[Once
again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for
the entire month of October. I've done this the last few years on The
Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. We'll see if I can
pull it off this year.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
Not many patrons enter the mysterious movie theater in NIGHTMARE
CINEMA, but those who do come to regret it. That’s because The
Projectionist (Mickey Rourke) doesn’t show just any old movies. The films he
shows are personal nightmares ripped straight from the minds of those watching
them.
The first moviegoer to get more than they bargained for is a
Samantha (Sarah Withers), a young woman who sees herself thrown into what
appears to be a by the numbers woodland slasher film in which she is pursued by
a killer known as “The Welder” (Eric Nelson). Writer/director Alejandro Brugués
(JUAN OF THE DEAD) almost holds off too long on revealing the twist. But
when it finally comes, it’s the sort of cheesy, fun surprise you’d expect from
an episode of an eighties horror anthology series like Tales From The Crypt
or Monsters. B-
The next ticketholders young couple Anna (Zarah Miller) and
David (Mark Grossman). Anna has a slight but noticeable scar on her face, and
while David says it doesn’t bother him, he nonetheless directs her to see his
mother’s plastic surgeon Dr. Leneer (Richard Chamberlain). Director Joe Dante (GREMLINS,
THE HOWLING, PIRANHA, etc.), working from a script by Richard
Christian Matheson, explores the dark side of plastic surgery in this gleefully
gruesome tale. As his fans would expect, Dante directs the segment with style
and humor (and includes one of his stock company, Brenda Balaski, in a small role).
Like the first segment, this would have been right at home on Tales From the
Crypt, even as its social commentary seems more influenced by something
like The Twilight Zone. Not great, but reasonably entertaining. B-
Japanese filmmaker Ryûhei Kitamura (VERSUS, THE
MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN) delivers his trademark over the top violence in a tale
of demonic possession at a Catholic boarding school written by Sandra Becerril.
This one feels like a feature film shoehorned into a twenty minute segment,
with all sorts of inferences and dangling plot threads never followed up on.
Notably, at one point the demon implies that the segment’s nomial hero Father
Benedict (Maurice Benard) might have been molesting a student. Is this just
your run of the mill demonic taunting, or a legitimate charge? The film can’t
be bothered to tell us, and in general, Kitamura seems to have no connection
with or interest in the religious themes you’d expect a story like this to explore.
He just wants to race to the carnage. D
During one of the framing sequences, Rourke’s projectionist
says that he collects nightmares. Segment four from Director David Slade (HARD
CANDY, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, lots of TV including the “Bandersnatch”
episode of Black Mirror) and co-writer Lawrence C. Connolly perhaps best
realizes that concept. Shot in a gritty black and white, it depicts a stressed
out mom (Elizabeth Reaser) trying to keep both herself and her two young sons from
losing it while waiting in a doctor’s office. As she waits, the world around
her slowly becomes deteriorates. There’s no comic book fun here, just raw,
psychological horror. B+
Also eschewing the comic book tone is the fifth and final
segment from writer/director Mick Garris (THE STAND, the TV version of THE
SHINING). Riley (Faly Rakotohavana) is the sole survivor of an armed
robbery that takes the life of his mom and dad. Actually, Riley himself “died”
for a few minutes before being revived, and can now see spirits who have yet to
cross over, including that of his mother (Annabeth Gish). It feels more like a mainstream
Hollywood thriller than a horror tale, and a pretty by the numbers one at that.
Par for the course with such things, there’s a lot of dumb, but it’s
serviceable. C
As for the framing sequence, Rourke seems miscast in the
Crypt Keeper type role, conveying neither genuine menace nor true ghoulish
glee. His segments hold the parts together, but not particularly well.
In the end, like most anthologies it’s a mixed bag. Not a
must see, but one could certainly do worse.
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