Nightmare at Noon

"Nightmare at Noon" is a very uneasy mixture of high tech sci-fi and standard western shoot em up. Brion James is visually impressive as the albino mute villain, but that's about it. Bo Hopkins and Wings Hauser act like they are in a mismatched buddy cop movie, while George Kennedy plays the local sheriff. There is some dark humor that slightly elevates things, but overall this is simply a B movie. Lots of green goo, gratuitous big explosions, nice scenery, a great number of "F" bombs, and a goes on forever helicopter battle, which incidentally seems like it belongs in a completely different film. Not totally bad, but not even borderline good. - MERK

B-movies typically come in two categories: Unwatchable Garbage and Entertaining Garbage. This one falls in the latter category. It's got the goods: Over-the-top action and violence, snappy corny dialogue, fun performances, and a darkly humorous tone. Aside from a couple of scenes that drag on a little too long, It's quickly paced. Once things get going, they keep going, so it never really feels boring.

I saw this movie when it first came out, . Enjoyed the characters, first thought this was spin off of Death . Wish movie, do to name & background of the Bo Hopkins character . (is explained in part during the café fighting scene) . With it's low budget, they did fairly good with the movie . Imagine what could have been if they had double the money . Only real scary part (do to today's terrorists activities, is the .idea of poisoning the water supply) . This age of remakes, maybe someone should dust-off the script . and with a bigger budget, might make a decent movie.

.It's B-Movie sci-fi & western, no more, nothing less.

I live in Moab, Utah where this movie was filmed (along with many John Ford/Wayne westerns in the 40's-60's). This film is so stupid that it is funny and that is the way one needs to look at it. It is real fun for me because I grew up here and recognize, and have been at, every place a scene was filmed (except the jail LOL). It is also fun for me because I know many of the locals who had bit parts. This film is pure camp. If one views it as such you might just have a fun time.

Took a chance watching this one and it paid off at first. Went in blind and I see the names Wings Hauser, Bo Hopkins and George Kennedy - legends! An incredibly bad rip-off of The Terminator's title card is swiftly followed by a hillbilly being killed by a scientist with a laser gun. Oh, it's gametime.

Too bad the opening scene might've been the best one.. So evil government dudes (who look like a bunch of plumbers) taint the water supply of a small town with a chemical that induces psychotic rage and turns you into a green zombie. All this is part of an experiment of some kind that is never explained. The baddies shut down all communication in-or-out, trapping the citizens in for the battle royale.

The main scientist bad guy looks like a Col. Sanders / Doc Brown hybrid who's suffering from radiation sickness. He has no characterization besides being a (literal) mustache twirling villian... only a cool laser gun and sunglasses. The good guys are an unlikeable lawyer, his snotty wife, a renegade drifter, the town sheriff and the sheriff's deputy. They also serve almost no purpose, just props running around from shootout to shootout.

The experience is saved by B-Movie goodness all around: Horribly outdated 80s future tech and SFX, bad dialogue being delivered poorly, tons of gratuitous violence and inexplicable explosions. The plot doesn't matter and all the characters are uninteresting, but luckily it moves quick enough to offset boredom. After a few minutes of watching paint dry you'll be treated to either some delightful overacting, horrific violence, or one of the seemingly hundreds of van explosions in this movie.

It's funny that Hollywood go-to Hans Zimmer did the score here. It helps the movie, but is dated, and doesn't stand above it much in quality. It also is very Terminator inspired, essentially mirroring it at times.

By the end it falls off the rails and devolves completely into a bad western (The weird government CIA scientist dudes all decide to ride horseback for no reason!). There's also a very boring and pointless helicopter chase tacked on after the plot concludes. So all in all it's nothing special, but worth checking out for the right crowd, especially all the George Kennedy fans out there