Twisted Nightmare

I had reasonably high hopes when first watching this "horror" of a movie, based on other IMDb users' reviews. I was quickly disappointed. After the ridiculous "firefly" opening credit sequence (or flaming ashes or whatever the hell they were supposed to be), we get to see the bulk of the cast preparing to head back to an old summer camp they used to frequent, having all won a free trip. None of them seem very enthusiastic due to events past, but since it's free and they can all catch-up with each other after a year or so they decide to go for it.

Later, when they're all there, tensions start building and people are at each other's throats over the "death" that happened last time they stayed at camp. The main character's boyfriend knows nothing of it, so some girls explain it to him - his girlfriend's mentally-challenged brother was burnt to death in a barn out front. We get a nice flashback that tells the whole story, except what the hell actually caused him to self-combust. The brother wanders into the shed in a sulk and inexplicably looks up to see a flashing red light, which makes him scream. Why? Next thing you know he bursts out of the barn on fire, and his sister appears from nowhere screaming in slow motion. Reeling from the news, the boyfriend is wary of the days ahead...

A few minutes later one of the couples is murdered in the same barn; no one notices. The next morning, more are murdered - no one notices. Each time a character disappears and is killed, no one knows they are gone, and when someone is asked of their whereabouts, they reply with some noncommittal answer. Some friends, eh? The killer is exposed as some half-human, half-beast creature that growls like a drowning zombie. Tracking him (apparently he's been there the whole time the group were last at camp) is the ground's caretaker, an Indian descendant who's ancestors were burned at the stake by Civil War soldiers. He claims one of them put a curse on the campground, and thinks this thing is the result. The film makes great play of hiding his motives... is he actually the killer or is he just out to stop the real one? He spends all of his time screaming and threatening the group and at one point nearly bursts into tears in front of one couple about his kittens - "I NEED 'EM!" he shouts.

Also coming on the scene later is the town sheriff, whom one of the girls manages to call before getting killed. He arrives in his old, '50s-vintage rust bucket that he had to get his granddaughter to help him fix in an earlier scene while a random African-American man sat watching in disbelief! I couldn't help but join him! Didn't the County Sheriff's department see fit for him to have a proper police vehicle? He's also very old and spends nearly a minute examining two victims in the dark before deciding to do something about it. He doesn't do much. At the end the killer is exposed as someone we know and the lead female character has something to do with it. Can her new boyfriend and the miserable old caretaker stop them in time before all are lost? Barely. The film also fails to tie up all loose ends, such as motive and what the hell exactly happened to the brother. Was it the old Indian curse or what that made him self-combust? This kind of writing affects the film badly. It is a shoddy mess, with what looks like a lot of ad-libbing and last-minute ideas. How someone could fund such a screenplay is beyond me. The characters are typical wannabees who think they're all so cool and spend their time doing nothing but drinking and moaning. I did like that older, mustached guy though. Can't remember the name. He drove the silver Ford Thunderbird that had sugar in the gas tank (another lame plot point). A lot of his lines are actually genuinely funny, although the scene where he snaps at the cabin and goes off at everyone, screaming "You're an asshole! F@#% you! And your brother was an asshole too! I'm glad he's dead!", etc is unintentionally hilarious. I was rolling around at that scene. The other actors just stare at him and you can tell one girl is trying not to laugh. Great stuff.

The same unfortunately cannot be said for the technical side of the film. The direction is uninspired and dull. Lighting in a lot of the scenes is poor and I don't know what was going on with the music, I don't even remember it. The gore scenes were fairly effective, though some parts defy belief (the first victim flying up in slow motion in the barn). There was quite a bit of blood and also some nudity, which never hurts. I also have to say that the acting is pathetic, although it looks like some of them really did try. It just didn't make a difference. The script however was the worst, and the fact that the director didn't do anything about it and fix the mistakes ruined the film. Not as bad as some of them, but not the best of the '80s slashers either. You can do much better in terms of sheer entertainment value.

Oh yeah, that ice shed was pathetic, too. Stocked year-round when no one has been there for over a year and ice is still in large, perfect blocks even with a hatch in the roof wide open and no obvious refrigeration source. The girl who is trapped in there also goes into hysterics after ten seconds, even though she thinks her friends did it... See what I mean about the acting?

