Nachtmahr

A lower budget rape revenge movie that moves too slowly and takes itself too seriously. Nice shots in and around New Orleans, though. And a good score. The plot summary is incorrect about John Beck. The Leaves' John Beck is a different one.

I have a strong suspicion that "Nightmare Honeymoon" was originally filmed as a made-for-television movie, but someone (for some reason) thought it would be a good idea to release it to theaters first. The tone of the movie is very tame. There's no nudity, the only bad language is the one utterance of the word "damn", a key violent scene happens completely offscreen, and the (limited amount of) violence in the second half of the movie is not that intense.

Still, I have seen good made-for-TV movies from the 70s, and I possibly could have still enjoyed this despite all the censorship restrictions. But I didn't think that it worked overall. Even at around 93 minutes long, the movie feels significantly padded. If they had trimmed the movie to run 75 or so minutes (like many 70s made-for-TV movies), this would have improved the movie significantly. The other big problem is that after the climax, the concluding moment is very unsatisfying. You don't know where the characters are headed after going through what they did.

I'm not saying that this is a "bad" movie - it has some moments of interest. But the execution was somewhat misguided. Perhaps a remake could fix those problems I wrote about.

With the current UK trend of showing old so-called horror movies that were banned at the time I was just hoping that this one might be shown on TV here. I saw it in Kuwait in 1975 (well you have to do something on a Saturday night in a dry country)and don't remember when I've laughed so much. From the squealing southern belle bride and oh-so-clean-cut groom to guys really called Bubba this film just made my day. The accents are straight out of Gone with the Wind, but with stars sadly lacking Clark Gable's looks or charm. Since I laughed just as hard at Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Evil Dead recently I'm sure I'd bust a gut at this one. (The 5 score is for humour only).

Couple on honeymoon... wife is raped... they get revenge. There's not much more than that. Some over dramatic acting bordering on hammy, sparse locations, thin plot, and minuscule action make up a snooze fest with some pretty huge plot holes.

Nightmare Honeymoon (1973)

** (out of 4)

Low budget drama about newlyweds David (Dack Rambo) and Jill (Rebecca Dianna Smith) who witness a mob hit and then the real terror begins. David is knocked out by Jill is raped by one of the men. Ashamed, she refuses to go to the cops so David decides to track the men down himself and kill them. OK, this is being sold as a horror film so it's fair warning to let you know that it isn't. The murders, rape and everything else happen off screen so if you're buying into the rape/revenge thing then you're going to be disappointed. The film is pretty much a straight drama that plays it way too safe to really work. There's nothing really bad here but at the same time there's nothing really good either. One thing that didn't work was the direction, which was just too laid back and it was to the point where it really slowed the movie down. There are countless scenes that just go on and on and in the end these too slow the film down. I'm not sure what it is but we also have the same conversations throughout the movie as the characters can't make their minds up on what they want to do. You could say this is realistic but it doesn't work on film here. The same conversations get very boring after a while. Both Rambo and Smith are decent enough in the film with character actors John Beck, Pat Hingle and Jay Robinson offering up support. One really annoying thing about this movie is its soundtrack, which is just overbearing at times because of how high they turn in up to try a show when danger is about to happen. After a while it gets tiresome. Apparently Nicolas Roeg (DON'T LOOK NOW) started directing this but dropped out after the first week and I'm curious to know if he shot the scenes at the hamburger joint because there are a couple stylish camera moves here that look like his and don't match anything else in the movie.