Night Terrors (1993)

Strong and Moving!

One of my all time favorites.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

What would be a good reason for a horror-flick fan to pick up a horror-flick in the late 80's / mid 90's? Well, the flick starring Robert Englund was always one good reason. Even though Englund will forever be associated with the "A Nightmare on Elm Street"-franchise, the actor has starred in numerous other, no less memorable roles. One would be him playing the "Phantom of the Opera" in Dwight Little's gory remake, another, the depiction of the Marquise de Sade in "Living Nightmare".This said, this performance remains the only reason to go anywhere near "Living Nightmare". The movie starts off rather promising, opening up with a monstrous, one-eyed de Sade, locked up in a Parisian madhouse and Fredd… pardon me, Englund being as creepy as ever. Then the storyline unexpectedly flips to the present and we get the story of an American college girl, who, while visiting her father in Egypt, falls into the thrall of a cult, led by Paul Chevaller (again, Freddy Englund), a descendant of the Marquise.From there it just goes downhill. Englund as Paul Chevaller is trying to ham it up as good as he can, but it cannot rescue the film – we want to see Englund as a super-serial-killer, not a super-pervert. The story drags on and on, a very thin skeleton for a series of mildly erotic scenes, slight elements of s/m and non-existent gore. One constantly feels tempted to finger the 'fast forward'-button, racing forward to those scenes, that take place in the madhouse. Alas, those retro-scenes are few and far between, being only a fraction of the movie. Even the final scene is cheating, showing us (historically accurate) the Marquise, croaking pitifully in the insane asylum. Film over, two hours wasted.The mid-90's marked a sharp decline for Tobe Hooper, having gone from directing cult classics like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Salem's Lot" and "Poltergeist" (if you believe it), to directing straight-to-video dreck like "The Mangler" and, more recently, "The Toolbox Murder"; unfortunately, "Living Nightmare" was the film that started this decline.So let's just call the movie for what it is: it's just simply lame. If you're interested in the works of Marquise de Sade, I'd recommend Pier Paolo Pasolinis "Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom" – it's infinitely more of a living nightmare than "Living Nightmare" 2 points from 10

The Marquis De Sade, Egypt, ancient Gnostic cults, Robert Englund in a dual role, gratuitous sex and nudity, murder and mayhem... on paper Tobe Hopper's Night Terrors sounds like it should be at least a fun, entertaining flick given the ingredients. It's not. It is a plot less, incoherent shambles that brings little entertainment. There is basically no plot beyond some vague stuff about a cult that follows the work of De Sade who for some unclear reason feel the need to seduce the daughter of a local Christian archaeologist and kill her. That is pretty much it- I think it has something to with the Gnostics but who knows what the writers were thinking. Most of the movie is a meandering mess as the heroine is exposed to various weirdness, dream sequences and erotic encounters, intercut with scenes of Englund as the imprisoned De Sade in the 19th century chewing the scenery. It seems like the makers were trying for something serious but whatever their pretensions were they are buried in the cheesiness, bad acting, sleaze and fake looking decapitated heads.There aren't too many good points. Robert Englund is fun to watch, as always and the lead actress, Zoe Trilling, whilst not very talented, is attractive and in various stages of undress through the movie but watching Night Terrors is a chore. At least I got to see the movie from which the "When you're as criminal as I" bit from the Australian film certification ratings guide that was on the front of so many VHS tapes from the nineties came from.

A young woman gets mixed up in a cult that is connected to the Marquis De Sade. Handsome looking sets, good make-up effects, lush costumes, and lots of pretty imagery can not cover up the fact that this is an incoherent mess with a skimpy script. The actors and director try hard, perhaps too hard. Rated R; Strong Sexual Content, Nudity, Violence, Adult Themes, and Profanity.

1st watched 8/26/2001 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Tobe Hooper): Scary, yet sadistic(which makes sense) portrayal of a relative of the Marquis De Sade carrying out the same sadistic acts and enjoying it that supposedly his predecessor did. This Tobe Hooper film really doesn't do a whole lot different than his similar in style Freddy Krueger movies with the same star (Freddy himself - Robert Englund) playing a dual role(the Marquis De Sade and his relative). It is also seems like it wants to really poke at Christianity but then loses that in the end much to my chagrin but leaving an inconsistent feel to the movie. Could have been much worse if excesses were taken in sex and violence, but they try to keep this at a minimal despite some disgusting scenes. My final thought is why would Hooper want to make this movie. It obviously took awhile to actually get distributed, then it has to be advertised gruesomely and with Hooper's name in the title to hopefully make some money on his name and his gore. It's obvious this didn't work.