Beyond Dream's Door (1989) — Triskaidekafiles

BEYOND DREAM’S DOOR

WRITER: Jay Woelfel

DIRECTOR: Jay Woefel

STARRING: Nick Baldasare as Ben Dobbs

Rick Kesler as Eric Baxter

Susan Pinsky as Julie Oxel

Norm Singer as Professor Noxx

QUICK CUT: Bad dreams keep a young student awake, threatening his classes and relationships.

THE MORGUE

Ben - A psyche student who has spent most of his life not dreaming, until recently when participation in a sleep study seems to have unlocked those floodgates. He’s a generally nice guy, but is also very quiet and unassuming, so it’s hard to get a solid grasp on him, as much of this movie has him rushing from one crisis to the next.

Eric - A teacher’s assistant that tries to help Ben, and his more interested in saving himself when things get really weird.

Julie - Another TA who is a bit friendlier than Eric, but has no idea what she’s in for.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Now, normally at this time of year, we do our classic look back at the Nightmare on Elm Street series, but since we have done New Nightmare, I am taking a break, before I decide when and how and if I'll do the remake and vs. Jason. In the interim, I have a movie called Beyond Dream's Door, about a man troubled by dreams and a creature clawing at the edges of his mind to try and enter the waking world. ...Huh.

The movie opens with a ringing phone summoning Ben, who answers it and gets nothing but laughter. And a woman slowly disrobing atop a cement trapdoor, saying it's all for you, Damien.

As the doors open up, groping hands reach out for Ben, and a red, meaty, claw shoves him into...math homework. The REAL nightmare.

Oh gosh, look at all this tension in your shoulders.

While he works on homework, Ben's little brother comes up to bug him, and he decides to be nice, take a break, and play some hide and seek. Which is WAY more ominous when your brother threateningly promises "I will find you".

Ben hides in an alcove, but finds the same creature from his nightmares is also hiding out there. Just as it's about to get him...he startles himself awake in bed, because IT WAS ALL A DREAM.

He goes looking for his brother, reaches out to the pile on the bed, and as he reaches to pull back the blanket...IT WAS ALL A BOOK because Ben is writing down his multilayered dreams like this is some Inception bullshit.

All work and no play make Ben…something something.

As Ben heads off to school, we take the shortcut there through editing, with Julie greeting the new teaching assistant in the psyche department.

She ducks out to get Eric his keys, and a frantic, disheveled man comes in to ask about his grades, begging insistently. Eric is at a loss, since he literally just got here.

When the student sees his failing grade on the test, he pulls out a gun and sticks it to his eye. As he's about to pull the trigger, Eric reaches for the phone, just in time for Julie to rush back in and chide the man with a gun because...IT WAS ALL A PRANK.

It's a bit of a test the teacher likes to pull on his new TA's to see how they'll react, because every so often you get a student that will try and pull this shit for real.

So we cut to class, with Ben dozing off during Professor Noxx's lecture. It jumps back into the same dream, progressing from reaching out to his brother's form in bed, and coming back with bloody hands. I do genuinely like that each dream progresses a bit of the story.

The form on the bed grows and grows, and just as the sheets are about to be thrown back...Ben wakes back up in class.

Ben hands the professor his dream journal to ask him his professional opinion, and then rushes off for a sleep study experiment Julie is running.

This leads to another chunk of dream where the creature under the sheets is revealed to be a naked woman, enticing Ben, and when he runs off screaming at the sight of nudity, he is chased by the same creature as before, threatening to kill his parents.

I think we need have a disconnect on what a "nightmare" is here.

Later that night, Ben is awoken by the professor calling up to ask him to come over and they can discuss his dream papers. Look, prof, can't this wait until, I dunno, sunrise, at least?

After he hangs up, Noxx is visited by Ben's brother, which we find out in the very next scene, never existed, and that his parents are dead.

They also acknowledge that each dream is like a link in a chain, leading somewhere Ben is unsure of.

Which leads to another link, as Ben's brother, now with weird eyes, says he found him, and offers him a hand up. However, instead of helping, he jabs Ben with a stake through the hand. Well, that's not how you kill vampires.

Go ahead, Fun Boy. You got me dead bang.

After Noxx tells Ben that while reading about the dreams, they continued in reality, and he saw his brother. They hit the library to do some research and get more information.

They come across the strange case of D.H. White, a similar case to Ben's, who never dreamed until a blow to the head. His dreams got increasingly violent, until he fell into a coma and died shortly after.

Noxx heads elsewhere in the library to find another book he remembers that described White's dreams, which were eerily similar to Ben's, a fact which we only ever have this one moment of confirmation.

