A whole lot of screaming and yelling here…
Nightmare (1981)
Directed By: Romano Scavolini
The Prologue
And look what we have here. We have a former UK Video Nasty in Nightmare aka Nightmares in a Damaged Brain aka Blood Splash! A film that also made some waves during 1981 for claiming Tom Savini had more to do with the effects than he actually did. A claim that actually ticked off Tom soo much that he sued! But none the less Nightmare remained shelved and released in a cut version for many many years in the places it was released. But word is now that Code Red is about to release it fully uncut!!! And I am happy to say my review today is of the film in it’s uncut form..Sadly however, the movie it’s self didn’t do a whole lot for me.
The Movie
A mental-patient, who is troubled with horrible nightmares, has escaped from his hospital. Now on the streets he can’t help killing innocent people. But there is one family he is more than interested in and when he tries to kill them, he finds that it’s not that easy. Also the story packs a pretty cool twist that you get at the end if you can hang in there until the end. If you like slashers you’ll be more willing to hang in there, but if a slower moving one really isn’t your thing then you might find this a hard film to make it all the way through. All that being said, if over the top violence is your thing, it at least has that.
There’s a pretty big rep that follows this film so I think I may have went in with my intentions a bit too high. I hate to say it, but I found myself bored between the gore. The gore is at it’s 80′s over the top best when you get it. It’s soo outrageous it’s somewhat humorous. But that type of gore is still a very enjoyable type of gore to me, so I liked that. The rest however is where I had my problems with this movie. There’s a lot of plot holes, soo many holes you could probably see right through this film to be exact. And as much as I tried to ignore them and take this film for what it was, I just couldn’t.
I also found the acting here to be really really bad. And I’m a guy who can usually look passed stuff like that. So if it’s THIS bad that it annoyed me, then you got to assume it really is pretty bad. There’s a child actor that is OK. The main character (our crazy guy) is OK. But there are just some people in this who seems like they must have been pulled off the street and asked to read a cue card or something. It’s just that awkward and annoying. When some actors are going through their lines it sounds like they are reading them from something and not actually acting out the scene.
But the gore is really fun. I think that may be the best thing I can say about it not counting the final twist to the film. It’s slow, it doesn’t have logic, and it has pretty bad acting. So if you want to look at it that way, that’s nor too unusual for an 80′s slasher. But it’s just not executed as well in this movie as it is in a lot of others. So if you just love a lot of gore and slashers, then this won’t be THAT bad for you. If you are iffy on those regardless then you may be best to skip this. I probably won’t be watching it again for a very very long time.
The Conclusion
If you want me to list you some pretty cool one off slashers, I’d be picking stuff like Intruder and not this. But if you want to see it in it’s fully uncut form then pick it up at Code Red. From what I am hearing only a very limited amount of the DVDs will be printed.
The Rating (5/10)
Chucks website
