The Nightmare Gallery

A low budget doesn't have to mean a bad film but this was a bit of a slog. That said, I found the overall production values perfectly fine, to be honest; the problem lay predominantly in the writing / script.

I had my interest piqued as a Buffy The Vampire Slayer vampire by the presence of Amber Benson, unfortunately all this film helped do was highlight her shortcomings as an actress. The acting throughout the film was generally a bit on the amateurish side, the only exception probably being Meiko Hillman who played the wife of Benson's character.

I could be wrong but the film seemed like it was largely populated by queer characters / actors, which is nice to see for a change but it doesn't mitigate the poor end product.

Also, I don't mean to be a cynic but I do wonder how many of these 8, 9, and 10 reviews are from the people who backed the film on Kickstarter (having spotted this detail in the film credits while waiting for the post-credits scene, which was mentioned at the start), as I can't for the life of me see how anyone could rate this film THAT highly.

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.

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...

"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.

Not going to lie, I was disappointed in this. Not because it was bad necessarily, but like others I was expecting more of a budget and more traditional horror elements. That doesn't mean it was terrible, just that it didn't meet my initial expectations. Unfortunately I think a lot of people are going to end up hating this movie due to its budget restraints and 90s made for TV feel. Seems like with this generation low budget is fine for slasher boob and gore flicks, but not for movies that you actually have to pay attention to details to fully grasp the plot. This movie is more of an existential supernatural crossing of realities kind of story that just isn't going to hold viewers attention if they're going to get hung up on subpar effects and acting. That's not to say the acting is bad, but there are a few good performances (namely Amber Benson, Mieko Hillman, and Mat Devine) and a few that are really not. Admittedly the nots can be distracting while they're on screen though. And some of the writing and dialogue could definitely be better. It feels almost soap opera-ish at times.

But I think if you go in knowing the overall production value is going to be more like an episode of some 80s or 90s horror anthology series (think Amazing Stories, Ray Bradbury Theater, Twilight Zone, or Tales From The Darkside) then you'll be better off and more open minded about it. But don't go in expecting theater quality or even Netflix or cable budget. And don't expect anything fast paced either. It's definitely a slow burn psychological mystery thriller, but it does still qualify for the horror genre, just not the hack and slash, torture porn, or even jump scare supernatural that gets the most attention in the genre these days.