Samhain Project 5: Nightmares

Nightmares is a glorious fucking mess.  It was one of those movies that I recorded on an old TDK VHS tape back in the mid-1980's because I thought it was so badass.  Watching it now, some 40 years later I see it for what it was.  

Kind of cinematic garbage. 

But it's a guilty pleasure to me, because it has so many little nuggets of greatness.  First of all, it's a 4 part anthology film that was rumored for a very long time to have been a trashed television project that became a reclamation idea for cinematic release.  Apparently, those in the know, (whoever they may be) have debunked this line of questioning.  Look, it was released in the summer of 1983, clearly shot in fall of 1982, as First Blood is on a cinema marquee across the street from where a very young Emilio Estevez is shooting some footage.  So timewise, that kind of kills the story that the sequences were meant to be used in a 1981 television show.  As far as a 1983-84 television show, that will remain up in the air. 

But who cares, really.  The producer claims is was straight up intended to be what it is.  

Now, to the nuggets. 

Part one:  Clearly a play on an ancient urban legend.  The killer in the back seat trope.  And really, this sequence works.  Our lead is a young Christina Raines, who is effective as an incredibly dumb woman who gives in to her cigarette craving and heads out at eleven at night for smokes despite the widely reported existence of a serial killer in her local area.  We have a young William Sanderson appear, who's almost unrecognizable to the untrained eye.  Good ol' E.B. Fuckin' Farnum himself from Deadwood.  And Larry, who always showed up with his brother, Daryl, and his other brother Daryl in the 80's classic Newhart.  

And a quick splash of Lee Ving, before his band kicks off the next sequence with their killer punk number, I Don't Care About You.  It's clearly a demo, as it sounds way off from the track on FEAR's debut album, The Record.

 Part Two:  Emilio Estevez, who looks about 16, plays a complete asshole who goes into a really racist take on a Latino neighborhood video arcade to hustle money to feed his need for a game he wants to take to the 13th level, The Bishop of Battle.  Continuing on from the first sequence, the acting is solid here.  The writing, not so much.  The computer graphics used here, obviously dated, aren't as embarrassing as they could have been.  The sequence is bumped up with music from FEAR, Negative Trend, and Black Flag. A little early 80's L.A. punk never killed anyone. 

Part Three:  Lance Henriksen (getting to be a trend here in '25, as this is his third appearance in this years Samhain Project) is once again better than the material as a priest who loses his faith, and ends up in a battle with old Scratch himself, who decides to take the form of a Chevrolet pickup truck.  I would have preferred a Ford-F150, because I associate that vehicle with evil at the moment, but I digress.  Tony Plana (who I always hear his voice trying to placate El Duapo in Three Amigos) also does nice work here as a friend of Lance's.  (I use his first name, we go way back, even chatted briefly on social media once.)

Part Four: For some reason, I feel this one is the weakest.  And if you love cats as much as I do, you'll understand.  Veronica Cartwright and Richard Masur are a well-to-do couple, who along with their daughter face the wrath of a rat, but this isn't just any rat, this is the Teufel Nagetier.  Masur plays an asshole here, but as he engages with the rat (not quite like Peter Weller in Of Unknown Origin) but in a way that slightly redeems the character, he becomes more like the characters you're used to seeing him play. 

Nightmares was released (of course) by Anchor Bay on DVD before disappearing, and as usual driving the price of the film through the ceiling.  That is until Scream Factory released it in 2015. 

Speaking of which: