Bad Dreams / Visiting Hours (Killer Double Feature)

I was expecting cheesiness. Didn't get it. Both of these movies were pretty good. The pretty girl was the same girl on Nightmare on Elm Street. She was the main reason I bought it.

It took me a long time to find a reasonably priced copy of this double feature but I was glad once I did.I expected to like Bad Dreams a lot better than visiting hours but it was the other way around.Jennifer Rubin is great in bad dreams (which, despite accusations, doesn’t really feel like a ripoff of her better known role in dream warriors), the atmosphere is pretty impressive and there’s a frllgreat twist ending. However, the movie wasn’t quite as fresh or exciting as I’d hoped.Visiting hours, I had concerns about but it turns out well. The plot is more interesting, the supporting performances are a lot better, and the scares are more intense, but overall there’s a lot less killing of likable and major characters than I’d expected from the movie based on what I’d heard about it.

Bad Dreams isn't bad, but Visiting Hours, if you've still got the guts, is worth re-visiting time and again. The 80s produced a vicious cycle of violent "slashers," so Visiting Hours obviously cashed in on that, but the bitter intensity of its premise, and the presence of a "real" actor (Lee Grant) pitted against then-unknown actor Michael Ironside's insanity-plus-physicality really bring down the house. He's not going to let her get away with anything. This movie is all about wringing Lee Grant's neck. That said, it teeters on the notion (through the presence of Ironside's nihilistic killer) that men don't care about "women's liberation" or "equality," and maybe, just for the fun of it, would love to destroy it. "Talking about" this movie could easily bring out the worst of both sexes. As a straight horror film, it delivers the goods. Minus are the goofy teenagers killed-off every ten minutes with the audience either groaning or giggling. As a director, Jean-Claude Lord is simply set on producing distress.

bad dreams (1988). i had seen this movie exactly one time since it was released, on opening night, and the image of dean cameron impaling his hand on a knife and then staggering assuredly down the hall while a wonderfully manic cover of sid vicious' cover of frank sinatra's my way announces his passage. all in all, this movie was lots of fun, with jennifer rubin and bruce abbott delivering typically engaging performances. a cult leader played with silky creepiness by richard lynch burns everyone up so that they can "love forever" and the lone survivor awakes from a coma 13 years only to find herself haunted by the lynch's declarations that she will be joining him and everyone else. good music and engaging performances from top to bottom, really enjoyed it.visiting hours (1982). i'm sort of in the middle on this one, which, regardless of anything, features lee grant, michael ironside, and william shatner, so, one is already ahead. it also seems to have a feminist agenda, which is deep enough and consistently addressed enough to be more than a gimmick, but is, at times executed in such a way as to make you wonder. i love that shatner is total sidekick/love interest, joining the other captain kirk, chris pine in wonder woman, as actors playing true second fiddle to their female co-stars. people seem to be constantly leaving and returning to the hospital in this movie. i mean constantly. an interesting entry into canada's storied horror career. didn't love it, didn't hate it. bears future viewings.

Bad Dreams had some clever ideas and a realistic psychological ending that impressed me; I had not seen this gem until now. Hippie girl realizes that the Charles Manson-like cult leader (played by always sinsiter, always creepy Richard Lynch) in hoping to capitalize on his psychotic fantasies of a freaky commune in the after-life by setting everyone on fire; by accident, hippie girl survives the community suicide and wakes from a coma years later, only to be haunted by psychotic episodes of silky-sick Lynch, an incompetent police detective and an overzealous psychiatrist obsessed with the use of psycho-hallucenagenic drugs. What's real? What's not? What's Memorex? A fun, smart film. Charles Manson vs Sigmeund Freud in hippie girl's head.Visiting Hours I saw this one when I was in high school. Michael Ironside (Scanners, V-The Final Battle and Starship Troopers) does creepy skullduggery like very few and he doesn't disappoint here, either. Linda Purl is the sexiest nurse ever captured on celluloid and made me apprecriate women in uniforms with ponytails like no other (wowzers!). William Shatner (on loan from T. J. Hooker and Star Trek II) does a subdued role in that crazy baby blue suit that would have made Murray Hamilton beam. Not necessarily a typical 80's slasher as much as a bloodier homage to Alfred Hitchcock and Dario Argento. Ironside becomes equally obsessed with two strong-willed womenfolk that challenge his sexual insecurities, but its the death mask of photos taken of his victims in his bedroom closet that creeps me out, and inspired the infamous one-sheet of the baleful skull over blackened hospital.

No subtitles for any language, or an other options. (Not that we really need a lot of dialogue to see this movie, but…) I just had to buy this for Visiting Hours, cuz it’s hard to find!. Picture quality on both dvds were not sharp like nowadays, but still good. Just dim the light and bring on the popcorn, when it gets quiet long enough…..BOO! Lol

Scream factory distribuye esta edición con dos dvd y las películas son difíciles de encontrar y ambas tienen su encanto. Bad dreams toma el concepto de cultos religiosos con finalidad de suicidios masivos y lo combina bien con terapias psicológicas grupales estilo Pesadilla en la calle del infierno 3. Este dvd tiene un breve detrás de cámaras, una serie de entrevistas como suele hacerlas la distribuidora y el final original. Visiting hours por otra parte es un "psycho killer" bastante interesante y poco valorado por la crítica de 1982, comparándola con un simple "slasher", pero que profundiza bien los traumas infantiles en la violencia adulta. El respectivo dvd solo tiene trailers cinematográficos. La compra en general fue buena, con un envío rápido y buen embalaje. Las cuatro estrellas son porque no hay subtitulaje en ningún idioma en ninguna de las películas.

I basically purchased this set because I really wanted "Bad Dreams", a favorite of mine since the 80's. I found it similar to "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3", but I always preferred "Bad Dreams." Besides, I'm a big Richard Lynch fan and he does a great job in this film. Overall, a good horror flick. As for the other movie, "Visiting Hours", not bad, could have been better. Again, a big Michael Ironside fan, and he saves the movie by being a real good "bad guy". Still, for the price I paid for this set, quite reasonable. Very satisfied.

Bought as a gift for my father.

Great old movies and great deal!

Very happy with this item