I'm not sure how or why, but it seems like pretty
much
no-one has ever seen or heard of this movie. I'm glad I'm a serial IMDB
trawler or else I never would have found it at all. Dream Trap is a
strange movie, and very hard to explain. It isn't exactly what any
movie site or even the back of it's own cover says it is, but it's
still heaps of fun to watch and I rate it highly.
 Alvin (Sasha
Jenson) is the quintessential uber-nerd. He wears glasses,
dresses badly and got perfect SAT scores. He's transferring to a new
college as a sophomore with his friend Randy, the self professed ladies
man. Alvin has a problem though - he always seems to slip into
elaborate fantasies, which to him are extremely real and most of the
time include a beautiful blue-eyed blonde dream girl (Kristy Swanson)
who does whatever he wants her to. Because he spends so much time
inside his own head, Alvin is a social cripple and doesn't know the
first thing about talking to real girls, which is all Randy seems to
want to do.
 Poor Alvin thinks
he is losing his mind when he sees Sue, an exact real
life version of his fabricated dream girl sitting in the cafeteria.
Randy decides they should approach her, but Alvin just makes a mess of
things when the dream girl in his head shows up and starts causing
trouble - we soon learn that Alvin doesn't have as much control over
her as he thinks he does. Completely weirded out by sleazy Randy and
Alvin seemingly talking to himself, Sue is glad when hunky jock Brad
comes along to her rescue. It also turns out that Sue, who is just as
smart as Alvin, isn't too confident around guys either and drops her
books on Brad's foot. Embarrassed, she heads over to the sorority house
where she is staying - the Wamma Bamma house, home for every slutty
girl on campus. Sue has been pre-approved for membership in return for
tutoring Bunny, an adorable airhead who knows all about men, but
nothing about anything else. If Bunny doesn't pass her exams, Dean
Pulver will close down the sorority house under new academic rules so
in return for her tutoring, Bunny offers to help Sue learn how to be
more confident with guys.
When the Wamma Bamma house throws a party Randy drags Alvin along,
where he actually gets to have a decent conversation with Sue. But it
isn't long before dream girl shows up again and makes Alvin say the
wrong thing, resulting in Sue getting upset. Sue asks Randy why Alvin
is so strange, and Randy tells her about his daydreams, which Sue
reveals later to Bunny that she once had a problem with herself.
Having been through the
same kind of problem, Sue decides to go and
talk to Alvin who convinces her to give a daydream another go - he
screws up when Dream Sue arrives again and ends up throwing Sue in the
pool, who isn't too impressed, but unfortunately for Sue she winds up
daydreaming again, which leads her to injure Brad's hand in a door when
he sneaks up on her watching a dance class. After she leaves, Brad bets
his friend $100 that he can sleep with her, proving that he isn't the
nice guy that Sue thinks he is.
 Alvin is lounging
by the pool when Sue shows up and takes a lounge on
the opposite side. In a flash she is on the lounge next to his, and
thinking Sue is Dream Sue, Alvin leans in for a kiss - and eventually
cops a slap in the face. Abruptly pulled out his his fantasy, Sue
glares at a bewildered Alvin from across the pool before grabbing her
bag and storming off. Alvin is confused until he works out that he and
Sue share some form of psychic bond, and are able to get into each
others fantasies. Alvin tries again to reach Sue in the library, and
eventually convinces her that they do share a connection and should
explore it. She reluctantly agrees, but ends up having a fantastic
time.
Alvin wants to go on a
real date with Sue, but she already has a date
with Brad. She explains to Alvin that what they have could never be
real, it's only fantasy. The truth is, Alvin is a geek, and Sue is
worried about what her sorority sisters will say about her dating him,
but when Brad starts boring her to tears Sue dreams up a handsome
looking tuxedo clad Dream Alvin to take her to dinner. The real Alvin
butts into Sue's fantasy and brings along Dream Sue, causing arguments
between the foursome. Sue slaps Alvin, but in real life is slapping
Brad, and gives him a black eye. She injures him yet again in the car
when he tries to pull his moves on her. For a football player, Brad
Britton sure is made of glass.
 Sue is angry at
Alvin, but he comes up with a plan to get back in her
good books. You see, Bunny is still struggling with her school work,
and Alvin believes the key to helping her is in her dreams. He gets Sue
to sneak him into the Wamma Bamma house at night, and he manages to get
into Bunny's dream without any trouble. Bunny is headed off to a locker
room full of football players, when Alvin interrupts and takes her into
an exam room. Bunny is ridiculed and humiliated by her teacher and
classmates and runs out crying. Alvin convinces her to give it another
shot, but not before he goes in and changes everything - making the
teacher, her classmates and the exam pleasant for Bunny, helping her
realize that confidence will be the key to her passing her exams.
Sue decides to see
Brad once more because she feels guilty about all
his injuries, but when she discovers a walkie talkie in the back seat
of his car with his friends listening in on the other end, she adds to
that list with swift knee to the groin. Bunny passes her exam with the
help of Alvin, and Sue realizes that she made a big mistake picking
Brad over him.
 Ahh, what a happy
fluffy ending. But you know I love that kind of
thing. The final frame though is very confusing - although I doubt it
is meant to be and I'm just looking way too far into things. The movie
ends with Sue and Alvin walking down the beach with Dream Sue and Dream
Alvin, and then all four disappear. I was left thinking, what the hell?
Were they all imaginary? What just happened? I'm sure there was nothing
to look into - probably just a matter of some effects guy thinking
"Hey, you know what would be cool?".
Another strange thing is the credits. They look very low-budget TV
movie, and look very tacked on. Just thought it was weird. Maybe they
ran out of money? It's also strange how all through the movie Alvin is
referred to as "The little guy with glasses". Now, I don't know how
tall Sasha Jenson is, but he in no way qualifies as little. It makes me
think that he may have been cast to replace another actor when filming
had already started - or no changes were made to the script to
accommodate casting choices.
I really liked Dream Trap and I'll watch it again and hope for a DVD
release. I think Universal owns the rights. Kristy Swanson is
incredibly beautiful, and Sasha Jenson, well even with slightly
unnerving eyebrows, is still a complete fox - even when in bad clothes
and glasses, not another teen movie, pretty-ugly guy mode (she has
glasses! And a ponytail! And paint on her overalls!) Sasha and Kristy
were both in Buffy the Vampire slayer the following year. Perhaps they
dated. I love to speculate!!
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Year: 1990
