Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

zkonedog When it comes to film-making, horror flicks have carved out quite a nice little existence for themselves. This documentary does two things: it reflects back on the history of the horror movie, as well as gives some reasons as to why they have evolved over the years.That first part, the reflection, is truly what carries "Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue". It is interesting to see the history of the genre, remembering all the terrifying (whether physically or emotionally) images that have branded themselves into our collective "film conscience".However, the "discussion" parts of the documentary leave much to be desired. The approach here is very political (in one laughable segment, former President Ronald Reagan is compared to Freddy Krueger!) and really tries to understand why the "Monster Era" of the early 1900s gave way to the aliens of the 50s, the slashers of the 80s, or the psychological thrillers of the 90s, for instance. While I appreciated the effort, the reasoning just seemed a bit ridiculous at times, almost as if the panel of guests were reaching for conclusions where perhaps none in fact exist.Overall, then, "Nightmares" is a great doc if all you care about is a history lesson on horror movies. If you want anything deeper, be prepared to take pretty much every comment with a grain of salt or that nagging feeling of "this is all just being trumped up to sell a genre".

Michael_Elliott Nightmares in Red, White and Blue (2009) *** (out of 4)Lance Henriksen narrates this documentary that takes a look at the history of horror movies in American cinema. We start off in the silent era and move all the way through the recent "torture/porn" films and get interviews with such people as Carpenter, Corman, Cohen, Yunza, Dante, Garris, Romero, Bousman and McLoughlin. NIGHTMARES IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE is a pretty good documentary but it's certainly not oging to teach die-hard fans anything that they didn't already know. I think the biggest problem with the film is that it really doesn't shine any new light on the subject as everything here has been covered before in other documentaries and even those interviewed here are giving the same stories that they have before. With that being said, as a die-hard horror fan I always enjoy hearing the stories so I'm sure others like myself will enjoy the film. If you're unfamiliar with the genre then this film does a pretty good job at giving you the history of the genre even though it does skip around quite a bit and doesn't appear to be following any real plan. We start off in the silent era where Lon Chaney is discussed and then we hit the Universal monsters, the Val Lewton productions, the atomic films, the monsters from outer space, the Norman Bates of the world and then into the 70s attitude with graphic movies, the slashers and then there's the recent torture movies. You're certainly going to get a lot of film clips and I'm sure those who don't particularly like slashers won't enjoy that segment as there's all sorts of gore and violence. The one thing I found to be really fun was the Friday THE 13TH tribute where we see all the death and sex scenes from the entire series edited together in a little montage. Fans of the genre aren't going to learn anything new but this is still a fun film.

gavin6942 Horror and sci-fi veteran Lance Henriksen narrates this look at the history of the American horror film, examining the earliest monster movies of the silent era up to the scariest modern-day masterpieces. Highlights include interviews with genre masters Roger Corman, Joe Dante, John Carpenter and George A. Romero, plus clips from classic films like The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead and Rosemary's Baby.I have seen my share of horror documentaries, I have read my share of interviews and interviewed my share of people in the horror industry. I have met most of the people in this documentary personally. So, my thought on this film going in was: this is going to be fun and a bit of a refresher for things I already know, a good thing to kick back and watch lazily. Nothing new to be learned here! Well, that may not have been completely true. While the film covered a lot of the same ground as things I was familiar with: the politics, the culture, how films of the 1950s reflected nuclear fears... the documentary had some new angles, too. Who thought we would see a horror documentary that brings in "Easy Rider" and the James Bond films? I never thought so.As I said, there is much talk of politics, particularly Reagan. Vietnam comes in, as does the Great Depression and the Cold War to a point. But the 1980s dominate, from John Carpenter's "They Live" to "American Psycho". There is even an argument made (which I find very dubious) that the 80s were a decade of excess, and this is in part why there is such an excess of blood in "Evil Dead 2". I doubt Sam Raimi would agree.Larry Cohen says early on, "If a horror film is cutting off people's thumbs and gouging your eyes out, I guess that's a certain of horror. But it's not the kind of horror film that interests me." I liked this distinction, because horror seems to be heading in the direction where more films are just violence without any fun, suspense or subtle message. And that is just cheap. Horror films may not win Oscars, but they still range from bad to good, and the best are more than just torture.The documentary also touched on numerous many overlooked films (such as "Atomic War Bride"), some that ought to have been overlooked ("Uncle Sam") and some lesser-known modern ones such as "The Devil's Backbone". The focus was on American films, so Hammer is not here, nor are the current foreign films of Japan. No Italian giallo. I think Vincent Price received far too little screen time, but overall the film covered just about every American film you could name that affected the history of horror in some way.

werewolf7-559-431110 I got a chance to watch a screening of this with the director followed by a Q & A session. It actually starts out well. It breaks into the major time periods of the 20th century and posits that the social issues of the time helped craft their most notable horror films. Paranoia and the threat of nuclear war in the 50s led to "Invasion of the Body Snacthers" and "Them!" The loosening of social mores helped drive the slasher films of the 70s and 80s.It's when this movie gets to the modern day that it stumbles. Face it, to 2000s have been a TERRIBLE time for American horror. The biggest characteristic of this decade has been not original films, but remakes of either past classics or more inventive foreign films. "Nightmares" somewhat acknowledges this, but by saying that since we face many of the same social problems as we did in decades past, THAT is the reason we've turned to remakes. Yeah, I know. LAME.I would have much better things to say about the movie if it had acknowledged that the quality of the genre has flagged from time to time, and we're currently in a slump. Such a lost opportunity.