Nightmare Movie Review 371

Nightmare a.k.a. Nightmare in a Damaged Brain is a 1981 horror movie directed by Romano Scavolini and starring Baird Stafford and Sharon Smith.

George Tatum(Stafford) is a mental patient in a facility in New York. He has been experiencing terrible nightmares about a murder. His doctors are looking at him, trying to judge if he will be able to go back to society. They decide that he is and he is released. He is supposed to meet with his doctor in his office to make sure that he is okay. He is given drugs to keep him on an even keel.George has an ex-wife, Susan(Smith) and three children. They begin to receive calls from George. They think that it is just someone playing a prank.

Little do they know that George is on his way from New York to  Florida to get back to his wife and kids. He kills people along the way as he cannot get the image of a murder that he committed as a child out of his head. He killed his father and the father's mistress when he found them in bed together. This is why he has gone mad and keeps having to kill. He is waiting until he gets home to Florida and then he wants to kill his family. His son, C.J. seems like a chip off the old block as her is very disruptive and plays weird jokes. His mother is at her wits end with him. While the mother has gone out, C.J. is at home with his siblings. George breaks in with a mask on and an pick.

He chases after the children, trying to kill them. C.J. is aware of where his mother keeps her guns and he gets them and shoots George many times, but he keeps coming. He eventually shoots him and George gets hit and falls down the stairs. He dies as he remembers the horrific crime that he committed as a boy. C.J. and the others get out of the house and the police are called. Susan returns and when she sees her ex-husband, she is horrified. As C.J. is taken away in the police car, he winks. Is he the same as his killer dad??

This was an entertaining movie. It was gory in parts, but nothing too scary by today's standards. It is cheaply made, but effective. The end sequence is the best where George comes after the kids and I didn't see it coming when C.J. gunned down his father. That was an interesting turn of events.This movie was labelled as a 'video nasty' when it was released, but it isn't anything too nasty at all. How times have changed.  Nowadays, this would get a 15 rating and be watched by teenagers!! Anyway, I will give this a 5/10.