Sexylocher Masterful Movie

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) Guys, guys GUYS! People get a grip, please. There's a thing called The Spoiler, whereby commentators on films will spoil the fun of getting to see the movie for other people by carelessly revealing a pivotal development, revelation, or secret held by a movie. The fun for viewers is to get to encounter that revelation on their own without having the moment ruined by knowing about it in advance."Nightmares" has such a revelation and it only comes in the very last minute of the film. The payoff was fantastic, and thank goodness I had not sought out reviews of the film beforehand or the fun would have been ruined. Almost every review, post, or synopsis of the movie contains that revelation which viewers should have to earn after sitting through the rest of it. By knowing in advance the potency of the scenes which lead up to it is diluted and there were some very potent scenes here which would have suffered from advance knowledge of the revelation. Best way to sum up the story is to say that a patient from a secret drug treatment program for the criminally insane is released prematurely, goes off his personality modifying meds, and embarks on a journey through the seedy side of America's east coast during which he commits several gruesome killings. That's the extent of what should be revealed. Anything more would spoil the mind- screw of that last minute, and reduce the meaning of the film to a checklist of slasher movie components pieced together by an oblique story which will only serve to distract genre viewers from the horror of it all.And hence the film's current status: Regarded as a classic by some but dismissed by many more as boring & derivative. Because without coming upon that revelation on your own it is sort of a 2nd rate overly arty if competently made slasher-type horror movie rating just about 5 out of 10: Covers the bases, constructed with skill but not really having anything too spectacular with a comparatively modest body count (I believe it is eight, if you count the big flashback scene). The gore effects may or may not have been "supervised" by Tom Savini, it doesn't really matter, they serve the film well enough. The extra notoriety the controversy generated only means more opportunities for reviewers to spill the beans for audience members who could care less.I'm glad I ignored it all. With that spoiler intact I give the film a 7 out of ten, with very tight plotting that is only revealed as being more thorough than usual once that revelation takes place. The film is very well made from a technical standpoint with an interesting use of film speeds and droll, non-sensational music. But who watches slasher movies for their plotting, technical work or soundtracks? They are traditionally a series of gruesome set pieces connected by some sort of story which may or may not hold up to the light of day when evaluated separate from the gore. This one does and that alone is somewhat remarkable. Just don't read any more reviews until after watching it or you too may be tempted to dismiss the results for being something different than the usual brainless mayhem.

Woodyanders Dangerously unstable schizophrenic psychopath George Tatum (ably played with harrowing conviction by Baird Stafford) escapes from a sanitarium and embarks on a bloodthirsty spree.Writer/director Romano Scavolini grounds the harsh and seamy, yet still gripping and believable premise in a totally sordid and plausible drab workaday reality, brings a no-holds-barred nihilistic attitude to the bleak material (a little boy even gets killed!), maintains an unsparingly dark and grim tone throughout, delivers a handy helping of hideously graphic gore, and offers a satisfying smattering of sizzling sleaze and tasty bare distaff skin. The brutal murder scenes and overall clammy mood pack a super ferocious and unsettling punch. Giovanni Fiore Coltellaci's plain cinematography further enhances the sense of grungy verisimilitude. The funky'n'bluesy score by Jack Erik Williams hits the right-on groovy spot. Moreover, this film takes a radical break from the fright feature norm by having an annoying bratty kid (a spot-on obnoxious portrayal by C.J. Cooke) turn out to be the unlikely hero of the piece, plus warrants additional points by concluding everything on a properly downbeat note. A nice'n'nasty grindhouse nugget.

FilmFatale I'd wanted to see Nightmare for years, especially as a young Savini fan, but ensuing controversies and time prevented me from watching it until tonight. Sure, I'd come across it from time to time in a reference or review book but tracking down a copy in the US seemed to never work out for me. Cut to a sick-day in 2012, and internet movies, and finally, this grim little darling was mine for the watching.Tonally, I found Nightmare similar to Pieces, what with it's childhood traumas and bloody ways of dealing with them, but Nightmare has a certain raw charm all of its own. It's not a very *good* movie, but it moves along at a decent pace and is just so bizarre in its execution. Our killer, George Tatum, is one of the more debonair axe-wielders of the slasher generation, but most of Baird Stafford's performance consists of squealing, foaming at the mouth, and giving Ken Doll-esque lingering looks at the camera whether he's killing or sleeping or walking about. George was being treated for his myriad mental issues under an experimental program and when he's deemed cured, he's simply let loose in NYC (delightfully grimy, pre-Giuliani NYC) to go to sex shows (bad idea!) and then head south to kill a very special family. Said family seemed over the top, what with constant prankster/brat CJ and constantly screaming and slapping mom Susan...until I realized I'd seen similar behavior at the local Wal-Mart on more than one occasion.That odd behavior by the "normal" cast members is one of the more delightful things about Nightmare. Very few things happen in a way that they would happen in real life. People over-react to nothing, but are yet strangely unmoved by dead bodies. Children are taken to crime scenes and questioned in front of bloody corpses. There's rarely a clear sense of who any character is at any given time. The doctors never bothered to investigate whether George's traumatic dreams actually happened. Mom often just shrieks for no reason. There's an extended scene of a meeting with the real estate agent, and a C&W bar performance, and lots of local radio DJ chatter. It all just lurches along until a rather ludicrous (but fun!) ending.The gore (by all accounts courtesy of Ed French and NOT Savini) was nice and grim and well done for the most part (not counting a few obvious prosthetics) - rarely these days does soft tissue trauma seem so gooshy. The gore wasn't as wall-to-wall as I'd built up in my head but I suppose there was enough.If you're in the mood to revisit the early 80s via slasher films, you'll probably have a good time with Nightmare as long as you can handle the inherent strangeness of it all. It really is like a bleak little time capsule of an era long-gone.ff

WaxBellaAmours Trying to bring the Italian giallo genre into the then-popular American slasher genre, Nightmare is a half-clever attempt. Those two extremes don't seem like a good fit, with the typical slash-and-hack, one-by-one structure of the slasher genre mixing a bit awkwardly with the more flamboyant, open-ended and director-focused giallo film movement. "Nightmare" isn't particularly coherent and can feel a bit half-hearted at times, but it has enough startling moments and a truly twisted (and brutal) view of sexuality to at least be interesting beyond it's initial viewing.Often considered a Grindhouse staple, it shares the qualities of many other films of that "genre": lousy dubbing, horrid acting, completely conspicious continuity blunders, a soundtrack and film print that makes the viewer feel like their head is being held under muddy water. It's also unusually bleak and morally ambiguous for an American film, a telling sign that this was directed by an European. There's also a sense of the American-slasher puritanism, as noticed by the Killer's view of promiscious adults around him, but it's not quite as black-and-white as many of the like-minded films at the time. Largely because we're asked to look at the film's largely unseen killer with a more subjective eye."Nightmare" may be poorly made, although a few cat-and-mouse sequences are well-staged and engaging enough, but it's far from useless. It's cross between American DIY ethos and lavish, fetishitistic European flavoring is uneven and sloppy but always weird and alluring enough to keep you watching. The film's modest cult following is understandable.