How sad is this?

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Guys, guys GUYS! People get a grip, please. There's a thing called The Spoiler, whereby commentators on films will spoil the fun of getting to see the movie for other people by carelessly revealing a pivotal development, revelation, or secret held by a movie. The fun for viewers is to get to encounter that revelation on their own without having the moment ruined by knowing about it in advance."Nightmares" has such a revelation and it only comes in the very last minute of the film. The payoff was fantastic, and thank goodness I had not sought out reviews of the film beforehand or the fun would have been ruined. Almost every review, post, or synopsis of the movie contains that revelation which viewers should have to earn after sitting through the rest of it. By knowing in advance the potency of the scenes which lead up to it is diluted and there were some very potent scenes here which would have suffered from advance knowledge of the revelation. Best way to sum up the story is to say that a patient from a secret drug treatment program for the criminally insane is released prematurely, goes off his personality modifying meds, and embarks on a journey through the seedy side of America's east coast during which he commits several gruesome killings. That's the extent of what should be revealed. Anything more would spoil the mind- screw of that last minute, and reduce the meaning of the film to a checklist of slasher movie components pieced together by an oblique story which will only serve to distract genre viewers from the horror of it all.And hence the film's current status: Regarded as a classic by some but dismissed by many more as boring & derivative. Because without coming upon that revelation on your own it is sort of a 2nd rate overly arty if competently made slasher-type horror movie rating just about 5 out of 10: Covers the bases, constructed with skill but not really having anything too spectacular with a comparatively modest body count (I believe it is eight, if you count the big flashback scene). The gore effects may or may not have been "supervised" by Tom Savini, it doesn't really matter, they serve the film well enough. The extra notoriety the controversy generated only means more opportunities for reviewers to spill the beans for audience members who could care less.I'm glad I ignored it all. With that spoiler intact I give the film a 7 out of ten, with very tight plotting that is only revealed as being more thorough than usual once that revelation takes place. The film is very well made from a technical standpoint with an interesting use of film speeds and droll, non-sensational music. But who watches slasher movies for their plotting, technical work or soundtracks? They are traditionally a series of gruesome set pieces connected by some sort of story which may or may not hold up to the light of day when evaluated separate from the gore. This one does and that alone is somewhat remarkable. Just don't read any more reviews until after watching it or you too may be tempted to dismiss the results for being something different than the usual brainless mayhem.

I heard about this movie and watched it George tatum has a wife named susan and 3 kids who are annoying George hacked up his parents as a kid goes crazy gets committed breaks out and terrorizes a babysitter looking after his kids and kills people the director did lift many elements out of Halloween and maniac but this film is good over all and has inspired other films I liked a lot pretty good great blood splash sounds like a better title kim tammy cj and their babysitter Kathy are given hell by George in a effective film susan is good and its scary and gory the only way it could have been better is if Kathy spoiler alert lived

Mental patient George Tatum (Baird Stafford) is set free after it is assumed that the treatment and the experimental drugs that he received have been successful. Of course, the assumption is entirely wrong, and the genuinely insane George, a man who's had severe psycho-sexual issues since a traumatic childhood incident, ultimately embarks on a road trip. While Georges' story is going on, a Florida mother named Susan Temper (Sharon Smith), a woman who REALLY lives up to her name, is having to deal with a brood of kids including C.J. (C.J. Cooke), a trouble maker with a macabre sense of humour. Eventually these two stories come together, as George terrorizes the Temper family.Writer / director Romano Scavolini's notorious 1981 slasher is a true shocker, the kind of movie certain to please those whose tastes tend towards the sordid, trashy, brutal, and disturbing. And once we see in its entirety the flashback to Georges' childhood, the images of which often appear briefly, you'll see what I mean by disturbing. The blood may be of the bright red movie variety, but the ample gore - the work of Cleve Hall and Edward French, and not Tom Savini as some prints still claim - is still quite a hoot to behold. The movie starts off on exactly the right foot with, appropriately enough, a nightmare sequence, and establishes a certain very grim and very gritty feel; this is the kind of movie some people may feel dirty watching. George's 42nd Street adventure merely adds to this atmosphere.The meek looking Stafford does an excellent and all too convincing job; his character, despite his savage acts, actually comes off as more sympathetic than the Susan character. He really is the best performer in this whole thing. A particular pair of shock moments that mirror each other are set up extremely well.Overall, "Nightmare", much like other movies from the same period as "Don't Go in the House" and "Maniac", achieves a true, amazing creepiness and nastiness that lingers after the movie is over. Some viewers may find the final story twist not too hard to figure out, but the true experience, as they say, is the journey, not the destination. And "Nightmare" gets high marks for being a truly morbid journey.Eight out of 10.

This is one of the most prominent films on the legendary video nasty list. For those who do not know, this was a list of videos that were considered obscenely violent by the establishment in early 80's Britain. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain was one of the first to be tagged as problematic and it's distributor even served six months in prison for releasing the thing. The question now I suppose is how does it shape up today? Well, on the one hand, it isn't at all hard to understand how it made the list in the first place. On the other hand, it still works pretty well as a sleazy grind-house slasher movie.The film in a nutshell is about a troubled man who is released from an asylum. Too early it seems, as he pretty much immediately starts committing brutal murders.The film's primary notoriety I am guessing comes from the very mean-spirited violence. There isn't an awful lot of it but when it does happen it's very gory and brutal. Particularly nasty is a knife attack on a woman in her home, while the carnage inflicted by the little boy near the end is pretty intense. The film also has some scenes in New York where the psycho visits sex shows and starts to lose his fragile mind - these sequences resemble an exploitation version of Taxi Driver. So the film is essentially well served on the violence and sleaze fronts. The biggest problem is that it drags in the middle section. In this part the story relocates to follow the goings on of a family, one which our psychopath seems to be stalking for some reason. The pacing takes a dive here when we focus on these none too interesting characters. However, the aforementioned parts that bookend the family drama are certainly not boring.Nightmares in a Damaged Brain is ultimately one of the better video nasties. Unlike many on the list it's actually pretty nasty at times. And that is kind of what you want really.