Night Wars

Nine years ago, Trent and Jim managed to escape from a POW camp in Vietnam. They had been captured and were being tortured by a soldier named McGregor, who had been part of their platoon but turned over to the communists. During the escape, they were unable to save their friend Johnny, and were forced to abandon him. This has left a lasting shadow of guilt over the men now that they have returned to civvie street. Trent is married and has a stable job, while Jim is an alcoholic and lives alone. Now, Trent and Jim find that they are both having recurring nightmares about the event and when they wake up, they are cut and bruised, and sometimes bring things back with them from their nightmares. And they are beginning to see Johnny on the streets, and driving around. It seems that McGregor, and their pal Johnny, have unfinished business with them...

This made me think of Chuck Norris vs. Freddy Krueger, in that the "Missing in Action" series meets "A Nightmare on Elm Street". Vietnam Vets return to the war to bring a man home through the dream-world. Certainly not as bad as the low-budget and obscurity suggests. The performances are decent and the dream sequences are quite good. I really enjoyed it, but the ending did leave a lot to be desired. I think Prior just lost control of the film by then as there appeared to be some confusion over where the dream-world ended and reality began. Wes Craven did it better, but "Night Wars" still has an appeal to it.

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

"Night Wars" presents an extremely goofy approach to the familiar theme of Vietnam War vets' malaise, treated in supernatural terms. Pic is a standard-issue quickie, more for video than theatrical fans.

Brian O'Connor and Cameron Smith are the vets who have nightmares and hallucinations relating to their leaving behind platoon mate Chet Hood back in Vietnam. Problem is that the nightmares are for real, with wounds inflicted while sleeping still there upon wakeup and even Hood's severed finger materializing for real.

Another war buddy, Dan Haggerty, is now a shrink who rather laughably doesn't believe the heroes' tales of their predicament and gives them a sedative instead of keeping them awake. When machine gun fire from the Great Beyond kills Matthews' pretty wife Jill Foor, Haggerty is a believer.

Silliest scene has O'Connor and Smith putting on camouflage makeup and outfits, arming themselves to the teeth and lying down on a bed together to sleep -they're to do battle with their renegade nemesis Steve Horton, but visually it's campy.

Director David Prior's action scenes are perfunctory, but the acting is okay, except for a very hammy turn by Horton. The supernatural content linking dreams with reality is unconvincing, used in "anything goes" fashion.

Viewers will find it easy to criticize this low-budget, no-name effort found only on the dusty backshelves of a few video stores. It suffers from the flat dialog, so-so acting, haphazard scripting, and awkward pacing so often found in these Grade-Z productions.

And yet there's something about the merger of nightmare and reality in "Night Wars" which gives it an odd, almost haunting quality which softens the edges of all its many faults. Or, putting it another way, considering the vast resources spent on "Pearl Harbor" versus the scant resources spent on this movie, which one is really the more satisfying achievement?

Aside from that blurring between waking and dreaming, the most distinctive feature here comes in the form of two torture scenes occurring in Vietnamese POW camps. In the first scene, Cameron Smith has a red-hot metal rod pressed against his bare chest while he's tied between two posts, and in the second, Brian O'Connor -- tied between two trees -- has strips of barb-wire tightened around his naked torso. Unlike many Hollywood movies in which the hero suffers stoically, these two men scream with open-mouthed agony. (You can even count the fillings in Cameron Smith's teeth.) And unlike many Hollywood heroes, these two men don't have perfectly-chiseled physiques. (O'Connor especially shows signs of middle-aged flab.) The result is unnerving because the torture seems to be inflicted on real men rather than movie actors.

Top-billed Dan Haggerty has little to do in his part and Steve Horton overdoes the wild-eyed look as the sadistic villain, but Jill Foor invokes suitable sympathy as Brian O'Connor's bewildered wife. As for the two tormented ex-POWs, O'Connor is earnest and almost even appealing and Cameron Smith has the born-to-be-tortured look which is just right for this part.

(1988) Night Wars WAR/ SUPERNATURAL

Straight-to-rental flick that is co-written and directed by David A. Prior, which is like a Freddy Krueger-like war movie with two Nam friends by the names of Trent (Brian Edward O'Connor) and Jim (Cameron Smith) become telepathically linked to one another after figuring out that an old war vet is still alive at an POW Vietnam camp assumed to be dead. But, as a result of many spontaneous dream sequences which the only thing they dream about is still being in Vietnam again, a double crossing Vietnam war soldier by the name of McGregor (Steve Horton) keeps appearing in there so-called dreams, just so he can continue his torture tactics. And upon the two stars waking up again, they would even have the scars where they were tortured too without fully understanding how they got them in the first place, except to remember that they got them as a result of a dream that is similar to the 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' movies. What's kind of ludicrous is the fact that viewers are never shown how they ended up getting these dreams in the first place. I mean, was there some strange ritual ever practiced on them before they manage to escape, and then settle back to the States? And the answer is no. The other ludicrous thing is the fact that the two main stars never had to spend money on a plane ticket back to Vietnam to save the friend they left behind because they can do that while they're sleeping, and firing their weapons at the same time. The only thing that's saving this film from being a complete disaster is the fact that there's an unexpected twist that occurred at the end, and can give viewers something to think about besides tolerating the awful second rate performances. Dan Haggerty also stars who's best known for playing 'Grizzly Adams' as Mike Campbell as Trent's doctor and shrink.

Trent (Brian O'Connor) and Jimmy (Cameron Smith) are two Nam vet buddies who escaped a POW prison camp only to face worse horrors at home when the past literally comes back to haunt them. They're harassed by a soldier they left behind and a sadistic traitor who helped torture them, and when they're attacked in their dreams, they emerge with real scars (a la A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET). The two deck out in cameo and carry high-powered machine guns into their dreams to fight back after one's wife is raped and killed by a ghost. Dan (GRIZZLY ADAMS) Haggerty is the top-billed guest star. He plays a psychiatrist who tries to "help" by holding them at gunpoint, drugging them and tying them up in his office!

The premise is somewhat new, but the unconvincing Nam flashbacks look like the stars are playing War Games in the woods behind their house, the dialogue ("Let's do it!," "I'm scared, man!") is annoying and the action and horror scenes just aren't very exciting.

Prolific director David A. Prior also combined the war and horror genres in THE LOST PLATOON (1989) and also directed KILLER WORKOUT (1987), MARDI GRAS FOR THE DEVIL (1992) and MUTANT SPECIES (1995) in between all his cheapo action movies. He scripted from a story he wrote with his brother Ted Prior and William Zipp (both of whom acted in his previous films).