And then the authors decided to gently lay down my favorite Sci-Fi of the 50s. They and the beginning of the film stuck in 1959 and, according to the tradition of those years, several misfortunes were immediately mixed into a pile - aliens, zombies and a maniac. And special effects are something like 50s movies. But I thought it was not enough to put this film on the shelf of good films.
The bottom line is that once in 1959, a UFO flying over a campus dropped a flask with some slugs. Kolba was found by a student driving with a girl in a car. Then the story ends and we are in 1986.
Two nerd students dream of joining a fraternity. I'm giving them an assignment to bring a corpse from the morgue to the dorm. Students accidentally find themselves in a secret room in the morgue, where the corpse of the same guy from 1959 is unfreezed. The corpse is full of slugs and soon there is a zombie apocalypse in the town.
As a youth comedy, maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe because I think the movie just didn’t get in the mood. I wasn't funny. And cardboard characters, script holes, bad acting and bad special effects prevented you from watching this masterpiece. Maybe I'm just too old for those kins.
In the vicinity of the campus appear worm-like alien organisms that penetrate into the human body through the mouth and turn people into a kind of zombie. Soon their numbers are rapidly growing and new zombies begin to sow death in their path. An ordinary student Chris has no choice but to fight back worm-like parasites.
It is worth admitting that this film is nothing frankly new in terms of history. Something similar has already been repeatedly played out in such films as “Slug”, “Faculty”, “Invasion of Body Thieves”, “Invasion” and in an impressive number of other films. Nevertheless, it is worth admitting that, despite this, history does not suffer from secondaryity. Perhaps played an implant in the history of plot plots of films about zombies. I don't know. However, the story looks quite easy and interesting. Despite the fact that there is nothing unique in the story, the characters are maximally cardboard and dialogues for the most part written “on the back”.
The director of this film Fred Dekker shot not a bad horror film with elements of a fantastic thriller. The picture seems a little drawn out and sags a little within its timekeeping. However, it does not look bad and quite cheerful. In many ways, due to excellent practical and visual effects, which may seem a little outdated in our time. But not so much that would spoil the impression of viewing and for the most part due to its “age” playing in favor of an atmosphere in which, in addition to the elements of horror, black humor is very successfully implanted.
The actors in general did not play badly. No one wants to be singled out and each of them looks very natural in his image on the screen. Especially the star of the third “Halloween” Tom Atkins, who managed to create a colorful image of such a “mother old wolf”.
7 out of 10
Night of nightmares is not a bad horror movie with elements of a fantastic thriller. The story cannot be called original. Nevertheless, the authors of this tape managed to tell a very interesting story with decent directing and colorful practical effects.
Girls, I have two news for you: good and bad. Good thing your guys are coming back.
- And the bad one?
- They're dead!
In the distant 50s, aliens accidentally missed a capsule with a worm that fell in the vicinity of an American college town, where the monster immediately jumped into the mouth of a curious poor fellow. It's been 30 years. The students are getting ready for prom, the guys are looking for ladies, the ladies are looking for guys. Meanwhile, two friends, trying to impress one beauty, steal the frozen body (the same guy who swallowed the slug) from a secret laboratory, accidentally awakening this ancient evil to life. And it started. Worms jump from one unfortunate to another, turning them into zombies! And there and to the local apocalypse is not far.
What is the formula for an old-fashioned category B horror movie? Skillfully crafted from different genres plot, the living dead, black humor, beautiful girls, a cool hero and guns! Mix, don't blurt. It is a pity that such a film is not very popular in Russia, if only because it is very difficult to find a normal translation (it had to be content with a murky one-love; the alternative is Stein, but this is for masochists). But this movie is essentially the quintessence of horror films of the distant 80s, well, or one of its suitable representatives. Small budget, but worth watching.
In fact, you can see how Decker and his comrades treated the creation with love, ranging from a pile of oil to the famous directors (the heroes of the Cronenberg family, Cameron, Carpenter, Ladys; and the university bears the name of Corman) and ending with the molding of various popular genres of films of that time - here you and fantasy with aliens (well, not Aliens?), and slasher (a scene with a dead psycho), and a zombie film and even a pinch of body horror. All these genres were popular in Hollywood and gradually gained momentum, starting with the heyday of the 50s and ending with the tsarist 80s. And here it is - control work, consolidation of the passed.
On the other hand, its low budget cuts the eye; it is not difficult not to pay attention to how dolls (zombies) explode their heads or mechanically possessed dogs and cats. And in terms of the plot there is enough understatement and, let’s be honest, superfluous. Who are these aliens at the beginning of the movie? What are these worms? Where are they from? What happens after the events of the movie? Why even this storyline with a psychotic axe, when in the end it looks stretched and does not affect what is happening? About the first questions, there is a suspicion that the creators swung at the sequel, but ... did not work out.
But if you discard it, then we have a very dynamic humorous horror movie. Pretty heroes, the atmosphere of the universities of that time, cheerful music, entertaining dialogue, zombie cat(!), zombie dog(!) and chic Tom Atkins, who played a cynical cool detective in a coat. ' Well, scare me!' - this can be quoted endlessly. And references. Many references in horror films and movies of that time. Are aliens easily burned by flamethrowers? Hey, something! Is a man illegally taking a shotgun? Yes, it's the Terminator, even the actor is the same, even his line (' It's illegal!') the same! Did the zombies rebel because of alien interference? Hey, Ed Wood! And so on. Lovely!
'Night of Nightmares' - low-budget, but entertaining and fun horror, embodied the best that was in horror films of the time. He would have a bigger budget, better actors (except Atkins) and a smoother and simpler plot - and the diamond is ready. But that's good.
(About the 5th minute of the film)
Night of nightmares (Night of creeping creatures)
Here's another great horror movie from the '80s. With this film there was some strange nonsense in Russia. It really couldn’t be found in professional translation (three or four years ago), although I remember watching Night of Nightmares late at night on TV as a kid. I've got it in my soul.
Thank you very much to producer Charles Gordon (Die Hard). Why? Because he could easily send the young director-debutant Fred Dekker (think, at the time of filming he was not even 28) on all four sides. Yeah, with his game about some slugs from outer space, a-hee-hee (Ed Wood is alive!).
But, for some reason, Gordon signed up, found the budget. Looking ahead, Night of Nightmares failed at the box office. A few weeks before the release, cinemas rocked James Cameron’s Aliens. Of course, although the picture still became a cult already on cassettes. Going even further, in 2006, James Gunn’s film Slug was released, which clearly rests on its feet in Nightmare. Influential cinema!
So, the right plot of the movie! In the late 50s, an alien capsule with radioactive slugs falls to Earth. The fall of the capsule notices a couple, the guy goes into the woods. In the mid-80s, two friends of a loser try (because of a girl) to join a cool brotherhood. They are given the task of bringing a corpse. After a little thought, our friends go to the local laboratory, where they find the frozen body of that boy from the 50s.
Guys, it's high. Dekker did a hell of a juicy and juicy job. He combined old thrash fiction with horror. Let me remind you, the first full-length picture. It could have been porridge, but Dekker steered. The movie is charming. The movie is scary. The movie is nasty (in a good way). The cinema is atmospheric. In the main roles of young actors, more or less trying. Of the veterans, I noticed Tom Atkins (Halloween 3, Fog). He has a funny character here.
Add a tribute to that. Heroes bear the names of famous directors – Romero, Cronenberg, Raimi and even Detective Landis (a-hee-hee, John Landis, the creator of “American Werewolf in London”, perfectly). Get it – one of the most amazing debuts in cinema of the 80s. A year later, Dekker will make “Platoon of monsters”, a fairy tale with classic monsters.
Night of Nightmares will forever remain in the hearts of many fans of old horror films.
P.S.
The legendary Dick Miller appears exactly in the 70th minute of the film!
