Nightmares (1980)
aka Stage Fright
Studio: Severin
Theatrical Release: October 30th, 1980
DVD Release: June 28th, 2011
Rating: UnRated
Directed by John Lamond
Review by Craig Sorensen
Australia isn’t exactly known for it’s horror films (with a few exceptions of course), let alone decent slasher films, yet that didn’t stop softcore director John Lamond from jumping headlong into the genre during it’s early ‘80s heyday. And while the results aren’t exactly a revelation, they are weirdly disorienting and exceedingly sleazy enough to stand out in an over saturated field.
Like all good slasher films, Nightmares begins with a young child walking in on her mom having sex with a strange man (see also Nightmare and Pieces). From there, while driving home and waking up in the backseat to find another man trying to get a little road action with mom, the child freaks out and causes an accident. While trying to save her mother the child pulls her through the broken windshield and across a jagged piece of glass, cutting her throat. Her father blames her for the mother’s death of course and all this trauma fractures the poor girl’s mind. Flash forward a few years and that child, Helen (Jenny Neumann of Hell Night), is an aspiring actress with intimacy issues. She is cast in a stagey looking drawing room comedy type play and starts to date one of her costars. As the director starts pushing her further and further into her subconscious, for her character naturally, Helen starts to lose her tenuous grip on reality. Soon people associated with the play start dropping like flies, all of them stabbed with jagged pieces of glass.
Of course, the identity of the killer is never really in question, despite all the POV shots hiding her identity. Hell, even the cover gives that away. The film does nothing to give us even a red herring. And the plot is threadbare at best. What Nightmares does have is a healthy dose of sleaze. The DVD cover proudly displays the “Totally Uncut & Uncensored” text which I usually don’t pay any attention to. They aren’t lying in this case. The first murder in this thing is of a nude couple in an alleyway. What plays before is borderline pornographic and then the man has his dick chopped off with a piece of glass. And while the other murders rarely live up to that over the top moment, you do get a second scene of coitus interruptus as well as a woman being stalked completely nude in the rain. The film is also edited really strange. The opening of the film is so disjointed that it becomes surreal and things never really slip back to normalcy. Scenes just seem to abruptly end and new scenes just butt up against them with really no transitions at all. It certainly gives the film an odd feeling.
For the most part Severin’s DVD of Nightmares looks pretty good. The film is presented in a nice 16x9 enhanced 2.35:1 transfer. Colors look very natural and the transfer does a good job of showcasing the cinematography. The only problem here, and it’s probably a minor one, is there seems to be some PAL to NTSC conversion issues. Evidently this is the same transfer that was issued earlier from Umbrella in Australia and there looks to be a bit of PAL speedup and artifacting left over from the switch to NTSC. Those are minor problems and I wouldn’t let that stop you from getting the disc. The only audio option seems to be the original mono track. It does a nice job though. As far as extras go, you get a nice commentary track with the director and Mark Hartley (director of Not Quite Hollywood), a short featurette called “A Brief History of Slasher Films” (which if you know the genre already won’t seem like anything special) and the film’ s original theatrical trailer. You also get a trailer reel of the director’s other work which includes trailers for ABC of Love and Sex Australia Style, Felicity, Pacific Banana, Breakfast in Paris and Sky Pirates. And last but not least you get trailers for three other films available from Severin; Bloody Moon, Horror Express and Psychomania.
[Rating: 3]
Studio: Severin
Theatrical Release: October 30th, 1980
DVD Release: June 28th, 2011
Rating: UnRated
Directed by John Lamond
Review by Craig Sorensen
Australia isn’t exactly known for it’s horror films (with a few exceptions of course), let alone decent slasher films, yet that didn’t stop softcore director John Lamond from jumping headlong into the genre during it’s early ‘80s heyday. And while the results aren’t exactly a revelation, they are weirdly disorienting and exceedingly sleazy enough to stand out in an over saturated field.
Like all good slasher films, Nightmares begins with a young child walking in on her mom having sex with a strange man (see also Nightmare and Pieces). From there, while driving home and waking up in the backseat to find another man trying to get a little road action with mom, the child freaks out and causes an accident. While trying to save her mother the child pulls her through the broken windshield and across a jagged piece of glass, cutting her throat. Her father blames her for the mother’s death of course and all this trauma fractures the poor girl’s mind. Flash forward a few years and that child, Helen (Jenny Neumann of Hell Night), is an aspiring actress with intimacy issues. She is cast in a stagey looking drawing room comedy type play and starts to date one of her costars. As the director starts pushing her further and further into her subconscious, for her character naturally, Helen starts to lose her tenuous grip on reality. Soon people associated with the play start dropping like flies, all of them stabbed with jagged pieces of glass.
Of course, the identity of the killer is never really in question, despite all the POV shots hiding her identity. Hell, even the cover gives that away. The film does nothing to give us even a red herring. And the plot is threadbare at best. What Nightmares does have is a healthy dose of sleaze. The DVD cover proudly displays the “Totally Uncut & Uncensored” text which I usually don’t pay any attention to. They aren’t lying in this case. The first murder in this thing is of a nude couple in an alleyway. What plays before is borderline pornographic and then the man has his dick chopped off with a piece of glass. And while the other murders rarely live up to that over the top moment, you do get a second scene of coitus interruptus as well as a woman being stalked completely nude in the rain. The film is also edited really strange. The opening of the film is so disjointed that it becomes surreal and things never really slip back to normalcy. Scenes just seem to abruptly end and new scenes just butt up against them with really no transitions at all. It certainly gives the film an odd feeling.
For the most part Severin’s DVD of Nightmares looks pretty good. The film is presented in a nice 16x9 enhanced 2.35:1 transfer. Colors look very natural and the transfer does a good job of showcasing the cinematography. The only problem here, and it’s probably a minor one, is there seems to be some PAL to NTSC conversion issues. Evidently this is the same transfer that was issued earlier from Umbrella in Australia and there looks to be a bit of PAL speedup and artifacting left over from the switch to NTSC. Those are minor problems and I wouldn’t let that stop you from getting the disc. The only audio option seems to be the original mono track. It does a nice job though. As far as extras go, you get a nice commentary track with the director and Mark Hartley (director of Not Quite Hollywood), a short featurette called “A Brief History of Slasher Films” (which if you know the genre already won’t seem like anything special) and the film’ s original theatrical trailer. You also get a trailer reel of the director’s other work which includes trailers for ABC of Love and Sex Australia Style, Felicity, Pacific Banana, Breakfast in Paris and Sky Pirates. And last but not least you get trailers for three other films available from Severin; Bloody Moon, Horror Express and Psychomania.
[Rating: 3]
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