Seriously dark dream (Severity *****)

This is the most unpleasant dream-film I have ever experienced.  I never fail to enjoy the memory of my visions, but this one genuinely stunned me.  I had it while napping one early afternoon about a year ago, just after watching scenes from the early Eighties horror film The Keep (1) on YouTube.  The Keep has the interesting premise of having a bunch of Nazis encounter a manifestation of ultimate evil – a demon, imprisoned in the Romanian keep of the title which they are occupying.  The dream was only partially influenced by this film, however; it seemed to have more to do with the 80s sci-fi adventure Salute of the Jugger, which I had also watched recently at that time.  Salute of the Jugger (2) is set in a post apocalyptic desert world, in which teams of warriors known as ‘Juggers’ battle for goods and prestige by playing games of what is essentially a debased and highly violent version of American football.  The dream was also heavily resonant of that most downright bizarre of body horror movies Society (3).  In its final act our hero discovers that his entire life as an LA rich kid has been a build up to becoming something worse than a meal for the shape shifting moneyed classes of Beverly Hills.

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The VHS box art for the film is misleading.  It correctly locates the film in the desert, but the presence of a giant warrior robot on the cover is at best only partially accurate.   The story concerns a barbaric society living in a post apocalyptic desert world, ruled by a savage, priest-like aristocracy.  The film’s protagonist has been captured by this eminently cruel band and remains imprisoned inside the walls of their desert compound for the best part of the film, wherein he is tormented by threats of a horrible fate!  Meanwhile there are some frighteningly intense scenes as the youth of the aristocracy perform their initiation rites by way of sporting feats.  They wear huge baroque suits of armour, in which they resemble manga style robots (which is as close to actual robots as the film gets) (4).

As I watch the film I become aware that I have seen it before.  Indeed I am familiar with it – right up, that is, till just before the very last scene.  If I have watched this scene I have done so only once.  Hazy half memories of intensely harrowing and horrible imagery have led me to avoid it ever since.  Now, without quite knowing why, I am going to sit it through!

It is night-time in the desert.  Surrounded by his relations and other members of the ruling caste, the chief of the society stands on the ramparts of the compound, facing inward.  He is going to open up a portal to the ‘Other World’, and thus precipitate the destruction of the hero (and presumably great ill for the rest of the world!).  The ritual involves an act of obscene transformation.  The head of the chief gorges madly with blood and turns a liver red.  It distends and the boggling eyes, vividly white by contrast and with no irises, protrude halfway out of the distorted face (5).  Inexorably the swelling continues and as it does so the crown of the head expands toweringly out of all proportion (6).  Before the gathered ensemble the portal begins to open – a disc of dancing primary colours.  But something is wrong with the chief!  He cannot sustain the transformation and the portal is wavering.  The last shot I see is a close-up of his face.  The balloon of his head has sagged completely and flattened out, so that his features are now over twice as wide as before.  Bathed in the fading light of the portal and wreathed in wisps of sickly smoke (7), his now livid and ghostly visage is disintegrating into folds of skin.  The eyes have shrunken into pearly red orbs, glowing dimly before they fade like dying embers.

(1) The Keep (1983)
(2) Salute of the Jugger (1989)
(3) Society (1989)
(4) A manga robot
(5) Concept art for the Vogons in the film version of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
(6) A real-life exceptionally serious facial deformity
(7) From the logo of the film Big Trouble in Little China (1986)