Nightmares
(1980/Umbrella DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: C Film: B
PLEASE
NOTE: This Import
DVD is now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment
in Australia, can only play on Blu-ray players that can handle the
PAL DVD and can be ordered from the link below.
The
1980 Australian horror film Nightmares is something of a gem
for horror fans and is directed superbly by John Lamond (Felicity,
reviewed elsewhere on this site), who is a fantastic filmmaker in my
opinion. This film, also going by the name Stage Fright,
stars Jenny Neumann (Hell Night) and owes a lot to John Carpenter's
Halloween, with some critics calling it a 'clone.' The main
reason being that there are many long Steadicam shots from the
perspective of the killer stalking the victim before a kill similar
to the opening of Halloween, only here they are drawn out way
longer to add to the creepiness and most of the victims are killed
during sex. What makes it different aside from the plot obviously is
that is doesn't shy away from nudity and gore in the way the original
Halloween rightfully chose to do. Entertaining through and
with a great ending, I found this to be a good watch and really
enjoyed it!
Haunted
by the sudden death of her mother at an early age, an aspiring
actress (Neumann) is brought in the middle of a psychopath murdering
spree during a stage production, similar in plot to Dario Argento's
master work Opera. What is interesting here too is that there
are killing going on even as the play is happening, with some victims
getting picked off by just sitting in the audience simply watching.
The
killer murders the victims with a long piece of glass and has no
problem stabbing them repeatedly to assure their deaths (of course
after slowly stalking them a bit first). The film is full of
inventive moments and clever filmmaking tropes and I would recommend
it to those who like Ozploitation, Italian giallo, or slasher films.
There
is a another release of this film on DVD available from Severin Films
(a review of which can be found elsewhere on this site) which is in
many ways superior as it has an Audio Commentary track and a few more
featurettes along with the same supplemental materials listed below.
As
far as picture and sound transfers go, however, both versions are
similar with a standard definition with a 2.35:1 anamorphic
widescreen presentation and a lossless Dolby Digital 2.0 English
track that sound fine for the DVD format.
Extras
include...
Confessions
of an R-Rated Filmmaker: interview with director John D. Lamond
John
Lamond Trailer Reel (a look at some his other work)
Still
and poster gallery
Nightmares
is an interesting film with some bizarre characters and moments of
tension. The highlight of me was the score by Brian May, which
constantly keeps the film suspenseful and in many ways reminded me of
Henry Mancini's Friday the 13th soundtrack or a Bernard
Herrmann score. Recommended.
To
order this
Umbrella import DVD, go to this link for it and other great, even
hard to get releases at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
James Lockhart
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
