Nightwish, expériences interdites

Stupid as it may sound, I still think the best sequence of "Nightwish" plays rather early at the beginning, when this excessively muscled but dim-witted idiot named Dean deliberately drives over a cute little bunny rabbit with his ramshackle van. The other passengers are shocked and upset, but Dean just laughs hysterically and speaks the immortal words: "The fields is his, the highways is mine". Dean, played by Brian Thompson who previously demonstrated his acting talents in the Stallone vehicle "Cobra", isn't even one of the lead characters in "Nightwish", but he most definitely steals the show! There's more random footage of him sitting at the wheel of his beloved van and laughing out loud for no particular reason, or him toying around with the mentally disabled caretaker Wendall. "Nightwish" is a pretty ambitious and convoluted scientific/supernatural thriller, with decent performances and solid peaks of tension, but the only thing I'm most likely to remember is a beefcake in his minivan. It's sad, really...

For the record, "Nightwish" truly is a more than adequate late 80s genre effort, and I can certainly understand why the film has a fair share of loyal admirers. In terms of atmosphere, structure and script aspirations, it's somewhat comparable to David Cronenberg or perhaps some of John Carpenter's more complex movies (like "Prince of Darkness" or "In the Mouth of Madness"). There is a good amount of genuinely uncomfortable moments, explicit gore and overall absorbing weirdness. Jack Starrett is excellent as the obsessive university professor who lures four of his students to a remote mansion with a dubious past, and subsequently manipulates them to dream their own deaths as realistically as possible. The students are confronted with sadist monsters and ghostly hallucinations, but it's their own damn fault for volunteering to partake in extracurricular activities!

The script is ambitious but makes very little sense in the end, and even though the very last shot is surprisingly clever, the film continuously drags towards a predictable and clichéd finale. The two lead actresses, Elizabeth Keitan and Alisha Das, are stunningly beautiful and show a modest (but nevertheless welcome) bit of nudity.

My review was written in May 1990 after watching the film on Vidmark video cassette.

"Nightwish" is an entertaining shaggy dog horror film, offering a few novelties to the currently overdone nightmare genre. It's a direct-to-video release in both R and gory unrated versions.

The late Jack Starrett (pic was shot in 1988) plays a parapsychologist working on deep sleep experiments with four attractive young students as guinea pigs.

Set in a remote spot near a mine, the fun of the film is trying to sort out what's real and what's hallucination. Okay final twists resolve the matter credibly.

Along the way there's impressively gruesome makeup from the team of Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger. Elizabeth Kaitan and Alisha Das are quite sexy as the coeds caught up in a paranoid dreamworld. Bald Robert Tessier (Charles Bronson's boxing opponent in "Hard Times") does a good job as Starrett's geek assistant.

A strange and unnerving film, Nightwish moves among horror movie conventions the way The Player moves among genres. Never quite comprehensible, the movie follows its own associative logic while pretending to become, at various times, an alien invasion film, a mad scientist film, a ghost story, a beast-from--beyond-perhaps-it's-Satan-himself movie, and uncountable others. The acting is quirkily good, the writing witty, and the off-balance nature of the scenes allow the film to move between eeriness, gross-out horror, humor and an even odder element of eroticism--the latter supplied mostly by the lovely Alisha Das, whose character at times seems to treat the proceedings like an especially elaborate session of unnatural foreplay.

"Nightwish" is an interesting mishmash of a movie. Part supernatural horror, part sci-fi / horror, and part backwoods horror, all assembled into a muddled but interesting whole. Written & directed by Bruce R. Cook, it's nothing if not amusing, and this viewer thinks that it does succeed in creating atmosphere and a sense of weirdness. It's highly likely that Cook intended to smooth over any gaps / flaws in his narrative with that standard "it's all supposed to take on the tones of a nightmare" approach. All in all, it's a respectable, fun, but not great attempt to play in the sandbox created by Wes Craven a few years previous.

The parapsychology students of a reckless professor (actor / film director Jack Starrett, whom you'll know as Gabby in "Blazing Saddles" and the vicious Deputy Galt in "First Blood") head for the California wilderness. There they intend to explore / exploit the spook house value of a residence with a history. As the story plays out, the character of Kim (Alisha Das, "Firepower") thinks that she has everything figured out. But will she, or ANYBODY, survive to tell the tale?

Aided by a shuddery score by Mark Ryder & Phil Davies, as well as the guaranteed-to-gross-you-out gore effects by the KNB guys, "Nightwish" is pretty entertaining for the 80s horror-loving crowd. The cast - Elizabeth Kaitan ("Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2"), Clayton Rohner ("I, Madman"), Artur Cybulski ("The Hunt for Red October"), Brian Thompson ("Cobra"), Robert Tessier ("The Longest Yard"), Tom Dugan ("Hellraiser: Bloodline") - is entertaining to watch, although Starrett's ill health is apparent. He would die a year after filming, but before the movie saw a release.

Cook begins right away with unreality, with his Dutch angles adding to the dreamlike quality of the opening sequence. He takes us on a pretty strange trip; while the movie isn't altogether successful, it at least stands out in a decade full of slashers.

Seven out of 10.

A group of paranormal investigators venture into an abandoned house in an area with the perfect history for their needs. After setting up their equipment, the otherworldly madness begins... sort of.

Cheap and absurd, NIGHTWISH saves all of it's real "surprises" for the big finish. The first hour or so is pretty bland, with little in the way of action or suspense. In the end, it's mostly nonsensical malarkey, held together by a heavy, gooey layer of cheeeze.

Still, the last few minutes are suitably icky / entertaining, and it's always fun to witness the musclebound Robert Tessier lumbering around!

Also, Brian Thompson is hilarious as the eternally-disgruntled, Dean!...