Film Review: Nightmares

"Somewhere between the real and unreal, between the world of daylight and the dark of night, between the peaceful sleep of dreams and the endless sleep of death . . . lay NIGHTMARES."


Picture it kiddies, 1983. I was six years old and we just got a little thing called cable hooked up in mom and dads room and an ATARI 2600 in my brother's room. We didn't want to go to bed early, we just had to stay up and watch HBO. And then it came on.

Sometimes a movie(like a single significant moment in time) can stay with you forever. Such as it was with me and NIGHTMARES.

Directed by Joseph Sargent, and Starring Veronica Cartwright (ALIEN, SCARY MOVIE 2, CANDYMAN 2) Emilio Estevez (THE BREAKFAST CLUB) and LANCE HENRIKSEN (ALIEN, NEAR DARK, MILLENNIUM, etc.) Nightmares is 99 minutes of modern horror told in four seperate tales complete with sinister music and typical 1980s style special effects.

It was originally made for TV, but deemed to harsh for prime time. The film is rated R (in my younger days, that meant the film was cool).

Emilio and Lance star in the second and third vignettes. Emilio plays a misunderstood teen named JJ who was obsessed with video games and punk rock music. JJ is like unto a god at his local video arcade and his main obsession was making it to level 13 in his favorite game the Bishop of Battle. Well, after fighting with his parents he runs away from home and breaks into the arcade to play all night. When he reaches the mythical 13th level the game comes to life and tries to take him out. As a kid, this part was so disturbing, but fun to watch as his joystick becomes a real Buck Rogers style laser pistol. (It was 2d graphic mayhem for a good 10-12 minutes. Not CG saturated like BEOWULF, but this was fun to see again.) In the end (Spoiler), JJ tries to run away and is swallowed by the Bishop (literally). The next morning his best friend and parents look all over town for JJ. They finally make it to the Arcade. The last we see of JJ is him slowly fading away into the video game screen with an ominous voice saying: "I am the Bishop of Battle. I have thirteen progressively harder levels. Try me if you dare. Please insert coin."

Henriksen story opens with a nightmare. He plays a priest who questions his faith in God and can know longer continue as a parish priest. He sees signs of evil all around him and no signs of good. He dreams he is tending a garden and stops to feed a fawn. The baby deer is bitten by a rattlesnake. He angrily chops up the snake and picks it up and throws it into the air where it disappears. His hand is burned and covered with blood. He awakes screaming. When he leaves his parish, defeated and dressed in street clothing, he takes a canister of blessed tap water with him because "He needs it to drive across the desert in a car with no air conditioning".
Mistake in judgement? Not really.

As he travels the lonely desert road, he is attacked at every turn by a demonic pick up truck (yes, a black demonic pick up truck). This thing of seemingly benign malevolence kicks his ass all over the desert and totals his car. As it is about to run him down, he throws the "tap water" at the truck (beast) and it screams and disappears. His faith is restored and he returns to his parish.

I love the way this movie takes the harmless little things of life (videogames, a trip to the store, a suburban rodent infestation)and makes the twisted, terrifying, and dark. I am seeing this film for the first time in years again and it still creeps me out. YES! Or maybe it is just a long forgotten memory in me that still remembers what real fear is.

The music, the atmosphere, the acting all made for a great story telling. And that is what horror is for. Yes gladiator, I am entertained.