We love Bruce McDonald. We loved Pontypool. Dreamland incorporates Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, writer Tony Burgess, and McDonald in the director's chair.
Pontypool was wonderful at building suspense about an unknown force. Dreamland is a chaotic mess.
McHattie plays a dual role as a strung-out heroin-addict jazz trumpet player and a hitman who works for Hercules (American actor Henry Rollins). Hercules, who is into child trafficking, wants the pinky finger of the trumpet player.
The hitman doesn't like the child trafficking element. This includes his neighbour Olivia, whom Hercules has kidnapped. The hitman attacks Hercules and rescues Olivia for the moment.
American actor Juliette Lewis, who worked with McDonald in Picture Claire, plays the Countess, whose brother is the vampire who will be Olivia's soon-to-be husband. Olivia is all of 14. Lewis is great in an oddball role but doesn't have a lot to do here.
The oddball and disturbing elements might be okay if the film was more endearing as a cohesive work. Dreamland is a smattering of scenes designed to be gross without being effective or interesting. No one is having fun in this film, not even McHattie in a dual role. The trumpet player barely functions as a human being in the film.
Tony Burgess, who wrote the original novel Pontypool Changes Everything and the screenplay for the Pontypool film adaptation, co-wrote the Dreamland screenplay with Patrick Whistler.
Even if this is not your scene, the question to ask whether this is still a good film even within this genre. Those fans deserve a better written fate. Dreamland is lost in a drug-induced world of torture for no apparent purpose.
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We've waited 4 years since McDonald's last film Weirdos (2016), which remains a charming film. Dreamland (2020) is not charming on any level.
If you are looking for a gross, inconsistent, not terribly interesting Canadian film shot in Luxembourg and Belgium, you are in for a treat. As for Bruce McDonald, you can't win them all.
Dreamland is available on Amazon Prime Video and on demand in Canada.
video credit: YouTube/ReelSuspects
photo credit: Dreamland film
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