Day of the Nightmare

Contrary to what the plot summary says, this is NOT about a woman returning from the dead! The story concerns Jonathan Crane, an artist with a decidedly sick way of getting his models in the mood to pose. The movie opens with Jonathan having a topless lovely lay across a couch, then binding her ankles and wrists and beating her back with a belt while wailing, "Unclean!Unclean!" Ooohkaaay. To top THAT off, Jonathan's wife is being stalked by a mysterious woman who slips into the house and chases the wife out and through some woods. The wife is baffled as to who the woman is, but she's someone closer to Mrs. Crane than she realizes . . .

A weird psychosexual drama with all kinds of dysfunctional kinkiness. In between the story concerning Jonathan's kinkiness and the mystery woman are some sleazy scenes including an orgy and a flashback revealing an adolescent sex encounter between Jonathan and an older woman that indicates where he got his taste for whipping from. Grotesquely fascinating.

Have you seen Brian De Palma's "Dressed To Kill"? It would appear that De Palma was "inspired" by this little low budget thriller. If you agree that "Fatal Attraction" ripped off "Play Misty For Me", then you'll likely feel the same about De Palma's 1980 effort.

The film I saw was neither the one described in IMDb's synopsis nor that described in the other reviews. I watched it on Netflix and assume the more lurid scenes were cut. This is a shame. Although I don't particularly enjoy watching depictions of sadism, etc, I see no reason for a movie not to be shown in its entirety, especially on a site which is generally not so squeamish. That being said, I enjoyed the movie despite its bad acting and lack of continuity (the cars driven by the characters, especially the hero/heroine's station wagon, varied in age and marque.) The subject was interesting and the central character well played. There was an inventive use of cheap sets, and the actors seemed to have been chosen from the director's friends and acquaintances, much like in an Ed Wood production. If you enjoy watching Ed Wood's movies, you won't want to miss Day of the Nightmare. It is one step up and quite a bit darker.

There seemed to be two purposes to this little oddity - firstly, a rather flat and ham-fisted attempt (surely shot on a miniscule budget) at a 'psychological thriller' and secondly (and far more interestingly) what was basically a promotional reel for lead actress Beverly Bain.

Ms Bain occupies about 40% of the screen time and when I say 'occupies', I mean she gets sole use of the camera's time. We see her go to bed, get up, tidy up in the kitchen, walk round her house, ascend the stairs, descend the stairs. All with no one else in shot.

IMDB states that she had never made a movie prior to this one and never made a movie after this one so, for me, the real mystery here is not who was the mystery blonde (a 5 year old could have sussed that one out in 2 minutes) but what was the real story behind Ms Bain's one and only role?

And, yes, I agree with the previous reviewer who aligned this film to something Ed Wood would have released. There are plenty similarities, especially the cod-psychiatry and Paul Marco-like cop who plays John Ireland's stooge.

By the way, one or two of BB's scenes must have been very close to being cut as she's showing quite a bit more than her acting chops as she bends over to make the bed!

This one is a lot like watching an episode of Dragnet or Route 66 and and combing that with Hitchcock's Psycho. John Ireland plays Detective Sgt. Dave Harmon who reminds me a little bit like Sgt. Joe Friday or even Buz Murdock with his cool demeanor and smooth talking detective style. Cliff Fields plays Jonathan Crane who will remind you all to much Norman Bates. There are a lot of differences of course from this film and Hitchcock's Psycho but you can easily draw parallels between the films and characters Jonathan Crane & Norman Bates.

While this film is very similar to Psycho in it's way it is in no means a rip-off of Hitchcock's classic. This film is a story of it's own - and it's a pretty good one.

One thing I did not like this film - the ending. The ending to me was hurried, a bit sloppy and could have been rewritten into something conclusive. But it is an unsuspected ending which is nice - must have been a shock to audiences in 1965.

7/10