Nightmares

1980 "Screams of terror… silenced only by the splintering of glass!"
4.6| 1h23m| en| More Info
Released: 30 October 1980 Released
Producted By: John Lamond Motion Picture Enterprises
Country: Australia
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A little girl named Cathy tries to keep her mother from making out with a man while driving one day, and she inadvertently causes her mother's death in the car crash. 16 years later, Cathy has changed her name to Helen and has become a psychotic actress. Things are going fine until horrible things starts to happened with the cast of her new play.

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John Lamond Motion Picture Enterprises

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Reviews

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!
KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?
Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.
lost-in-limbo Australia's answer to the slasher market… well kind of, as this weird, trashy psychodrama does contain numerous elements found it slashers. Not perfect by any stretch, but it especially does a good job constructing its stalk and slash sequences with stylish verve and a real mean streak to boot. Like other reviewers mentioned it has a striking resemblance to Michele Soavi's late 80s slasher "Stagefright" and there's a touch Giallo evident. The POV shots do at times strike a nerve; just listen to the heavy breathing. The suspense when it's on, is gripping and the attack scenes are brutal and bloody. Hearing the glass slice the skin really does come through in these scenes. Also it doesn't skimp on the sleaze and nudity either. However it's too bad that the editing throws up some random scenes that are poorly linked, or don't add much to the unfolding situations and the final twist is so easy to pick up on that it's no surprise when its revealed. When it's not focusing on the stage cast and crew being dispatched, it's somewhat textbook in its tired dramas. Surprisingly the opening sequences are very effective in setting up a scarred character. There were some names attached to this Australian production that horror fans will recognise. Jenny Neumann playing the lead character, the aspiring actress with a troubled past would be known for her part in the Linda Blair's starring slasher "Hell Night" the following year. Also attached to the project was Colin Eggleston as writer, who brought us the eco-horror "Long Weekend" and would later churn out an even more stranger and ultra-slick slasher in "Cassandra" (1986). You could also throw in director John D. Lamond who was behind some Ozploitation films like "Felicity" and "Pacific Banana".Lamond ups the atmospheric traits (good use of a theatre setting), keeps the drama thick with touch oddness and stays rather traditional in the set-up. No surprises, but just like our central character it can be a neurotic and twisted jumble. Although towards the closing stages it does feel fairly rushed and contrived. The performances are acceptable, if at times a little over-colourful and the dialogues did have that blunt nature to them. And that music score is far from subtle.
movieman_kev .In January 1963, Helen sees her mother getting off with another man, a month later, mistaking her playful banter for being hurt, she inadvertently causes a car crash killing the mother. Now in the present, Helen is an aspiring actress who obviously has some issues. Meanwhile, there's some psycho murdering those who show too much PDAs. What are the chances that these are connected? Fairly likely.Well that was needlessly convoluted. the girl who played Helen DID affectively play a nutter, but the rest of the film was a mess. Less than halfway in, I found my interest waning exponentially (never a good sign) Culminating in one of the most unsatisfying endings that I've seen in quite some time.My grade: DEye Candy: Sue Jones & Rosanna Zuanetti show everything, meanwhile Angela bares only her bottom
ninjas-r-cool I've always thought that slashers are a sub-genre that thrives on being trashy. They're ultimately all about the kills so those kills need to be as bloody as possible, and the between-kills moments are essentially just filler so there may as well be plenty of boobage in those parts. A slasher with class is kind of like a pizza with low-fat cheese - better for you, but not as indulgent and a little bit pointless. Fortunately, Nightmares, one of the very first slashers to cash in on Halloween's success (yes, before Friday the 13th) was made by Aussie soft-porn legend John D. Lamond (the strip club guy from Not Quite Hollywood) who knows more than a thing or two about cooking up cinematic junk food.Nightmares starts with a young girl accidentally getting a peek at her mother having sex (what a slut!), before a car crash where she sees Mummy get her neck sliced open on the broken windshield. Naturally, having a childhood forged in the fires of sex and violence means that she grows up into a woman who can't resist stabbing random people with a huge shard of glass. That's some classic slasher logic right there. Anyway, Glass Shard Stabby-Stab Girl (I can't remember her actual name) gets a role in a play and sets about killing co-stars, director, a film critic and anyone else who happens be near.One slightly bizarre thing about this movie is that the kills are filmed in a way which hides the killer's identity. They're all first person POV shot, followed by a close-up of a murderous hand clutching a glass shard which strikes down then we cut to the carnage. This approach would make perfect sense if we didn't already know who the killer was, but here it seems a tad redundant. Still, the kills themselves are plentiful and are all suitably graphic and sadistic, including one boundary-pushing murder of a naked woman where we see the whole shebang, blood dripping off breasts and through pubic thatch. It's tasteless, crude, misogynistic - all that good stuff.The 80's was responsible for a number of atrocities like big hair, Reaganomics and Wham's Last Christmas. But it also gave us an abundance of movies like this one that possess that special slasher vibe that only ever really existed during mankind's tackiest decade. Truth be told, it's not a particularly good film but, like an extra-cheesy pizza, it's enough to leave you full and with greasy drool dripping off your chin.
Coventry This extremely weak Australian excuse for a motion picture is sort of like the Pavlov Dog Experiment amongst horror movies. You remember this famous "Conditioned Reflex" experiment from your school books, right? The Russian scientist Pavlov proved that dogs tended to salivate before the food actually came into their mouths and this through repetitive routines stimulating the animal's reflexes. Pavlov rung a bell a couple of instants before the food was delivered to the dog and, after a while, he became anxious and excited and already started salivating from hearing the sound of the bell. What the hell has this whole boring explanation in common with a sleazy and low-budgeted Aussie slasher flick, I hear you think? Well, the modus operandi of the maniacal killer in "Nightmares" is an exact variant on Pavlov's experiment. Each and every single murder sequence is preceded by the raw sound and image of the killer breaking a window, because he/she insists on using a sharp piece of glass to slice up the victims. So this means that, after a short while, inattentive and bored viewers can afford to doze off and simply look up again when they hear the sound of shattering glass. That way they still don't miss anything special! Regarding the quality of "Nightmares" as a film I can be very brief. This is a cheap, uninspired and largely imbecilic Aussie cash-in on the contemporary popular trend of American slasher movies. In the early 60's, a four-year-old witnesses the cruel death of her mother as her throat gets slit open in a nasty car accident. Twenty years later the same girl – Helen Selleck – is a successful stage actress, but she still has severe mental issues and regularly suffers from horrible flashbacks and traumatic nightmares. She auditions for a role in a black comedy play revolving on death and gets the part. Shortly after the big premiere, everyone who's even remotely involved with the production gets slaughtered. It is truly retarded how this movie attempts to uphold the mystery regarding the killer's identity and motivations even though even the most infantile viewer can figure it out after the first murder already. I don't think I've ever seen a more obvious whodunit than "Nightmares" and the creators should have just showed his/her face straight away and save themselves from embarrassment. The murders are explicit and very bloody and there's also an unhealthy large amount of gratuitous nudity to "enjoy". However, the production values are poor and thus the movie is never at one point shocking or provocative. The few clips we get to see of the actual play make it appear that it quite possible could be the worst thing ever performed on stage. The only positive elements in the film are the characters of the director and the gay newspaper critic, whom are both delightfully sarcastic and insult the rest of the cast members as much as we do. "Nightmares" is a dreadful piece of exploitative horror cinema, but hey, at least I gave you a golden tip to make it more digestible.