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Nightmare Weekend (1986)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

I've seen a lot of horror movies from the 1980s and the truth of the matter is that for every great idea there are at least a dozen bad ideas. I've seen some pretty crazy movies from the horror genre but you're going to have a difficult time in finding a stranger one than NIGHTMARE WEEKEND. The story deals with a scientist, a spy, a machine, a puppet and how they all help create these magical silver balls that fly through the air and go into people's mouths. From there the people turn into bizarre creatures and kill.

NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is a really bizarre and at times poorly made film that is so downright strange that it's impossible not to recommend to fans of the genre. The film starts off with some very weird scenes and I must admit that it just keeps getting weirder. In fact, the movie somewhat kept me entertained for the first fifty-minutes or so because I just wanted to see what happened next and how much stranger it would be willing to go. Where the film goes bad is the fact that there's no decent idea with the material and everything just gets dragged out to the point where you get tired of it.

As I said, the badness kept me entertained for the first portion of the film but the final thirty-minutes or so were a real drag and this is where the film really falls apart. The film was obviously shot on a very low-budget and this shows with some of the special effects. The effects aren't horrible but at the same time they're at least mildly entertaining for what they are and they at least offer up some blood. I'm really not sure what the screenwriter was going for but the script is all over the place and more often than not it doesn't make much sense.

The film, in its uncut version, features the blood that I mentioned but it also features a lot of cute girls nude. I will give the film credit for this as there's a lot of nudity and some pretty silly sex scenes as well. The performances are all pretty bad as you might expect but this adds a little camp to the film. NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is pretty bad throughout but fans of bad cinema will want to check it out.

This is SO silly................ it has a green haired puppet named George and a guy getting strangled by a pair of panties! This is worth renting just to laugh!

WTF?!?! I mean, seriously, what the fµ@k?! Who on earth concocted this script and went out and made this film? They must have had more than a couple of screws loose. So, we have a mansion in which a professor is working on some magical super-computer that can produce evil silver pinballs which can cause behavioral modifications on test subjects - a rottweiler in this case - but when amped up to a level of I-don't-know-what they can turn humans into demented & deformed, possessed beings as well as just plain kill them (like have them explode, for instance). That's about the best I can do in an attempt to describe the premise of this wretched film. So, the professor's evil mistress comes up with a plan to do some more testing - naturally, on humans this time - and invites three good-looking bimbos to the mansion. Some horny dudes are along for the ride as well, eventually. So, evil mistress goes nuts with the machine, producing one magical pinball after another to possess the bimbos & dudes. There's tons of nudity & sex and some gore thrown in for good measurement. There's an inexplicable sequence - many, in fact - where the daughter of the professor is playing a racing game on her computer that magically possesses a real car in the real world. There's even a possessed tooth brush. And this thing stars Dale Midkiff in an early role. And with all this, you haven't seen the half of it yet. Inept & illogical on all levels, I tell you. Everyone involved with this production must have thought the same thing, like pretty much "What the hell, let's just make this insane rubbish as we go along". Pinballs, man, possessed pinballs! Just when you thought you've seen it all...

Illogical, sloppy presentation will surely have bad movie fans doing a tap-dance of giddy approval. The story at hand concerns a scientist and his super-bitch of a scheming colleague experimenting with computer-generated silver balls that turn subjects into either mild-mannered passive types or mutant killer morons(depending on the level of dosage). Not surprisingly, these tests get out of hand during the progress of some nefarious wheelings-and-dealings, and a group of unsuspecting female visitors to the scientist's country estate find themselves in mortal danger.

Low-ball production looks to have been funded with rolled pennies, and evidence hinting at professional guidance in any aspect of its forging is entirely lacking. Frequently hilarious and generally entertaining for all the wrong reasons, NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is recommended to fans of ultraweird flicks from the wrong side of the tracks.

4/10

I happen to be the director's nephew. It's taken me years to get my hands on a copy of this film and I can confirm that it is indeed one of the worst movies of all time. My uncle doesn't even have a copy of it anymore (I asked). I'm looking forward to bringing him a copy.

Currently the film's average rating is 1.9/10. As far as I can tell, that should put it somewhere in the mid-30s in the IMDb "bottom 100," however with only 206 votes, it hasn't yet placed.

It's sad that the film doesn't even get the respect of a bottom 100 title.

Anyhow, I'm giving copies of the movie to family members this year for holiday gifts. Best/Worst gift ever?