Author's Note: I had a hard time finding viable photos for this one, it being a fairly obscure title, but I did the best I could under the circumstances. My apologies for the low quality of some of the ones I did find.
Also, as you probably noticed, my current schedule is still in flux, so it's hard to say when I will be able to write or not. I'll just post as I can. I was, however, reassured that things would get back to normal around November.
Until such time, I don't know what to tell you, but just keep an eye out on my social media for my latest posts, or simply check back here every so often to see if I have new stuff- simple as that. Apologies for the minor inconvenience. 🙏
Also, as you probably noticed, my current schedule is still in flux, so it's hard to say when I will be able to write or not. I'll just post as I can. I was, however, reassured that things would get back to normal around November.
Until such time, I don't know what to tell you, but just keep an eye out on my social media for my latest posts, or simply check back here every so often to see if I have new stuff- simple as that. Apologies for the minor inconvenience. 🙏
Not to be confused with the 1973 British flick from director Pete Walker or the early 80's Troma movie with Jeffrey Combs of the same name, Frightmare is a straight-to-video slasher from 2000, also known as Paranoid, which itself is also a movie title from 2000, starring a young Jessica Alba. This isn't that one, either, lol. So, for those keeping score at home, this is the second movie this month (after American Nightmare) that nabbed its title from somewhere else- though, to be fair, the Paranoid one was the same year as this one, so we'll cut them some slack.
However, the title isn't the only thing this movie borrowed from other, better sources. As with American Nightmare, this is a post-Scream slasher, so you better believe there are pop culture references and in-jokes a plenty. For starters, most of the main characters are named after horror movie villains, including: Jason (Shawn Wright), Michael (Michael Short), Freddy, aka "Hellraiser" (Denny Zartman) and Norman (Brandon O'Dell).
A case could be made that Sarah and her twin sister Rebecca (both played by Shanda Lee Munson) were named after Scream Queens Sarah Michelle Gellar and Rebecca Gayheart, and that Courtney (Summer Sloan LaPann) was named after Courtney Cox, all three of which- you guessed it- appeared in the Scream movies. Given how much this film borrows from Scream in general, that's a pretty safe bet.
Filmed in Hanson, Massachusetts, but set in Georgia, the movie does have a student film vibe overall, and it's safe to say the budget was pretty marginal, given that it has the look of 80's shot-on-video porn. To say nothing of the mostly porn-level acting, lol. Save maybe Munson and LaPann, who do their best with what they have. But the rest... well, as one character hyperbolically puts it in the movie: "I'm not trying to win an Oscar here!" Clearly.
That said, though it's no Scream- hell, it's not even up to the somewhat substandard, if still entertaining, levels of the aforementioned American Nightmare- I suppose Frightmare does have its moments. The fun, such as it is, begins with a young woman being stalked at the gym, then followed home later on to be dispatched, along with her parents, in reasonably gory fashion.
I liked the whole notion of stringing her up horizontally between two trees- don't think I've seen that one before, as usually its vertically and they're either being hung by their neck to strangle to death, or upside down by their feet to be dispatched by the killer later. This killer knocks the girl out, hogties her, then strings her bottom half to one tree and her top half to the other and "guts her like a fish," as the killer promised, but never quite delivered on in Scream. So, points for creativity, I suppose.
I should also mention that the opening title sequence is genuinely creepy and brings to mind a similar approach taken in the early seasons of American Horror Story, down to the industrial-style music (by Rob Albertson, who also scored the movie Fate- but not much else) and creepy-crawly bugs and generally unnerving vibe all around. But, as most of you probably know, that show came years later, so points for getting there first- though Se7en would have already been out, so they might have just been ripping that off somewhat.
Some of the camera work, by cinematographer Keith Holland (who also did the honors on Carnosaur and worked on- heart be still- The NeverEnding Story and several of the Superman films) is pretty great early on, and noticeably ambitious for such a low budget film. There's an impressive shot after the first kill where the camera goes towards the window and when it pans back, we see time has passed and the cops are there, cordoning off the scene, all seemingly in one take. It wasn't obviously, but it sure looks that way. Well done thus far, Frightmare.
