Day of the Nightmare

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!

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.

Entertaining in a strange sort of way. Not sure who the editor was on this film but the husband was seen driving a particular car in one scene but in the same scene after a short break when you see his wife opening a trunk low and behold he's in a different car??

Near the end of the movie when the police are chasing him in the dark dressed as a woman, low and behold he opoens a gate and its broad daylight. The film was littered with these amusing mistakes. Having noticed these badly put together scenes, I spent most of the movie looking for more, in that this kept me entertained when the actual script did not.

Nice locations and decent "daytime" cinematography in La Jolla, but a terrible low-grade exploitation flick..YUCK! Lots of booze bottles and tacky paintings in this movie. The father and son look to be the same age. The cross-dressing psycho is completely idiotic..he has such a pretty wife. What's his problem? Best line of dialogue - "People go crazy...every day people go crazy". What is John Ireland doing in this one? I know he made some bad flicks, but this is too much. Some nudity. A 2 out of 10. Best performance = Beverly Bain. Ms. Bain plays the attractive and very normal wife of the crazy. Elena Verdugo from MARCUS WELBY, M.D. has a small role as does Liz Renay from John Waters flicks.

The Good Deed Mission guys are right out of the Bowery Boys. Not much to recommend here with the acting low-grade and repellent passivity of most of the characters, especially Mr. Ireland as the world-weary detective. Terrible!

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