Jim bob
I watched this when it originally aired in the early eighties. It must have struck a nerve because it stuck with me for over 30 years. Mostly the attack scenes and the red POV of the killer are the things I remembered. In particular when the guy is attacked by the gas mask wearing"creature" in the tent and his camera and voice recorder capture the attack, only to be viewed later by the police. What was that thing in those photos???? Quite chilling at the time. Anyway, I finally tracked it down again recently after several failed attempts to find it. I could't even remember the name of it, and just chanced over during an internet search. God bless Google. Like a lot shows that had a nostalgic connection to you, it looks very dated now, and it's merit is really based on having experienced it at the time. But I still enjoyed a repeat viewing. It didn't quite bring back that feeling of dread it created for me as a 10 year old viewing it (how could it, eh?) but I can still see why it stuck with me after all these years. Anyone viewing this for the first time now, most likely will find it unintentionally funny and ultimately unsatisfying. However, it was new and fresh for it's time and much bolder then most of the garbage that now fills the UK TV schedules. So Glad I finally found it again!
Prof-Hieronymos-Grost
The tourist season has just ended on a remote island off the coast of Scotland, winter is beginning to set in and the inhabitants, both humans and sheep alike are settling down to much quieter times ahead. Michael Gaffikin (James Warwick) a former paratrooper in the British Army, is the local dentist, he's not an islander by birth and as such his relationship with local artist and cartographer Fiona Patterson (Celia Imrie) is always being viewed with a little suspicion, not maliciously, but just out of the protective instincts the tight knit community have for their kin. The islands serenity is broken when Gaffikin out for a solitary round of golf finds the headless remains of a brutally slain woman. He immediately reports his gruesome find to Insp Inskip(Maurice Roëves) at the islands police station, Inskip arranges for delivery of the remains to local GP, Dr Goudry, for closer inspection. A quick search for the killer proves fruitless, as does a search for a missing local woman. Over dinner that night with Michael Gaffikin, Fiona realises that the dead woman might be Sheila Anderson, a woman from the mainland, who lives on the island through the winter months. A quick search at her home Dove Cottage reveals the missing remains of her body, her home proving to be the murder scene, but why did the killer drag her torso over a mile into the woods? Suspicion immediately falls on the one stranger left on the island, one Colonel Howard (Jonathan Newth)who also happened be the last person to see her alive as they came across on the last ferry together.Goudry asks Gaffikin for some dental expertise on the victims body, it reveals that she had been torn apart my somebody or something with great strength, one set of teeth marks on the body seem to point at a human killer, another points to that of an unknown animal of some kind. A sheep is found mutilated and then a Canadian ornithologist is found slain. With a heavy fog rolling in, the island is cut off from the mainland and any possibility of help, the radio also doesn't work, seemingly being blocked and the phone lines have been cut. Reports of UFO's and the sighting of a camouflaged soldier are compounded by the finding of an odd looking craft hidden behind rocks on the beach. Inskip is confused and refuses to listen to anything but the facts and laughs off Gaffikin's idea that aliens might be involved, but a rise in radioactive levels on the island, has him doubting himself.The Nightmare Man is based on the novel, Child of the Vodyanoi by David Wiltshire, it is here adapted by Dr Who and Blake's 7 scriptwriter Robert Holmes and directed by Douglas Camfield who also had directing experience on both Sci/Fi classics and the film benefits from having such experienced genre experts on board. The Nightmare Man though is on the whole, a succinctly better crafted piece, that builds its plot alongside solid character development, even down to the minor characters, time is given to giving them all a firm background. The island setting is perhaps a genre cliché that has been used over and over, but its one that I enjoy very much, the remoteness, the sense of being under siege with no way out always add to the atmosphere and here it is given an extra oomph by having an impenetrable fog close in to hamper all efforts. In many genre efforts of this kind it is very easy for proceedings to get silly and for the plot to resort to melodrama, but credit to Camfield, he holds it all together with the emphasis being on believability at all times. There is an authenticity about proceedings, the characters even speaking Gaelic at times to further this point. If there is one negative about the killer its that, we are given his/her/its POV for the killings, an acceptable cliché on its own, but when seen through a red filter and a fish eye lens, it just screams of overkill and dates the film just a little. Still though you will be hard pressed to guess the outcome or the identity or for that matter the species of the killer, given the clues presented, but it's a fun and very well acted piece. The local Scottish cast are exceptional, the local bobbies Roeves and Cosmo in particular spar well off each other and are a delight to behold. Imrie, never one i've taken to in other works, is also pretty good and displays hew womanly physique as if she were in a Hammer production. The outlandish, maybe even preposterous ending may irk some viewers, it disappointed me in some ways, but taking into account when it was made, its an understandable and acceptable addendum that if you think about it, is even more terrifying.
siobhan-rouse
Oh dear. Some of the best talent in British TV made this serial, and so I can only assume that they were working under incredible time pressure, and had to settle for first takes of many scenes.There ARE some frightening scenes in this Highland mystery (mostly when the "monster" attacks and we see it from his point of view), but I'm afraid that I found most of the story unintentionally funny ! Such as the moment when the hero discovers a dismembered corpse on a golf course: Oh look, there's a hand ... oh, and there's another hand over there ... hmm this is a bit puzzling ...For many years fans of British cult TV shows campaigned to have this serial released on VHS or DVD, but the BBC always said no. Now I think I understand why !
houndtang75
Have just watched the DVD of this prime slice of old nonsense, the kind of obscure hokum that was churned out regularly in the 70s and 80s but is seldom seen in these dull televisual days. The cast is quite an amusing mix, with jut-jawed Agatha Christie adaptation regular James Warwick as the dentist/paratrooper hero and a youthful Celia Imrie as his busty girlfriend. Maurice Roeves is the wry, cynical cop and Jonathan Newth the obviously dodgy Colonel. One of the biggest giggles is the way Warwick constantly suggests outlandish explanations for the murders - 'Genetic experiments gone wrong' or Alien invasion. Of course it turns out to be even dafter, a Russian cyborg gone AWOL. It's a bit of a cheapy as well with a submarine so lightweight a couple of brawny chaps can carry on their shoulders and a cast of about 12. Still, worth a watch for novelty value.
