I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Normally I’d attribute it to the 2 liters of Monster Energy drink I normally consume while watching schlocky late night cinema, but I’ve been cutting back on that. So now when I finally do fall asleep I have some really weird dreams. One in particular I keep having is where I’m being chased by zombies in a city and when I try to drive away my car will only go 10 mph. Sure it looks like a Lamborghini but drives like a Prius. Then I realize that I actually have the mutant power of Spiderman and used my web slinging ability to climb to the top of the Sears towers. That’s where I discover Oprah Winfrey perched like a vulture in her pants suit gnawing on a chicken leg. It figures Oprah would be the one person to survive the zombie apocalypse. So she gave me keys to a free car and a Oprah book of the month club membership and I go swinging back to down to my car. It all ends when I try to peel out, and I find my tires have been replaced with large sprinkled doughnuts and there’s a monkey dressed as a bellhop in the passengers seat singing Celine Dion songs. That’s when I wake up in a cold sweat. Sure zombies and a benevolent Oprah I can handle, but not monkeys singing “My heart will go on”. Guess I should ease up on the Chinese food before bedtime.

Speaking of bad dreams. Dennis Quaid plays Alex, a psychic womanizer who uses his gift to predict the future, bet on horses and read girl’s minds. A former associate Dr. Novotny (Max von Sydow) hates seeing him squander his money on effeminate casual wear from the Penny’s catalog and gets him to join his classified government dream project instead. And you know when it’s secret and the government is involved someone is going to die. The military is using psychics to enter people’s dreams all in order to advance military science or in-dream banner ads which ever is more profitable. Alex, when he’s not gallivanting his boney torso around in his Underoos likes to play the saxophone Clinton-style and hit on lab technicians. Jane (Kate Capshaw) plays the queen of the babe lab technicians and works with Alex to sharpen his dream linking skills. They play card games, he reads her mind for a quick lite read and they get right to some train shagging during Jane’s power nap.

Alex starts warming up his dreamcatcher skills through some subconscious marital advising and construction stunt work all leading up to a big snake hunt in some little fat kids head. This was apparently during a time when science didn’t really need a specific purpose. Buddy has been having bad dreams of being stuck in a Tim Burton movie while being pursued by the Boogeyman and it’s been really cutting into his eating time, so Alex plugs his mind into Buddy’s brain and they do battle with a big demonic snake creature who wants to make little buddy into ground round. It’s a sort of Anne Coulter of the subconscious. Buddy succeeds in chopping the creatures head off with a big kill axe while Alex gives it a nice bear hug. I believe Buddy’s been doing a lot of free weights in his spare time.

Meanwhile back in Washington the president has been having nightmares of kids with bad acne jumping out of broom closets while nuclear blasts are going off all around them. The dreams are so bad that the president decides he wants to disarm all the nukes at the next Geneva convention. It’s obviously a plot by bunch of commies, so they must be destroyed, and the president is rushed into the dream institute to have him studied to end this horrible threat. The military dream program is headed up by Bob Blair. One of the most politically evil character’s ever to wear a polyester suit and yet they named him Bob. “Oh no!…tremble before the fear of…. Bob!” But Christopher Plummer can just ooze evil out of any character even if you stuck him in a Barney suit he’d still make children cry. Bob also has a hit squad in rented suits ready to run over phone booths on a moments notice, and his own pet psycho psychic, Tommy played perfectly by David Pat Kelly. Tommy enjoys stuffing his face with food while harassing Alex about whose the better dream-linker, and when he’s really bored he kills patients “Just for the kicks man.” Bob doesn’t want the military machine to stop churning out nukes, so he hires Tommy to try to dream assassinate the president at nap time.

