Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Dreaming Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 27, 2022

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as a part of All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror.

All the Haunts Be Ours advertises itself as "the most comprehensive collection of its kind", which may initially beg the question as to "kind of what?". But the release also comes with a front cover sobriquet proclaiming it "a compendium of folk horror", which may then beg the next obvious question as to what exactly "folk horror" is. In that regard, this set begins with a fascinating and diverse documentary which has its own subtitle referencing folk horror, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, which provides a veritable glut of clips from international films which director (and this entire set's guiding light) Kier-La Janisse has assembled to help define the genre, but perhaps the best answer is to simply echo a certain Supreme Court Justice named Potter Stewart who was trying to decide a case involving supposed pornography, and who famously opined, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it. . ."

A kind of interesting if controversial thesis was presented a few years ago which argued that the trauma of living through the Holocaust was passed on genetically to children of survivors, and in a way, that same underlying tenet is what propels the interesting if sometimes slightly wobbly The Dreaming. The film begins with a text crawl giving some history of whalers and aboriginals clashing hundreds of years ago, a crawl which also at least alludes, as does some opening imagery, to the aboriginal concept of Dreamtime. The main narrative initially seems to be about a professor named Bernard Thornton (Arthur Wignam), who, along with a crew, is investigating a mysterious cave, so that horror movie fans may be initially thinking of cheesy old time offerings like Beast from Haunted Cave. And in fact, Bernard may in fact have encountered a "beast" of sorts, even if he's not completely consciously aware of it.

The story then segues to Arthur's daughter, a doctor named Cathy (Penny Cook), who is first seen attempting to save an injured aboriginal girl. Cathy is soon beset with troubling visions which would probably be more accurately termed as nightmares rather than dreams, and in fact these unwanted events seem to erupt into her waking life at various moments as well. These hallucinations (or whatever they are) often put Cathy in peril at the hands of what appear to be ghosts or spirits of whalers of yore, who obviously are on the hunt for more than Moby Dick (so to speak). There's a mystery involved, though the fact that director and co-writer Mario Andreacchio is on record as stating The Dreaming ended up not being the film he had originally envisioned may be part of the reason why that mystery seems to get sidelined with another subplot.

That particular plot points refers back to Bernard, and what increasingly seems like a near incestuous relationship with his daughter, one that ends up spilling over into some Grand Guignol hysterics as the film winds down to a perhaps unintentionally comic climax. This is one of a spate of films like Peter Weir's acclaimed The Last Wave, Nicolas Roeg's acclaimed Walkabout, Werner Herzog's acclaimed Where the Green Ants Dream, and even this film's "disc sibling", Kadaicha, which seek to perhaps "rehabilitate" Aboriginal culture and history within the context of what the "white man" (and/or woman) thinks about it all. Andreacchio mentions in the commentary included on this disc as a supplement that he got in trouble for equating a white woman's dreamtime with Aboriginals' dreamtime, but in a way, the film makes the point that "genetic trauma" is not the exclusive domain of one race or culture.

The Dreaming Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Dreaming is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Severin's insert booklet states this was "restored in 2K from the best surviving positive print". The results are surprisingly decent, all things considered, though there is a pretty wide variance in quality that is on display. In its best moments, as perhaps seen in screenshots like the first one I've uploaded to accompany this review, densities are secure, and the palette is beautifully suffused, with typically very good to excellent detail levels. In less fulsome moments, color can definitely falter, and detail levels can also be diminished. There's recurrent damage which becomes impossible to ignore toward the end of the film when long green scratches inhabit the frame (see screenshot 14). As such, there are moments here that probably approach a 4.0 score on the high end, and revert to a 3.0 score on the low end, so consider my final score a kind of average.

The Dreaming Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Dreaming features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track which probably doesn't evidence quite the same amounts of variability as the video side of things, but which still has noticeable age related wear and tear, including background hiss and occasional crackling. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, and some of the kind of spooky effects (including what I assume is a didgeridoo) reverberate with sufficient force. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Dreaming Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Mario Andreacchio, Moderated by Film Historian Jarret Gahan


• Trailer (HD; 2:08)

The Dreaming Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Quite a bit of The Dreaming is viscerally compelling, but the film's decision to tip over into what amounts to a "possession" of sorts gives the film a probably unwanted cheap feeling as it builds to its finale. Technical merits are somewhat variable, but basically solid, and the commentary is also interesting, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.