just watch it!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Australia's answer to the slasher market… well kind of, as this weird, trashy psychodrama does contain numerous elements found it slashers. Not perfect by any stretch, but it especially does a good job constructing its stalk and slash sequences with stylish verve and a real mean streak to boot. Like other reviewers mentioned it has a striking resemblance to Michele Soavi's late 80s slasher "Stagefright" and there's a touch Giallo evident. The POV shots do at times strike a nerve; just listen to the heavy breathing. The suspense when it's on, is gripping and the attack scenes are brutal and bloody. Hearing the glass slice the skin really does come through in these scenes. Also it doesn't skimp on the sleaze and nudity either. However it's too bad that the editing throws up some random scenes that are poorly linked, or don't add much to the unfolding situations and the final twist is so easy to pick up on that it's no surprise when its revealed. When it's not focusing on the stage cast and crew being dispatched, it's somewhat textbook in its tired dramas. Surprisingly the opening sequences are very effective in setting up a scarred character. There were some names attached to this Australian production that horror fans will recognise. Jenny Neumann playing the lead character, the aspiring actress with a troubled past would be known for her part in the Linda Blair's starring slasher "Hell Night" the following year. Also attached to the project was Colin Eggleston as writer, who brought us the eco-horror "Long Weekend" and would later churn out an even more stranger and ultra-slick slasher in "Cassandra" (1986). You could also throw in director John D. Lamond who was behind some Ozploitation films like "Felicity" and "Pacific Banana".Lamond ups the atmospheric traits (good use of a theatre setting), keeps the drama thick with touch oddness and stays rather traditional in the set-up. No surprises, but just like our central character it can be a neurotic and twisted jumble. Although towards the closing stages it does feel fairly rushed and contrived. The performances are acceptable, if at times a little over-colourful and the dialogues did have that blunt nature to them. And that music score is far from subtle.

Nightmares is one of those better horror films with an intriguing premise. Causing an accident which took the life of her mother, when she was a little girl, now an adult, the horrific visual memory, that 63 night, of seeing her mother thrown through a windscreen, at the sound of splintering glass, leads her on a series of killings, using shards of glass. Unfortunately for the whole cast of the acting troupe, she's just joined (this includes a twentyish Garry Sweet) they are to become her latest victims. Some of them meet their fate in quite gruesome ways. Some of the violence in Nightmares is sexual too, particularly an early scene, that's quite sick, and eye shocked me the first time I saw it. It involves a naked girl in a steeet, non thespian, fleeing off, after her naked lover buys it, in the lower region I might of add. The girl becomes trapped and this shard of glass rips across her breast a couple of times, where her nakedness is soon the colour of mucky red as she scrambles away, but inevitably becomes another victim to this psycho's credit. What I loved about this scene, was that it was shot if in hand held motion, but also at different angles, all from out psycho's POV. It was really quite scary, well the first time I saw. There are a couple of scary moments here and there. Nightmares doesn't have a happy outcome. The last victim (Sweet) buys it in bed, the same place he did in Macbeth, not so violently I would imagine. Yes our psycho gets away, unscathed. Let's face it, some psychos in movies do. As an end gag, we hear our female psycho stating her name again, for she is auditioning once more. Her character being a great actress, we know she's gonna win the audition, and that means a new batch of victims. Jenny Neumann is fantastic as the taunted girl, screaming and ranting to herself, and missing stage cues, while in la la land. The rest bring in so so performances, apart from Max Phipps, great as a harsh director, who me, personally as an actor, wouldn't want to have as a director, plus his ally, evil tongued critic, John Michael Howson, also great and funny too. This guy could actually act. He's also credited with the movie's idea. Not a badly made flick, and one of the better Aussie horrors, but not a great one.

Sweet, but troubled and repressed theater actress Helen Selleck (a solid and charming performance by the lovely Jenny Neumann) is still suffering from severe trauma over the horrific death of her mother that she witnessed when she was a little girl. A series of brutal stabbing murders besets the production of the latest play Helen is acting in. Director John D. Lamond and writer Collin Eggleston whip up a delightfully raw and in-your-face wired cinematic cocktail of unflinchingly graphic violence along with equally explicit quasi-pornographic sex and abundant nudity that's so blithely crass and leering that one can't help but be amused and entertained by the cheeky audacity of this seedy enterprise; this honey's unapologetic wallowing in the slimy celluloid sewer and unwavering furious energy in turn give it a deliriously seamy buzz that's an absolute sordid joy to behold. Moreover, it's acted with real zest by an able cast, with especially stand-out work from Gary Sweet as earnest and likable soap opera thespian Terry Besanko, Nina Landis as snippy, but incompetent diva Judy, John Michael Howson as acerbic gay critic Bennett Collingswood, Max Phipps as tough and exacting director George D'ahlberg, Edmund Pegge as vain hack actor Bruce, and Briony Behets as blundering stage manager Angela. Gary Wapshott's sumptuous widescreen cinematography makes neat use of titled camera angles and smooth gliding Steadicam tracking shots. Brian May's spirited shuddery score keeps things bounding along. Clocking in at a tight 80 minutes, this movie never becomes dull or overstays its welcome. However, the killer's identity is thuddingly obvious from the get-go, which alas undermines the tension to a considerable degree. That quibble aside, this one overall sizes up as a tremendous amount of infectiously sleazy fun.

This is a rather strange early Australian attempt to ape the American slasher films, but it is only really interesting in the places where it deviates from them. It's one of a small number of slasher films that is set in a theater during a theatrical production, which not only provides a good setting, but also a lot of very worthy victims (theater actors, directors, critics, etc.) as well as a very believable reason why no one notices the initial disappearances (theater people being as self-absorbed and narcissistic as they get). Unfortunately, the back story is very lame, involving a young acting ingenue (Jenny Neumann) with a vague, troubled past (her mother died in a car accident after a sexual tryst). When she is cast in a new theater production, people start being brutally murdered. So who is the killer? Unfortunately, it's probably EXACTLY who you think it is.The director of this movie was an unknown (at least outside Australia), but the co-writer/co-producer Collin Eggleston gave the world both the idiotic sex film "Fantasm Comes Again" and underrated nature-gone-amok thriller "Long Weekend". Jenny Neumann also appeared in American slasher semi-classic "Hell Night" where she played the English girl (you know, the one who WASN'T Linda Blair)who spends her entire screen time in bed with a guy without ever actually taking off her underwear. Regrettably, she doesn't get naked here either, but pretty much everyone else does. This movie stands apart from the rest of the slasher films in the sheer gratuitousness of its gratuitous nudity, including a LONG scene where one corpulent Aussie lass is chased butt-naked out of the theater and into the street by the killer. In this respect the movie kind of resembles Pete Walkers sexploitation/early slasher film "The Flesh and Blood Show", but it's not a patch on that one.The film also compares pretty unfavorably with Michel Soavi's film "Stage Fright" with which it is often confused, and a lot of the decent, if micro-budgeted, horror films being made Down Under in the late 70's/early 80's. On the plus side, it's a lot better than "Cut" and some of the crap that has been seeping out of the country more recently. See it if you can find it, but don't go out of your way.