7.5 out of 10
Hit me Experimental mix of horror about alien parasites, zombie-themed, slasher about a maniac with a claim to comedy. So the Night of Nightmares is many and they are different. True, migrated to the film and all the stamps of American youth cinema. A finale hinting at a continuation of history and the dichotomy of good and evil in student society are included. It's not funny for a comedy. It’s not scary, but with a good idea. People here serve as a kind of container for artificially created alien creatures, similar to huge slugs. And also to infect other students. It is a pity that most of the timekeeping was devoted to the attempts of the main character to roll up to the main smart beauty of the university and inappropriate flashbacks in the youth of Detective Ray. As a result, the film is catastrophically lacking tension. However, it pays off with the very idea, pleasant atmosphere and flamethrower in the last third of the film. Characters are typical of almost all horror films of their era. But there is a charismatic detective Ray, a collective image of an experienced cop from an old Hollywood horror: honest, a little crazy, obsessed with heavy memories, cynically saying “hit me” on every call, etc. etc. The merit of Tom Atkins is that he showed his character at the same time comical and lively and looks especially kosher against the background of other empty spaces. Night of Nightmares is a movie that relaxes your brain and nerves. There is nothing to be afraid of, nothing to laugh about, nothing to analyze either. A surface picture that looks surprisingly interesting once, but to which you do not want to return. 6 out of 10 Original
In one century, the film answers the burning question: “Why are we alone in the universe?” It turns out there's life in the airless space that's plowing through a big theater ... er, I mean, outer space, but life is so ugly and unreasonable. Don't you? Well, then, look at three ugly humanoids, naked, who are running around on a spaceship and shooting blasters at each other, risking burning through the skin. No, of course, they have a weak excuse - one jerk is trying to save a capsule of biological waste, and the other two are trying to destroy it, and at the same time and his tribe, but I think the reason is painfully stretched. Maybe they should sit down and talk quietly. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. As Grandpa Ilyich said, “To the morgue means to the morgue!” Or something similar. In any case, the alien says goodbye to his burden by throwing the latter into outer space, after which "the package ends up on Earth." And don't look at me like that, frowning evil, don't. I know that the cosmos is boundless and in it still flies the uterus of aliens, all sorts of android killers, teeth and other space debris, but here unlucky and excreme ... experiments aliens fell on our long-suffering planet. Looks like it, lid. It's time to find things white and surrender to life, but no. A space virus infects a idle teenager who is hastily stunned and taken to a secret laboratory located directly under the morgue. Quick! What's up, guys? How not? Twenty-seven years later, a pair of curious students went in and thawed an infected person? Oh, those students, they're all bad. And you say the government this, the government this. Ehehehehehe. Not because of the government, but because of the students, nights like the one in this movie come. Night of Creeping Creatures...
This is such a trivial plot, but do we need another one? Perhaps not, because in films like our guest today is not important. An atmosphere that can either scare or entertain the viewer is important, but the best way is if the film can combine both of these features. What can this film boast of? And you know, the movie rolled in a completely unexpected direction. Instead of whipping up the atmosphere, the viewer decided to show the situation from the life of American students of the eighties. Here are two young people, the main characters. One of them is a timid and insecure young man, and the second shirt is a guy who can talk anyone, but at the same time is a disabled person who moves using crutches, trying to get acquainted with girls. In any case, the timid guy Chris Romero is trying to get acquainted, but because of his innate modesty, he can not find the right words, while his best friend JC does not experience special complexes about this and he is able to charm the girl, as well as put the bully in his place. And after all, at this very time, an unsuccessful experiment of aliens, which are huge leeches, rustles the city, infecting all counter-transverse. Moreover, the latter is exclusively the background and the role of zombie leeches will play only in the last act of this play. In principle, I don't mind. And the story of Chris and JC can’t help but cause a nostalgic smile, after all, we all went to college and someone else is studying. And everything that happens is presented naively, directly, and sometimes even funny. Sometimes you can even forget what kind of movie you are watching.
No, I'm lying. You can't forget. To remind the viewer that in front of him is not something, but still a horror story, there is a brave police officer Ray Cameron, who is conducting an investigation related to the murders that occurred in this provincial town. And with each officer killed, Cameron is increasingly gripped by black despair, as he feels that his past, buried twenty-seven years ago, has crawled out and now pulls his ugly paws to the neck of the valiant officer, making the phrase “come on, scare me” ambiguous. After all, Ray Cameron is already scared the hell out of it, and no matter what the real world reveals to him, he will not be able to scare the valiant law enforcement officer as much as his own imagination does. What? What dark secret is Ray Cameron hiding? Oh, let him answer that question himself.
Is it worth watching? Good question. Let's do this. Night of Nightmares is not so much a horror movie, although it is here too, as a teenage drama, with a touch of black comedy and detective, for taste. The drama is quite average, since only half of teenagers manage to demonstrate their feelings and emotions, while the other half only pronounces the memorized text, and the degree of emotion they are able to compete with the characters from the movie "Troll 2" - deliberately bad acting, which even becomes funny. Does that suit you? Well, in that case, please aboard. If you are looking for something more, I will be disappointed. This film is more a terrible fairy tale told at the campfire than a full-fledged horror film. A terrible fairy tale, which the big boys listen with pleasure, whose age is about to exceed, or even exceeded for thirty years. They listen to and enjoy this story, which they heard as children.
