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Dark Dreams
Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
DVD Release Date: September 26th, 2017.
Director: Roger Guermantes
Cast: Tina Russell, Harry Reems, Darby Lloyd Rains, Laura Cannon, June Dulu, Patrice De Veur
Year: 1971
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The Movie:
Jack (Harry Reems) and Jill (Tina Russell) are a newly married couple who we meet just after they've officially tied the knot. To celebrate they head out on a trip but on the way, get into a bit of a spat about sex. See, Jack's waited three years for Jill to give up the goods and now that they're married, well, he feels that he's been patient enough. In fact, Jack wants it right then and there in the car but she wants her first time to be special.
Things change when they blow a tire. Jack gets out to put on the spare, but nope - the guy he borrowed the car from didn't leave one in the trunk. Not wanting to be stranded outside any longer than they need to, they decide to knock on the door of a weird old house that they passed along the way. It takes a while, but after a few knocks an older lady (Patrice De Veur) answers and gladly lets them in. Jack makes a phone call to his friend to talk about the car while the old woman leaves Jill in the living room while she fixes the young couple some tea. She returns, they indulge, and soon enough that tea puts our two young lovebirds into an altered state at which point the members of the cult that the old lady is clearly affiliated with arrive and abduct our heroes.
From here on out, Jack and Jill find themselves unwitting accomplices in a series of occult rituals and strange black magic rites… all of which seem to involve copious amounts of bumping and grinding!
Clearly made on a more than modest budget and likely to exploit the popularity of occult themed movies at the time it was made, Dark Dreams is pretty interesting stuff. Reems and Russell make for a fine couple. He's a bit of a bastard in that he really is pressuring the poor thing to spread her legs for him when it's clear she's nervous, but he plays the part well. She's very pretty, almost innocent looking, using that girl next door charm that she had throughout her career quite well in this particular role. Patrice De Veur steals more than a few moments as the old witch, while supoprtnig work from the lovely Darby Lloyd Rains and Laura Cannon is noteworthy as well.
The vast majority of the film is set inside the old Victorian style house that the old lady inhabits, and it's a pretty great location for stage a movie like this. Add to that the fact that the score is completely dissonant in some decidedly bizarre ways and this turns out to be a genuinely cool looking movie with some quirky, screwy atmosphere. It isn't the most sexually arousing film you're likely to ever see (unless you get off on black robes) and it takes a while, at least by the standards of your typical adult movie, before we even get to the naked frolicking but there's a lot of entertainment value to be had from this one.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Dark Dreams arrives on DVD in a standard definition transfer taken from a new 2k scan of the original 35mm negative. There's some mild print damage here and there but for the most part the transfer is pretty clean. Grain appears naturally throughout as it should while colors look fairly decent (this is, in many ways, a fairly drab film in terms of its color scheme). Skin tones look nice and natural and there are no noticeable issues with any compression artifacts. Not surprisingly it looks miles above the presentation that the film previously received on the Alpha Blue Archives Satanic Sickies boxed set back around 2006.
The film gets the English language Dolby Digital Mono treatment. Clarity is just fine with the music used in the feature sounding nice and clear. Balance is problem free and while range is understandably limited by the original elements you can always understand the dialogue well enough.
Aside from a trailer for the feature the disc also includes menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Dark Dreams is weird, low budget horror-porn at its best! It's never particularly spooky or all that sexy - which you'd think would be two strikes - but it's always entertaining and compellingly bizarre. Vinegar Syndrome presents this oddity on a pretty bare bones disc, but it does look and sound quite good.
