Scream Dream - Visual Vengeance

This is my first Donald Farmer experience (if you don’t count seeing his movies discussed on Red Letter Media’s Best of the Worst videos), and I’m not sure if I’ll be delving back in anytime soon. But for those who are fans, Visual Vengeance has your back with this new blu-ray release. 

At first glance, Scream Dream appealed to me on a lot of levels. It’s a metal movie with Satanic panic elements, and it’s filled with terribly funny performances (that first dude is amazing, as is the record exec), and the new artwork made it look like it could be a hidden gem. Then I turned it on and realized just how low budget this thing is. 

By Farmer’s own admission, the budget was less than $5,000. Knowing that is important for your enjoyment of the film because if you go into this expecting a traditional horror film, you’ll probably turn it off ten minutes in. 

I stuck it out, though, and came away with a few laughs, unintentional as they were. The special effects, janky as they are, were decent for the budget (more on that later). And that title song has been stuck in my head ever since I watched this a couple days ago. It’s not a good song, I don’t think, but there’s something to be said for something that’s capable of becoming an earworm, right? 

And there’s something to be said for people who made low-budget stuff like this back when it was much harder. Now with AI and phone cameras being so good, making shitty no-budget movies is easier than ever. But back in the ‘80s you had to hustle to get shit made. You had to find some real collaborators and work with distributors and put in a lot of fucking work. I respect that even if the final result isn’t something I love.

So yeah, Scream Dream isn’t my thing. But the behind the scenes stuff intrigued me, and Visual Vengeance went above and beyond in that department.

Transfer and Special Features 

Look, this is a shot-on-video (SOV) movie, so the blu-ray aspect of it is a little silly. But sure, I feel safe saying this is the best this movie has ever looked. 

There’s an audio commentary with Farmer that I skipped, but only because I watched the nearly hour-long interview with him, which I enjoyed. He gets into how such a low budget movie gets made, in which he points out that you make the movie that is possible. In other words, he had access to a club and a house band, so he made a horror movie with a musical element to it. 

The club didn’t shut down or anything. He was just friends with the owner, who was cool with him filming while they were open. And the band was happy to contribute, as well. Overall, I think I found the interview with Farmer more interesting than the film.

The interview with the actor is okay, but he does the whole thing from his shower, for some reason. And that distracted me to the point that I don’t remember much of what he said.

There’s an interview with an actress, as well, and I do find interviews like this interesting because these are not stars, so I like hearing their stories of how they came to be in these movies and what they’re up to now.

The interview with Rick Gonzalez is interesting since the effects are pretty good (except for the hand puppet) for such a micro-budget. He kept calling the movie “Scream Dreams,” which I enjoyed.

The demon suit was too big for the body double. Apparently if she had turned around there would've been visible duct tape.

The budget makes sense now as Gonzalez points out that most of their props were from other movies.

On the physical side of the special features, Visual Vengeance always has great new artwork and reversible sleeves with original art. There’s also a mini-poster and the usual VHS stickers. The most unique addition is the fake ticket stub for the Michelle Shock concert and a guitar pick. Little touches like that make releases like this special for fans.

Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes 

The subtitles were nice, and a necessity. Still, at times even the subtitle person gives up and just goes with “indistinct.”

It's a thankless job to have to scream for over a full minute of screen time, but I was relieved when the naked lady at the beginning was killed. Her screaming was awful.

Something tells me that the lady at the beginning with the chainsaw has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

“I need that for my car payment!:

“So you get behind a little. We're gonna rock!”

“You go out there and tell that dyke to shove that microphone up her tight ass!”

“You are just the drummer’s fucking girlfriend. That's all!”

The demon sock puppet is great.

Even at sixty-eight minutes, this was a slog.

