No doubt about it, NIGHTDREAMS stands as one of the greatest adult films ever made and a bona fide visionary masterpiece to boot. Prior to winning over the midnight cult crowd with their subsequent CAFE FLESH, the producing and directing team of Stephen Sayadian (a/k/a "Rinse Dream") and Francis Delia (a/k/a "F.X. Pope") all but revolutionized a genre in grave danger of turning stale with this bizarre, cryptic, borderline psycho-analytic (phew !) fable that gave way to a whole slew of inevitably inferior imitations, some of the better examples being Kim Christy's endearingly odd SQUALOR MOTEL and the late Chuck Vincent's SEX CRIMES 2084. While (debatably) more "conventionally" erotic than its follow-up, not to mention its seriously warped '90s shot on video sequels, the original continues to elicit the most disparate responses from whoever comes into contact with it. Be that as it may, love it or loathe it, NIGHTDREAMS remains a movie that's absolutely impossible to forget.
Taking a startling break from playing hormonally charged schoolgirls (think Kirdy Stevens' chart-busting original TABOO and its enjoyably brain-damaged sequel), all time fan favorite Dorothy LeMay caught both friend and foe unaware with her devastating turn as the apparently psychotic Mrs. Van Houten, so named after one of the members of Charles Manson's "family". Doubling as guinea pig for experimenting psychiatrists Jennifer West (formerly "CeCe Malone" on Gary Graver's effective mom 'n' her wayward girls epic TANGERINE) and Andy Nichols (CAFE's indelible Max Melodramatic himself), she's kept in a padded cell, ranting and raving at her unseen jailers whilst masturbating maniacally over a series of imaginative fantasies, ultimately fitting as pieces of a lifeline puzzle from cradle to grave. Childhood innocence acquires a disturbing twist through Dorothy's nursery number with a giant Jack in the Box, but one of several stud performances by the late Kevin James on this occasion, against the unsettling wall of sound created through the use of crazy, squeaky, giggling voices. Fashionable, magazine-touted experimenting with "lifestyles" leads to a threesome with water-pipe-chugging Arab sheiks (in addition to James, Ken Starbuck also performs multiple duties) and the justly celebrated cowgirl campfire roundelay with the awesome Danielle (who would cement her carnal reputation as Joe Sherman's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) and an actress identified as "Monique" who eventually became Jacqueline Lorians, star of Jerome Bronson's overlooked THE LOVE SCENE.
An unsettling bathroom rape scene liberally borrows visual compositions from Brian De Palma's DRESSED TO KILL, while the witty kitchen sequence supplies co-creator Sayadian with a memorable cameo as a sax-playing slice of Wonder Bread (don't ask !) performing a joyous rendition of the Jerome Kern standard "Old Man River". Appropriately, trips to hell and heaven are up next, the first providing a too brief intervention of fan favorite Loni Sanders as some sort of demon girl eager to please babbling Beëlzebub Starbuck (Ron Jeremy would have been a natural for this part) and the latter - an achingly beautiful pas de deux performed by Dotty and Kev among swirling clouds - superbly scored with Erik Satie's "Gymnopédies". An unnerving final twist back at the lab changes the movie's viewpoint entirely yet makes perfect sense within its skewed internal logic, the (substance-induced ?) brainchild of "Herbert W. Day" a/k/a Jerry Stahl prior to gaining real world respectability with his critically lauded "Permanent Midnight".
In addition to its intellectual properties, NIGHTDREAMS also boasts some of the finest production values ever in porn, starting with Delia's near perfect camera positioning that doesn't just register but actually draws audiences into the fantasist's diseased state of mind, especially when witnessed on a theater screen, as it has been my incredible fortune to experience at what is presumably the last remaining real (i.e. 35mm film projecting) adult cinema in the world, the unsung ABC on the Boulevard Adolphe Max in Brussels. Jimmy Rigg's so stylized it hurts set design adds to the whole mind-bending impression with blatantly artificial, studio-bound decor emphasizing the claustrophobic infinity, the narrative snake eating its own tail structure.
Cult credibility of both this particular film and its insanely talented instigators is further heightened by the soundtrack contribution of indie legend Wall of Voodoo and its immediately recognizable lead singer Stan Ridgeway whose psychedelic version of the Johnny Cash creation "Ring of Fire" proves perfectly suited to the contorting choreography of the cowgirl Sapphic scorcher. Innovative, in part from being the work of comparative industry outsiders, NIGHTDREAMS singlehandedly provided an apotheosis for adult movies just prior to the genre dwindling down to a mere specter of its promising former self as the new medium of video stepped in and took over, illustrating all too eloquently that you really can't go home anymore so you better cherish the memories...