6 out of 10
From a space alien ship in the 50s, a capsule with experimental slugs enters people and animals through the mouth, turning them into bloodthirsty zombies. In the 80s, these slugs break free from a guy frozen in a university lab, who was accidentally thawed by two students while performing an assignment to join the student community. Slugs spread across the campus, just before the prom, attacking people and at the same time resurrecting a maniac with an axe from the 50s. The night immediately ceases to be languid. The case is taken by a policeman who has his own account for both slugs and a maniac.
At first glance, there is nothing in this film that we have not seen before. But what we've seen before, we've seen in different movies. Were there few films about the contagion from space? Or the contagion created by mad but persistent scientists? Here it is connected by the principle of two in one. A crazy maniac who escaped from a psychiatric hospital, and cuts with an axe all the counter and transverse are also available. And the classic characters of youth comedies: a timid nerd and his faithful friend, helping to win the heart of the first beauty of the university. The girl is wonderful and kind, but already dating the first handsome of the same university, an athlete, a leader and a narcissistic idiot, besides evil and cruel. And who of the rivals will dance with the beauty at the prom is not such a big intrigue for those who have watched a couple of such films. Of course, all sorts of stupid rituals of joining student fraternities, all sorts of Sigma, Beta, Omega. Where else? And there is a brave policeman, with a deep wound in the soul: once a maniac killed his beloved girl, albeit an ex. He took revenge. But now a terrible secret and guilt do not allow him to sleep at night, appearing in the form of obsessive nightmares. The cop is deeply depressed and inclined to suicide, but when the zombie apocalypse comes, he takes up arms and does not spare himself, enemies, or friends.
In addition, zombies breeding with terrible force, breaking down doors and windows, pulling their greedy hands to the throats of their victims, bring their share of fun to this boring night. And slugs, nasty and slippery like lice, moving at great speed, penetrating into the mouths of unfortunate victims, turning them into soulless creatures, hotbeds of abomination and death. Slugs gather in an abandoned barn, their name is Legion. And they are not there for charity purposes. All this has already happened in many films in various combinations and variants. It would seem that all this eclecticism, piled into one film, turns it into mush, where the ends do not meet, and the plot components contradict each other, preventing different pieces of the script mosaic from converging.
But director Fred Dekker apparently knew how to make a fantastic salad from all these ingredients, where each product shades and emphasizes the taste of other ingredients. He brought the level of all the plot and genre components to the highest level of banter, mixed them into a diverse, juicy and tasty film work called a parody, where he ridiculed all the templates and techniques of multi-genre horror, all the dragged characters and their characteristic features, all the shabby plot moves, bringing them in places to absurdity. Like, for example, in the scene of the mutual confession of police officer Ray Cameron and student nerd Chris Romero. Or the absurdly obsessive mania of suicide in the same Cameron.
Even the names of the characters in the film are in itself a banter on the names of horror icons. In addition to the already named Romero and Cameron in the film there is a cat Gordon, Sergeant Raimi, Detective Landis, a cleaner in the lab Miner, the first beauty is called Cynthia Cronenberg, and Chris Romero’s friend, JC – James Carpenter Hooper. In addition to using the names of masters of the genre, the film scattered homages of their works, such as the awakened zombie bursting from the basement, the building of the university dormitory burning after the graduation evening, a dog turned into a creature, a thawed corpse, stored for many years in the ice and serving as the beginning of all night adventures. It turned out a fireworks film that scares, entertains and amuses at the same time. Like a good comedian who knows how to make the audience laugh, while maintaining a very serious face.
I would like to note the wonderful, expressive makeup in the style of old school, the level of “Evil Dead” and “Pet Cemetery”, which adds to the film atmosphere, as it looks very impressive and repulsive creepy. In general, the film is visually very winning with its “scary” scenes with terrible decaying zombies, with bloody skulls and hanging pieces of flesh instead of faces, bright and ugly slugs flying from the heads split in two by shots, rotting and slimy muzzles of animals with worms from the sockets – all this is done at the highest level, at least for the time of the film’s release.
The director did not fail to laugh at the fashion for introductory prologues in the style of “how it was and where the roots came from many years ago.” There are two such prologues in the film, one even in black and white, emphasizing for the viewer how long it all happened. In the finale, no one will be surprised by the false happy ending after kissing the diaphragm - another tormented stamp, which is again mocked by Fred Dekker, as if grinning and winking at the audience: did you expect something different? Is that a parody?