UPDATED 6/28 This is a recommendation from my pal Schifty. Well, more like a request for me to see if I could figure out what the hell happens in this movie. Short answer: Probably not. But he has such idiosyncratic taste that I was intrigued to see what could lie in store for me. This just might be one of the most unpredictable movies I've ever seen, and it's only 77 minutes long.
The Netflix description says: "Flying down the highway in Nevada's radiation-soaked landscape, travelers Meghan and Dylan court danger by veering off the main road and heading towards the secret military base known as Area 51." I have to disagree already. I don't remember radiation coming up at all, they aren't driving very fast, and they don't veer off towards anything. A bartender tells them about aliens and time loops and secret government bases, they don't seem to believe him, and then when they start driving again crazy shit just starts happening and doesn't stop happening. How crazy? Once glowing-eyes ghoul-Hitler shows up and screams "Meghan!" about a thousand times, you'll know you're not watching one of those lame time travel movies where people fall in love or fuck up rock 'n roll history. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Meghan and Dylan aren't bad, but some are their dialogue is stilted, like they read exactly what was written even though people wouldn't say that. Dylan refers to a 'repair bill' from a mechanic and it just sounds weird. Just say bill, dude. He's a mechanic, we know he doesn't mow your lawn or clean your pool. Anyway, Meghan and Dylan are driving from Reno to Las Vegas to visit her foster parents. Or maybe they are driving the other way. I'm not sure, but they're in an old car, and everybody keeps having weird dreams and visions of stuff like snow globes and 1973 and other junk.
The snow-globe first shows up before the credits and keeps appearing so it must be important. But I got distracted by the crappy credits. Some kind of knockoff of the Superman 1978 credits that fly at the screen but these make a weird sound when they disappear and isn't this movie supposed to be scary? I didn't make that clear but I think the answer is yes.
The movie has no music for so long that I thought it was either an artistic choice or they just didn't have enough money. No shame in that. They obviously didn't have a huge budget on this movie, but they never really try anything that they can't handle with their handful of desert locations and a dozen or so cast members. When music finally does appear, it seems really goofy and inappropriate, but then the scene it accompanies is just as goofy and inappropriate, with the Men in Black showing up acting like Wiseguys to harass the bartender for protection money. I think. I wouldn't bet on it.
Hitler first appears screaming on the radio at the 1936 Olympics, and Dylan and Meghan are a bit alarmed but then they have a fight about some job that one of them didn't get. 'Come on, baby, we got the rest of our lives to worry about Hitler.' The car dies, and then starts shaking, so they flee on foot. Dylan immediately collapses (take that sexism) so Meghan immediately abandons him in the middle of the highway (take that maternal instinct).
Whenever they are separated, Meghan is plagued by visions of ghostly little girls, ghostly soldiers, and ghostly screaming Hitler. Dylan is plagued by Hitler stealing the car and driving it in circles around him. What the fuck is Hitler doing here? I'd hate to have to try to put that on an insurance claim form. Eventually they reunite and Dylan just acts like nothing happened.
They go back to the diner, they sorta forget about Hitler, and then take off again. Meghan has some crazy visions. Out of nowhere, she yells "If you can't stand me smoking, then why do you drive a car with no key in the ignition?!?" and then tries to smack him in the face but he blocks it and his eyes start glowing. She runs away from him, Hitler comes back to scream 'Meghan!' another couple dozen times, and then she runs into the Explaino-Shack.
These are helpful in movies. This movie is only 77 minutes long but it feels more like 107 minutes, even though only about 47 of those minutes are necessary to properly bewilder us. Anyway, this shack must be defective because it just makes everything more confusing. All these newspaper clippings on the walls reveal that Meghan might actually be this girl Rachel, who they named the city of Rachel Nevada after, who went missing in the 70's, and that bartender is her brother and it was the Wiseguys in Black who took her and that snow-globe in the beginning is what her father was staring at when she went missing and the old car they've been driving around in was her parents car.
None of these newspaper stories mention Hitler. He's kind of the elephant in the room of this movie. The Hitler in the room, if you will. Somebody please give a shit about Hitler! He certainly gives a shit about you because he will not stop fucking screaming your name. The movies mentions the 1947 Roswell Crash, some ghost solider thinks its 1952, some physicist crashed a plane in the 60's, and some girl went missing the 70's. Where the hell, or should I say when the hell, did Hitler sneak in there? I guess Hitler exists around the fringes of all time travel fiction just waiting to bust in and start screaming people's names.
Dylan gets abducted by a cheesy effect after acting more openly evil that usual, and then Meghan is lead by her brother or that physicist, it was one of them, to this plane that doesn't look very crashed. A montage of flashbacks trying to put the pieces in place is accompanied by another terrible song, we see no more Hitler, somebody returns stolen baby Rachel to the 70's, and then it ends.
Is this a bad movie? Uhhh... No? I don't think so. It's certainly not a good movie though. I would say its fascinating, but I was bored most of the time. A movie that is barely feature length but feels much longer obvious has problems, but I like it when filmmakers have more creativity than they know what to do with. Way better than the other way around. 'Dreamland' gets 3 out of 5 Screaming Hitlers.
UPDATE: According to IMDB, Hitler was played by a woman. My head just exploded.
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