cinema history class: nightmare

Session: Welcome to My Nightmare, Week 1
Movie: NIghtmare (1981)
Directed by Romano Scavolini

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A psychotic made more psychotic by an experimental drug travels to Florida to murder his ex-wife and son.  Hilarity ensues.*

Reaction:

My main thought was "why?" This was disjointed to the point of being difficult to understand. I asked if this was a particularly influential film, and Keith said that it wasn't.

That said, Nightmare was notorious for the graphic nature of its gore. In the UK, its distributor was sentenced to prison for the violence. And it was often cited in the debate over violence in movies. The fact is this was far over the top in terms of the gore. This is true of multiple scenes of violence, but it peaks with the final decapitation (which had been hinted at all film long).

The concept of experimental drugs backfiring is an interesting topic, and the premise does remind me a bit of The Terminal Man, though I haven't seen that movie (I have read the book, though). The whole thing creates a villain who can be sympathetic, having been created through medical intervention.

While this could have been fascinating, the flaws tended to ruin it. Perhaps I would have liked it better if I actually were into slasher films, which I'm not. It was cool, however, that the villain looks sort of like Conan O'Brien.

Ratings:

Me: 2.5
Christina: 8
Dave: 8
Ethan: 4
Joe: 9.8**
Sean: 2 out of 4
T.K.: 3 out of 5

*This plot synopsis was written by Keith. I woudn't want to claim it as my own. I mean, I really would -- it is pretty spot on perfect. But I wouldn't want to be accused of plagiarism.

**Joe missed this week, so he didn't see the movie or get to rate it. I'm just assuming he would have given it a 9.8.