Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

gravegauze From where I viewed the movie, the quality was pretty crappy. Even if the picture was remastered, some parts would probably still look like a home video.Me being the gore freak I am, the movie seemed to just kind of stretch out and not have a lot of gore. There were times where the actual killer wouldn't go for it, or would take forever to do it, and then sometimes where you thought it was the killer but it was actually the lady's son pulling some pranks. So that was disappointing. UNTIL I GOT TO THE END. THE ENDING IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Some gruesome flashes that appear early on in the movie play out into a full scene and it completely saved the whole movie. I absolutely loved it. It was very realistic and impressive for its time, just absolutely satisfying. This scene alone is worth the watch, if you are a fan of the slasher genre.

Kingkitsch Damn, the 70s were ugly. While "Nightmare" finally reached it's required audience in 1981, nothing can change the hideous 70s interior of the house in which most of the action takes place. The movie must have taken a while to find a distributor after being filmed in 1979. More on that later on, though.Mental patient George Tatum (played by champion screamer and sweat- hog Baird Stafford) is on the loose again, fueled by experimental drugs given by his touchy-feely bearded shrink who insists that George can function normally. It seems that George committed a double murder as a child which has rendered him a psycho sexual mess. He wanders an extremely dirty 42nd Street, NYC, visiting XXX sex parlors. Eventually, he heads south to Florida and begins terrorizing a divorced mother with three children for "unexplained reasons" that anyone can figure out fairly quickly. Strictly a grindhouse trashfest, "Nightmare" has a certain grimy charm in the first and third acts. It bogs down considerably in the middle, foisting one of the most annoying children ever seen on film, a scheming yelling monster of a kid named CJ (played by C.J.Cooke who we hope never made another movie). His sisters are no better, and the mother is worse. As this sad tale unspools, you begin to wish the nutcase will show up and kill everyone. This includes mommy's hippie beardo sensitive boyfriend who wears black nylon underpants. The other men in this wear tighty whities, which we see quite often. An incredible amount of screaming family drama occurs, while the nutcase prowls around killing random people until he finally decides to off the family. Bad seed CJ gets away and you are sad about this.There's a fair amount of sex and gore here, but the relentless focus on child monster CJ and the romance between mommy and the sensitive beardo make you want to pick up an ice pick of your own and help the nutcase. Mommy is the one who needed the drugs, Xanax would have really helped her "mellow out", which is what the boyfriend tells her to do at one point instead of providing any real help. The blood squirted all over everything during the final act looks suspiciously like Kool-aid. I guess the Florida heat has thinned everyone's blood. The climax of this nonsense is taken directly from "Halloween". For all the attention this mess of a movie gets, it's not very scary or shocking. Perhaps it was once, but now, not so much.Oh yeah, the house. This is a showcase of how to not decorate. It's the most frightening thing in the movie. Every awful knick-knack and color scheme you can remember is on display. Room after room of filthy shag carpeting. Patterned curtains, wallpaper, clothing, and objets d' art vie for your attention and make you nauseous. Special mention to the dirty kitchen switchplate cover which gets a brief closeup. If you are scared of the 70s and what passed for interior decor, stay away from this. You have been warned.

shaun7000 Firstly make sure you see the UNCUT version. There are clearly to many reviews on here from people who have been watching the cut version without realising it, then giving the film a bad review because all the shock gore is missing. Because the cut version removes most of the shocking scenes and bloody effects it really has damaged the reputation of the uncut original.I have watched almost ever horror film worth effort from the 1980's, and I can safely say that Nightmare ranks close to the top of the list.Atmospheric, quality performances, original script, nicely shot and the scenes of horror are at the top of there game and brutal. There are so many horror films from the 1980's that people talk about because they were the most mainstream, but real fans of horror will know about films like nightmare. Its an all round quality production and its no nonsense horror, unlike many films from the 80's where you laugh because of the bad dialogue, shoddy acting, poor effects or talentless script. Nightmare really delivers horror in a way other movies fail to do.Parts of the movie can seem a little slow, but if you hang in there you get the rewards. Unlike other horror of that period it has aged well in comparison. After watching I sat back satisfied and thought to myself "that's what a real horror movie should look like"

WaxBellaAmours Trying to bring the Italian giallo genre into the then-popular American slasher genre, Nightmare is a half-clever attempt. Those two extremes don't seem like a good fit, with the typical slash-and-hack, one-by-one structure of the slasher genre mixing a bit awkwardly with the more flamboyant, open-ended and director-focused giallo film movement. "Nightmare" isn't particularly coherent and can feel a bit half-hearted at times, but it has enough startling moments and a truly twisted (and brutal) view of sexuality to at least be interesting beyond it's initial viewing.Often considered a Grindhouse staple, it shares the qualities of many other films of that "genre": lousy dubbing, horrid acting, completely conspicious continuity blunders, a soundtrack and film print that makes the viewer feel like their head is being held under muddy water. It's also unusually bleak and morally ambiguous for an American film, a telling sign that this was directed by an European. There's also a sense of the American-slasher puritanism, as noticed by the Killer's view of promiscious adults around him, but it's not quite as black-and-white as many of the like-minded films at the time. Largely because we're asked to look at the film's largely unseen killer with a more subjective eye."Nightmare" may be poorly made, although a few cat-and-mouse sequences are well-staged and engaging enough, but it's far from useless. It's cross between American DIY ethos and lavish, fetishitistic European flavoring is uneven and sloppy but always weird and alluring enough to keep you watching. The film's modest cult following is understandable.