Night Wars

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.

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.

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).

I have commented before on how I generally find David A. Prior's ideas to be really cool, but his direction to be very poor. The big exception to this was `Lock ‘N Load,' which I found to be great. Other good Prior movies are the higher-budgeted `Raw Nerve' and the silly but fun `Invasion Force.' I watched `Night Wars' not really knowing what to expect. The plot sounded neat, but it was still a low-budget AIP movie with only one name star, Dan Haggerty. But as it unfolded, I was really surprised.

Two Vietnam buddies, Trent and Jim, trying to live normal lives, start to have bad dreams nine years after their time in the war. Their nightmares are always about the war and a third friend, Johnny, who they left behind in the hands of an American turncoat, McGregor. Eventually, the nightmares begin infesting themselves in the daylight hours when Trent and Jim start to fall asleep at any given moment, and that's when events in the dream start to cross over into reality, like when one of them gets cut in a dream, they get cut in reality. That is when the two friends realize they must somehow enter the nightmares willingly and either get Johnny out this time or die trying. At the same time, Trent's wife has contacted a psychologist (Haggerty), also a Vietnam vet, about her husband's odd activity. Concerned, he tries to intervene at the worst possible time.

This movie has a lot going for it and for once an AIP movie is not at all hindered by its budget. Prior's early dream sequences are quite good. He makes good use of lighting to make them scary. He keeps early dreams dark and adds neat touches like red tints which makes soldiers wearing dime store rubber skull masks look convincing and freaky where in any other way they would have looked silly. There are also some rather impressive effects. The scene where Trent sees McGregor in the mirror and McGregor sticks a gun into the mirror is a radical and inexpensive special effect. The soldiers rising out of the dirt had a good effect, too. And the scene where Haggerty, having given Trent and Jim sedatives, is racing to Trent's home to try and save Trent's wife is exceptionally done. And of course it is all made better by a fine musical score by Tim James and Steve McClintock. I was all set to give this movie an 8 or 9, surpassing `Lock ‘N Load' as the best of Prior's movies, when the ending happened. I won't reveal what it consisted of, but I will say that it was a cop-out. Gone was the adrenalin in my blood for what would happen next. Gone was the hope that an explanation of how the events were happening would arrive. Gone was the atmosphere that had been looming so well over the whole movie. This is the only black mark on an otherwise great low budget film (well, other than spotting a crew member's hand tossing a gun onto the screen after a soldier was shot), but it is a serious one. The result for me is that it ties `Lock N' Load' as Priors best movie (out of the twelve I have seen). Zantara's score: 7 out of 10.

Vietnam veterans Trent Matthews (Brian Edward O'Connor, a poor man's Robert Ginty) and Jim Lowery (Cameron Smith) are suffering from recurring dreams about the war; as they sleep, they battle the Vietcong in an attempt to rescue fellow soldier Johnny (Chet Hood), who they had to leave behind during their escape from a prisoner-of-war camp nine years earlier. Also haunting their nightmares is sadistic traitor McGregor (Steve Horton, overacting wildly), who wants to continue with his torture of the men.

Waking to find that injuries sustained in their dreams leave real marks on their bodies, Trent and Jim realise that they must confront their fears or die. Arming themselves to the teeth, they enter their dreams to make one last ditch effort to find Johnny and drag him into reality.

Borrowing heavily from A Nightmare on Elm Street, but with a Vietnam war film twist, Night Wars is wholly unoriginal late-'80s straight-to-video nonsense that suffers from a serious lack of logic. Now I know what you're thinking - dreams don't have to make sense - but the film needs to adhere to a few rules for it to work.

Case in point: taking weapons into the dreams. When Trent and Jim fall asleep, they do so with loaded firearms in their hands, which they fire in reality whenever they do so in their dream. In their final rescue attempt, they also lob around a fair few grenades, but conveniently fail to throw a single real grenade in the room in which they are asleep. Consistency be damned!

The film is also unclear about how Johnny and McGregor are projecting themselves into Trent and Jim's dreams. There is no suggestion that they are dead. Is it astral projection? If so, how did they learn to pull off this trick? At one point, McGregor even attacks Trent's wife as she sleeps, with no explanation about how he manages this. And are Trent and Jim astrally projecting themselves as they snooze, their spirits manifesting in Vietnam? None of it makes a lick of sense.

I will give props for the number of bloody squibs used in the shootouts - hence my generous rating of 3/10 - but there are better things you could be doing with your time.

N.B. Despite getting top billing, Dan Haggerty only has a supporting role as concerned doctor Mike Campbell.