After writing reviews on two similarly themed but larger budgeted movies, Inception and eXistenZ I felt the need to give this nutty little picture its due. If it owes a debt to David Cronenberg's eXistenZ it is one tempered with lots of love for Hammer Films and lots of anger at the American political system.The story concerns an 18th century medical student who becomes trapped in a village that has been taken over by a myth. It is equal turns funny, violent and sexy. Like Inception and eXistenZ, it deals with characters traveling through multiple layers of reality and struggling with how they define their own existences.Less you think that I am being sacrilegious by comparing Sea Of Dust to Cronenberg and Nolan's more accomplished films, all you have to do is note that the Sea of Dust catch phrase "Take the leap of faith" shows up repeatedly in Inception. Coicidence? Probably, although the two films share a lot more than just a catch phrase despite Sea coming out years before its bigger budgeted cousin.I bought this after reading so many web reviews extolling how different Sea was. I can vouch for that but let me forewarn you that it will also prove offense to the Fox News generation, which may be why it has such an undeservedly low rating on IMDb.

Just saw this at the Madison Horror Film Festival and was disappointed. A few shocking, funny moments (fisting the hollow Carla, a urinating harpy in the Dreamland) and two competing interesting premises (similar to New Nightmare with belief bringing a mythical character to life and also Lost Highway with a man living out a fantasy in his head) but had long stretches of no movement and incoherent plot development. Just because you use the framework of dreams or a mental fugue state doesn't make it Lynchian. You need the compelling visuals and creepy performances.Positive things: Dr. Maitland had real comic timing and all the girls were very cute. Carla's Father, Chalmers, and Ingrid Pitt looked like they were having some fun. And Tom Savini at least looked like he had his lines memorized and we couldn't see if he was just reading cue cards.I get the Hammer references, but it looks like the director realized the script was a snoozer and just added some shocks to try and get some laughs out of whatever footage he could put together. But they don't work because they're too few and far between and create an inconsistent tone. Condense this to 30 minutes of all the fun parts and you could have a surreal goofy short, but at feature length, skip it. It's not "so bad it's good" it's just "so bad it's boring".

Tom Savini plays an imaginary Christian king who is trying to mount a war against nonbelievers. He does this by kidnapping people's souls and torturing them until their bodies comply. Brilliant stuff but then the film throws so many ideas at the wall that it is impossible to keep up.I will say that the filmmakers deserve praise for getting a good performance out of Savini. Having seen some of his other low budget pictures, that couldn't have been easy. Likewise Ingrid Pitt, who they manage to flatter with some great photography.The main problem with Sea of Dust is also its main strength. It seems determined to be completely different, even if it has to do it at the cost of the characters. For a film to be involving, there has to be somebody to identify with. This is an original idea. It needed more work to be a great film.

I also attended the RI International Horror Film Festival and I can easily see why this film won best of show.SEA OF DUST is a wild romp of Horror, Comedy and beautiful scenery. A back in time tale of strange goings on. An increasingly wide spread illness with an overwhelmingly irritating side effect of people's heads exploding, brings a young Professor's apprentice; Stefan, to investigate. Along his travels, he decides to briefly detour and once again ask for his long time love's hand in marriage, only to once again be sent packing by her extremely stubborn father… Along the way "out of town" he comes across an ill girl in the road and delivers her to Dr. Maitland, (brilliantly played by up and coming Vincent Price like actor: Edward X Young.) Who fills Stefan in on the Evils a foot. Only the Dr. is insulted that he had called for the Professor and only received a boy in training…None the less, Stefan turns out to be much more than a common bystander. Horror Icon; Tom Savini portrays the ultimate religious torment monger; Prester John. Scream Queen; Ingrid Pitt comes out of retirement to give a stellar performance as Anna. Many beautiful and talented supporting actors seamlessly held the story together and helped to effectively move it along to the climax.Dark Religion and over the top, but fun and sometimes very original, gore scenes play heavily in this Hammer tribute flick. This stylish movie goes back and forth between flashbacks, surreal worlds, dreams and the character's reality.Horror and Gore aside; This is also a very Funny movie! Slapstick, tongue and cheek humor and dark comedy raise their heads among the dark story line. Like others have stated; this really is like three great movies in one. Very Entertaining and Original.