Alas, things go awry from there, as the bad acting and wacky editing goes into full swing. For every cool shot, i.e. the one from under the glass table looking up at two of the characters- very 70's, very cool- there's a host of others that are completely screwed over by the whiplash editing. The editor isn't listed by name on IMDb or I'd call him (or her) out here, but they were clearly raised on a steady diet of MTV as they can't go for any length of time without multiple, quick cuts, some of them hilariously rapid-fire.
There's one series of shots where an illustration seems to reveal itself one step at a time, a la stop motion or a "flip book" that's pretty cool, but most of them are wildly distracting and almost completely ruin the vibe of the film and keep it from achieving a consistent level of suspense, which is too bad, as the director himself, Ash Smith, who also wrote and directed the aforementioned Fate, is not without promise, especially if some of the cooler camera moves were his idea.
But even if the editing wasn't entirely his fault, the script sure is, and boy, is it a mess, and often laughably bad. After four of the "kids"- and I use that term WAY loosely, as they all look to be well into their 20's but are supposed to be high-school students- stumble upon the killer's lair, not only doesn't the Sheriff believe them, even though one of them is his son: he actually locks his son up to "teach him a lesson" for lying! The cops don't even bother to investigate, in fact, though it might have stopped many of the murders, even when bodies start to drop almost immediately thereafter.
I suppose a case could be made that Smith was just following the familiar trope of the "boy who cried wolf," where someone who has proven themselves to be untrustworthy isn't believed when stuff actually starts to go down, but boy, is it mishandled here, to a laughable degree. The cops don't even re-question the group after a couple that looks just like two of them is killed soon thereafter, which can't be a coincidence.
However, the title isn't the only thing this movie borrowed from other, better sources. As with American Nightmare, this is a post-Scream slasher, so you better believe there are pop culture references and in-jokes a plenty. For starters, most of the main characters are named after horror movie villains, including: Jason (Shawn Wright), Michael (Michael Short), Freddy, aka "Hellraiser" (Denny Zartman) and Norman (Brandon O'Dell).
A case could be made that Sarah and her twin sister Rebecca (both played by Shanda Lee Munson) were named after Scream Queens Sarah Michelle Gellar and Rebecca Gayheart, and that Courtney (Summer Sloan LaPann) was named after Courtney Cox, all three of which- you guessed it- appeared in the Scream movies. Given how much this film borrows from Scream in general, that's a pretty safe bet.
Filmed in Hanson, Massachusetts, but set in Georgia, the movie does have a student film vibe overall, and it's safe to say the budget was pretty marginal, given that it has the look of 80's shot-on-video porn. To say nothing of the mostly porn-level acting, lol. Save maybe Munson and LaPann, who do their best with what they have. But the rest... well, as one character hyperbolically puts it in the movie: "I'm not trying to win an Oscar here!" Clearly.
That said, though it's no Scream- hell, it's not even up to the somewhat substandard, if still entertaining, levels of the aforementioned American Nightmare- I suppose Frightmare does have its moments. The fun, such as it is, begins with a young woman being stalked at the gym, then followed home later on to be dispatched, along with her parents, in reasonably gory fashion.
I liked the whole notion of stringing her up horizontally between two trees- don't think I've seen that one before, as usually its vertically and they're either being hung by their neck to strangle to death, or upside down by their feet to be dispatched by the killer later. This killer knocks the girl out, hogties her, then strings her bottom half to one tree and her top half to the other and "guts her like a fish," as the killer promised, but never quite delivered on in Scream. So, points for creativity, I suppose.
I should also mention that the opening title sequence is genuinely creepy and brings to mind a similar approach taken in the early seasons of American Horror Story, down to the industrial-style music (by Rob Albertson, who also scored the movie Fate- but not much else) and creepy-crawly bugs and generally unnerving vibe all around. But, as most of you probably know, that show came years later, so points for getting there first- though Se7en would have already been out, so they might have just been ripping that off somewhat.
