The Dreaming (1988 film)
The Dreaming (1988), AKA Dreaming
Summary
"A burial ground is unearthed, a girl dies, an ancient curse lives on. She uncovered a place where ancient mysteries survive and visions are real. Are they dreams, nightmares, or premonitions?" A doctor treats a sick aborigine, who had defied a tribal taboo and visited a sacred cave. The doctor soon finds herself having disturbing dreams related to a 200-year-old mystery.
Details
- Release Date: 1988
- Country/Language: Australia, English
- Genres/Technical: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
- Setting: 1980s Australia, Dreamlands
- Runtime: 1 hr 27 min
- Starring: Arthur Dignam, Penny Cook, Gary Sweet
- Director: Mario Andreacchio
- Writer: Mario Andreacchio, Rob George, Stephanie McCarthy, Craig Lahiff, Terry Jennings
- Producer/Production Co: FGH, Genesis Films, International Film Management
- View Trailer: (link)
- Wikipedia: (link)
- IMDB Page: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: not rated (perhaps equivalent to PG or PG-13 for Violence, Profanity, Adult Content)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)
In addition to the Dreamtime/Dreamlands/Dreaming theme and dark Gothic secrets for characters to drag into the light, there is an H.P. Lovecraft related in-joke in the film. As one character drives to Kangaroo Island towards the end of the movie, in search of her father, her car passes a roadsign which reads "Innsmouth 2 km".
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
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Synopsis (SPOILERS)
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
After an aboriginal tomb is opened by archaeologist, his daughter, a doctor, unsuccessfully treats a young aboriginal girl in a hospital emergency room for some unspecified injury. When the girl dies, the attending doctor begins to have bad dreams and waking visions of a horrible past event in aboriginal history; these threatening images from the Dreamtime involve a group of whalers who came ashore two centuries earlier to rape and murder a defenseless aboriginal tribe, and this event has formed a corruption within the Dreaming, now incorporated into the spiritual landscape, in which the evil spirits of these murderers roam the Dreamlands in search of victims. They have set their sights on the doctor, who is led to solve the mystery of the slaughter of the aboriginal tribe.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
Associated Mythos Elements
- film: compare loosely to Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975 film), Last Wave (1977 film), Celia (1989 film)
- location: Dreamlands
- concept: Dreaming
Keeper Notes
- To solve a mystery buried in the past, the investigators must enter the Dreamlands, where scars of the dark secrets surrounding the mystery linger, allowing that horror to fester and survive, haunting the waking world.
