The Nightmare Never Ends (1980)
Directors: Phillip Marshak, Tom McGowan, Gregg C. Tallas,
Writer: Philip Yordan
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Faith Clift, Richard Moll, Maurice Grandmaison, Robert Bristol,
Rocking the hairpiece
If Omen III: The Final Conflict had been made for a fraction of the budget and starred Cameron Mitchell and Richard Moll (Bull Shannon on the TV show Night Court.) as a Nobel prize winning novelist you'd get The Nightmare Never Ends.
I am Papini
Atheist author James Hanson (Moll) and his wife Dr. Claire Hansen (Clift) take a trip to sinful Las Vegas for a little R&R. Claire's been suffering from strange nightmares and her husband hopes Vegas will help her unwind. While watching an English clairvoyant named Cecil Howard at a casino Claire is hypnotised. Claire has a vivid hallucination about a sadistic SS officer named Olivier (Robert Bristol) killing some women at a party. Later that night the clairvoyant is murderd before he can have dinner with Claire. Meanwhile a old Jewish Nazi hunter named Weiss asks his neighbor Lieutenant Sterne (Mitchell) to help him stop an apparently still young Olivier. Sterne agrees to help, but after seeing that Olivier is only in his 30's when he should at least be in his 60's or 70's he decides that Weiss must be wrong. That night Weiss takes matters in his own hands at goes to kill Olivier and fails. His body is found the next day, badly beaten and his face torn off. Sterne starts an investigation into the old mans murder. Claire is losing her grip on reality. Her husband James is about to publish a his book 'God is dead' in which he claims God does not and never has existed. Claire as a stout Catholic is against her hubby's book and tries to get him to reconsider. Olivier and his Legion of Doom, which consists of a bunch of hot chicks who hang out at a disco, want James to join them. Meanwhile a Rasputin looking monk (Grandmaison) keeps showing up, proclaiming "I am Papini" and warning anyone who will listen about how Olivier is an agent of Satan. Lots of people die and Claire comes up with a hair-brain scheme to stop Olivier.
When suitcases attack
Gerard Way agent of evil
Three directors? Maybe that's why this suck is all over the place. The film jumps from character to character without a care. At times it's badly dubbed and some scenes end mid sentence. I'm still waitng to find out what James was going to say dammit! People show up only so they can die in the next scene without us ever really getting to know or care about them. Relativity bloodless till a way over the top blood soaked climax. Said climax features someone's heart getting cut out and then nuked in a microwave!
Demon buns
Well with a snow storm raging outside, Nightmare was a good way to spend an afternoon trapped inside. It's never dull, something crazy is always going down. She ain't boring, but she ain't good either, so bring the some friends. Just don't invite Papini, he's a real wet blanket.
3 comments:
god, that IS Gerard Way!
This film was stupid fun, enjoyable for Mitchell's scene-chewing, that lunatic climax with an evil-wins payoff, and the challenge of Richard Moll as a defiant atheist. Final Conflict isn't exactly much better despite the money spent.
This film was chopped up (puppets added) and put in another film "Night Train To Terror"-god and the devil argue about who's soul to save. It's the last of 3 segments. Really great film! Look for it!
Post a Comment