After ordering an African mask (from Italy?) that promises increased fertility, Ellen (Blythe Metz) begins to experience demonic visions of a 'Nightmare Man' attacking her. To help rid her of these horrible visions, Ellen's flaccid husband, William (Luciano Szafir), takes her to a health clinic. En route, the couple's car breaks down and Ellen is attacked by the Nightmare Man yet again. Fleeing, she takes shelter in a lone cabin with a group of strangers. The unstoppable Nightmare Man, however, continues his attack on the group of Ellen's protectors.
The batch in After Dark Horrorfest 2006 was a disappointment and I heard the same about this 2007's as well. Regardless of my disappointment in them, however, the films always did have a couple things going for them: they're original (mostly) and they have cool one-sheets. Other than a rare couple, I haven't seen any of the fest-horrors that I'd consider to be of any quality. Nightmare Man looked promising. . . again, creative story and a cool poster. Unfortunately, the actual film fell flat due to extremely poor execution by writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky. It wasn't COMPLETELY bad: The Nightmare Man was pretty cool-looking, even though he looked like Howie Mandel in Little Monsters ("Got 'em, got 'em, need 'em, got 'em"). And, again, the story was interesting. There were a few scenes of some very good tension & suspense. Also, a bit of gore & violence helped it along, though the gore wasn't very well done. The dialogue was in a league of its own of horrible and it was made even worse by some terrible performances by the leads (I understand and advocate the hiring of international actors, but c'mon, I could barely understand the husband). The script was jammed with clichés. Over the course of a two-minute period: The arguing couple's car runs out of gas, she accuses him, the phone gets no reception, no cars on the road for 'eighty miles,' 'Oh wait! I saw a gas station sign!,' the husband leaves the wife alone in the dark in the middle of the woods, etc. Yikes! I thought my head would explode out of lack of creativity there. The predictability of the ending is pathetic and, in an attempt to eliminate the predictability, gets even MORE predictable and downright stupid. And, it all comes together to make an ultimately crappy modern horror film.
Final verdict: 3/10. PASS!
The batch in After Dark Horrorfest 2006 was a disappointment and I heard the same about this 2007's as well. Regardless of my disappointment in them, however, the films always did have a couple things going for them: they're original (mostly) and they have cool one-sheets. Other than a rare couple, I haven't seen any of the fest-horrors that I'd consider to be of any quality. Nightmare Man looked promising. . . again, creative story and a cool poster. Unfortunately, the actual film fell flat due to extremely poor execution by writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky. It wasn't COMPLETELY bad: The Nightmare Man was pretty cool-looking, even though he looked like Howie Mandel in Little Monsters ("Got 'em, got 'em, need 'em, got 'em"). And, again, the story was interesting. There were a few scenes of some very good tension & suspense. Also, a bit of gore & violence helped it along, though the gore wasn't very well done. The dialogue was in a league of its own of horrible and it was made even worse by some terrible performances by the leads (I understand and advocate the hiring of international actors, but c'mon, I could barely understand the husband). The script was jammed with clichés. Over the course of a two-minute period: The arguing couple's car runs out of gas, she accuses him, the phone gets no reception, no cars on the road for 'eighty miles,' 'Oh wait! I saw a gas station sign!,' the husband leaves the wife alone in the dark in the middle of the woods, etc. Yikes! I thought my head would explode out of lack of creativity there. The predictability of the ending is pathetic and, in an attempt to eliminate the predictability, gets even MORE predictable and downright stupid. And, it all comes together to make an ultimately crappy modern horror film.
Final verdict: 3/10. PASS!