Beyond Dream's Door

Beyond Dream's Door is a 1989 American supernatural horror film written, directed and scored by Jay Woelfel (in his feature film debut), and starring Nick Baldasare, Rick Kesler, Susan Pinksy and Norm Singer. The plot follows a college student who tries desperatley to unravel the meanings behind his horrific nightmares as they begin to break into reality and threaten the people surrounding him.

Based off of a 1983 short film of the same name that Woefel created during his time at a filmmaking course at Ohio State University, Beyond Dream's Door was shot within the OSU university campus (as well as other nearby areas), with a crew consisting largely of film students using equipment provided by the university, and a cast composed of Woefel's friends and other theatre actors from Columbus. In the years since its release, the film has received a minor cult following.

Plot
Benjamin "Ben" Dobbs is an American college student whom has been experiencing a series of increasingly surreal and disturbing nightmares, all of which feature a number of recurring images and figures, such as a red balloon, a crazed janitor with hook hands, a non-existent younger brother of Ben's named Ricky, a sensuous topless woman, and, most prominently, a large, fleshy monster resembling a dinosaur. In an effort to try and find an explanation for the nightmares, Ben gives a leaflet relaying his most recent dream to his psychology teacher, Professor Noxx, and asks him to read it. He then goes to attend a meeting with Noxx's assistant Julie Oxel, who has been running a dream research experiment. She gives him a sleeping pill to take so that she can record one of his dreams.

That night, Ben receives a phone call from Noxx, asking to meet up at his home so they can discuss his dreams. Noxx recognises that Ben's situation is similar to that of a case from 20 years ago involving D.F. White, an otherwise ordinary young man whom began experiencing vivid and increasingly violent nightmares before slipping into a coma and dying. Noxx and Ben visit the college library to research the case, where Ben sees a vision of White's ghost, who warns him that "it" will take everyone that Ben tries to get help from and "hide them" in his dreams. Ben then witnesses Noxx being brutally murdered by the monster from his nightmares, and flees.

The next day, Ben returns to the library and finds the book that he and Noxx had been researching the night before. After opening it, however, he finds that the pages describing White's case have mysteriously disappeared, as if they never existed. Ben approaches Eric Baxter, Noxx's other assistant, where he talks to him about his dreams and describes a place with large, concrete trapdoors as being a recurring location from them. Eric recognises the location as being an old, unused room in the college building and takes Ben to it, where Ben hypothesises that the creature came from a place hidden beneath the trapdoors. Later that day, Eric gets a call from Julie, who tells him that Noxx's phone number has been disconnected and his name has been taken off the register, whilst Ben discovers that Noxx's home has inexplicably vanished.

Eric and Julie head to their separate homes after reviewing Ben's dream recording (which Julie mentions appears to have been tampered with), and Eric studies a pair of animal-esque teeth he had found in the trapdoor room when he had showed it to Ben. After reading a transcript of one of Ben's dreams that Ben had given him earlier, Eric and Ben simultaneously have visions of Julie being in danger, and rush over to her house, where they discover that she has been decapitated.

With Ben unable to re-enter his own home, he and Eric decide to take refuge at the latter's house, only for them to find the interior in a state of disarray, with Ben's leaflet torn to shreds and the teeth having gone missing. Ben realises that the monster is trying to dispose of all evidence pertaining to its existence, and in doing so will target him and Eric. Having found one of the missing pages relating to White's case earlier, Ben gets the idea to use the page to lure the monster back into the trapdoors, believing that doing so will vanquish it from reality. The following night, he and Eric break into the college and begin setting up a crane mechanism in order to hold the trapdoors open. Whilst doing so, however, Eric is attacked and killed by the monster. Ben uses the page to lure the monster with him into the space beneath the trapdoors, then releases a rope attached to the mechanism which shuts the trapdoors, leaving his fate unknown.

Cast

 * Nick Baldasare as Benjamin Dobbs
 * Rick Kesler as Eric Baxter
 * Susan Pinsky as Julie Oxel
 * Norm Singer as Professor Noxx
 * Daniel White as D.F. White
 * John Dunleavy as The Janitor
 * Darby Vasbinder as Dream Seductress
 * Marge Whitney as Mrs. Oxel
 * Lucas Simpson as Ricky

Production
Beyond Dream's Door began as a 21-minute short film created by Woelfel in 1983, when he was a student of Ohio State University's now-defunct Cinema Department. The short film, according to Woelfel, was loosely inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Out Of Time. After graduating in 1985, Woelfel and various college friends of his, all struggling with unemployment, had the idea of making Beyond Dream's Door into a full feature, inspiring Woefel to write a script which was finalised by late 1987. Unable to earn proper financing for the film, Woefel ultimately decided to have the film be shot in and around the Ohio State campus, with a crew made up of film students from the university.

The film's cast was composed almost entirely of community theatre actors, some of whom were personal friends of Woelfel's. Rick Kesler in particular had been in a handful of Woelfel's short films, including the Beyond Dream's Door short film, which coincidentally co-starred Nick Baldasare.

Filming began on April 1, 1988, and lasted for five weeks. According to Woelfel, the trapdoor room (which also appeared in the short film) was a storage room located on the second floor of the since-demolished Haskett Hall building on the Ohio State campus; the trapdoors themselves were used to bring heavier objects up from the ground floor.

Release
The film was first released in the United States on VHS by VidAmerica on April 7, 1989.

Critical reception
Writing for DVD Talk, Bill Gibron gave the film a very positive review, calling it "an experience that's refreshingly smart and weighty" and praising its ambition, saying "[the film] avoids clichés and formulas to bring the stunningly surreal world of nightmares into painful perspective. As a result, instead of the same old craven crap, we are privileged to see one of the late '80s best independent fright films."

Critic Joe Bob Briggs also gave the film a positive review, giving it three stars and reportedly calling it "one of the strangest movies [he'd] ever seen."

Home media
On December 5, 2006, Cinema Epoch released the film on DVD for the first time. This release features various special features, including two commentary tracks, two of Woelfel's short films (including the original 1983 Beyond Dream's Door short), an isolated score, deleted scenes, alternate takes and other behind-the-scenes footage.

On April 27, 2021, the independent label Vinegar Syndrome issued the 80 minute director's cut of film on Blu-ray for the first time as part of their Home Grown Horrors: Volume 1 box set, which also includes the films Winterbeast (1992) and Fatal Exam (1990). This release features a 2K restoration which was "painstakingly reconstructed shot by shot from its original, unedited 16mm camera negative", although approximately five minutes of footage from a master tape were also sourced because of how "several rolls of the original negative were lost". The Vinegar Syndrome release also includes all of the bonus features from the Cinema Epoch releases, along with two additional commentary tracks and a newly commissioned making-of documentary.