Bad Dreams

Only a few years ago, the quickest way for an aspiring young director to open doors in Hollywood was to churn out a slasher film and make sure that everyone - including the ox, if necessary - was gored. But there have been fewer mad killers on the loose in movies lately. Historians of the horror film may argue over when and why we are in a merciful downturn in this obnoxious form of "entertainment. " Personally, I date it from the installment of the Friday the 13th series where - since no ox was available for goring - a rabbit was nailed to a shed door.

"I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself the king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams. " Shakespeare, "Hamlet. " Andrew Fleming is not the Bard of Avon, but he's on to the same thing: the way internal terrors, even more powerfully than external realities, can be incapacitating. In "Bad Dreams," which Fleming directed and co-wrote (with Steven E. de Souza), those terrors are pretty scary. It's 1975. The members of a cult called The Unity, under the leadership of a wickedly charismatic Jim Jones type named Harris (Richard Lynch, also the bad guy in "Little Nikita")

The psychiatrist decided to leave town after being victimized in what the prosecutor called a gay-bashing incident in Northeast Philadelphia last summer. Dr. Thomas Harry, 45, was "so humilitated" he moved to Atlanta after the July 27 attack, Assistant District Attorney Richard Negrin said yesterday. Two men beat and kicked Harry because he was gay, said the prosecutor. Both were given jail terms by Common Pleas Judge Teresa M. Sarmina, who called the case "disturbing. " Steve Grimscheid, 20, of Akron Street near Levick, who has a prior record, was sentenced to three to six years.

Twenty-four years after the United American Indians of Delaware Valley held their first powwow, they may finally be getting people's attention. The annual event attracted thousands of people to West Fairmount Park's Belmont Plateau this weekend - many of them first-timers, organizers said - for a taste of authentic food, homemade crafts, colorful regalia, live music and dance. "Even though we have 24 years of doing this, we've only just begun to get it right," said Michele Tinsley Leonard, the group's executive director.

Christmas traditions in the theater have mainly been adapted from those of other countries. They try to reflect a child's wonder through fantasy and the triumph over some kind of evil in a way that doesn't produce bad dreams afterward. The Nutcracker is an American tradition supported by ballet companies; Hansel and Gretel is one encouraged by opera companies. AVA Opera Theater is testing the viability of that opera as an annual holiday event with its new production, which opened last night at the Shubert Theater.

A Royersford man who skipped bail and headed for Texas six years ago was sentenced yesterday for sexually molesting an 8-year-old girl in 1989. Montgomery County Court Judge Stanley R. Ott sentenced Anton Habenschuss to four to 20 years in prison and 15 years' probation for involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, indecent assault and corruption of a minor. Habenschuss, 35, was returned to Pennsylvania in June. Authorities said he and his mother absconded to Texas in 1989 while Habenschuss, who had pleaded guilty to the charges, was awaiting sentencing by Ott. In pronouncing sentence yesterday, Ott recommended that Habenschuss, who authorities said had been abused as a child, undergo intensive sex-offender treatment.

They came to buy crafts, ride ponies, listen to music, and watch dance performances. But most of all, the hundreds of people at the West Chester Festival of the Arts in Everhart Park yesterday came to enjoy spring. And enjoy it they did, despite the clouds overhead and a biting wind that whipped through jackets, caused goosebumps on bare legs, and grounded the popular hot-air balloon rides. "They tried twice, but the wind was too strong," said Kathy McBratnie, director of West Chester Recreation, the group sponsoring the annual May Day event along with the Pennsylvania Arts Council.

Margie Rodriguez-Ortiz sat with her grief yesterday in a Cherry Hill High School teachers' room. Around her, women in spring skirts and white stockings and men in ties chatted about nothing and laughed. Ortiz, in shorts and sandals, talked brokenly of her dead daughter, Samalica, and wept. Rodriguez-Ortiz knows little of the suburban world that she visited Monday. Her days are spent in North Camden, a scant block from the house where, in November, her beloved 11-year-old Samalica was killed by a random, anonymous bullet.

One month ago, the president of Venice-Ashby's Residents' Council warned township officials that if they didn't help clear out a trash-strewn, drug-infested area, she would be back as "their worst nightmare. " Joyce Graves showed up at a township meeting last night - not to conjure bad dreams - but to remind the Township Council members that Venice-Ashby still needs help. She said nothing during public comment but planned to invite officials who had not yet been to Venice-Ashby on a tour.

