The Nightmare Gallery

Wow was this a sleeper kind of movie or what?!? Long time since I've seen such a production, taking itself so seriously yet delivering on no levels whatsoever, with actors that tried to show emotions but with no clear reasons to do so, The Nightmare Gallery felt far too long.

I got nothing good to say about it, so I won't bash it but try to present some facts: camera work with acting are quite ok for such an indie movie, there is a plot which is kinda hard to understand how it got green lighted and a final act that came a little too late. It is part horror, part super natural but hard to digest really, so unless you're immune to low budget horrors go try on something else. Nothing to see here really.

Again, I do appreciate the effort put into it, and the fact that it tried, and you can clearly see it, but I do believe it got lost in its own thoughts and came out as boring and confusing.

Cheers!

"The Nightmare Gallery" came without as much as a fanfare, and it will leave without as much as a whisper. I hadn't heard anything about this movie prior to finding it one year after it was initially released. I was lured in by the movie's cover/poster, because it seemed rather interesting.

And I was even more intrigued when I noticed that the Rand family lived on Innsmouth Ave., so I thought maybe I was going to be in for some Lovecraftian inspired horror. Instead, I suffered through one hour and six minutes of sheer self-inflicted torture by watching this movie, as I should have given up after thirty minutes. But I thought the movie would pick up and become interesting. I just never did. And I didn't even finish the movie, having about thirty minutes left or so, and having no intention of returning to finish it.

Why? Well, because the storyline was tedious and utter rubbish, to be bluntly honest. It made no sense and it seemed more like the work of several directors whom had no collaboration and were told to direct individual segments with the same character, then piece it together afterwards. The script was just boring and all over the place. So not a great accomplishment by writers Jhan Harp and Rob Stith.

Director Gene Blalock didn't really have much to work with, and it was definitely reflected on the screen.

The characters in the movie were fairly adequate, they were not overly interesting, but served the story well enough. And while not being in the lead role, then it was actually Mieko Hillman (playing Dawn Rand) whom carried the movie with her performance.

I have no idea what this was supposed to be, but an hour and six minutes of nothing happening was not my sense of entertainment. And with no interest in the remaining thirty minutes "The Nightmare Gallery" was exactly what the name is; a nightmare gallery.

There is nothing I could or would recommend in this movie, so it is not worth the effort.

I think horror is probably the wrong category for this movie. It's more of an intellectual thriller and I think that's why so many people seem disappointed by it. Yes, it's a bit long and you have to pay attention to everything that's said for the movie to make any sense, but I think that's kind of the point. Like all indy movies, there are problems, but f you like cult movies that make you think, this is a good watch.

It's a cheap movie nobody should spent time on.

Theoretically, there's somewhere a potentially interesting story, but that's absolutely not enough to endure everything else, like a lousy screenplay, characters you don't care for, and acting that's, while not totally bad by some, quite poor.

Oh, and to the person who that said that Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans would love this: What the heck??? I liked Buffy the series, freaky action with humor and actually good acting. Buffy the Movie was pretty bad as I vaguely recall, yet it rocked compared to this one. There's simply no whatsoever similarity detectable, apart from tiniest fractures regarding one certain and only minor supernatural aspect, and no, it's not vampires...

This is a film about a college anthropology professor who is on the search for her missing student. She begins following clues received in the mail, which puts her career and marriage in jeopardy. The core problem is we never see the relationship between her and the student, so viewers don't feel connected to the plot. Because of this all we know is the main character is rude, disregards her responsibilities, the feelings of those close to her, and comes off and unlikable and weird. Then as we start to get glimpses of Sanjay the missing student, he is just as unlikable and creepy as she is. To sum it up, the music is generic, the actors chew the hell out of the scenery (so many wide eyed head tilts), the characters are unlikable and un-relatable, and the plot is silly and nonsensical for the sake of sounding profound.