 A film in three minutes, Paper House. When was the last time you had a really creepy dream? Not a nightmare per se, but just creepy. As if something was wrong with the world you were imagining. As if the people in it just didn't look quite right. As if, despite appearances, you knew that you didn't quite belong. Bernard Rose's 1988 dark fantasy film Paper House comes as close to this feeling as I can describe, and it's one of the best representations of dreaming ever shot on celluloid. The story follows a young schoolgirl, Anna Madden, played by Charlotte Burke, who begins to suffer from fainting spells transporting her to a bizarre dream-like world. The house named in the film's title comes from the numerous drawings Anna makes in her notebook, drawings that somehow come to life each time she falls asleep. During her explorations, she encounters a young boy named Mark who is unable to use his legs. The two bond, but Anna's visits to this world are fleeting. It is only when she is being cared for by the family doctor that she slowly discovers one of the doctor's other patients is the same boy in the house. What follows is a series of increasingly disturbing, but also at the same time calmly relaxing encounters the pair have together. The film's strongest element is its production design spearheaded by Gemma Jackson. The set of the Paper House works wonderfully, conveying the innocent style of a child's drawings to full effect. The world in which the house sits in is also disturbingly minimalist, becoming an unidentifiable landscape, much like in Dreams themselves. Charlotte Burke gives a strong performance as the tortured Anna, but the real star of the film is Mark, played with great charm by Elliot Spears. Spears unfortunately passed away at the very young age of 20, giving his character an additional sense of tragedy throughout the film. Although his screen time is limited, Spears' performance encapsulates the deep sense of sadness of a soul trapped in someone else's dream world unable to escape. The score for the film was composed by the then up-and-coming Han Zimmer, who produced some of his best work of the 1980s. The soundtrack gives off a darkly ethereal mood, utilising the best of what synths can do to create a simultaneously cheerful yet foreboding soundscape. Paper House has always stayed in the back of my mind after first viewing. You could say perhaps it's haunted me for a time. Researching the careers of the actors, particularly Elliot Spears, made the film more special to me for just how unique it is. It's a wonder how a dark fantasy film like this even got made at the time by a British film studio. And there are a few other films of the period that I can really compare it to. What's for certain, however, is that Bernard Rose's direction makes this film a cult gem, with the only real nightmare being that very few people have actually seen it.