Alex discovers the assassination plot thanks to the cunning investigative reporting by Norm from Cheers but then gets rick rolled out of a moving car before he can get the news back to Dr. Novotny whose already been killed by Bob’s goon squad. There’s a motorcycle road race and Alex gets chased down by Lincoln Continentals at the race tracks narrowly escaping into the back of a horse trailer. That’s a lot of horses a** for one trailer. Alex works his way back to the institute just in time to remote link up with the president who is dreaming he’s on a Amtrak in Hell, next stop downtown Armagedonville. They fight subway zombies, ninjas, and radioactive wolf-beasts while being pursued by Tommy who just impaled the train conductor with freddy fingers and turned into a giant Snakeman. I had that exact same dream once but I was in high school and I was in my underwear. Oh wait… maybe that wasn’t a dream.

Dreamscape’s a pretty fun little 80’s flick with big nods to influencing Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm St., complete with a bad guy sporting Freddyish finger blades, and a giant nightmarish snake creature. I saw this movie when I was 10 years old and back then the Snakeman scared the heck out of me, but this time around I found it rather goofy. Dennis Quaid without a shirt was the most horrifying thing about it. Retroman Steve says check it and be sure to not eat Chinese food before bedtime.

- 1 motorcycle chase with crash and bale
- 2 nuclear explosions
- 2 Snakemen
- Multiple radioactive mutants
- Norm from Cheers cameo
- Steel beam circus acts
- Train shaggin’
- Emergency heart removal
- Lee press on Freddy nails
- Numchuck chucking
- Mutant dogs

7.1 out of 10

“it’s Dennis Quaid-tastic”

Check out the trailer for Dreamscape

If there’s one thing we at Lost Highway strive for is figuring out new ways to fill up mantel space. I blame that show “Trading Spaces.” I’ve found that I’ve really learned to “explored my space” with a mantel full of shruken heads I bought on Ebay and wind chimes made of old beer cans but now I can add something new. Yes, a Total Film Movie Blog Award for Best Cult Blog. Our plans for world domination through snarky reviews are slowly coming together…one blog award at a time. We’d like to thank Total Film Magazine for this honor and a big thanks to all our fans who voted for us. Well all except for you Wade. We never really liked you.

I gotta admit I prefer budget lodging in this Michigan economy. Just give me a room with a bed and a TV and I’m living the life of a king. It probably comes from my dad whose idea of a family vacation was going up north with us in the back of the pickup so we’d just slide around like loose change. Apparently he thought we could just go limp if we were in an accident. Luckily we’d only stop for some deer venison jerky or to close up that loose tailgate. Once at our destination he could always find the cheapest hotel in the area. I kept holding out for the possibility of a pool but my dad would just say “They charge you extra for that…I can just spray you down with the hose out back.”

The motel would have signs advertising amenities like “AIR” or “COLOR TV” usually placed over a flickering neon sign with a letter or two burned out. Yes enjoy your stay at the “HO EL” where you too can fall asleep to the gentle sounds of a bug zapper killing it’s prey or play that always popular game of “name that stain.”

The room would usually smell of dank mothballs and your feet would sink immediately into an inch deep matting of wall to wall shag carpet. All this fenced in by your standard issued 60’s wood paneling. I can still feel those walls closing in on me like I was Han Solo in that Death Star garbage room scene. “Wait, there’s something moving in the carpet!” If you were lucky you’d get a bed with those vibrating magic fingers and for a mere quarter you could get your inner organs reorganized or your spine realigned without those hefty chiropractor bills. Now that I have my own kids I too find myself drawn to those roadside budget lodgings but I know to always keep a can of bug spray handy and look for one with a heated pool. So if you’re ever on Lost Highway I suggest Big Marge’s Sunset Motel. The Sunset has clean rooms, great rates, and the morning coffee will put hair on your chest. Marge is proof of that.

Speaking of hotels you don’t want to stay overnight at. The Grand Island Hotel in “Bloody New Year” redefines the term “tourist trap.” A group of middle aged looking British teens after a long day of harassing carnies crash their sail boat on a remote island. There they find a strange Bavarian looking hotel seemingly abandoned and hastily decorated for a New Years party. Turns out an experimental government plane took a nose dive on the island back in the 50’s creating this sort of time rip in space where the dead are stuck haunting the hotel. Sorta like the line at Secretary of State only for the undead so rightfully the spirits there are a bit cranky. At first things seem pretty normal, maids service is sporadic, beds get turned down mysteriously. There’s also open bars and peeping toms, but nothing you wouldn’t otherwise expect at your Hotel 6. Unfazed the soggy group find some vintage clothes left over from a Happy Days rerun to change into and proceed to investigate the rest of resort. Downstairs there’s a B-movie marathon playing on a makeshift theater showing a much more interesting “Attack of the Brain Stem” film but then they cut over to some lame home movies of the hotel instead. “Bring back the brain stems!”