Tequila Sunrise - Arrow 4K

Tequila Sunrise (available for pre-order now) was a rental store staple for me that I would always see on the shelf as a child, but never rented because, you know, it’s not exactly a kids movie based on that title. When I finally checked it out years later as a big fan of both Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell, I came away disappointed. When this new release from Arrow was announced, I decided to check it out because maybe I was still too young to appreciate it that first time. Turns out this is just okay. 

This is a movie completely reliant on star power. Without Gibson, Russell, Pfeiffer, and Julia I doubt this movie is remembered at all. The fact that it’s not that remembered today even with this cast says it all. 

Written and directed by Robert Towne (the guy who famously wrote Chinatown and much less famously wrote and directed Ask the Dust), Tequila Sunrise is about lifelong friends on opposite sides of the law who both fall in love with a restaurant owner. All the inherent conflict should make this very compelling, but it all seems uneventful. There’s a low energy to the film that makes the high stakes of it all feel low. 

But all these stars are in their prime and are so watchable that it still ends up being okay. It’s just that it should be great. Perhaps my expectations were too high and misplaced. The love triangle element isn’t that interesting to me, and that takes up more of the plot than the drug smuggling. I simply didn’t care who Pfeiffer ended up with, mainly because Russell is a bit of a shithead in this, and it doesn’t make much sense why she’s giving him any chance at all. But then again, her other option is a former drug smuggler who nearly gets her killed for simply knowing him, so maybe she just has poor taste in men?

Beyond that, I guess I wanted more of a Michael Mann experience, in which the film goes on vibes more than plot. I needed a Miami Vice scene in which some intricate detail is being explained but the sound drowns out as a character stares off into the ocean. But Towne isn’t capable of that since he’s a screenwriter first, and a director second. 

Despite that, Tequila Sunrise has its beautiful moments. It better, with a title like that. The standout scene is a dialogue between Russell and Gibson during a sunset. If more scenes were like that, I would have at least enjoyed this more as a visual experience, but moments like that are rare. 

All that written, this doesn’t get an Arrow 4K if it isn’t beloved. People clearly like this movie; I wish I was one of them. Maybe it’s as simple as being too young when it first came out. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure, I’m done trying to love this movie.

Random Thoughts

Despite my misgivings, I must admit the film does feature tequila, sunrises (more sunsets, though), and Tequila Sunrises (Mel Gibson's character drinks them). So there's that.

My main memory of this film beyond seeing it at the video store is its appearance in Interview with the Vampire. Louis is seen leaving a screening of Tequila Sunrise before he finds a decrepit Lestat. It’s part of him talking about being able to see the sun again through movies. I get that, but does that mean he watches any movie with "sun" in the title? What a fucking dildo.

Transfer and Special Features

Arrow is one of those distributors you can trust to handle a film with care, and that’s the case here. That sunset scene looks great, as does the rest of the film.

The standout of this new release was a new interview with producer Thom Mount (there’s also a commentary with him, but I don’t care enough about this movie to check that out). He’s as low energy as the movie, but he’s candid as hell. He acknowledges that current Mel Gibson is not great, but back then he seemed great! Somehow he brings up merkins and pasties in regards to the Pfeiffer and Gibson sex scene. And he says Robert Towne was so checked out that famed cinematographer Conrad Hall was brought in not only as DP, but also to shadow direct when Towne was late to set (which was a daily occurrence).

An interview with second AD Robert Roda confirms the Towne stuff as he talks about it being rare to have a second AD at all. It sounds like this was a team effort when it came to directing.

There’s a retrospective about Towne’s entire career, as well. 

And there’s a truly odd interview with Lala Sloatman. The interview itself isn’t odd, as she goes through her career, and her time working on the film. It’s odd because she plays “Sin Sister #2,” a character with five seconds of screen time. I really want to know why they tracked her down for this. She’s related to the Zappas and seems to know a lot of famous folk, so maybe she’s friends with the producer of this new release or something. 

There’s also the usual Arrow stuff like a reversible sleeve and a collectible booklet with essays about the film.