Parents' Guide to Dreamland

As this eccentric neo-noir vampire crime story's title indicates, it unfolds similarly to a dream: unpredictable, confusing, and frustrating. More like a fever dream, considering that gangsters are children, a countess is hosting a lavish wedding for her vampire brother, and the dreamer can be injured but never die. It's an intense experience that you're desperate to interpret as soon as it's over -- what does it all mean? -- but with so much nonsense, most viewers likely won't care enough to think it through. Still, there's always the chance that Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald's film is destined to be a cult classic.

The movie's unreliable tone shocks the system as it switches from dead-serious drama to off-kilter comedy. McHattie is a hard-boiled henchman whose crime lord boss ordered him to cut the pinkie off of a legendary trumpeter (also McHattie), a cool customer who's also a junkie. The actions of these characters are always serious, and should be -- especially given that the henchman realizes he's doing the bidding of a deplorable criminal who profits by sex-trafficking children. But that boss, gleefully played by Rollins, is maniacal, ridiculous, and, at times, hilarious. The lizard-looking vampire (Tómas Lemarquis) is creepy yet also feels straight out of What We Do in the Shadows. Juliette Lewis supplies the film's energy as an over-the-top countess who delivers her dialogue so crisply and comically that it makes you rethink the entire film. Care clearly went into the color-saturated production design, which is paired so elegantly with moody cinematography that many shots are works of art. None of it makes any sense ... unless it does. Figuring out what this film is trying to say seems possible, yet elusive. Just like a dream.