Day of the Nightmare
Day of the Nightmare
| 01 October 1965 (USA)
Day of the Nightmare Trailers

A young wife's marriage begins to crumble after she's attacked by a knife-wielding woman whom the police believed was already dead.

Reviews
GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.
Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
MartinHafer "Day of the Nightmare" is a dandy psycho picture. Now I am not saying it's a great film, but in light of the very low budget, it's awfully entertaining.The film begins with two strange events. The first is when a couple are heard arguing violently in their apartment and the police are called. The couple is gone, but their dog has been viciously kicked to death--and the police assume the woman was murdered since some neighbor saw a man hauling away a large trunk nearby. The second involves a woman stalking another lady--you think there's going to be a murder, but a friend shows up and frightens away the attacker. The problem is, that the intended victim doesn't know she was almost killed. How does all this fit together? See the film for yourself to find out.For 1965, this is a rather scandalous film and must have caught audiences by surprise. I guessed the surprise twist--but that is because now in 2013, practically anything goes on TV and in films! My only serious complaint is that this twist was revealed a bit too early and impaired the suspense just a bit. Still, worth seeing and really strange for the time in which it was made.
worldofgabby The film I saw was neither the one described in IMDb's synopsis nor that described in the other reviews. I watched it on Netflix and assume the more lurid scenes were cut. This is a shame. Although I don't particularly enjoy watching depictions of sadism, etc, I see no reason for a movie not to be shown in its entirety, especially on a site which is generally not so squeamish. That being said, I enjoyed the movie despite its bad acting and lack of continuity (the cars driven by the characters, especially the hero/heroine's station wagon, varied in age and marque.) The subject was interesting and the central character well played. There was an inventive use of cheap sets, and the actors seemed to have been chosen from the director's friends and acquaintances, much like in an Ed Wood production. If you enjoy watching Ed Wood's movies, you won't want to miss Day of the Nightmare. It is one step up and quite a bit darker.
melvelvit-1 Problem artist Jonathan Crane likes to beat barely dressed models with a belt in his L.A. studio and, apparently, carry on with his neighbor, the weird-looking Doris Mays, even though he has a pretty wife and expensive tract home in suburban San Diego. When the downstairs tenants of his L.A. complex have their orgy interrupted by sounds of violence coming from Miss Mays' apartment and later see a man putting a large trunk into his car, a police detective (John Ireland, who looks as though he'd rather be anywhere else) begins questioning, and then tailing, Jonathan. Meanwhile, in San Diego, Jonathan's wife notices a strange trunk in their garage and, unbeknownst to her, is being followed by a creepy-looking, knife-wielding woman... This Grade-C psycho-drama somehow manages to hold the interest in spite of itself. Made in the wake of PSYCHO, mommie-motivated "Doris Mays" looks about as much like a woman as Michael Caine does in DRESSED TO KILL (which the movie, as well as "Doris", also resembles) so there's very little in the way of surprises. On the plus-side, it's got a good deal of sexual swinging, spanking, stalking, a stabbing, childhood flashbacks, psychiatric mumbo-jumbo, dry-humping, and lots of topless babes in 60s hair-dos. A tad too long at 94 minutes and photographed in crisp B&W by director Ted V. Mikels (THE CORPSE GRINDERS), this "nightmare" of a movie "stars" a no-name cast (with the exception of a tired-looking John Ireland and Elena "House Of Frankenstein" Verdugo as Jonathan's boss). Gangster Mickey Cohen's girlfriend, stripper Liz "Desperate Living" Renay, appears (uncredited) as the lascivious "Mrs. Sisterman" ...get it?5/10 -but fun, nonetheless.
thomandybish Contrary to what the plot summary says, this is NOT about a woman returning from the dead! The story concerns Jonathan Crane, an artist with a decidedly sick way of getting his models in the mood to pose. The movie opens with Jonathan having a topless lovely lay across a couch, then binding her ankles and wrists and beating her back with a belt while wailing, "Unclean!Unclean!" Ooohkaaay. To top THAT off, Jonathan's wife is being stalked by a mysterious woman who slips into the house and chases the wife out and through some woods. The wife is baffled as to who the woman is, but she's someone closer to Mrs. Crane than she realizes . . .A weird psychosexual drama with all kinds of dysfunctional kinkiness. In between the story concerning Jonathan's kinkiness and the mystery woman are some sleazy scenes including an orgy and a flashback revealing an adolescent sex encounter between Jonathan and an older woman that indicates where he got his taste for whipping from. Grotesquely fascinating.
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