Frightmare

Conrad, a legendary star of classic horror films, is a narcissistic killer as monstrous in reality as he is on the screen. Shortly after his death, his corpse is stolen by a group of young cinephiles(among them is horror linchpin Jeffrey Combs in an early role). This prompts his devoted widow to enlist the aid of a mystic in retrieving the evil actor's soul from the fire-pits of Hell. Once reunited with his body, Conrad proceeds to wreak bloody vengeance against the young graverobbers.

FRIGHTMARE is a largely unimpressive and routine supernatural slasher with atrocious editing and exanimate characters. To the film's credit, however, it does manage to serve up sporadic atmospheric moments which are effectively punctuated by the creepy sound of multi-layered echoes and whispers. It's a prescriptive and nonessential 80s chiller overall, but it might suffice as a tolerable time-filler when nothing better is at hand.

4/10.

Although I do agree that Frightmare is underrated, it isn't something to put too much work into finding.

The storyline is a semi-interesting twist on the life after death theme: A legendary horror actor [Conrad] dies mysteriously in his bedroom. At the funeral his 'last film' is shown: a short with him stating that there is life after death and that he's watching all of the people that are watching the film. A little later, a group of horror/drama kiddies decide to steal Conrad's corpse and bring him to the house where some of his movies were filmed. The kids slowly start to disappear, one by one...

The first few death scenes are the only downright amazing thing about this movie. It was nice to see some regular, down to earth 'mental murder' after watching two gore filled movies beforehand. But even that can't save it -- the murders start to get bloody in a very cheesy way, and them themselves become as boring as the movie itself.

I'd suggest renting this only if you have the money to blow and you aren't expecting a masterpiece. There's better horror films, but every once in a while you need to see something average to remind you of that.

Let's be honest; there's nothing really exciting about 'Frightmare'. It wasn't scary. It wasn't memorable. The premise itself is a bit absurd.

The film revolves around horror movie star Conrad Radzoff (Ferdy Mayne) who dies soon after planning his own funeral. He even plays his own home made film at his funeral, telling everyone he will be watching them.

A Group of drama students steal his body from his elaborate tomb and take him to 'party' with them at an old mansion. There, Conrad is brought back to life through a séance performed elsewhere by his wife trying to find out what happened to his body. She asks that he send the people responsible for stealing his body, to hell.

So, one by one Conrad starts killing off the group of students. It was nice seeing Jeffrey Combs here, although in a small role, but a good performance nevertheless. There honestly is nothing memorable about this supernatural slasher - not even the kill scenes. The script itself had me raising an eyebrow on more than one occasion.

And I'm not sure what message the film was really trying to convey with the weird ending...

Not really bad this peculiar mix of teen slasher and 30's horror movie, with good direction, creepy atmosphere, Jeffrey Combs in one of his earliest role, and a very good lead in the role of the old horror star returning from the grave to punish his fans (well, they have stolen his body and made fun of his corpse, so they deserve their fate). To search, find and enjoy

Conrad Radzoff is more or less a combination of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee:two famous Gothic horror icons.He sleeps in his coffin like Bela Lugosi and he considers himself a superstar.Unfortunately the times of his stardom are falling apart as he only gets silly roles in commercials.So Conrdad kills his director and after murder he suddenly dies.His body is kept in creepy Gothic mausoleum.A group of university students decide to steal his coffin and defile his corpse.But Conrad isn't really dead.He rises from his slumber and kills defilers one by one..."Frightmare" by Norman Thaddeus Vane is a likable supernatural slasher with few gory deaths including decapitated Jeffrey Combs.The storyline is absurd with standard scare techniques,but if you like supernatural slashers with levitating coffins give this one a chance.7 horror stars out of 10.