Gorefest: Nightmare

A fine greetings to all that is still reading this blog. Welcome to Day 4 of Gorefest. Well after the extremely goofy, crass flick of yesterday's Blood Diner I am hoping today's flick will be creepy yet messy. Bloody but suspenseful. Looks like I might get my wish. How about a serial slasher that actually stayed in the mental institute?? Bizarre concept?? Sayeth whaaaaat?? Yeah I am teasing. He escapes shortly after his anti-psychotics aren't doing the trick and he is out on the streets or maybe a stolen car. This is Nightmare.

Teach you to get into my 65 year old scotch!

George Tatum (Baird Stafford of Nightmare and Dog Tags) underwent a experimental trial with a new drug. This drug is suppose to cease his psychotic episodes and his horrific dreams brought by some childhood trauma he either cannot or won't share about with his doctors. "On the road to recovery", he stops at a nudie booth and has horrible flashbacks of his parents... getting busy... and then a boy with an ax murders them causing George to foam at the mouth and fall into a seizure. With the nightmares worsening, George is released from the hospital prematurely and all those involved with the drug trial are patting themselves on the back. Now he is on the loose searching for his ex-wife and children housed away snugly in Florida after leaving quite the mess in Philadelphia. Trust me when I say there will be more than a few apartments available thanks to George alone.

His ex, Susan Temper (Sharon Smith of Blast-Off Girls, Tyler, Nightmare and Puss in Boots), son C.J. (C.J. Cooke of Nightmare) and his two daughters Tammy (Tammy Patterson of Nightmare) and Kimmy (Kim Patterson) are completely unaware that Daddy is on his way and he is leaving a vicious trail of dead screws as he goes.

No, these aren't your panties... they're mine.

Susan being the bread winner of the house leaves the kids with Kathy (Danny Ronan of Nightmare) in charge when she starts to receive a series of hang up calls. With Last Call Return or *69 not available for another 13 years, Kathy is growing concerned.

Will George find his family and dance in their blood soaked corpses? Will any girl ever want to be a babysitter thanks to the 80's horror films? Will there be competent cops or the typical clueless slasher ones?

A few comments on the film. There has been a dispute on Tom Savini's involvement in this movie for the FX, prostethics and blood bladders. Apparently he was only a technical advisor and not hands on with this one. Also, he is really sick of answering this question, horror buffs so move on.

With the smart editing, bizarre visuals and fairly graphic death sequences you almost have a feel of William Lustig's Maniac or even Lucio Fulchi's The New York Ripper. In many ways, the killers are similar with the completely jacked up childhoods and the disposal of the victims are alike but unlike those characters, George's back story is a teensy more jacked up than they and the nightmares are a doorway into George's psychosis showing how deranged he really is. With dreams of blood stained scenarios every night it is no wonder this man cannot get a decent rest let alone keep his oars in the water. With the POV shots on potential victims, the long crane shots and the dolly track always staying away from them, you really cannot be certain when he will really strike. It really leaves the mind spinning on how all this could happen.

So yes like Maniac and The New York Ripper this is grisly and just as sleazy with solid story telling and I did jump a few times watching. The characters aren't really anything new but overall I did enjoy the film. You need a good thriller with that serial killer slasher vibe, you like your rooms blood-splattered and gory then this is your film.  In the 1980's this fell under the Video Nasty in the UK for its graphic death scenes and no "artistic" integrity. And decades later I think I have seen bloodier flicks from across the pond.

Blarggfff!!!!