Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Nightmares (1983) - Dollar Bin Film

Tales of terror involving a Midnight cigarette run that turns deadly when a housewife thinks that an escaped mental patient may be stalking her, a teenager whose obsession with a video game takes a lethal turn, a priest who has lost faith being hounded by a devilish rig truck and a giant rat on the prowl in a couple's upscale home.

A cohesive collection of horror stories dealing with addictions or obsessions. Tale one takes the frameworks of a classic scary story premise and cleverly juxtapositions that against the realities of the dangers of cigarette smoking. Tale two, which showcases a young Emilo Estevez, creates the most palpable portrait of addiction as an ever growing amount of suspense is built up as the Estevez character becomes more dangerously obsessed with reaching each level of the game. Tale three, involving priest Lance Henriksen, is the least satisfactory of the bunch, but the story still (barely) manages to tie in with what the film is doing as a whole. And tale four, involving the giant rat, is energetic and lively and closes out the film with a bang. Nightmares lives up to ideas associated with having a nightmare. It's scary. It's suspenseful. It's riveting. It's keep one on edge. Nightmares is pretty tame stuff by today's standards, but it's a successfully scary horror movie none the less. 

-Brandon Sites
(http://bigdaddyhorrorreviews.com/)

1 comment:

Eric Polk said...

Loved the Emilo Estevez vignette. Overall, Nightmares was ok, but no Creepshow.