George Tatum (Baird Stafford) is a murderous nut-job who, having been treated with revolutionary new drugs, is declared sane by his doctor and released back into the community. Of course, despite what his shrinks think, George is still as mad as a bag of badgers, and it's not long before he's off proving his psycho-killer credentials, eventually choosing to torment a young boy named C.J. and his dysfunctional family.
Released in the UK as 'Nightmares in a Damaged Brain' (a much better title than just 'Nightmare', don'tcha think?), this mean-spirited shocker got itself into trouble with the DPP thanks to a couple of particularly gruesome scenes of extreme gore. Matters were not helped by the fact that the distributors of the film decided to promote its release with a tasteless 'guess the weight of the brain' competition. Needless to say, the film soon found itself on the notorious Video Nasties list.
Director Romano Scavolini opens his film with a nifty dream sequence in which George discovers a severed head at the foot of his bed, and ends it with a superb double murder which features a cool decapitation and an axe in the face. Between these standout moments, we get a bit of strip joint action and a pretty good throat slashing, but also have to suffer through tons of tedious guff in which our frothy-mouthed loony makes threatening phone calls to C.J.'s house, whilst officials try to locate him with the use of a powerful (ha!) computer.
From the first 30 minutes or so, it is easy to be fooled into thinking that this film is going to be a real treat: it certainly has the grindhouse vibe and manages to be quite sleazy at times, occasionally reminding me of William Lustig's excellent movie Maniac. However, after the introduction of C.J. and his family, it becomes apparent that the film Scavolini is really trying to emulate is Halloweenit's just that he isn't doing it very well. The family scenes are clumsily handled and are tedious in the extreme, C.J. is such an irritating brat that one actually longs for him to suffer a painful death, and Tatum's ability to shrug off numerous bullet wounds (ala Michael Myers) is laughable.
However, if, like me, you are a purist and loathe to use the fast-forward button, no matter how dull the action, I can say that it is just about worth hanging in there for the gruesome finalé, which is a real humdinger.
Released in the UK as 'Nightmares in a Damaged Brain' (a much better title than just 'Nightmare', don'tcha think?), this mean-spirited shocker got itself into trouble with the DPP thanks to a couple of particularly gruesome scenes of extreme gore. Matters were not helped by the fact that the distributors of the film decided to promote its release with a tasteless 'guess the weight of the brain' competition. Needless to say, the film soon found itself on the notorious Video Nasties list.
Director Romano Scavolini opens his film with a nifty dream sequence in which George discovers a severed head at the foot of his bed, and ends it with a superb double murder which features a cool decapitation and an axe in the face. Between these standout moments, we get a bit of strip joint action and a pretty good throat slashing, but also have to suffer through tons of tedious guff in which our frothy-mouthed loony makes threatening phone calls to C.J.'s house, whilst officials try to locate him with the use of a powerful (ha!) computer.
From the first 30 minutes or so, it is easy to be fooled into thinking that this film is going to be a real treat: it certainly has the grindhouse vibe and manages to be quite sleazy at times, occasionally reminding me of William Lustig's excellent movie Maniac. However, after the introduction of C.J. and his family, it becomes apparent that the film Scavolini is really trying to emulate is Halloweenit's just that he isn't doing it very well. The family scenes are clumsily handled and are tedious in the extreme, C.J. is such an irritating brat that one actually longs for him to suffer a painful death, and Tatum's ability to shrug off numerous bullet wounds (ala Michael Myers) is laughable.
However, if, like me, you are a purist and loathe to use the fast-forward button, no matter how dull the action, I can say that it is just about worth hanging in there for the gruesome finalé, which is a real humdinger.