SUNBURST
(aka Slashed Dreams)
Sunburst on the poster becomes
Slashed Dreams in DVD (above).
Peter Brown plays just the kind of socio-babble kind of "with-it" professor complete with jeans and a madras shirt who gained a big following with alienated students in the 1970s, but was avoided like the plague by students interested in serious academics. He has only one scene which sets the mood for the movie as he elicits questions about alienation and spouts off about "honest positivity" and the dynamics of change as they approach the "aquarian age."
Jenny the cheerleader, homecoming queen wants to find the meaning of life. She's tired of her frat boyfriend Marshall and responds favorably to her long-time best friend Robert who spouts a hippy philosophy. They end up driving to the mountains to visit a guy (Robert Englund) who dropped out to find himself.
They cavort around in the woods, find their friend's cabin, go skinny dipping and are watched and verbally harassed by Levon & Danker, who come into the cabin after dark and rape Jenny. When their friend Mike returns to the cabin, he convinces Jenny to use the rape to achieve some kind of enlightenment. Robert tries to get enlightened by beating up the rapists but doesn't do too well.


NiteOwl Review: We aren't going to take the trouble to make sense of this movie. It shows up on ebay occasionally. Peter has only the one scene, which is incredibly 1970s in tone. It's not worth collecting unless you're an obsessive completist. And make sure you don't get into a bidding war with a Robert Englund fan. His part in this movie is one of his earliest roles.
Cast Note: Kathrine Baumann was in Chrome and Hot Leather as a girl in William Smith's motorcycle gang who was abused by her boyfriend Casey and has a scene with Bill that exposes his character's nicer side.
This is a very strange little movie. It was originally packaged as a hippy philosophy, enlightenment, back to nature, "age of aquarius" type of film but repackaged for video as a slasher flick with a new title and misleading description.
We've seen this movie go on ebay for as little as $6 and as much as $56 depending on whether the description includes Robert Englund's part. It's usually listed under Slashed Dreams as that's the video and DVD title. Someday one of us is going to ask Peter about his lecture in this movie and hopefully find out that he wrote it and at the time even thought it made sense. Peter was supposedly into the study of metaphysics in the seventies. But we can only hope that he would see the humor in the dialogue now. We will bet the clothes were his and we know the silver cross he's wearing is.
Original release date 1975
Directed by James Polakof
Written by James Keach
   & James Polakof

Cast
Peter Hooten as Robert
Kathrine Baumann as Jenny
Ric Carrott as Marshall
Anne Lockhart as Tina
Robert Englund as Michael
James Keach as Levon
David Pritchard as Danker
Susan McCormick as Susan

Special Appearances
Peter Brown as the Professor
Rudy Vallee as the Proprietor
Official Peter Brown Fan Site