‘Dream Scenario’ TIFF 2023 Review: Nicolas Cage Stars in a Neurotic ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’
We may be divided on many issues in this day and age, but I think it’s safe to say that none of us want to wake up in a cold sweat with Freddy Krueger’s charred visage seared in our brains. But what if the recurring figure in our nightmares was less of a literal monster and more of a figurative one? What if he was someone you, or someone you know, really knows?
That’s the logline for Dream Scenario, a new horror comedy that had its World Premiere this past week at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself), this deranged delight tells the tall tale of Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage), a professor who goes from the last person you would want to invite to a dinner party to internet sensation when he randomly becomes the leading man of the collective subconsciousness.
It starts as a funny joke, with the awkward dad suddenly getting undivided attention from his kids, peers, and students, all of whom say he is an innocent bystander in their everyday night terrors. But things take a turn for A Nightmare on Elm Street when Dream Paul turns villainous, murdering and sexually assaulting strangers who are just trying to get their shut-eye.
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I won’t dare say more about the plot because part of the fun of Dream Scenario is the wild ways it continues to unravel alongside its lead character. I will say Cage gets to channel his Adaptation era here as the already incredibly neurotic Paul descents further into media madness. Does everyone really want to wring the nerd’s neck for his fictional crimes, or is he just imagining it? And will he ever get to fulfill his estranged wife’s ultimate fantasy: getting seduced by a man wearing a replica of David Byrne’s oversized suit from Stop Making Sense?
Speaking of which, considering how much Dream Scenario comments on advertising culture and how embarrassing it can be (cue a perfectly cast Michael Cera as an agency bro), I do find it a bit icky that this film is being released around the same time as A24’s restoration of the beloved Talking Heads concert film. Perhaps it’s meant to be a sort of twisted in-joke, another meta-vision from the studio Dream Scenario co-producer Ari Aster built. But I definitely groaned more than I giggled when I heard “City of Dreams” cue up over the end credits.
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In a lot of ways, Dream Scenario film wants to be a horror-tinged Tár, weaving in threads about cancel culture in between evocative, and often extremely frightening, dream sequences. And while its digs at how PR teams shamelessly scramble to patch up shattered images are quite funny, I’m not sure we need another narrative about how to redeem “bad” men at this particular moment.
Unlike Freddy Krueger, Paul Matthews is a total loser with no zippy one-liners to save him from disappearing into cultural oblivion. But given how strong this film is, Borgli could certainly make a name for himself, following in the footsteps of Aster, Robert Eggers, and the Safdies in the Genre-Defying Dudes of Film department. I just hope that his newfound fame doesn’t get to his, well, head.
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Dream Scenario
Summary
This deranged and delightful horror comedy wonders what it would be like if Freddy Krueger was an awkward dad with ambition issues.
