Project Nightmare

This conspicuously low budget, refreshingly high concept existential thriller mixes, Philip K. Dickian tropes with an oppressive Ballardian atmosphere to entirely questionable results! A manifestly odd, and frustratingly oblique feature, Donald Jones's idiosyncratic Sci-thriller's persistent eccentricity finally won me over! While poorly acted, clotted with narrative inconsistencies, 'Perfect Nightmare' nonetheless proves itself to be an intermittently watchable, altered states/Twilight Zoned brain-tripper. While the effects and filmmaking are rudimentary, watching these two stolid male archetypes being sinisterly stalked in an increasingly unfamiliar environment by some omnipresent alien force has a genuinely nightmarish quality!

The conceit of a random individual being arbitrarily persecuted by his own unfiltered neurotic impulses, and the victim's distress vastly exaggerated by some malign militarist computer program is a decidedly unsettling one! While 'Perfect Nightmare' has no clear conclusion, and the closer you scrutinize the episodic narrative, the more asinine it all seems, and yet, Donald Jones quirky 'Spaced Out' oddity is not without entertainment value. The more enraptured viewer may experience a few disquieting moments of palpable strangeness. To a great many others, this will be unleavened bunkum, but there was something indefinable about 'Perfect Nightmare' that fitfully captured my imagination.

Two men are in the woods fleeing something. They're in the mountains, and can't see any of the towns they think they should be able to see. They find an isolated cabin and a woman, Marcie, invites them in. They can't really describe what they were fleeing - something that tore up their camp, a tall glowing red light that covers the trees and sky accompanied by a strange sound.

One of the men, Gus, occasionally sees a sort of computer graphic of a black square in a tunnel of light, or something like that. When he sleeps, he dreams in green and white of a child in a cemetery with a priest and an older man. His dream switches to blue and white, then natural colors and stills of himself, his friend, and Marcie appear.

They try to find a restaurant Marcie said was nearby, but come across a man in a car with a flat tire. He was trying to land his Cessna nearby, then came across the abandoned car. He's in ill health, and they go back and get Marcie, then proceed to the restaurant which is "Closed Permanently." They find the Cessna, and Gus takes off on his own Marcie, the car, and the dead man disappear.

Gus gets into some trouble with the plane, and after he lands he finds a short pyramid near a fence. He initially can't enter, but then is able to go into an underground series of white halls with red doors. People and things start appearing and disappearing more often, and he's told something (not much) about Project Touchstone. From there it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. At one point, there's a large disembodied glowing green face with red eyes that seemed awfully familiar, yet from where I don't recall.

For its low budget and small cast, they did achieve something interesting, but ultimately I don't know what to make of it.

It warrants watching just because it is the silliest, weirdest, worst movie ever.

I have a nagging suspicion that this was one of the prime inspiration sources for the series "Lost". YES! It's THAT weird and silly.

Nothing makes sense, unless you suspend all disbelief and allow yourself that anything is possible. Even doing a movie with no budget in the middle of nowhere with just 4 cast members and some 1970's microcomputer graphics done by kid in some Californian garage.