As Noxx finds the book, Devil Dinosaur shows up and kills him, as Ben is visited by White who is in a weird place of not quite dead, but not really alive, and that as long as he is alive, the creature keeps killing. And the victims are whisked away into the Mindscape, to cover up their deaths, because if enough knew about the creature, they'd try and stop it.

Noxx's bloody, half eaten body crawls into the room to die, and try and give Ben the book. But before he can grab it, the creature shows up to finish it's job, and Ben runs off.

Does this mean I get an A for the class?

Meanwhile, Julie runs into a floating red balloon, just like the one in Ben's first dream he described earlier. She keeps trying to call Professor Noxx, but the number simply no longer exists, and there is no record of any Noxx.

Later, Ben returns to the library and finds the book Noxx wanted him to have, but several pages are missing.

Ben tries to find Noxx and talk about more dreams, but see our earlier message re: his murder. Instead, he hands his latest pages to Eric, and reiterates the plot to him.

He looks through the book to show Eric the missing pages, but now there ARE no missing pages. Well, there ARE, but it's like they never existed, not just torn out.

Ben describes the next location from his dreams to Ben, and he instantly recognises the cavernous, concrete space with trap doors. As one would, if they had seen such a unique bit of architecture.

He takes the student to an old unused part of the school. The only difference is that the trapdoors are closed, and always have been.

Ben looks around and finds some teeth, and we'll get back to them later. They go their separate ways, Eric to meet up with Julie so she can share her weird happenings, and Ben goes to find Professor Noxx.

However, when he gets to the teacher's house, it is completely gone, like it had never been there.

You moved the house, but you didn't move THE BODIES!!

Ben sees a pile of stones spelling out "Demons Wait" holding down a piece of paper, which proves to be one of the missing pages about White. It elaborates on how people he knew went missing, without a trace, and like they never existed, much like what is happening around Ben.

A gust of wind grabs the paper and whisks it away. Ben gives chase, leading him down into the town's drainage system. He runs into a weird guy, who tells him to make sure he doesn't lose the paper, the only evidence he has of the creature's existence.

Ben gets chased off by the creature, and we jump back to Julie and Eric trying to watch Ben's tape from his sleep study. The video just won't play right, though, as the erasure of Ben has begun.

Eric goes to get a drink, and runs into a janitor with no hands, who, according to commentary tracks, is an embodiment of the creature, cleaning up after him literally, but this never quite comes across well in the narrative.

The presence chases them away, and they head home. When Julie isn't looking, her car's rear door pops open, and we see the creature lurking inside.

Eric meanwhile does some more reading, and Ben describes much of what we just saw with the janitor, which is the only real connective tissue there, but it's very blink and you'll miss it stuff.

He next is seen chasing after White, and I've lost track if this is reality, dream A, dream B, dream C, or who the squawk knows??

I will say this, the movie uses some wonderfully unique locations, thanks to being filmed, if I remember correctly, in the midwest.

Aww nuts, he’s run straight into Night of the Living Dead.

White leads him into a house with a bunch of people milling about, and I think the implication is, this is where the creature hides all its victims. White says there's a mirror somewhere that Ben has been running towards his whole life, and it shows everything he doesn't want to see.

So, kinda like a reverse Mirror of Erised then?

Following that, there is just some WONDERFUL imagery of glass faces, and scenes filmed through wavy things to distort the view. Gives such a haunting, dreamlike feel. This movie is almost worth it for the unique visuals.

Meanwhile, Eric has a dream of his own where he sees Julie die at the hands of the creature. There's no answer when he calls to check on her, so he rushes over to see for himself.

Ben has his own vision of an imperiled Julie, and makes his own way to her house.

Inside her house, Ben finds Julie's bloody decapitated body, and then finds Eric outside with the rest of her.

Nightmare Julie, or a form of the monster, tries to entice Ben inside, says if he brings her the page, they can figure all this out, but the two men ignore her and drive off.

As they drive off, there is a shot of a decapitated Julie shambling after their car, until it falls over, and HOLY SHIT, it's kinda awesome.

Ben brings them to his house, but he can't get inside when his keys won't work. He's confused since it's supposed to be his house, but I guess the erasening is happening to him now too.

Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?

So they instead head back to Eric's place, and find the place ransacked. Ben's dream pages are torn up, and the creature's teeth have been taken, as the creature tries to remove all evidence of its existence.

Ben wants to use the page, the final piece of evidence, to lure the monster into the trap doors to...well, trap it again.

Eric on the other hand has had enough of this, and shoves Ben out the door when the creature shows up, saying basically, "It's YOUR nightmare, YOU deal with it!"

The student tries to protest and say it's not too late, but as he's shoved out the door, it's a wonderful bit from Eric shouting, "Too late FOR YOU!!" It's a remarkably human reaction.