Some of the camera work, by cinematographer Keith Holland (who also did the honors on Carnosaur and worked on- heart be still- The NeverEnding Story and several of the Superman films) is pretty great early on, and noticeably ambitious for such a low budget film. There's an impressive shot after the first kill where the camera goes towards the window and when it pans back, we see time has passed and the cops are there, cordoning off the scene, all seemingly in one take. It wasn't obviously, but it sure looks that way. Well done thus far, Frightmare.
Alas, things go awry from there, as the bad acting and wacky editing goes into full swing. For every cool shot, i.e. the one from under the glass table looking up at two of the characters- very 70's, very cool- there's a host of others that are completely screwed over by the whiplash editing. The editor isn't listed by name on IMDb or I'd call him (or her) out here, but they were clearly raised on a steady diet of MTV as they can't go for any length of time without multiple, quick cuts, some of them hilariously rapid-fire.
There's one series of shots where an illustration seems to reveal itself one step at a time, a la stop motion or a "flip book" that's pretty cool, but most of them are wildly distracting and almost completely ruin the vibe of the film and keep it from achieving a consistent level of suspense, which is too bad, as the director himself, Ash Smith, who also wrote and directed the aforementioned Fate, is not without promise, especially if some of the cooler camera moves were his idea.
But even if the editing wasn't entirely his fault, the script sure is, and boy, is it a mess, and often laughably bad. After four of the "kids"- and I use that term WAY loosely, as they all look to be well into their 20's but are supposed to be high-school students- stumble upon the killer's lair, not only doesn't the Sheriff believe them, even though one of them is his son: he actually locks his son up to "teach him a lesson" for lying! The cops don't even bother to investigate, in fact, though it might have stopped many of the murders, even when bodies start to drop almost immediately thereafter.
I suppose a case could be made that Smith was just following the familiar trope of the "boy who cried wolf," where someone who has proven themselves to be untrustworthy isn't believed when stuff actually starts to go down, but boy, is it mishandled here, to a laughable degree. The cops don't even re-question the group after a couple that looks just like two of them is killed soon thereafter, which can't be a coincidence.
It doesn't get any better from there. There's another hilariously bad sequence in which, after leading lady and school reporter Sarah writes an article about the murders as a cry for help to get the town's attention, not only does the Sheriff berate her for getting people "riled up," but there's a ludicrous bit in which seemingly everyone has read said article at school and makes exactly the same comment on it as Sarah walks by, to an astonishingly overdone degree, as the quick cut editing goes into overdrive.
As for the big "twist," it doesn't make a lot of sense, really. Spoiler alert, I guess, but basically, what I got out of it was that there are two killers- one the "Conscience Killer" that is terrorizing the area, and another a copycat that is using said killer as "cover" so that he can take out his girlfriend for, um, dumping him, I think? He doesn't really explain why he kills the others, and indeed, pals around with them until literally the last ten minutes of the film, where he abruptly goes nuts and tries to kill everyone in short order.
In other words, we get one of those villain monologues where the killer explains everything just before he goes in to kill the last one standing. It works in Scream because it plays as if Sydney is buying herself some time to get away or find a weapon or so forth, but here, it's just laughable, not helped by the really bad acting of the killer, who is indeed the one who says the Oscar line I mentioned, appropriately enough.
That said, I liked the haunted house element, and I wished it had been used more in line with something like Hell Fest, where the killer hides in plain sight and simply takes out people randomly going through the scarehouse, pretending to be someone working there. Here, it really is someone working there, so they could have upped the ante by having him kill a few more randos, instead of confining the kills almost entirely to the last ten minutes, save the opening kill and one other during an endless rave sequence.
Oh, and there's that couple, but it's shot so crazily it's hard to tell what's going on- it's like we're seeing the killer's flashback of the killing though Sarah's eyes or something. Or maybe she's supposed to be imagining what went down? Hard to say, but the quick-cut editing doesn't help matters. It's too bad, as they might have beaten Hell Fest to the punch somewhat if they'd had an actual killer that preys on guests at a scarehouse as they go through it.
