The cinema is our cultural sanctuary, a welcome place of comfort, the headquarters of our collective imaginations. It is where we work out so many emotional issues, often unconsciously. We go in feeling one way and hopefully, we are relieved of our troubles, if only temporarily, on the way out.
But for the oblivious patrons of the beautiful Rialto theatre, the cinema is strictly the centre of their nightmares. They’re about to see their worst fears realized on-screen as they become the stars of their own horror movies.
Nightmare Cinema is a great title. It evokes so many different ideas and concepts in an instant. You can literally go anywhere with this as long as you deliver significant payoffs. Which is why the ultimate result here is so disappointing.
Horror anthologies are notoriously difficult to make because it’s never just one filmmaker telling all the stories. Consistency is a constant struggle and the five short films stitched together to make this two-hour feature vary widely in quality, mainly in the average to awful range.
The set-ups are mostly the same. A character walks by the theatre, they may see a curious marquee that highlights their own name. They’re given a free ticket, the doors are open but they immediately close behind them upon entering the auditorium. Once seated, the show begins. But they won’t enjoy a second of it.
The absolutely scrumptious Sarah Withers is the first victim. Walking down the street as she tries to get in touch with her estranged boyfriend on her phone, she notices her name on the marquee of the Rialto.
Once lured inside, she is forced to take a seat and watch herself and her boyfriend attempt to escape the clutches of a lame slasher nicknamed The Welder because of the mask he wears. Piling on the clichés one right after the other, the only twist occurs when they end up in a cabin in the woods. Finding herself the expected Final Girl, Withers belatedly learns the identity of the killer, someone she’s known her entire life.
Suddenly, there’s a flashback that explains his murderous motivations which involves a couple of hokey science fiction conventions. And then another twist to wrap things up which pretty much undermines his whole reasoning.
I don’t know if Nightmare Cinema is intentionally going for laughs but this segment certainly could’ve used some. I guess the closest attempt at satire is the extended sequence where her cornered boyfriend keeps reaching for those kitchen knives despite being repeatedly thwarted and stabbed by The Welder. He’s tough, I’ll give him that.
Next, an amorous couple decides to sneak into the Rialto for a balcony session but end up watching themselves in a thoroughly predictable segment that exposes one character’s deep insecurities about her looks.
She has a prominent scar on her cheek (it actually looks pretty cool), the result of surviving a car accident at two years old. Deeply self-conscious about being looked at her entire life and unable to afford any treatment to fix it, her rich boyfriend convinces her to get plastic surgery so she can stop obsessing. He keeps citing his mother as a success story.
Richard Chamberlain of all people plays the surgeon. If he seems a little too chummy and reassuring, you know why. There’s really only one direction to go with in a story like this and that’s exactly what happens. Someone must really love that alien sex worker from Total Recall.
Then it’s onto a horny priest who watches himself getting busy with a cute nun. (Why are they wearing their uniforms during coitis?) His life is about to get more complicated when he witnesses a young boy committing suicide while his sister easily shuts down her bully with a supernatural wrestling spot.
Their mother, a teacher who lives in the church with a whole bunch of unrelated kids, is possessed by some far-off demon solely devoted to punishing horndogs and sex offenders. It turns out the priest doesn’t just like forbidden women.
The scene where the kids rise up as ravenous minions for the teacher to attack the nun and the priest is so silly I’m surprised it’s played so seriously. The priest slashes heads and limbs that all go flying in the air and it’s just so over-the-top and ridiculous.
The best shot segment is the one involving the suicidal mom with two bratty sons. Filmed appropriately in black and white, she visits a doctor hoping to understand why her world is falling apart. Divorced and desperately lonely, her life becomes surreal as she witnesses the snotty receptionist slowly transition into some kind of squinty-eyed alien. Hate when that happens.
After sitting around waiting for ages, the oddly calm doctor finally sees her. She explains that almost everything is literally changing around her but she’s in denial of the real cause of her mental breakdown. He quickly ushers her out and demands she return the next day. Then, her kids go missing. She looks everywhere as she encounters mostly indecipherable sanitation workers who look like monsters.
She finally overhears what’s really going on but doesn’t do what’s expected of her. That is until her movie ends and we’re back in the theatre. Beautifully photographed (there’s a great tracking shot of her walking down that blood-stained hallway that’s very Kubrickian), this is more weird than spooky. I couldn’t quite get a handle on the material which is deliberately dream-like but lacks cohesive thrills.
Finally, we wrap things up with a young piano prodigy basking in a successful recital who unlike his unfortunate, bickering parents, barely survives a gun assault at the hands of some bearded freak who isn’t interested in thievery, just mayhem. While resting in the hospital, the assailant actually shows up with flowers pretending to be a friend of the family just so he can finish the job. (Thank goodness for that nurse.) This is insane. Just move out of the city and you’re in the clear, dumbass. Even the thugs in Death Wish didn’t come after Chuck Bronson.
A very cute suicide survivor with unfortunate white girl dreads sweetly befriends the kid warning him that his dead mom constantly urging him to give up living so they can be together again is bad news. I don’t like at all what happens next.
Blatantly ripping off The Sixth Sense, you guessed it, they see dead people. Why? Apparently, if your heart stops for a bit before being revived you develop this special ability.
Meanwhile, the bearded freak continues to stupidly gun for the kid which leads to a preposterous finale that could only happen in this movie within a movie. Honestly, how long does it take to choke someone to death? This fucker is so incompetent, it explains everything.
Stitching all of these stories together is The Projectionist, the weird dude assembling all these people and running fake movies of their lives for hoarding purposes, I guess. Played by Mickey Rourke, he’s not on-screen very much, just showing up in between the shorts offering up a grizzled line delivery or two until he encounters the kid who somehow is able to do what none of the other victims can which isn’t exactly explained properly. If you can’t outrun the inevitable, why are you running at all?
This is a role that would’ve seemed tailor made for Jack Palance had this been made a few decades ago. Rourke, however, looks like he should’ve been in the segment with scar girl instead. In fact, I’m wondering if Chamberlain was his surgeon.
Nightmare Cinema managed to get a lot of good reviews during its brief theatrical run in the summer of 2019 but I’m very much a dissenter. None of the stories really haunt you the way they should and there’s too much predictability. I also question the constant violence against kids in the film, something we’ve also seen in the It remake and Halloween 2018, a worrying trend. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be depicted at all. It just feels like…is overkill the appropriate word? Fortunately, nothing feels as overly intense as it easily could’ve been which, paradoxically is its most significant weakness.
Nightmare Cinema plays more like a half-season of Television edited all together rather than a standalone feature which makes me wonder if that was ever considered as an alternative. We know it’s been done many times before. In fact, Tales From The Darkside and Tales From The Crypt did things in reverse. The TV shows inspired their respective movies rather than the other way around.
I haven’t screened many horror anthologies but the only one I’ve ever really liked is Twilight Zone: The Movie in spite of its ugly history. It’s not a perfect film but at least it achieved its goals. The best thing about Nightmare Cinema is its title. If only these stories inspired as much dread.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, November 28, 2022
3:38 a.m.
THE WRITINGS OF DENNIS EARL 