Nightmare (1964)

I love this movie so much

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Such a frustrating disappointment

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Back in 1964, when I was 11, I went to see a double feature featuring Boris Karloff's 'Black Sabbath' and this British film. My friend and I chuckled through Black Sabbath, we were up to this! So adult. Then 'Nightmare' started and we 'watched' most of the movie from the floor of the theater. We couldn't bear it. Suspense beats monsters.

During the 1960s, Hammer would sometimes counteract their lavish color Gothic horrors with some effective black & white psychological thrillers; this is one of the latter type.Moira Redmond plays Grace Maddox, a nurse/companion hired by attorney Henry Baxter (David Knight). Henry is guardian to a very fragile teen aged girl named Janet (Jennie Linden), who as a child witnessed her mother snap and kill her father. Plagued by nightmares, Janet travels home from school and continues to be haunted by visions of a scar faced woman in white (Clytie Jessop).It would be better for me to not relay too much about the plot, so that potential viewers can experience the twists and plot developments fresh. It manages to avoid being particularly predictable.Written and produced by famed Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster, "Nightmare" is good fun, although I don't know if the screenplay would hold up under any intense scrutiny. Still, it is quite entertaining, and slickly directed by ace cinematographer (and sometime director) Freddie Francis. It's got plenty of atmosphere, especially in the opening scene, and Francis works well with the D.P. on this show, John Wilcox. The music by Don Banks is excellent.The cast is full of solid actors but no major stars. Brenda Bruce as kindly teacher Mary Lewis, George A. Cooper as chauffeur / gardener John, Irene Richmond as housekeeper Mrs. Gibbs, John Welsh as a doctor, Timothy Bateson as a barman, and Elizabeth Dear as the younger incarnation of Janet round out the credited players. The film ultimately belongs to those performers who are required to act out stress and hysteria; they're utterly convincing.A worthy viewing for any Hammer fan.Seven out of 10.

NIGHTMARE (1964)A third entry in Hammer Films' psychotic mystery series, this wasn't quite as satisfying as PARANOIAC or SCREAM OF FEAR, but it was still pretty good. A young woman (Jennie Linden) is at a girl's school suffering from horrid nightmares about her insane mother, so she is sent home to work out her problems under the care of a nurse, where the horror continues. Some chilling goings-on, and I really liked the performance of Moira Redmond as the caregiver working things out with Linden. She's got some wild interplay with her husband in the film (played by David Knight) that's fun to watch. **1/2 out of ****

Title: Nightmare (1964) Director: Freddie Francis (Dracula has Risen from the Grave) Cast: Jennie Linden, David Knight, Moira RedmondReview: Hammer Studios didn't just make movies about vampires, frankensteins creature and the mummy. Nope they also once in a while ventured into the territory of the suspenseful psychological thrillers. In my opinion these guys really suceeded in doing it! Nightmare is about this young girl named Janet who has been screwed in the head after she saw her own mother killing her father on the day of her birthday. So naturally the girl starts to experience horrendous nightmares of her mother repeatedly stabbing her father in the chest. And her mother continues to haunt her nightmares for years to the point where she cant even be in school anymore and has to be taken away to her legal guardians home. There she will try to grasp a bit of normality once again and calm down her nightmares...or will she? This movie was awesome! OK, first things off. Its fairly obvious that these guys were imitating Hithcocks style of directing. This movie came out just a few years after Hitchcocks Psycho did and it was just trying to ride on the tails of the popularity that Hitchcock had given to psychological thrillers. But so bleeping what? They did it right! I'm of the mind that if your going to imitate something you might as well do it the best way possible. And Freddi Francis did it with this here film.The movie looks great. Freddie Francis has been known for filling his movies with beautiful scenes with lush and vivid colors (just see Dracula Has Risen From the Grave to understand what I mean) but here even though the film is in black and white, the movie looks incredibly beautiful. The house is perfectly illuminated to evoke dark feelings of fright. To chill you to the bone, hallways are filled with shadows and streaks of light...scenes only lit by the soft flame of candlelight. Perfectly eerie illumination that really helps makes the movie all that more nerve wrecking.Standing true to its title, the film is filled with Nightmare-like sequences. Often times we will dwell into Janets mind and see the horrible nightmares that are tormenting her. Some of the sequences involving Janets vision were truly horrifying. There's this show stopping sequence in which Janet is seeing a lady in a long white dress and a scar on her face walking down a hallway that is incredibly creepy as hell! Anyhows, keeping its faithfulnes to Hitchcocks methods the film has a few twists and turns around the ending that end up being quite good. I enjoyed every second of them! The characters in the film (as they are in many of Hitchcocks films) are not squeaky clean perfectly honest people. I loved that about Hitchcocks films, how often times he would portray people as being really evil and not the "Leave it to Beaver" perfection that was seen back in those days. And here in Nightmare its no different. These characters are real scumbags and they will show their true colors by the end of the film.This movie doesn't have any major stars, but they deliver great performances non the less. In fact the fact that I had never seen any of these actors before really helped in creating a tense mood. I had no idea what to expect from these characters.All in all a really good suspenseful psychological thriller that will certainly not disappoint those in the mood for a good spooky mystery. Highly recommended.Rating: 5 out of 5