The cast, as you might expect, is mostly made up of complete unknowns. The main exception is gorgeous leading lady Shanda Lee Munson, who does double duty as Rebecca and Sarah, which, once again, brings to mind American Nightmare, which featured a similar gambit. Munson, credited here as Shanda Besler- it was before she was married and changed her last name- made her debut as an extra in Remember the Titans, before snagging the lead in this film.
After more bit parts in movies like Road Trip, Losing Grace and The Substitute: Failure is Not an Option and on the TV show Dawson's Creek, she took a few years off to get married and have a couple of kids, then returned in 2009 with roles in movies like Sacrifice, The Evil Inside, Birthday Cake, The Sublime and Beautiful, Sunny in the Dark, Jessica, The Christmas Reunion and the TV series Project: Phoenix and Ghostbreakers. The latter, her most successful endeavor to date, was a spoof of all those silly "Ghost Hunter" shows.
Remarkably, Brandon O'Dell, who may be the worst actor in the film- and that's saying something- has had a pretty decent career since as well, including roles in Good Neighbor (with Tobin "Saw" Bell, Billy Dee Williams and Danica McKellar), the Stephen king adaptation The Mist, Crystal River, Dangerous Calling, Bloom, the somewhat underrated The Bay, Selma, I Tonya and The Highwaymen, as well as plenty of TV guest spots, including Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, Drop Dead Diva, Halt & Catch Fire, Ozark, MacGyver, Vice Principals and Stranger Things. Hopefully, he's gotten better with the acting since, lol.
As for the big "twist," it doesn't make a lot of sense, really. Spoiler alert, I guess, but basically, what I got out of it was that there are two killers- one the "Conscience Killer" that is terrorizing the area, and another a copycat that is using said killer as "cover" so that he can take out his girlfriend for, um, dumping him, I think? He doesn't really explain why he kills the others, and indeed, pals around with them until literally the last ten minutes of the film, where he abruptly goes nuts and tries to kill everyone in short order.
In other words, we get one of those villain monologues where the killer explains everything just before he goes in to kill the last one standing. It works in Scream because it plays as if Sydney is buying herself some time to get away or find a weapon or so forth, but here, it's just laughable, not helped by the really bad acting of the killer, who is indeed the one who says the Oscar line I mentioned, appropriately enough.
That said, I liked the haunted house element, and I wished it had been used more in line with something like Hell Fest, where the killer hides in plain sight and simply takes out people randomly going through the scarehouse, pretending to be someone working there. Here, it really is someone working there, so they could have upped the ante by having him kill a few more randos, instead of confining the kills almost entirely to the last ten minutes, save the opening kill and one other during an endless rave sequence.
Oh, and there's that couple, but it's shot so crazily it's hard to tell what's going on- it's like we're seeing the killer's flashback of the killing though Sarah's eyes or something. Or maybe she's supposed to be imagining what went down? Hard to say, but the quick-cut editing doesn't help matters. It's too bad, as they might have beaten Hell Fest to the punch somewhat if they'd had an actual killer that preys on guests at a scarehouse as they go through it.
The cast, as you might expect, is mostly made up of complete unknowns. The main exception is gorgeous leading lady Shanda Lee Munson, who does double duty as Rebecca and Sarah, which, once again, brings to mind American Nightmare, which featured a similar gambit. Munson, credited here as Shanda Besler- it was before she was married and changed her last name- made her debut as an extra in Remember the Titans, before snagging the lead in this film.
After more bit parts in movies like Road Trip, Losing Grace and The Substitute: Failure is Not an Option and on the TV show Dawson's Creek, she took a few years off to get married and have a couple of kids, then returned in 2009 with roles in movies like Sacrifice, The Evil Inside, Birthday Cake, The Sublime and Beautiful, Sunny in the Dark, Jessica, The Christmas Reunion and the TV series Project: Phoenix and Ghostbreakers. The latter, her most successful endeavor to date, was a spoof of all those silly "Ghost Hunter" shows.
