I remember seeing this failed chiller from Palace Pictures back when it was originally released in 1988 and thought it was okay-ish at the time (despite the pretty damning reviews it received) but, re-watching it for the first time in 20+ years, it has to be said that Harley Cokeliss' attempt at a British NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is a real dud. Jemma Redgrave is bland beyond belief in the central role (even more so having seen her aunt Vanessa being so damn fantastic in THE DEVILS a few days earlier), the otherworldly visuals have dated badly and seem ripped off of both ELM STREET and HELLRAISER, and as for Timothy Spall and Jimmy Nail... well, at least Nail is less embarrassing here than he was in HOWLING 2, but he's surely no-one's idea of a bogeyman.

It's little wonder that DREAM DEMON has yet to make it to DVD when most other Palace Pictures made it to digital years ago. It's ambitious, I guess, but conceptually convoluted (a real mess, in fact - as is perhaps to be expected from the writer of SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN) and, alongside Clive Barker's UNDERWORLD, has to rank as one of the most initially exciting (when previewed in the pages of FANGORIA) but ultimately disappointing British genre efforts of the 1980s.