Nightmare Weekend

Nightmare Weekend (1986)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

I've seen a lot of horror movies from the 1980s and the truth of the matter is that for every great idea there are at least a dozen bad ideas. I've seen some pretty crazy movies from the horror genre but you're going to have a difficult time in finding a stranger one than NIGHTMARE WEEKEND. The story deals with a scientist, a spy, a machine, a puppet and how they all help create these magical silver balls that fly through the air and go into people's mouths. From there the people turn into bizarre creatures and kill.

NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is a really bizarre and at times poorly made film that is so downright strange that it's impossible not to recommend to fans of the genre. The film starts off with some very weird scenes and I must admit that it just keeps getting weirder. In fact, the movie somewhat kept me entertained for the first fifty-minutes or so because I just wanted to see what happened next and how much stranger it would be willing to go. Where the film goes bad is the fact that there's no decent idea with the material and everything just gets dragged out to the point where you get tired of it.

As I said, the badness kept me entertained for the first portion of the film but the final thirty-minutes or so were a real drag and this is where the film really falls apart. The film was obviously shot on a very low-budget and this shows with some of the special effects. The effects aren't horrible but at the same time they're at least mildly entertaining for what they are and they at least offer up some blood. I'm really not sure what the screenwriter was going for but the script is all over the place and more often than not it doesn't make much sense.

The film, in its uncut version, features the blood that I mentioned but it also features a lot of cute girls nude. I will give the film credit for this as there's a lot of nudity and some pretty silly sex scenes as well. The performances are all pretty bad as you might expect but this adds a little camp to the film. NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is pretty bad throughout but fans of bad cinema will want to check it out.

That's a snippet of choice dialogue delivered by the evil, ballbusting lady assistant of a famous scientist to her prim maid just before she lures three incredibly dumb college girls to a mansion for behavior modification experiments. Meanwhile, at the local bar, people drink and dance to lame 80s rock songs. A biker punk has sex with a cycle slut on a pinball table in front of a crowd of people, then tries to rape the scientist's virginal daughter Jessica (Debra Hunter), who is in love with another biker (Dale Midkiff, from PET SEMATARY), who, in turn, is in cohorts with the assistant! Back at the house, the sorority bimbos swim, shower, change clothes and have sex with men from the bar. A small silver ball (part of the experiment) flies into victims mouths and turns them into drooling, killer zombies!

If that isn't enough to entertain you, there's a hilarious theme song ("Nightmare Fantasy"), roller skating, some serious daisy dukes and a psychic hand puppet (!?) that warns "DANGER! DANGER!" just like the LOST IN SPACE robot and recommends hitchhiking as one of the best ways to pick up men!

This filmed-in-Florida mess is so mind-numbingly awful that multiple viewings are recommended to soak it all in. And, hey isn't that NYPD Blue's Detective Jill Kirkendall turned CNN newscaster Andrea Thompson as one of oft-nude bimbos? Sure is! Supposedly this was started in 1982 and new footage was added later for the video release in 1985.

Score: 1 out of 10 (and I mean that in a good way!)

Right! Okay. Well, ... um... To be honest, I have no idea where to begin with this one.

Maybe I'll start with some positive notes! "Nightmare Weekend" contains several adorably gooey, cheap-looking, and trashy gore effects that put a smile on my face. It also features lots of pointless soft-core sex and gratuitous nudity provided by naturally beautiful 80s girls, of which one of them later even became a CNN news anchor! That's right, the film stars Andrea Thompson and she has a steaming sex sequence that I bet she doesn't like to be reminded of nowadays. Her bio says she debuted in a small role in "Wall Street". Ha, not!

The rest of "Nightmare Weekend" is utterly insane and unfathomable nonsense! Trying to summarize the crazy plot makes me want to scratch my head, but I'll try anyways. On the countryside lives a genius scientist who developed a method to alter the aggressive behavior of animals. For example, by forcing it to swallow a silver pinball (don't ask...) a vicious Doberman turns into a cute and gentle puppy! Okay, so Dr. Brake is a brilliant scientist, but then again, he also hooked up a super-computer to an irritatingly babbling green woolen socket-puppet named George, and his teenage daughter uses it to play Turbo! The good Dr. Has an evil female assistant, and she wants to test the effect of the behavioral pinballs on humans, so she lures three beautiful but empty-headed girls to the mansion. The girls sneak horny blokes from the nearby bar into the house, and thus the evil assistant has even more guinea pigs. Meanwhile, in the dullest and most redundant sub plot in the history of cinema, the scientist's daughter falls deeply in love with the evil assistant's toy boy, and she seeks romantic advice from the green-haired puppet.

It's mind-boggling when you read it on paper, and I assure you it's even more mind-boggling when you see it on the screen. You have not experienced 80s amateur-madness until you see a sock-puppet yell "Danger! Danger!" or watch how a timid young housemaid turns into a sphere-possessed killing machine. And what is up with that end shot? I'm telling you "Nightmare Weekend" is either totally awful or, like a friend of mine righteously stated, so brilliant that ordinary mortal souls like us simply fail to comprehend it.

This could be a candidate for one of the worst movies I have ever seen. There it was for sale in the previously viewed section of my local video store. "Hey, I can own this for only $3.99!" For the same price I can buy my favourite brand of dental floss, and likely derive more pleasure from flossing my teeth than watching this mess. This movie was not scary at all, and not one of those "so bad it's good" type either. It was cheap, dull, and I apologize to the others who watched it with me. I am sorry for taking away a few hours of your life that you will never get back.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS DREADFUL GARBAGE!!!

Illogical, sloppy presentation will surely have bad movie fans doing a tap-dance of giddy approval. The story at hand concerns a scientist and his super-bitch of a scheming colleague experimenting with computer-generated silver balls that turn subjects into either mild-mannered passive types or mutant killer morons(depending on the level of dosage). Not surprisingly, these tests get out of hand during the progress of some nefarious wheelings-and-dealings, and a group of unsuspecting female visitors to the scientist's country estate find themselves in mortal danger.

Low-ball production looks to have been funded with rolled pennies, and evidence hinting at professional guidance in any aspect of its forging is entirely lacking. Frequently hilarious and generally entertaining for all the wrong reasons, NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is recommended to fans of ultraweird flicks from the wrong side of the tracks.

4/10