{"id":6699,"date":"2024-10-23T13:33:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6699"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:33:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:33:58","slug":"frightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/23\/frightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"Frightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Frightmare <\/strong>(1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saturn International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, graphic violence, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Norman Thaddeus Vane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Norman Thaddeus Vane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jerry Mosely\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Joel King\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 9, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ferdinand Mayne, Luca Bercovici, Nita Talbot, Leon Askin, Jennifer Starrett, Barbara Pilavin, Alan Stock, Carlene Olson, Scott Thomson, Donna McDaniel, Jeffrey Combs, Peter Kastner, Chuck Mitchell.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0As much as I enjoy Frightmare<\/strong>, I can\u2019t deny it\u2019s a frustrating viewing experience. It starts off strong with a great premise. It tells the tale of a has-been movie star who comes back from the dead after his corpse is stolen from his crypt by a group of film students. It loses momentum when it settles into a routine dead co-ed movie with the dead-alive actor picking off victims in a creepy old house. I get that what audiences wanted at the time. I have nothing at all against slasher movies. I love them. I\u2019m just disappointed that writer-director Norman Thaddeus Vane (Club Life) couldn\u2019t come up with something a little more creative. Still, Frightmare<\/strong> is pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Conrad Radzoff (Mayne, Howling II… Your Sister Is a Werewolf), at one time a respected actor in the horror genre, has reached the nadir of his long and distinguished career. He\u2019s reduced to starring in a commercial for dentures. The director is what one might call \u201ca cocky little prick\u201d. In a display of the actor\u2019s evil nature, he retaliates by casually pushing the young wannabe auteur off a balcony with his walking stick, killing him before a horrified crew. He then climbs into his limo and rides away as if nothing happened.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Conrad is in ill health and close to death. This is NOT bad news to those closest to him. Family members and friends can\u2019t wait to see the last of him. He dies shortly after speaking to a group of film students at a retrospective of his movies. Obviously, he\u2019s not going to go quietly into that good night. Conrad always has to have the last word. When his longtime director Wolfgang (Askin, Hogan\u2019s Heroes) cruelly denounces him on his deathbed, he springs back to life long enough to smother the guy with a pillow before \u201cdying\u201d again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After the funeral, the students come up with the brilliant idea of stealing his body from his mausoleum and taking him back to their place for an impromptu dinner party. Led by Saint (Bercovici, Parasite), the guys break in and are greeted by a video warning them of potential doom. Naturally, they ignore it and proceed with their twisted tribute to their favorite horror star. They put his coffin in their hearse- yes, they drive a hearse!- and take him back to their place. After a period of partying, they settle down for a night of casual sex. That\u2019s when Conrad rises from the dead once more to pay back his hosts for their hospitality. Yep, it\u2019s a blood bath!<\/p>\n

\u00a0In addition to Saint, the horror film bunch includes Meg (Starrett), Oscar (Stock, Poison Ivy), Donna (McDaniel, Angel), Bobo (Thomson, Police Academy), Eve (Olsen, Fraternity Row) and Stu (Combs, Re-Animator). Their names don\u2019t matter too much since they seem to exist only as a group. However, they die grisly deaths. One victim has his tongue ripped out by Conrad. Another is burned to death. One victim is decapitated. Somebody is crushed to death. Sometimes it\u2019s too dark to see clearly, but the decapitation scene is nice and bloody. As for their performances, they\u2019re no better or worse than those in other slasher flicks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The best performance in Frightmare<\/strong> comes from Mayne, of course. He camps it up to an infinite degree as a horror legend who brings to mind genre vets like Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In fact, Lee was originally considered for the role. Of course, I doubt any of them are as vicious and evil as Conrad. BTW, I love that he\u2019s dressed like a vampire complete with cape. Now that\u2019s what I call a burial outfit! The cast also includes Nita Talbot (Night Shift) as a psychic friend of the widow Etta (Pilavin, A League of Their Own). They figure into an underdeveloped subplot about the search for the missing corpse.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One thing Frightmare<\/strong> has plenty of is atmosphere. It\u2019s thick with it. I love the use of fog and smoke in and around the mansion. It adds a necessary element of classic horror. I wish the storyline was as strong as the aesthetics. I know it\u2019s not particularly original, but why not have the deceased actor\u2019s friends and family spend a night in his house in order to gain an inheritance of some kind? It sounds like B-movie gold to me. I\u2019m not saying Frightmare<\/strong> is bad as is; I just think it could have been better. But why speak of what it could be? Let\u2019s talk about what it actually is. The idea of the video monitor in Conrad\u2019s crypt coming on at just the right moments is cool. The movie also benefits from a dark sense of humor. Once again, I refer you to the videos being shown in Conrad\u2019s crypt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The key word when it comes to Frightmare<\/strong> is camp. This movie is campy as hell. It\u2019s made campier by the killer being the star of several campy old horror movies. It\u2019s quite clever too. I\u2019d love to love Frightmare<\/strong>, but I only like it. If it followed through on its early promise, it would be a different story. As it stands, it\u2019s fun and enjoyable, but not the B-movie classic it should rightfully be.\"\"<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frightmare (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saturn International\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, graphic violence, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Norman Thaddeus Vane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Norman Thaddeus Vane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jerry Mosely\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Joel King\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 9, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ferdinand Mayne, Luca Bercovici, Nita Talbot, Leon Askin, Jennifer Starrett, Barbara Pilavin, Alan Stock, Carlene Olson, Scott Thomson, Donna McDaniel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Frightmare-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6699"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6909,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699\/revisions\/6909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}