Nightmare Weekend

Nightmare Weekend (1986)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

I've seen a lot of horror movies from the 1980s and the truth of the matter is that for every great idea there are at least a dozen bad ideas. I've seen some pretty crazy movies from the horror genre but you're going to have a difficult time in finding a stranger one than NIGHTMARE WEEKEND. The story deals with a scientist, a spy, a machine, a puppet and how they all help create these magical silver balls that fly through the air and go into people's mouths. From there the people turn into bizarre creatures and kill.

NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is a really bizarre and at times poorly made film that is so downright strange that it's impossible not to recommend to fans of the genre. The film starts off with some very weird scenes and I must admit that it just keeps getting weirder. In fact, the movie somewhat kept me entertained for the first fifty-minutes or so because I just wanted to see what happened next and how much stranger it would be willing to go. Where the film goes bad is the fact that there's no decent idea with the material and everything just gets dragged out to the point where you get tired of it.

As I said, the badness kept me entertained for the first portion of the film but the final thirty-minutes or so were a real drag and this is where the film really falls apart. The film was obviously shot on a very low-budget and this shows with some of the special effects. The effects aren't horrible but at the same time they're at least mildly entertaining for what they are and they at least offer up some blood. I'm really not sure what the screenwriter was going for but the script is all over the place and more often than not it doesn't make much sense.

The film, in its uncut version, features the blood that I mentioned but it also features a lot of cute girls nude. I will give the film credit for this as there's a lot of nudity and some pretty silly sex scenes as well. The performances are all pretty bad as you might expect but this adds a little camp to the film. NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is pretty bad throughout but fans of bad cinema will want to check it out.

There are no words to explain how bad NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is. It simply defies description. Something about a computer that can change personal objects into silver balls that enter the victims' mouth, which kills them or turns them into zombies. The whole thing is so wonky that it's stunning. There's also a girl with personal computer in her room and the computer talks via a hand puppet!!!!!!!! I'm not making this stuff up. The computer also controls things like cars, even though there's nothing linking the computer with the vehicle.

The "film" is total trash. Surreal bad trash. Spectacularly, one-of-a-kind bad trash. There's a lot of sex scenes thrown here and there, which aren't very hot or erotic. There's even one scene where a woman seemingly makes love or wants to French kiss a tarantula, which had me rolling on the floor.

Definitely one of the worst movies ever made. Up there with the equally wretched direct-to-home video BOARDINGHOUSE, or BOOGEYMAN II (both NIGHTMARE WEEKEND and BOOGEYMAN II have scenes with a killer toothbrush!). At least it's fun to watch it and try to make sense of whatever is going on.

Right! Okay. Well, ... um... To be honest, I have no idea where to begin with this one.

Maybe I'll start with some positive notes! "Nightmare Weekend" contains several adorably gooey, cheap-looking, and trashy gore effects that put a smile on my face. It also features lots of pointless soft-core sex and gratuitous nudity provided by naturally beautiful 80s girls, of which one of them later even became a CNN news anchor! That's right, the film stars Andrea Thompson and she has a steaming sex sequence that I bet she doesn't like to be reminded of nowadays. Her bio says she debuted in a small role in "Wall Street". Ha, not!

The rest of "Nightmare Weekend" is utterly insane and unfathomable nonsense! Trying to summarize the crazy plot makes me want to scratch my head, but I'll try anyways. On the countryside lives a genius scientist who developed a method to alter the aggressive behavior of animals. For example, by forcing it to swallow a silver pinball (don't ask...) a vicious Doberman turns into a cute and gentle puppy! Okay, so Dr. Brake is a brilliant scientist, but then again, he also hooked up a super-computer to an irritatingly babbling green woolen socket-puppet named George, and his teenage daughter uses it to play Turbo! The good Dr. Has an evil female assistant, and she wants to test the effect of the behavioral pinballs on humans, so she lures three beautiful but empty-headed girls to the mansion. The girls sneak horny blokes from the nearby bar into the house, and thus the evil assistant has even more guinea pigs. Meanwhile, in the dullest and most redundant sub plot in the history of cinema, the scientist's daughter falls deeply in love with the evil assistant's toy boy, and she seeks romantic advice from the green-haired puppet.

It's mind-boggling when you read it on paper, and I assure you it's even more mind-boggling when you see it on the screen. You have not experienced 80s amateur-madness until you see a sock-puppet yell "Danger! Danger!" or watch how a timid young housemaid turns into a sphere-possessed killing machine. And what is up with that end shot? I'm telling you "Nightmare Weekend" is either totally awful or, like a friend of mine righteously stated, so brilliant that ordinary mortal souls like us simply fail to comprehend it.

This could be a candidate for one of the worst movies I have ever seen. There it was for sale in the previously viewed section of my local video store. "Hey, I can own this for only $3.99!" For the same price I can buy my favourite brand of dental floss, and likely derive more pleasure from flossing my teeth than watching this mess. This movie was not scary at all, and not one of those "so bad it's good" type either. It was cheap, dull, and I apologize to the others who watched it with me. I am sorry for taking away a few hours of your life that you will never get back.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS DREADFUL GARBAGE!!!

WTF?!?! I mean, seriously, what the fµ@k?! Who on earth concocted this script and went out and made this film? They must have had more than a couple of screws loose. So, we have a mansion in which a professor is working on some magical super-computer that can produce evil silver pinballs which can cause behavioral modifications on test subjects - a rottweiler in this case - but when amped up to a level of I-don't-know-what they can turn humans into demented & deformed, possessed beings as well as just plain kill them (like have them explode, for instance). That's about the best I can do in an attempt to describe the premise of this wretched film. So, the professor's evil mistress comes up with a plan to do some more testing - naturally, on humans this time - and invites three good-looking bimbos to the mansion. Some horny dudes are along for the ride as well, eventually. So, evil mistress goes nuts with the machine, producing one magical pinball after another to possess the bimbos & dudes. There's tons of nudity & sex and some gore thrown in for good measurement. There's an inexplicable sequence - many, in fact - where the daughter of the professor is playing a racing game on her computer that magically possesses a real car in the real world. There's even a possessed tooth brush. And this thing stars Dale Midkiff in an early role. And with all this, you haven't seen the half of it yet. Inept & illogical on all levels, I tell you. Everyone involved with this production must have thought the same thing, like pretty much "What the hell, let's just make this insane rubbish as we go along". Pinballs, man, possessed pinballs! Just when you thought you've seen it all...