Review – ‘Nightmare Cinema’ (2018)

Hello! I haven’t released a review for quite some time. Mostly because I’ve been preoccupied with other things, moving countries being the biggest one. I’ve recently relocated to the beautiful island of Malta, meaning for the past few weeks I’ve been busy moving out of where I was living in the UK, packing my case, and trying to find a job in Malta, which as of the last few days, I have accomplished. So after the worrying thoughts of settling in had retired from the forefront of my brain, to the back of it, I began to think again about my reviews, and realised I hadn’t even thought of writing a review, and I have been watching films, just leaving a small review on my Letterboxd account and leaving it at that. So, this is me, coming back.

I watched ‘Nightmare Cinema’ a few weeks back, a few days before I left for Malta. I have to say right off the bat, I wasn’t impressed. It didn’t help that I went into it with relatively high expectations, mostly because it’s an anthology made up of some really talented directors, Joe Dante probably being the biggest director on board with the project. Also, Mick Garris & David Slade have also proved their worth in the horror genre with films like Sleepwalkers & 30 Days of Night respectively. The film is pulpy, and has a comic book edge, the problem being that Creepshow already exists and does it way better.

I’ll go through each of the stories as I believe with an anthology, and which is some of the beauty of the anthology, is that you can judge each short film based on it’s own merits, so that’s what I’ll do.

The first film, titled The Thing in the Woods (D. Alejandro Bruges), follows a group of teens being chased by a madman with an axe, but all is not as it seems. Unfortunately when it starts out, it’s cliche and pretty boring, with uninteresting characters and a basic plot, it doesn’t grab your attention, which is the main thing for me when watching an anthology. There is a twist towards the end of the film, but it is so ridiculous that by the time it comes around, I’m not willing to accept it. MOVING ON.

The second film, Mirari, directed by Joe Dante, is probably my favourite piece, mostly due to originality and an ability to keep the audience guessing throughout, with a disturbing enough premise to creep me out. One of those films where the context is equally disturbing as what is happening onscreen. Even then, it’s still pretty poor coming from Joe Dante. NEXT.

Third film, Mashit, directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, is a edgy, loud and Tarantino-esque bloodbath. Unfortunately, like the first one, it doesn’t manage to grab my attention, and instead opts to resort to tired, boring cliches to do with exorcism and possession. By the end, it tries to be abit more “rock and roll” by subverting some expectations but by that point it had already lost me, and so had the film as a whole.

I have to admit, at this point I’d given up, and didn’t really watch the fourth one. Directed by David Slade titled This Way to Egress, is a more psychological venture into the horror genre, but unfortunately is more style than substance and just ends up being a series of random things going on akin to Jacobs Ladder, but without a real plot, or developed characters, it falls flat.

The last film, directed by Mick Garris and titled Dead, is perhaps a more fleshed out story, but by this point I had gone beyond caring, and so it fell by the way side.

The overarching story involved a cinema which draws people in and supposedly shows them their “greatest fears”. It’s quite uninspired, and Mickey Rourke as The Projectionist is boring and cliche. The problem with this film, is that nothing stands out, nothing grabs our attention, it’s all just random plots with no real atmosphere. If you want a good horror anthology, watch Creepshow or V/H/S instead.

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