Night Wars

Ha! I notice that practically all my fellow reviewers also make tongue-in-cheek references towards "Nightmare on Elm Street" in their user-comment titles. Logically, because this "Night Wars" is a shameless and blatant imitation of the NoES formula - albeit, admittedly, with a Vietnam war-movie twist!

Vietnam movies, or at least horror/action movies with links to 'Nam, were somewhat the hobbyhorse of writer-director David A. Prior. For more than three decades straight, Mr. Prior was one of the most over-active and prolific trash directors in the business. Nearly forty terrible films in thirty years, that's what I call perseverance and dedication! He was enthusiast and creative, to say the least, but he still couldn't direct very well at the end of his life. After two lousy horror movies ("Sledgehammer" and "Killer Workout"), he quickly turned to jungle adventures and Vietnam action vehicles, with the phenomenal 1987 "Deadly Prey" as their absolute and inarguable highlight. Now there's a movie that everybody in the whole wide world needs to watch, if you ask me!

Trent and Jim are two war buddies with recurring nightmares about their Tour in Vietnam, and then particularly how they were forced to leave behind their pal Johnny as a POW and how another platoon member McGregor turned out to be a psychotic mercenary traitor. The nightmares grow increasingly realistic, however, and the boys are even getting injured in them. They soon realize they'll have to enter their dreams armed to the teeth in order to rescue Johnny and eliminate McGregor who's terrorizing them from beyond the grave. Now, the plot of "Night Wars" isn't entirely bad, but it's totally lacking logic and structure and - with all due respect - David A. Prior doesn't have the intellect for it. He constantly falls into the traps of paradoxes that automatically ensue from a plot like this. On the bright side, there's plenty of gunfire, preposterous warfare (you know, the Asian soldiers shoot a thousand times but never hit anything, whereas the white soldiers never miss) and horrendously over-the-top acting performances (especially Steve Horton).