Last night I had a nightmare based on a film I not only haven't seen, but don't recall even seeing a trailer for (although my girlfriend insists I have, for all intents and purposes I have not because I remember nothing about it), Chernobyl Diaries, writer Oren Peli's follow up to Paranormal Activity (He didn't play much of a part in the mediocre sequels).
Considering that watching Paranormal Activity at the cinema was one of the most terrifying experiences of my adult life (be quiet naysayers, its one of the most splendidly crafted ghost stories of the last two decades and a milestone for the genre), it is perfectly reasonable that I should have a bad dream about its successor with only the knowledge of its sharing a writer to go on. As previously implied, the last two instalments had little to no lasting effects on my psyche. Effective as they occasionally were, they seemed to lack that crucial horror element, of the chills being so universally accessible, getting the film under your skin so it lingers at the front of your mind for several nights, and at the back of your mind for several months. Only last year's The Woman In Black has since achieved that effect on me.
The purpose of this post is becoming blurred as I have digressed into horror film critique which was not my intention (I can't resist). This is about nightmares, and what causes me to have nightmares is not as straightforward as it should be. Despite my previous musing on the link between Chernobyl Diaries and Paranormal Activity, I do not believe that to be the cause for my unsettling dream. My subconscious mind, fragile as it seems to be, allows all aspects of terror to curdle and cause bad dreams. Regardless of how non-terrifying I may find something in my waking state, if its unfulfilled intention is to scare then rest assured the effects are merely delayed until bed time. You may recall my unfavourable review of The Devil Inside, a film that was simultaneously a poor Paranormal Activity and a terrible Exorcist. However, come night time I still suffered from nightmares related to this film (Specifically focusing on the character of the possessed mother, the only aspect of The Devil Inside that even approached spooky). This has since happened on numerous occasions and I have drawn the conclusion that these nightmares are caused by my mind acknowledging the potential of all horror stories that miss the mark. A film like The Devil Inside may be poor and have no desired effect on my horror-hardened and cynical nerves, but upon watching it my subconscious begins to consider what the film was trying to achieve, and throughout the rest of the evening goes to work on a more effective version of events, splicing and editing out the weakpoints and replacing them with things that are unique to my idea of what is terrifying. By the time I fall asleep the sadistic bastard that is my mind will then unleash this personalised story and succeed where the original itself fails. Oddly enough, this is something of a retroactive success for the filmmakers, although unfortunately probably quite exclusive to this moviegoer. In short, every horror film I ever watch will give me nightmares because my mind insists on showing me what it could have been.
This brings me back to Chernobyl Diaries. At the time of writing I have deliberately refrained from researching the film because I want to focus on my mind being worked merely by knowledge of its existence, its screenwriter and the poster (which I have seen). In the same way that The Devil Inside gave me nightmares because demonic possession is a creepy subject even if the filmmakers failed to utilise that leg-up, I know that the Chernobyl disaster was a horrific event, and the fact that it is now the subject of a horror film directed by the creator of one of the most effective modern ghost stories in cinema allows me to work out the rest. The personalisation of the horror element has already hit home; ghosts, bodily disfigurement, nuclear fallout and the inevitable isolation associated with a place like Chernobyl are all things that have unsettled me since childhood (I used to lie awake at night, aged eight, worrying about nuclear war), so I don't need to glean anything else, the sufficient elements are there to disturb my sleep, and so they did.
The dream passed as follows;
I'm in an unsanitary kind of room, about to watch Chernobyl Diaries on a really beat-up old TV (see the dream begins meta-textual, which I'm a bit proud of). Despite the poor quality of the TV, I'm still largely unsettled by the film. Human-shaped things with mouldy grey skin and no faces are chasing people around a fenced-off wasteland.
I'm no longer watching the film, I'm now part of it. A dozen-or-so rows of wooden chairs are arranged in the large living room of a run-down shack, in the manner of a school assembly. I'm sitting at the back and there are only four or five other people in the entire room. The room is dark and a man stands at the front, masked by twilight, giving us an inaudible briefing on coming events. Then it gets gradually darker until pitch black. What's interesting is the lighting, as it is broad daylight outside but the light lingers no further than the window itself. The room is completely shrouded, and I remark on how good a job the lighting team has done (It seems that despite now being part of the story I'm still acknowledging that I'm in a film).
Things that are really scaring me thus far are the sparsity of the room; anything not fulfilling its purpose, in this case an empty room that should be full, is unsettling, the unwelcoming aesthetic of the building, and the sunlight failing to light a dark space. The hidden face of the man (Anyone with supposed authority not revealing themselves is another disturbing notion), the lack of clarity in the instructions I'm getting and the fact that I'm still conscious of being a character in a horror film are all contributing factors.
Then I'm made to feel my way through the complete darkness (a terrifying ordeal in day-to-day life, let alone in a horror story) until I find a door, I force the door open and enter a room, closing the door behind me. The room is empty and I can't figure out why I even have to be there, but the only way out is back throught the darkened assembly room, which is of no comfort to me. Then the door handle starts shaking furiously, the door itself too. I don't recall locking it but thank god I did, because something terrible on the other side of that dreaded door wants to get in and hurt me. The door continues to struggle against the lock, banging and banging and then my alarm ends the dream and brings me back to reality.
Bad dreams have never been much of a problem to me (shy of the ones where family members die), despite how often I have them. To be sickeningly optimistic about something usually quite traumatising, you awake from a bad dream into a comparatively better existence, unless of course the dream is simply a foreshadowing of something bad that is actually going to happen; though quite mundane an example, I have nightmares about counting stock at work, only to have to actually live out that bad dream when I wake up. That is no comfort. Good dreams, once finished, throw you unwillingly back into your inferior life. You're not a millionaire, your book hasn't been published and your beloved childhood dog is still dead. What is really good about that? Aren't the real nightmares the ones that tease you with unattainable highs and then vomit you back into living hell? To me, what we all generally consider to be a 'nightmare' is usually little more than a free horror movie starring yourself. If you can't handle horror movies then I'm fully ready to accept that this justification is all bollocks to you (although it isn't my fault that you're an alien).
A cashier in NatWest once asked me if I thought dreams were insights into a parallel life (I just wanted to deposit some money, honest). I humoured him at the time, of course, but I began to wonder on that. From a non-literal stance then, yes. When you dream you access a constructed fantasy world that is only bound by the limits of your own mind. Dreams are a parallel universe wherein the rigid constructs of reality are absent, and you wield limitless planet-shaping power. By and large only your subconscious can access that power (unless you are experiencing a lucid dream, alas I never have), but it is superior to waking life nonetheless. If you believe dreams are shaped by the experiences of the preceding day, then that is something of a parallel universe. You watch a horror film in one universe, and in the other universe it is not a horror film, but your actual life. Your dog dies in one universe, and in the other the dog is still alive and the knock-on effects of that variable has rendered the surrounding atmosphere almost unrecognisable to that of the universe in which the dog is dead. Providing you don't take 'parallel universe' to literally mean 'another existing universe' as opposed to 'a universe dreamt up by your sleeping mind' (that's a whole other debate), then the cashier was very much on to something there.
I'll be sorely disappointed if Chernobyl Diaries is shit.
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