At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Back in 1964, when I was 11, I went to see a double feature featuring Boris Karloff's 'Black Sabbath' and this British film. My friend and I chuckled through Black Sabbath, we were up to this! So adult. Then 'Nightmare' started and we 'watched' most of the movie from the floor of the theater. We couldn't bear it. Suspense beats monsters.

Hammer horror written by the great Jimmy Sangster (The Curse of Frankenstein, The Horror of Dracula).This is a film that compares well with later films like Gothika and The Sixth Sense. It shows that Hammer does not always have to rely on gore and sex, and can in fact make a psychological horror film that entertains.It may not be the best of Hammer Horror, and it certainly isn't the best that Jimmy Sangster has written, but it is still a good film and you should see it at least once.Jennie Linden (Women in Love, Dr. Who and the Daleks) as Janet did a good job.

The legendary British Hammer Studios perhaps spent most of their time exploiting classic horror stories through numerous sequels (EIGHT entries in the "Dracula"-series, SEVEN misadventures of Baron "Frankenstein") and serving up other grotesque monster-mash movies, but they also produced a handful of genuinely convoluted psychological thrillers in the likes of "Diabolique" and even Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". These obscure films (apart from "Nightmare", there's also "Hysteria", "Paranoiac" and "Fanatic") may not be very popular by today's standards, because they're not that bloody and don't have highly recognizable names in the casts, but their scripts are extremely engaging and often give insightful information regarding the darkest corners of the human mind. "Nightmare" is basically another simplistic story about greed and conspiracy, but the imaginative elaboration – courtesy of Hammer regulars Freddie Francis and Jimmy Sangster – makes it a compelling mystery oozing with a Gothic atmosphere. The intro alone is quite petrifying, as it shows an uncanny lady luring her own daughter into a morbid asylum. We then learn this is a recurring dream young Janet suffers from ever since, on her eleventh birthday, she witnessed how her mother killed her father with a kitchen knife. Since Janet's fear of inheriting her mother's mental illness becomes uncontrollable, her teachers at the boarding school decide to sent her back to the parental home under the supervision of the family's attorney Henry Baxter and the charming young nurse Grace. Back at the estate, someone deliberately intends to push the emotionally vulnerable young girl over a mental edge by carefully re-enacting the events of that traumatizing night. Whoever it is attempting to harm Janet; they may succeed but they will also be punished for it! Jimmy Sangster neatly divided his screenplay into two equally strong chapters, one revolving on the conspiracy against poor Janet and the other focusing on the well-deserved downfall of the villains. Especially the second half of the film is terrific, since it's dealing with a fairly new and innovative theme. Usually in these psychological thrillers, the screenplay just builds up towards one complex climax, but there's two in "Nightmare". The plot twists and red herrings are cleverly executed and there are several moments of genuine suspense. The film also benefices from a superb black and white photography as well as excellent locations, like the old country house and the aforementioned images of the eerie asylum. The acting performances are a bit wooden, though. David Knight fails to impress and Moira Redmond is unable to carry the film on her own as soon as the other female lead – Jennie Linden – disappears from the set. Highly recommended to the more experienced Hammer fan.

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.