At the centre of Dream No Evil there is a fairly simple story about psychosis, in which the main character, Grace MacDonald (played as an adult by sexy redhead Brooke Mills) conjures up a make-believe world in which she is reunited with her long-lost father. It's the off-beat manner in which writer/director John Hayes tells his tale that makes the film so unique and compelling.

Dream No Evil opens with Grace as a young child in an orphanage, convinced that one day her daddy will come and take her away. He never does, and Grace grows up to become a mentally fragile young woman working as an assistant to preacher Rev. Paul Jessie Bundy (Michael Pataki) in his circus-style roadshow, and engaged to Jessie's brother, Dr. Patrick Bundy (Paul Prokop). When Grace gets a call from an undertaker/pimp for elderly hookers (Marc Lawrence),telling her that he has found her father, she drives to the funeral parlor/brothel, where she sees her daddy's corpse. No sooner has Grace wished that her old man was still alive, and up he hops off the slab to kill the mortician.

Grace leaves Jessie's travelling show to live with her father (Edmond O'Brien) on a ranch, but dear old daddy's murderous urges prevent her from finding happiness. Jessie gets his head bashed in when he tries to seduce Grace and local cop Sheriff Mike Pender (William Guhl) is impaled by a scythe (a hilariously bad scene). As events unfold, a voice-over makes it abundantly clear that it is Grace who is the real killer. When Patrick turns up to tell Grace that he's leaving her for his co-worker Shirley (Donna Anders),the loopy lass goes crazy with an axe.

There's no gore to speak of in this horror oddity (or nudity for that matter),and the performances are merely adequate (albeit suitably strange),but Hayes' bizarre directorial style and the film's occasional surreality make it required viewing for fans of psychotronic movies: Grace's panty-flashing Irish jig is a marvel to behold, and is followed by one of the strangest slow-motion scenes I have ever witnessed. Grace's bedroom transformation comes out of the blue and Shirley's bloody roast duck supper is peculiar to say the least. While I would hesitate to call Dream No Evil a good film, I would definitely call it an interesting one. Give it a go: you might like it.

"Dream No Evil" is a very odd and understandably obscure early 70's shocker that never really seems to kick-start. It's a combination of confusing story lines, lack of excitement, unappealing characters and really low-budgeted production values. Grace is searching for her father and this is slowly becoming more than an obsession. As a child in the orphanage already, she was screaming "Daddy!" in her sleep, much to the annoyance of the nuns in charge. As a grown up but heavily catholic girl, she found the ideal way to seek her father. Grace and her future brother-in-low run a traveling church/circus. I kid you not, it's a church AND a circus in ONE! Here's how that works: the brother-in-law preaches the word of God to a bunch of deeply religious villagers and, in order to literally demonstrate his "bad people descend to hell", Grace dives down from a great height. All this serves exclusively to illustrate that you shouldn't give in to sins like lust and premarital sex. That's awesome! Unfortunately, that's about the only awesome thing about "Dream no Evil". At the same time, this movie also contains, hands down, THE most boring death sequence ever filmed; when the undertakes gets stabbed in the back in the mortuary. First, it takes him multiple long seconds to realize he has been stabbed. Then he *slowly* backs up against the wall, stands there for a few seconds again, only to move towards a chair and sit at a table. Then, yet another few seconds later, he pulls a jar full of embalming fluid over his clothing and finally drops dead on the floor! Yay! How can you have any hope to have stumbled upon a hidden 70's exploitation gem if even the murder sequences are dull and tedious like this? "Dream No Evil" is easily one of the most pointless films I ever sat through, regardless of the obvious atmospheric and creepy potential. Grace finds her daddy, eventually, and he turns out to be an aggressive tyrant. Or is he? Maybe it's all just a dream? Who cares, seriously? There's a narrator with a very sleep- inducing voice trying to talk into the plot and structure, without success I may add.

Troubled young Grace MacDonald (well played by ravishing redhead Brooke Mills) works as an assistant for itinerant carnie faith healer preacher Reverend Jesse Bundy (essayed with tremendous rip-snorting gusto by Michael Pataki) and can't get over her obsession with finding her long lost father. Grace eventually runs across her pop Timothy MacDonald (a fine, robust performance by Edmond O'Brien),but he turns out to be crazy, overprotective and dangerous. Or is Grace just imagining that her dad is still alive? Writer/director John Hayes relates the compellingly quirky story at a leisurely pace and does an expert job of creating and maintaining a creepy, surreal, dreamlike atmosphere. Paul Hipp's bright, lush cinematography and Jaime Mendoza-Nava's spooky, melancholy score further enhance the pervasive mood of abstract eeriness. Moreover, there's nice supporting performances by Paul Prokop as Grace's kindly, concerned fiancé Dr. Patrick Bundy, Marc Lawrence as a sinister undertaker who works as a pimp on the side, and Arthur Franz as a helpful psychiatrist. Despite a heavy languid air and the often murky plot (a grimly sober narrator occasionally chimes in to give the oblique story some much-needed coherence),this intriguingly ambiguous picture somehow manages to cast a strangely hypnotic spell on the viewer. An interesting oddity.