Nightmares (or Stage Fright as it's known in some territories) has a lot going for it - moody cinematography, some sleaze, the potential for backstage theatrical drama, a little light satire, and some gore, but it squanders all of it because it has no idea what it wants to be.
A young actress named Helen who accidentally killed her adulterous mother in a car crash as a child wins a role in a major play and someone starts to killer her co-stars and co-workers with pieces of broken glass (just like how mom died!) Who could it be?
Well, frankly, it's blatantly obvious that it's Helen and the movie never even tries to disguise it for a second, which leaves the film feeling really hollow and sort of boring. They like to play it off as a mystery by just showing her hands and feet during the murder sequences, but they're not fooling us for a second. It also doesn't help that, psycho killer stuff aside, Helen is a pretty awful person. She flies off the handle at the drop of a hat and yells at her roommate and co-stars constantly. Are we supposed to feel for this shrew? She's awful! I assume we're supposed to root for her since none of her co-stars are given any sort of character development and most of them don't even seem to have names.
Most of Nightmares is so over the top that I assumed it was meant to be some sort of parody or satire of Hitchcock, De Palma, and the slasher genre of the time. Scenes of Helen flying off the handle and being slapped by her co-stars or scenes with her running to her room and having a shouting match with herself as her hapless boyfriend listens in horror are hysterically funny, but I can't tell if they were intentional or not. Certainly, the scenes involving the cruel play's director and the even crueler theatre critic are meant to be comic, but seem to exist as leftovers from a far better, more interesting film where everyone is in on the joke. Maybe Nightmares should have embraced the satirical nature of the story and gone wild with them.
As is, Nightmares is a torrent of missed opportunities and "what if"s. There are both a decent slasher/giallo and a satirical dark comedy in here fighting for screen time.
A young actress named Helen who accidentally killed her adulterous mother in a car crash as a child wins a role in a major play and someone starts to killer her co-stars and co-workers with pieces of broken glass (just like how mom died!) Who could it be?
Well, frankly, it's blatantly obvious that it's Helen and the movie never even tries to disguise it for a second, which leaves the film feeling really hollow and sort of boring. They like to play it off as a mystery by just showing her hands and feet during the murder sequences, but they're not fooling us for a second. It also doesn't help that, psycho killer stuff aside, Helen is a pretty awful person. She flies off the handle at the drop of a hat and yells at her roommate and co-stars constantly. Are we supposed to feel for this shrew? She's awful! I assume we're supposed to root for her since none of her co-stars are given any sort of character development and most of them don't even seem to have names.
Most of Nightmares is so over the top that I assumed it was meant to be some sort of parody or satire of Hitchcock, De Palma, and the slasher genre of the time. Scenes of Helen flying off the handle and being slapped by her co-stars or scenes with her running to her room and having a shouting match with herself as her hapless boyfriend listens in horror are hysterically funny, but I can't tell if they were intentional or not. Certainly, the scenes involving the cruel play's director and the even crueler theatre critic are meant to be comic, but seem to exist as leftovers from a far better, more interesting film where everyone is in on the joke. Maybe Nightmares should have embraced the satirical nature of the story and gone wild with them.
As is, Nightmares is a torrent of missed opportunities and "what if"s. There are both a decent slasher/giallo and a satirical dark comedy in here fighting for screen time.