October 5th

Nightmare (1981) directed by Romano Scavolini

"Whoa, whoever did the gore effects in this one rivaled Tom Savini," I thought to myself during one of the film's excellent murder scenes. Little did I know that Savini was a consultant on set and the filmmakers attempted to capitalize on his name by claiming Savini was the primary FX artist in giant letters on the movie poster. Ah... when the special FX wizards were king and could sell a movie. One of many reasons I miss the 1980s.

Nightmare is not a particularly well-scripted movie. The twists are all obvious. The way crazy George Tatum's doctors track him -- a computer more advanced than we have now -- is ridiculous. Some of the character's motivations are little hard to believe at times and the things they say sound like movie lines rather than real things people say to each other. Crazy George is made the victim of a secret government mind control experiment, which is way overboard; making him simply nuts would've sufficed.

But, that gore. I think the movie's gore effects have such impact because the film never flinches away from them. We see every impact into the victim's body. We're forced to view a close-up of blood spurting from a slashed neck, or out of a puncture wound from a hammer, or from the stump of a neck. It's intense and makes this otherwise not-so-great film quite memorable.

[watched on a laptop in a barn. nothing defeats the Six Weeks!]