Things do liven up a bit when an Arabian sheik fresh from the set of Aladdin leaps out of the screen and kills Spud “I’m Alrighta” with a scratch to the face. A good reminder to always wash your hands! This horrifying event doesn’t seem to affect the rest of the group which range from apathy to boredom “Oh bullocks Spud’s dead… maybe we should wrap him in tinfoil and poke holes in him.”

The group wisely decide to split up to make the killing go more quickly  Tom and his girlfriend head off to investigate a nearby beach house and try to get in some nooky time. Once inside they they get attacked by a malevolent fish net and a demonic end table that they impale with a fish hook. If only they had learned early on the true horrors of Red Lobster decor!

Meanwhile Rick and his girlfriend head down to the beach front for some afternoon clam digging but are soon drawn to mysterious sounds of laughter in the nearby woods. The sound gets louder as they approach the center of the island and find themselves in an arborist nightmare of giggling trees and laughing shrubs. The chia-pet demons start dive bombing them so they run out of there faster than Mark Wahlberg in a crappy Shyamalan film. They end up at at crash site of vintage WWII action plane where a zombie pilot’s head explodes and ruins Rick’s stylin suit jacket.

But then things get weird…

Like a Scooby Doo episode the carny gang from the mainland appear on the island fresh from their rowboat workout to terrorize those darn meddlin’ kids. People start turning into fondue faced zombies and  carnies get their heads ripped off like twist caps on soda bottles. There’s disappearing maids, dandruff storms, elevators that soak up patrons like big bounty towels and there’s evil furniture banisters with Kung-Fu grip. I think I might have hallucinated that last part but I swear at one point they get attacked by ping pong balls and ride a billiards table like a surf board in a zombie disco. These are just some of the many amenities you too can enjoy at the Grand Hotel island!

The guest list dwindles down as most of them now are Demonites under hotel management. Rick and his girlfriend not wanting a bad case of bed hair or getting disemboweled battle their way back to shore to find the getaway rowboat. Will they discover the secrets of Grand Island? Will they escape the ghosts evil clutches? Was Mr. Bean the only thing funny to ever come out of Britain? All this and more can be answered in “Bloody New Year.”

I was half expecting Bloody New Year  to just be another run of the mill holiday themed slasher but it turned out to be a fun little creepfest with some obvious nods to The Shining..well except without all those pesky things like plot or acting to get in the way. Retroman Says check it out “and be sure to bring a clean pair of Alan Whickers you bloody land lover, or I’ll box yer blimey ears you bugger. Gots No time for Rumpy Pumpy!”

- 1 exploding zombie pilot
- 1 shotgun zombie blast and dismemberment
- 1 neck corkscrew
- 2 banister demon Muppets
- Carnival boat parades
- Peeping tom ghosts
- Multiple arm choppings
- Paranormal furniture movers
- Invisible bed turnover services
- Sheik scratch fever
- End tables demon possessions
- Laughing bushes
- Death by boat propeller
- Attacking fish nets
- Gut punching
- Killer ping pong balls

8.2 out of 10

“ohhh Bullocks.”

Check out the trailer for Horror Hotel (bloody New Year)

We have just been nominated by Total Film (a top-rated film magazine from the UK) for Best Cult Blog. This is a HUGE honor for everyone here at Lost Highway. Please show your support by clicking here and voting for Lost Highway in the Best Cult Blog category. You have until Sunday, January 25th to cast your vote. And to anyone out there who is on the fence about voting, rest assured your vote really will count this time. Thank you for your continued support.