Bad Dreams

Bad Dreams (1988)

When Cynthia wakes up, she'll wish she were dead...

Unity Field, a "free love" cult from the '70s, is mostly remembered for its notorious mass suicide led by Harris, its charismatic leader. While all members are supposed to burn in a fire together, young Cynthia is spared by chance. Years later, the nightmare of Unity Field remains buried in her mind. But when those around Cynthia start killing themselves, and she begins having visions of Harris, she may be forced to confront the past -- before it confronts her.

Date of release
1988-04-08
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (114)
Runtime
1h 26m
Genres
Horror, Thriller
Director
Andrew Fleming

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Los Angeles

Bad Dreams is a 1988 American supernatural slasher film co-written and directed by Andrew Fleming and starring Jennifer Rubin, Bruce Abbott, E. G. Daily, Dean Cameron, Harris Yulin, and Richard Lynch. It follows Cynthia Weston, a woman who awakens from a thirteen-year-long coma and finds herself being stalked by Franklin Harris, the ghost of a cult leader who led a mass suicide by fire that she survived as a child.

Production

Bad Dreams was shot on location in Los Angeles, California over a period of eight weeks, with production beginning on October 26, 1987, and concluding in mid-December. Shooting locations included the California Medical Center and California Medical Building in Los Angeles; Lakeview Hospital in Lake View Terrace; and the Brentwood Veterans Hospital. The budget for the production was $4.5 million.

According to Bad Dreams writer/director Andrew Fleming on the DVD commentary, the choice of the end title song was the greatest drama in the whole making of this film. Fleming wanted to use a live version of the song “Burning House of Love” by X, while 20th Century Fox executive Ralph Sall suggested “Sweet Child o' Mine” by then-unknown band Guns N' Roses, thinking it would be cheaper and a possible hit.

According to Fleming, Guns N' Roses were also going to do a video that incorporated clips from the movie. “They came in and watched it and were stoked by the movie,” Fleming said. “But then Axl Rose's girlfriend, Erin Everly, said the song was about her. She didn’t want a song about her to have clips from a horror movie in it. So she got her way. We didn’t get a video, but Ralph was right about the song.”

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended