Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

tomgillespie2002 Freddie Francis' Nightmare is one of those lesser-known movies from Hammer Films which usually finds itself lumped together in box sets dominated by their more popular Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy series. It's obscurity is slightly unfair, as this black-and-white psychological horror-come-slasher unravels itself cleverly and with a healthy dose of style. Written by Hammer regular Jimmy Sangster, Nightmare conjures up a fair share of creepiness despite its age, and often feels somewhat Hitchcockian in its execution.Janet (Jennie Linden) is a young girl attending boarding school. At night, she is plagued by nightmares of when she witnessed the stabbing of her father at the hands of her deranged mother. As her mental state worsens, she is sent back home to her guardian Henry Baxter (David Knight) and assigned a nurse Grace Maddox (Moira Redmond). Soon after arriving, Janet starts to have visions of a woman she has never seen before with a huge scar on her cheek. Essentially a movie broken into two parts, the second act cannot be summarised without giving away a spoiler.The visuals are rather bland - Hammer tended to churn out movies quickly and cheaply to serve as a starter for the main event in cinemas - but the black-and-white photography gives the film a Gothic, and almost noirish, sense of style. While Knight is enjoyably smug, the rest of the cast fail to make any real impression, with the pre- Women in Love (1969) Linden extremely lucky to find herself cast after a number of preferable choices, including Julie Christie who chose to make Billy Liar instead, were unavailable. But the film's flaws are to be expected - it is a quickie B-movie after all - and it makes the most of its limitations. The plot's mystery is engrossing and the pacing is odd yet intriguing, and I would recommend Nightmare to any fan of British horror.

dbdumonteil Released the same year as Aldrich's "hush hush sweet Charlotte" which it sometimes recalls, "nightmare" is a good effort in the enjoyable Hammer productions .This is roughly a two-part screenplay;IMHO,the second one surpasses the first.It look be performed on stage and the final unexpected twist is worthy of Agatha Christie's celebrated "The mousetrap" .The Gothic atmosphere ,in Janet's desirable mansion ,gives the jitters."It will be alright" says the servant to the tormented young girl as an ominous wind begins to howl.Superbly filmed in black and white,and without today's special effects which mar so many stories.

MartinHafer Janet has been sent home from her residential school due to her being constantly plagued by horrible dreams. It's hoped that a rest might help, but it's also very natural that she's having troubles, as only six years earlier, she witnessed her mother going on a bloody rampage! Janet is worried that she, too, might be losing her mind. Unfortunately, there are those out there that might just be helping to speed up this process! Exactly what happens next is pretty exciting, but I won't say more, as I don't want to spoil the suspense and many cool twists.Now if you are looking for a subtle film, then this might not be it! Like STRAIGHT-JACKET, the movie has many great suspense elements but also is a bit of a guilty pleasure because of the extremely intense and LOUD acting! Also, like DIABOLIQUE, the film has so many good plots within plots that you're never exactly sure who's orchestrating what. Additionally, there are also story elements that are highly reminiscent of HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE. If you like any of these films, then you'll no doubt like NIGHTMARE.A wonderful script and a great mood make this Hammer suspense film a terrific film for lovers of suspense.

Scarecrow-88 A teenage girl has an awful recurring nightmare of being trapped in an insane asylum cell with her sick mother who murdered dear old daddy on the poor child's birthday. Janet deeply fears of not only winding up at an asylum like in her nightmares, but the possibility of inheriting mother's murdering ways. Wishing to return home after staying at an all-girls private school, Janet(Jennie Linden, who is indeed excellent as the traumatized girl)is haunted by this woman with a slight scar on her face. Always trying to get away from her, this constant image of the woman laid on her back with a knife protruding from the chest lies at the heart of Janet's slow descent into madness. It all leads to the death of Janet's doctor, Henry's(David Knight)wife when she is a spitting image of the woman that haunts her nightmares.There's much more to this story than meets the eye, however, as we see that someone close to Janet was using her trauma as a weapon.Through Freddie Francis' startlingly eerie, moody B&W photography, we see the nightmarish realm Janet's trapped in. It doesn't end there as the film takes a detour that can be a bit jarring at first, but comes together by the end. "Nightmare" is one of those films which starts out one place then takes the viewer into a totally different direction. This film is a lot of fun.