Monsterfest VII: NIGHTMARE CINEMA

I love a horror anthology. ABCs of Death, Creep-show, The Twilight Zone, etc. are all right up my alley and Nightmare Cinema falls neatly in line with those movies. Set in an empty movie theatre, Nightmare Cinema follows five characters as they enter the cinema and find they’re watching horrific shorts starring themselves.

Directors

The shorts are directed by Joe Dante, David Slade, Mick Garris, Ryûhei Kitamura, and Alejandro Brugués, and each brings their own unique sensibilities to their movie, meaning that we’re not watching the same short five times. Instead, we get a slasher spoof, a hospital/paranoia tale, an exorcism story, a surreal nightmare, and a ghost story. And each is presented with a mix of horror, humour, and a style that is unique to each filmmaker. 

Another great aspect of an anthology movie is the chance to discover new filmmakers. In this case, while I knew of Dante and Slade’s work from Gremlins, Innerspace, etc. and Hannibal respectively, the other directors weren’t as well known to me. I found myself googling them all once I left the cinema and after seeing his short, I will definitely watch Brugués’ career with interest. 

Shorts

The best of the five is the first: The Thing in the Woods directed by Alejandro Brugués. It is a spoof of slasher movies that put a bunch of sexy teens out in the woods, then picks them off one by one. We come into the story right near the end where the final teens are forced to face off with their stalker, but Brugués puts an incredible twist on proceedings that takes this from simple spoof into something subversive and brilliant.

Of the five, this was the one I would have liked to see stretched out to feature length as it was rich with ideas and potential.

The tones vary quite wildly from movie to movie, which keeps the whole thing interesting. In Joe Dante’s Mirare, a woman with a scar on her face is sent to a plastic surgeon by her fiancee and finds that all might not be what it seems. A paranoid, fever-dream, short builds and builds to a shocking and darkly funny finale.

Ryuhei Kitamura’s Mashit is an ultra-violent riff on The Exorcist that sees demons invade a Catholic school with some less than holy administrators. Mirare is all subtlety, Mashit is all rock guitar riffs and slow motion decapitations. It’s a great little exploitation short that is full of gore and craziness.

Known mostly for his fantastic work on Hannibal, David Slade directs the fourth short, This Way to Egress. Shot in stark black and white, this short zigs and zags constantly keeping you on your toes as to whether its a horror story or a sci-fi, if it’s about mental health or medical villainy. This is wonderfully short by Slade who creates a disgusting world full of pig-like people and filthy corridors.

If I had to choose one that didn’t work for me, it would be the fifth and final one: Dead directed by Mick Garris. It is the story of a high school student who is critically injured in a robbery and begins to see ghosts. While there are some interesting ideas at work here, it never quite rises above a story that we’ve seen before, and better in movies like The Sixth Sense and Stir of Echoes.

The Projectionist

The shorts each hold their own and even though I probably liked Dead the least, it was still very effective.

The weakest part of the whole movie though is the framing device of the movie theatre’s owner, The Projectionist (played by a wild haired, shirtless Mickey Rourke), who talks in stilted, cheesy dialogue. These scenes feel as though they were written and directed in half an hour as a reason to put these shorts together. They’re not the worst thing in the world but they do stand out very starkly against the well-made and tightly written shorts.

Final Thoughts: Nightmare Cinema

Anthology movies are a great thing for people who want to watch five movies in one, and Nightmare Cinema is perfect in that regard. Each movie is a tight length and each contains enough wild ideas and moments to hook in an audience no matter what kind of horror they like.

They are also a great way to showcase a group of filmmakers and leave audiences wanting to watch their other works, which this movie definitely did, especially with Alejandro Brugués, a director I hadn’t heard of until I watched Nightmare Cinema, and whose entry for the movie was my favourite.