WHEN I SAW Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married?" hit No. 1 at the box office, it made me ask myself that very question. And the answer, for me, was simple. LaVeta dazzled me. I still remember our first date. It was July 5, 1997. We went to the Blue Moon and listened to jazz over a seafood dinner. Then we strolled to Penn's Landing, sat by the river, and talked for hours in the moonlight. That night my thoughts were filled with everything about her: The sweet scent of her perfume, the reddish caramel of her skin, the velvety softness of her voice.

In "Sucker Punch," a purported wise man says that we should never write checks with our mouth that we cannot cash with our butts. It's like something Confucius might have said, if Confucius were Charlie Sheen. In which case he would have tweeted it. At any rate, it's nonsensical and demented, as befits Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch," set in an insane asylum where a young woman (Emily Browning) is involuntarily committed after being framed for the murder of her little sister (a crime we are unprivileged to witness in the prologue)

Democrats wisely sidestepped a showdown this week on legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for thousands of children brought to this country illegally. They didn't have the votes. Although they hope to revisit the issue before Congress recesses for the holidays, it's doubtful that enough Republican support can be gained to save the Dream Act. The House passed its version of the bill, but it failed in the Senate. Unfortunately, that's where legislation to end the military's ban on gays serving their country openly also came to a screeching halt.

IT WAS Joe Boccuti 's nightmares that led him to live his dream. The 33-year-old entertainer, whose "Hypnosterical II" runs through Sept. 5 at Trump Marina, was led to hypnotizing audience members for comedic effect by, of all things, the bad dreams that plagued him as a child. "A long, long time ago, I started having dreams, and the dreams turned to nightmares," recalled the lifelong Gloucester County resident during a recent lunch interview. "I was very inquisitive, so I started reading dream books.

Bleak and heavy-handed, Sleepwalking stars Charlize Theron as a messed-up single mom who abandons her daughter to run off with a trucker. While she's cavorting for a few weeks - but, really, it's hard to imagine she's having much fun - 11-year-old Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) is left in the care of her mother's simple-minded, beaten-down brother. Uncle James (Nick Stahl) lives in a dump in a dumpy Northern California town, works road construction, and isn't good for much except long, empty broods.

WHEN I SAW Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married?" hit No. 1 at the box office, it made me ask myself that very question. And the answer, for me, was simple. LaVeta dazzled me. I still remember our first date. It was July 5, 1997. We went to the Blue Moon and listened to jazz over a seafood dinner. Then we strolled to Penn's Landing, sat by the river, and talked for hours in the moonlight. That night my thoughts were filled with everything about her: The sweet scent of her perfume, the reddish caramel of her skin, the velvety softness of her voice.

ON A RECENT flight to Nashville, I sat next to a man who asked what I was writing. Preparing a talk, I told him, for a conference of people sharing evidence that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. Without missing a beat, he asked. "Isn't that next door to the convention on UFO sightings?" I wasn't surprised. We've been painted as conspiracy theorists and worse by Democrats and Republicans alike, and even the liberal arm of the press has steered clear of this issue. But when I arrived at Jefferson Street Baptist Church in Nashville, my doubts about the election were reinforced by a group of sober professionals, none who seemed overtly loony.

Sgt. Richard MacDougal glanced around the darkness of a slum alleyway, hoping to catch snipers before their bullets caught him. A hard rain had flooded the sewer system, and he walked knee-deep in black water that stank of feces. As his patrol made its way through Baghdad's most perilous neighborhood, a crescent moon gave just enough light to cast eerie shadows across the water, creating illusions of movement that kept MacDougal and his men jerking their rifles from side to side.

Ron Friedman, the Old City bumbershoot man who traded on the line "free rain with every umbrella," stood in the cold outside his fire-gutted shop yesterday and searched for words to describe the loss of his 50-year-old business. "I looked in. I couldn't believe what I saw. It's totally gone," said the 69-year-old Friedman. "It's a bad dream. It's a very, very bad dream. About 10 Wednesday night, fire was reported in the three-story brick building at 14 S. Third St. where Friedman opened his store in August 1953.

It's no secret Penn State coach Joe Paterno is high on Michael Robinson. Last year, Robinson was Penn State's secret weapon as a "multiback," playing quarterback, tailback and wide receiver. He has started the last two games at tailback, and Paterno even says Robinson could play that position in the NFL. It's a scenario that would elate most college football players. But not Robinson. "I wouldn't say it's my biggest nightmare, because my biggest nightmare is not playing," he said.