Dumb, moronic film was shelved for 5 years (completed in '82, released in '87), because of poor pacing, editing, and horrible death scenes. What little plot there is, is about teenagers winning a vaction to a camp they once attended when they were younger. However once they get there and people start turning up missing they start to believe that the disapperances have something to do with the accidental death of a friend at the camp years earlier. Sound familiar??

Rated R; Graphic Violence, Sexual Situations, Profanity, and Graphic Nudity.

"Twisted Nightmare" follows a young woman who is invited to her childhood summer camp for a free weekend getaway along with a large group of her old friends. Once there, the campers start to die off rather briskly, and it may have something to do with the camp's situation on sacred Native American land.

This obscure supernatural slasher is an admitted mess of a film--a cobbled-together amalgam of slasher tropes that rips off everything from "Friday the 13th" to "Silent Night, Deadly Night," and attempts to explain itself (sort of) via supernatural mythos that frankly makes no sense.

In retrospect, it's obvious that "Twisted Nightmare" was a troubled production, a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, if you will. And while most of it is trite and badly-acted, there is a considerable amount of fun to be had here, especially (or perhaps only) for fans of '80s slasher films. The film, for all its misgivings, is quite atmospheric, and the set (which you may recognize from "Friday the 13th Part III" lends some nice ambiance. The cinematography is also, though inconsistent, fairly moody, and there are some fantastic silhouette shots of the hulking, growling villain, backlit with cold blue light. The characters (and there is a large number fo them) are more or less disposable, and the actors are inexperienced and most can hardly deliver their lines, but this weirdly adds to the charm.

I think the main problem with "Twisted Nightmare" is that it doesn't have its own mythos properly worked out, and conclusion is as utterly confounding as what precedes it. There is no throughline and little consistency to speak of, but there are some atmospheric moments, a fairly creepy killer, and enough murder scenes to keep diehard genre fans amused. A mess, but an offbeat and fairly amusing one. 6/10.

My review was written in September 1988 after a screening at Liberty theater on Manhattan's 42nd Street.

"Twisted Nightmare" is a perfunctory horror film bringing back to null effect rather corny genre themes. Ongoing theatrical release is unwarranted compared to many direct-to-video titles, though pic has a catchy moniker.

Main mystery stems from pic's origins: print caught had a 1982 copyright (in Roman numerals) on-screen, het ad materials and date of MPAA rating imply the film actually was made in 1987. Pic probably is fresh, but plays like the look-alike films made at the beginning of the decade when horror boomed.

A group of young people are summoned to Camp Paradise, where they camped regularly until two years ago when Mathew, the brother of pretty brunette Laura (Rhonda Gray), died mysteriously in flames. Confused storyline blames the subsequent one-by-one murdes of the cast members on those old standbys: (1) ancient revenge against the white man (plus a black couple for good measure) for desecrating Indian burial ground, the site of the camp, and for massacring local Indians (only survivor was a medicine man, whose grandson is tghe sinsiter farmhand-type resident of the camp), and (2) unbalanced Laura's obviously telegraphed need to avenge her bro's death.

Gory killings are standard for horror flicks, while Paul Hunt's execution of a "Friday the 13th" or "The Outing" type screenplay is relentlessly dull. Cast is attractive but the acting is flat. Big, hairy monster (mainly shown in silhouette) is disappointing.

Following the trend of slashers set in camps from the 80s, "Twisted Nightmare" (1987) brings with it all the clichés and predictability that the subgenre can offer, while at the same time entertaining the viewer.

As expected from a low-budget eighties slasher, the film features comical performances with absurd and meaningless reactions, the antagonist's desire for revenge and appealing scenes of sex and nudity. During the progression of the film, there are several moments in which the editing sounds confusing and poorly edited, with poorly executed slow motion effects and dislocated scene transitions. Despite these flaws, the film stands out relatively in terms of the soundtrack and the aesthetic sense of certain moments, focusing on a visual identity with the color blue recurring in the sets, ambiance and costumes. The "trash" moments entertain audiences who are not expecting a pretentious work, making the experience stimulating.

With clear inspirations in "Friday the 13th" (1980) and "The Burning" (1981), "Twisted Nightmare" fell into ostracism and did not please the majority, although it works as a slasher for a late afternoon.