Little bunny Foofoo, hopping through the forest…

As Ben shoves the paper down into the trapdoor to hide it, the janitor shows up with the Magna of Illusion, er, the mirror of Erised, no wait, the mirror White mentioned earlier.

Ben says he hid the paper, but if it's hidden, that means no one can find it, and that's good enough for the creature. Ben tries to goad it, asking if it can take that chance, and this culminates in the mirror being smashed over Ben.

Which begs the question; I thought the mirror was important?

Eric ends up back at Julie's house, and her mother lures the TA inside. He sees a coffin, Julie's dead body, and her mom's hands covered in blood. He rushes out to his car, with Julie already inside, and she informs us that Ben died last night, and Eric is already dead too. They're all dead, they just don't know it yet.

He runs all the way back home, and dude sure is getting his steps in today. When he gets home, he finds the book that used to have the story of D.H. White. And the book promptly attacks him.

It latches onto his foot, and Eric slams it in the door until it lets go. Following one of the worst bandage jobs I've ever seen, he gets paid a visit from Ben, or his ghost, or the creature wearing a Ben suit.

Okay, sure, maybe I didn't say every single syllable.

Eric dumps the teeth down the drain, because they turned back up? Or maybe they're remains from the book biting him? and lays down to get some sleep.

Which is usually a bad idea, but everyone seems to just wanna take a nap in this movie. Whatever.

Not surprisingly, Ghost Julie and the Monster show up, and as the creature bashes it's way inside, Julie offers Eric his knife so he can kill himself and be spared being taken by the creature.

Which is when Ghost?Ben shows up, and the creature disappears. Ben says if Eric killed himself, Ben would then have to go tell someone else, so it can continue feeding, and the page is the only thing keeping them alive...aaaand this is where the plot gets a bit slippery. I get the broad ideas, but I feel like there's a few too many ideas competing for what's really going on, and it gets very muddled.

It both wants someone to know about it so the killings continue, but doesn't want any evidence of it or else it would be found out and known about, and it wants them dead but it has to leave them alive to spread the 'curse' but it feeds on the joy of killing them and and and...ARGH.

They head down into the tunnels, and Ben splits off to grab some chains. Ben, or a reasonable facsimile, shows up to lure Eric away. And he fails to notice that Ben took the time to change his clothes.

Ben Dobble lures Eric towards the creature, but manages to run off and meet back up with Ben Prime. They break into the school to have the final stand off at the trapdoors.

They rig up the door, and Ben plans to lure the creature deep into wherever the doors lead, and have Eric release the doors, trapping him and the creature inside.

Just as Ben begins to descend into the bowels of wherever, Cobweb shows up and rips up Eric and drags him off to the Mindscape. But Ben is down in the pit, grabs the page, and the creature chases after its precious evidence...just in time for Ben to release the ropes and slam the doors shut, trapping them forever.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video and Audio: It’s yet another Vinegar Syndrome release, so looks and sounds great, especially for this little indie movie made way outside the Hollywood machine.

Sound Bite: "You're not the first, and you're not the last. You're simply next." is a fantastic line.

Body Count: For a creature worried about hiding bodies, it sure doesn’t make many of them. Which, I guess is a plus.

1 - 20 minutes in and the Beast gets the professor.

2 - Julie loses her head off camera

3 - Eric gets chomped on by the beast.

Best Corpse: Not a lot to choose from, but Professor Noxx’s bloody corpse crawling around is great.

Blood Type - B: There’s not a LOT of blood, but again, Noxx’s pretty gnarly, there’s a few other bits, and the makeup is pretty solid. The monster is hidden most of the time, but I do love the quick peeks we get at it.

Sex Appeal: The dream seductress gives us the requisite bits of nudity.

Drink Up! every time there’s a dream

Movie Review: There is a lot I REALLY love here. The movie didn’t land with me right away, the first time I watched it I was more “Huh!” and “That was interesting!” but the more I thought about it, and sat with it, and watched it a few more times, it has really grown on me. The broad ideas here are really intriguing, and while comparisons can indeed be made to another particular dream killer, this movie is still pretty unique, and there’s a bit more underneath the surface than your standard movie. The biggest problem is the movie has what I’ve referred to as a “slippery plot”; just as you get your hands around it and it starts making sense, it squishes free and runs away. Beyond that, it’s well made, has some cool mythology to it, solid effects, and if a nice surprise to have found. Three out of five animal teeth.

Entertainment Value: It doesn’t quite reach the bizarre heights you could go with, in a dream imagery heavy movie, and the acting is solid across the board, but the confusion factor and the bizarre dream imagery it DOES gift you towards the end, does give you something interesting and intriguing to watch. Not entertaining in a bad way, but compelling, nonetheless. Three out of five missing pages.