Nightwish

That was totally screwed-up!? What this junky cheaply made b-grade production covers ranges from the premise looking into subconscious dreams, paranormal activity and Extra-Terrestrial involvement. Oh man everything (done in a very uncertain tone) but the kitchen sink in chucked into this one! The concept is original and strange, but it never truly comes together leaving the continuity being a complete jumble of unrealized ideas and far-fetched twists. It's illogically questionable, but maybe it's supposed to be so due to the bewilderingly tricksy context and one of those twisted endings. Love or hate it. But I found it rather effective.

How to give an outline of the story without revealing too much. Tough one. But here goes. A couple of grad students along with their professor head to an abandoned cabin to record and study some paranormal/otherworldly disturbances that plague the area. Not too long the indescribable occurrences begin to take its toll on the group.

It's silly, wild and campy (just look at those gooey, rubbery make-up FX and colourful optical special effects). Even then a dread-like atmosphere smothers proceedings and the growing paranoia is exceptionally pitched, as it's so hard to tell what's real or just hallucinations due to the genuine nature. As each others fears are conjured up. Trying to unsettle and overcome their senses. Amongst the sequences are some gruesomely icky deaths and titillatingly erotic inclusions.

Writer/director Bruce R. Cook erratically puts it together with some professional tinge and inserts few unusual imagery and experimental lighting composition, but at times it did drag. All talk (mainly uncanny babbling), little headway up until the last half-hour. The elastic script has some witty pitch black humour abound, but also random scientific theories. The off-kilter score is vibrantly rich and served up is a credible theme song of the same title.

There's a curious cast on hand. Straight performances between quirky ones. Jack Starret is deliciously malevolent and glassy (like out of some sort of mad scientist) as the professor with a hidden agenda. The beautifully magnetic leads Alisha Das and Elizabeth Kaitan are soundly good. Robert Tessier is enjoyable, but it's a testosterone imposing Brain Thompson ("the highway is mine!") that's a complete blast.

A fascinatingly nightmarish head trip in to the weird, which doesn't pull out any stops.

"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.

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.

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!...

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.