HEAT has aged well as a character piece, and 1988's THE FRONT PAGE/HIS GIRL FRIDAY remake SWITCHING CHANNELS is a perfectly enjoyable screwball comedy that shows Burt in fine form engaging in witty, rapid-fire repartee with Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve. Even a dull misfire like 1989's PHYSICAL EVIDENCE has a decent Reynolds performance for completists. Reynolds got some of his best reviews in years in the low-key 1989 indie BREAKING IN, which led to the short-lived ABC series B.L. STRYKER before Reynolds' career saw a major resurgence in 1990 with the CBS sitcom EVENING SHADE, and this was all prior to his Oscar-nominated career-best performance in 1997's BOOGIE NIGHTS.
Just out on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, MALONE opens with burned-out covert ops CIA agent Malone (Reynolds) unable to pull the trigger on his latest target. He informs his handler/lover Jamie (Lauren Hutton, Reynolds' GATOR co-star) that he's leaving the agency. "You know too much! You can't just walk away!" she implores. "Watch me," Malone glumly replies. Driving with no particular place to go, Malone finds himself stranded in a small town in rural Oregon when his car breaks down. Malone befriends Vietnam vet mechanic Paul (Scott Wilson) and his spunky late teens daughter Jo (Cynthia Gibb). Paul is one of the last remaining holdouts, refusing to sell his business and his property to Charles Delaney (Cliff Robertson), a paranoid, far-right zealot who's taking over the town and turning it into his base of operations for his plot to "take America back." Delaney has assembled a cabal of one-percenters with the intent of getting himself a Senate seat and bringing down the US government. As Paul, Jo, and Malone are repeatedly hassled by Delaney's goons, Malone finds himself in a classic SHANE situation, helping them protect their property (and trying hard to not succumb to Jo's obvious crush on him) while being the only one tough enough to stand up to Delaney--who keeps a tight leash on useless Sheriff Hawkins (Kenneth McMillan) and thinks Malone was sent there to kill him--and amassing a blood-splattered body count in the process. Malone's troubles don't end there: once news that Malone has surfaced reaches the CIA, the powers that be dispatch Jamie to eliminate him.
An on-set photo from MALONE posted on actress
Cynthia Gibb's web site. Gibb on Burt:
"He made me feel like an equal on set
when I was still such a novice."
MALONE adheres to the SHANE template pretty closely, with some additional FIRST BLOOD in the way that the asshole sheriff keeps trying to run Malone out of town. It's also interesting to note how, even in the context of the jingoistic, "Born in the U.S.A." Reagan era of 1987, Delaney is clearly presented as a psychotic, delusional, and dangerous madman, and an ideological relative of John P. Ryan's similarly politically insane villain in the 1986 Cannon classic AVENGING FORCE. Forget the Senate--today, Charles Delaney's beliefs and statements would likely catapult him straight to 2016 GOP Presidential front-runner. Based on the novel Shotgun by William Wingate, MALONE's credited screenwriter is Christopher Frank, a British novelist who spent most of his career working in French cinema (he wrote the post-BREATHLESS Valerie Kaprisky film L'ANNEE DES MEDUSES). Reynolds said in an interview around the time of MALONE's release that the project originated in Europe and was intended for Gerard Depardieu and then Christopher Lambert before it exchanged hands and ended up in Hollywood with him. Frank's script was reworked for Reynolds by an uncredited Rudy Wurlitzer, best known for writing Monte Hellman's TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971) and Sam Peckinpah's PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973). MALONE was directed by American journeyman Harley Cokliss, whose past credits included the post-nuke WARLORDS OF THE 21ST CENTURY (1982) and the John Carpenter-scripted BLACK MOON RISING (1986), in addition to serving as a second-unit director on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980). Cokliss never really distinguished himself enough to rise above the level of C-lister, though his 1988 British horror film DREAM DEMON, which took several years to get a straight-to-video release in the US, was written by the venerable Christopher Wicking and was one of the more ambitious NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ripoffs. He's worked very sporadically in TV and mostly unseen movies from 2000 on, but in the early '90s, Cokliss pulled a "Fronk-en-steen" and started calling himself "Harley Cokeliss," presumably to ensure the correct pronunciation and to prevent people from snickering at "Cokliss."
Reynolds at the Philadelphia Comic Con in May 2015