Remarkably, Brandon O'Dell, who may be the worst actor in the film- and that's saying something- has had a pretty decent career since as well, including roles in Good Neighbor (with Tobin "Saw" Bell, Billy Dee Williams and Danica McKellar), the Stephen king adaptation The Mist, Crystal River, Dangerous Calling, Bloom, the somewhat underrated The Bay, Selma, I Tonya and The Highwaymen, as well as plenty of TV guest spots, including Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, Drop Dead Diva, Halt & Catch Fire, Ozark, MacGyver, Vice Principals and Stranger Things. Hopefully, he's gotten better with the acting since, lol.
Frank Brennan, who plays the Sheriff, has also fared well, having had a steady career as a character actor, appearing in such films as The Girl, Mask of Murder, Unshackled, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Madea's Witness Protection, Looper, Need for Speed, No Good Deed, Solace and Along Came the Devil 2. He's also done his fair share of TV, including episodes of One by One, Army Wives, Drop Dead Diva, The Vampire Diaries, Nashville, Brockmire and The Haves and the Have Nots.
Most of the rest are of the one-and-done variety, though Michael Short, who plays Michael, crops up in a couple more horror movies, Test Group and The Greenskeeper; and, amusingly, Natalie Hendrix, who plays the "TV News Lady in Red," as she's dubbed here, has made a pseudo cottage industry for herself playing, you guessed it, reporters, as she does so in Forrest Gump, The Gingerbread Man, Major League: Back to the Minors and Forces of Nature, despite her somewhat iffy line readings here. Hendrix does have a few non-reporter credits to her name with roles in the movies Karate Rock and In Search of Liberty, to be fair.
Frightmare is admittedly pretty bad, but it absolutely qualifies as so-bad-it's-good, with more than a few lol moments for all the wrong reasons. The acting, scripting, editing and other elements work together for a veritable mélange of awfulness, but entertainingly so, at least to a certain extent- it does drag a bit in the middle, TBH.
That said, the girls are all pretty stunning, and actually not that bad of actresses, which is more than can be said for virtually all the guys, save maybe Brennan as the Sheriff, who's fine. Also, the score is decent, if a bit jarring at times, and not in a good way. As I said, the camerawork is good in places, but often ruined by incompetent editing.
All in all, I suppose there's just enough good AND bad here to keep undiscerning slasher movie fans watching, but be forewarned, the bad definitely outweighs the good by a long shot. It's safe to say you can do a lot better elsewhere, to be sure. But if you're looking for a Halloween-themed slasher that you haven't seen and you're hard up for entertainment, I suppose this gets the job done. At the very least, it's perfect fodder to make fun of when you're getting drunk or whatever with your buddies- but not much else. 😛
Most of the rest are of the one-and-done variety, though Michael Short, who plays Michael, crops up in a couple more horror movies, Test Group and The Greenskeeper; and, amusingly, Natalie Hendrix, who plays the "TV News Lady in Red," as she's dubbed here, has made a pseudo cottage industry for herself playing, you guessed it, reporters, as she does so in Forrest Gump, The Gingerbread Man, Major League: Back to the Minors and Forces of Nature, despite her somewhat iffy line readings here. Hendrix does have a few non-reporter credits to her name with roles in the movies Karate Rock and In Search of Liberty, to be fair.
Frightmare is admittedly pretty bad, but it absolutely qualifies as so-bad-it's-good, with more than a few lol moments for all the wrong reasons. The acting, scripting, editing and other elements work together for a veritable mélange of awfulness, but entertainingly so, at least to a certain extent- it does drag a bit in the middle, TBH.
That said, the girls are all pretty stunning, and actually not that bad of actresses, which is more than can be said for virtually all the guys, save maybe Brennan as the Sheriff, who's fine. Also, the score is decent, if a bit jarring at times, and not in a good way. As I said, the camerawork is good in places, but often ruined by incompetent editing.
All in all, I suppose there's just enough good AND bad here to keep undiscerning slasher movie fans watching, but be forewarned, the bad definitely outweighs the good by a long shot. It's safe to say you can do a lot better elsewhere, to be sure. But if you're looking for a Halloween-themed slasher that you haven't seen and you're hard up for entertainment, I suppose this gets the job done. At the very least, it's perfect fodder to make fun of when you're getting drunk or whatever with your buddies- but not much else. 😛
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