Frightmare

My review was written in September 1983 after watching the film on a Vestron video cassette.

"Lensed in 1981" with the more appropriate title "The Horror Star", "Frightmare is an off-putting combination of homage, satire and shocks. Pic is already available in the home video market ahead of its theatrical release, at which time its new moniker is bound to create confusion with Pete Walker's 1974 unrelated British feature "Frightmare".

A very well-cast Ferdinand Mayne (better known in his billing in earlier films as Ferdy Mayne, e.g., Roman Polanski's nemesis in "Fearless Vampire Killers") toplines as Conrad, a classic horror film star modeled after Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and others.

Idolized by the college film society led by students Saint (Luca Bercovici) and Meg (Jennifer Starrett), Conrad starts the picture off in a promising vein reminiscent of the Vincent Price black comedy "Theatre of Blood", as he kills two of his directors, announcing "Take 19...take 20", a riposte to their demands upon him as an actor.

Screenwriter Norman Thaddeus Vane (adding a director's cap on this one) quickly loses his way with an uncomfortable mixture of mockery and the standard gore saturate "teens in jeopardy" horror format. Giving an explicit credit to the Errol Flynn-John Barrymore incident, the film society teens steal Conrad's corpse from his mausoleum after he has died of a heart attack. Conrad's widow, Etta (Barbara Pilavin), brings him supernaturally back to life through the aid of a spiritual medium, Mrs. Rohmer (Nita Talbot), and Conrad follows her wishes to destroy the body snatchers. Quite improbably, the surviving teens remain rooted in a spooky mansion with Conrad, even though they are aware that their peers are being brutally killed right and left.

Vane encourages eye-popping overacting, ensuring that his film will be taken as black humor rather than straight horror, but it is as unfunny as any of the numerous flop spoofs of the genre made in recent years.

Though there are some marketable extreme gore effects on display (kid beheaded or having a tongue torn out by Conrad), tech credits are subpar, with smeared, whited-out window and sky shots and annoying, almost nonstop use of thunderstorm sound effects.

Let's be honest; there's nothing really exciting about 'Frightmare'. It wasn't scary. It wasn't memorable. The premise itself is a bit absurd.

The film revolves around horror movie star Conrad Radzoff (Ferdy Mayne) who dies soon after planning his own funeral. He even plays his own home made film at his funeral, telling everyone he will be watching them.

A Group of drama students steal his body from his elaborate tomb and take him to 'party' with them at an old mansion. There, Conrad is brought back to life through a séance performed elsewhere by his wife trying to find out what happened to his body. She asks that he send the people responsible for stealing his body, to hell.

So, one by one Conrad starts killing off the group of students. It was nice seeing Jeffrey Combs here, although in a small role, but a good performance nevertheless. There honestly is nothing memorable about this supernatural slasher - not even the kill scenes. The script itself had me raising an eyebrow on more than one occasion.

And I'm not sure what message the film was really trying to convey with the weird ending...

Conrad Radzoff is more or less a combination of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee:two famous Gothic horror icons.He sleeps in his coffin like Bela Lugosi and he considers himself a superstar.Unfortunately the times of his stardom are falling apart as he only gets silly roles in commercials.So Conrdad kills his director and after murder he suddenly dies.His body is kept in creepy Gothic mausoleum.A group of university students decide to steal his coffin and defile his corpse.But Conrad isn't really dead.He rises from his slumber and kills defilers one by one..."Frightmare" by Norman Thaddeus Vane is a likable supernatural slasher with few gory deaths including decapitated Jeffrey Combs.The storyline is absurd with standard scare techniques,but if you like supernatural slashers with levitating coffins give this one a chance.7 horror stars out of 10.

Although I do agree that Frightmare is underrated, it isn't something to put too much work into finding.

The storyline is a semi-interesting twist on the life after death theme: A legendary horror actor [Conrad] dies mysteriously in his bedroom. At the funeral his 'last film' is shown: a short with him stating that there is life after death and that he's watching all of the people that are watching the film. A little later, a group of horror/drama kiddies decide to steal Conrad's corpse and bring him to the house where some of his movies were filmed. The kids slowly start to disappear, one by one...

The first few death scenes are the only downright amazing thing about this movie. It was nice to see some regular, down to earth 'mental murder' after watching two gore filled movies beforehand. But even that can't save it -- the murders start to get bloody in a very cheesy way, and them themselves become as boring as the movie itself.

I'd suggest renting this only if you have the money to blow and you aren't expecting a masterpiece. There's better horror films, but every once in a while you need to see something average to remind you of that.

Not really bad this peculiar mix of teen slasher and 30's horror movie, with good direction, creepy atmosphere, Jeffrey Combs in one of his earliest role, and a very good lead in the role of the old horror star returning from the grave to punish his fans (well, they have stolen his body and made fun of his corpse, so they deserve their fate). To search, find and enjoy