Frightmare

My review was written in September 1983 after watching the film on a Vestron video cassette.

"Lensed in 1981" with the more appropriate title "The Horror Star", "Frightmare is an off-putting combination of homage, satire and shocks. Pic is already available in the home video market ahead of its theatrical release, at which time its new moniker is bound to create confusion with Pete Walker's 1974 unrelated British feature "Frightmare".

A very well-cast Ferdinand Mayne (better known in his billing in earlier films as Ferdy Mayne, e.g., Roman Polanski's nemesis in "Fearless Vampire Killers") toplines as Conrad, a classic horror film star modeled after Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and others.

Idolized by the college film society led by students Saint (Luca Bercovici) and Meg (Jennifer Starrett), Conrad starts the picture off in a promising vein reminiscent of the Vincent Price black comedy "Theatre of Blood", as he kills two of his directors, announcing "Take 19...take 20", a riposte to their demands upon him as an actor.

Screenwriter Norman Thaddeus Vane (adding a director's cap on this one) quickly loses his way with an uncomfortable mixture of mockery and the standard gore saturate "teens in jeopardy" horror format. Giving an explicit credit to the Errol Flynn-John Barrymore incident, the film society teens steal Conrad's corpse from his mausoleum after he has died of a heart attack. Conrad's widow, Etta (Barbara Pilavin), brings him supernaturally back to life through the aid of a spiritual medium, Mrs. Rohmer (Nita Talbot), and Conrad follows her wishes to destroy the body snatchers. Quite improbably, the surviving teens remain rooted in a spooky mansion with Conrad, even though they are aware that their peers are being brutally killed right and left.

Vane encourages eye-popping overacting, ensuring that his film will be taken as black humor rather than straight horror, but it is as unfunny as any of the numerous flop spoofs of the genre made in recent years.

Though there are some marketable extreme gore effects on display (kid beheaded or having a tongue torn out by Conrad), tech credits are subpar, with smeared, whited-out window and sky shots and annoying, almost nonstop use of thunderstorm sound effects.

Although I do agree that Frightmare is underrated, it isn't something to put too much work into finding.

The storyline is a semi-interesting twist on the life after death theme: A legendary horror actor [Conrad] dies mysteriously in his bedroom. At the funeral his 'last film' is shown: a short with him stating that there is life after death and that he's watching all of the people that are watching the film. A little later, a group of horror/drama kiddies decide to steal Conrad's corpse and bring him to the house where some of his movies were filmed. The kids slowly start to disappear, one by one...

The first few death scenes are the only downright amazing thing about this movie. It was nice to see some regular, down to earth 'mental murder' after watching two gore filled movies beforehand. But even that can't save it -- the murders start to get bloody in a very cheesy way, and them themselves become as boring as the movie itself.

I'd suggest renting this only if you have the money to blow and you aren't expecting a masterpiece. There's better horror films, but every once in a while you need to see something average to remind you of that.

Frightmare is an interesting attempt to combine the old thirties style horror with eighties slasher. Ferdinand Mayne stars as Conrad Ragzoff, an arrogant old ham horror actor who dies of a stroke. Some of his fans steal his body from his tomb(what fans!) and all heck breaks loose. Mayne is lots of fun, appearing on a special monitor in the tomb and taunting his soon to be victims. The opening parts of the movie are wonderful; showing Conrad's old movies, him taking care of an unlikeable director, etc. The scenes in the old house, where Conrad stalks the kids, are a little more basic, but still entertaining.

Jeffery Combs is good, but the movie really belongs to Mayne. He seems to enjoy himself and makes the movie lots of fun. So basically, it's not one of the great horror movies or anything like that, but still well worth seeing for fans of eighties horror.

I suppose I am a bit partial to Frightmare because I first saw it on television late at night about 15 years ago (back when ABC did Fright Night Theatre-anyone remember that?) and it did give me the creeps. Even though a lot of the film's aspects are a bit amateurish, it's still chilling and fun to watch, and I really loved the scene where the teenagers are dancing with Mayne's dead body around the dinner table. The film has a very unusual atmosphere and horror buffs should enjoy it, it's got a little bit of everything (i.e. gore, creative deaths, chills, spooky settings and locations). Mayne really hams it up in the film's opening sequences, and it fits here. Rent (or buy-I did) this one from your local video store. You'll have a blast. My rating: 6/10

Conrad Radzoff is more or less a combination of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee:two famous Gothic horror icons.He sleeps in his coffin like Bela Lugosi and he considers himself a superstar.Unfortunately the times of his stardom are falling apart as he only gets silly roles in commercials.So Conrdad kills his director and after murder he suddenly dies.His body is kept in creepy Gothic mausoleum.A group of university students decide to steal his coffin and defile his corpse.But Conrad isn't really dead.He rises from his slumber and kills defilers one by one..."Frightmare" by Norman Thaddeus Vane is a likable supernatural slasher with few gory deaths including decapitated Jeffrey Combs.The storyline is absurd with standard scare techniques,but if you like supernatural slashers with levitating coffins give this one a chance.7 horror stars out of 10.