Der Nachtmahr

Nachtmahr is an intense coming-of-age story with a weird creature and a "hardcore" music. The film has an interesting atmosphere juxtaposing ordinary life with an eerie psycho moments. The party scenes accompanied by raw electro-music are mesmerizing, but they also feel a bit formulaic. The story tackles a multitude of themes (death, drugs, mental health, relationships with peers and with family, ...) but it feels disjointed, lacks coherence, and the open ending ultimately left me with more questions than answers. The acting performances are also quite weak. Despite its shortcomings, Nachtmahr is an enjoyable film mainly thanks to its bizarre vibe. Too bad that the plot is so... unfinished.

Akiz's (Achim Bornhak) monster movie from 2015 (the director prefers to be called that way rather than the horror genre). It was screened in if Istanbul the same year.

The creature resembling ET is actually a mix of a very old man and a newborn baby. The demon Tina confronts when she realizes there's no escape from it. They share fears and pains. The goal in common is to try to make room for themselves in society. This part actually constitutes the psychological dimension of the movie. There is also the theme of reality, which is the weak point of the film. The creature is presented as a phantasmagorical character in the first part of the movie, and the title of the movie (Nachtmahr: nightmare in German) proves this. But there is no time/event plot that supports its visibility later on, everything is left unsupported.

The acting and gestures of the parents do not seem to be good either. The girl seems to suffer more from her parents' disbelief in fact, rather than the creature itself.

Der Nachtmahr is a unique and highly innovative genre film made in Germany. What starts out as a potential horror movie quickly turns into a very original piece of art featuring elements of different genres. It's like Donnie Darko and Black Swan were fused together to create something completely new.

Tina (superbly portrayed by young German actress Carolyn Genzkow) is 17. All she is interested in are rave parties, drugs and a guy named Adam. One night she spots this strange little creature in the bushes that looks like ET's ugly brother (and ET wasn't a beauty himself). Tina seems to be the only one who is able to see that being that becomes an important part of her life...

At the beginning of the film there are two warnings (which tell the audience to beware of both light and sound of the following movie) and a request that this movie should be experienced with high volume nonetheless. At that point I personally thought that these warnings were kind of empty and inserted to generate a dramatic feeling before the actual movie started…And boy, was I wrong. These dance scenes are extremely intense and unique, that's all I will tell you about that, go and experience it yourself!

What stands out to me about the cinematographic approach of Der Nachtmahr is this melange of the typical German movie style which features extreme pragmatic and realistic dialogues and characters (90 % of German movies are made that way and most of them suck in my opinion) and these fantasy scenes where the Nachtmahr appears and disappears miraculously. These kind of opposite movie styles fuse throughout the film and there are several scenes where you start wondering what is going on, is it reality or some kind of dream sequence? It's not just that this film doesn't give clear answers to the questions you might have, it constantly tries to lure you in wrong directions…

Der Nachtmahr is a splendid film with unique style and an extraordinary approach. You cannot watch it, you have to experience it.

THE NIGHTMARE is a hell of a trip. It's a creature feature based on the painting of the same name by the Swiss painter Henry Fuseli. This film is a nightmarish tale of a slow psychological disintegration of a teen who mysteriously gets attached to an ape-like creature after an inexplicable incident at a party. The film is a slow burn and is visually gorgeous. The strobing lights, disorienting camera angles, and pulsating beats, all create a mystifying and moody atmosphere. The bulk of the film is pretty straightforward, but it takes a hard left turn in its third act and enters into the surrealist realm and the ending is fairly ambiguous. It is a very solid and less-talked-about surrealist psychological horror cum creature feature with great production values and good acting about identity and individuality. Not to be missed!

"The Nightmare" is the kind of movie that isn't as interesting to watch as it is to read or think about. I believe the direction is what undercuts it; moments don't have the impact they should have. Scenes could have been shot and handled better, but with the wobbly camera, the director himself feels like just another stoned bystander among the movie's teenage ravers.

The story is about a party girl who is apparently hit by a car. She survives with no visible injury, but begins to have visions of a creature that looks like a cross between Gollum from "Lord of the Rings" and Dobby the House Elf.

The people around her believe that she is going crazy, and perhaps she is.

There are several sequences that appear to show the movie rewinding itself, perhaps as an indication to us that the movie is not occurring on a linear timescale. It may also be telling us that the events we just witnessed are the culmination of what we are witnessing again in the rewind sequence.

The problem is that the movie doesn't have a sure hand at the controls. It's too disjointed to make you really curious about what you're seeing. The concept is interesting enough, however, to recommend it to students of the weird.