NIGHTMARE CINEMA (2018)

Studio:      Cranked Up Films
Director:    Mick Garris, Alejandro Brugues, Ryuhei Kitamura, Joe Dante, David Slade
Writer:      Richard Christian Matheson, Sandra Becerril, Lawrence C. Connolly
Producer:  Mick Garris, Courtney Solomon, Mark Canton, Joe Russo
Stars:     Mickey Rourke, Sarah Withers, Faly Rakotohavana, Maurice Benard, Elizabeth Reaser, Zarah Mahler, Mark Grossman

Review Score:

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Summary:

The projectionist of a haunted movie theater forces five people to face horrifying nightmares involving death, decay, demons, plastic surgery, and cosmic spiders.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

THE THING IN THE WOODS (Alejandro Brugues) – After killing several of their friends, a murderer in a welder’s mask chases Samantha Smith and her boyfriend Jason through the woods.

Samantha and Jason flag down Officer Tom Carter. Tom shoots the welder to the ground. Tom unmasks the killer, but becomes spooked by what he sees. Tom trips and accidentally shoots himself in the head. The welder resurrects.

Samantha and Jason flee to a cabin where they regroup with last remaining friend Mike. The welder breaks into the cabin and kills Mike. While Jason fights the welder, Samantha finds the charred corpses of her friends in a hidden basement. The welder pins Jason to a wall with several knives and sets him on fire.

Samantha battles the welder and unmasks him as her longtime friend Fred. Fred pleads with Samantha to remember what happened. Fred recounts how he invited everyone to his family’s cabin for one last vacation before school. A meteorite landed nearby. Jason touched it and released hundreds of cosmic spiders that possessed everyone. Fred assumed the welder identity to burn out the spiders before their infection could spread back to civilization.

A spider splits Samantha’s head apart before her body reforms. Samantha begs for Fred to kill her, which he does. However, more spiders overrun the cabin and swarm Fred. Now possessed, Fred drives back toward the city.

MIRARI (Joe Dante) – Although still self-conscious about her scarred face, Anna Hale celebrates her engagement to David Resnick. David mentions his mother’s plastic surgery and insists that Anna obtain similar treatment.

On David’s recommendation, Anna goes to the Mirari Clinic. Dr. Leneer performs surgery on Anna’s face. When she recovers, bizarre behavior from David as well as the hospital’s staff causes Anna to become suspicious about her bandaged face. Anna sneaks around the clinic and discovers a file revealing David manipulated the surgery with Dr. Leneer. Anna finds another patient without a face and then assaults Nurse Simone. Dr. Leneer recaptures Anna and performs a second surgery.

When she recovers, Anna unwraps her bandages to discover she has three breasts and her face is disfigured. Pleased with Anna’s monstrous new appearance, David introduces his mother Nadia, who looks like a ‘cat lady’ due to extensive plastic surgeries.

MASHIT (Ryuhei Kitamura) – Possessed by a demon, Peter prepares to jump off a roof at a Catholic boarding school. Sister Patricia is unable to save the boy before he falls to his death.

Cindy, who teaches at the school, consoles her daughter Dani, who is a student, over Peter’s death. Cindy feels a supernatural presence stalking campus hallways.

Father Benedict Abuelo has sex with Sister Patricia in his office. The priest and nun find religious statues defaced with blood that they follow to a strange mound shaped like a screaming face in the chapel.

Classmate Tania bullies Dani. A supernatural force flips Tania to the ground. Tania screams when she sees a demon.

Research reveals to Sister Patricia that the demon haunting the school is Mashit, an infernal entity who punishes those that commit lust and incest by torturing children and leading them to suicide. Peter’s contorted corpse confronts Patricia and the priest. Peter warns Mashit is inside “her” and must be killed.

Believing the girl to be the “her” Peter warned them about, Father Benedict and Sister Patricia perform an exorcism on Dani in the chapel. Cindy pulls her daughter away. Patricia realizes Cindy is actually the person possessed by Mashit.

Cindy takes on a demonic form. Mashit possesses the other girls in their dorm. A paranormal presence tortures Dani until she ends up with her mouth sewn shut.

The possessed girls confront Father Benedict and Sister Patricia in the chapel. While the priest savagely slays the demonic children, Patricia goes up to the roof to stop Cindy from committing suicide. The kids kill Father Benedict.

Cindy takes Patricia with her when she jumps off the roof. Cindy dies, but Patricia survives. Dani cries over her mother’s body. Patricia becomes possessed and greets the surviving children of Mashit.

THIS WAY TO EGRESS (David Slade) – Accompanied by her two sons Eric and Chris, Helen Chester goes to see Dr. Salvador. While Helen waits, the hospital strangely decays and the rude receptionist gradually deforms.

Dr. Salvador asks Helen about her husband who left two days earlier, her suicidal thoughts, and the fact that she is envisioning everyone around her turning ugly. Following a phone call, Dr. Salvador abruptly ends the session by telling Helen to return the next day.

Helen discovers her children missing from the waiting room. The receptionist, a deformed plumber, and a mutated janitor all claim to not know where the boys are. Helen calls her husband only to be further unnerved by a cryptic conversation.

Helen considers shooting herself with a peculiar gun when she hears Eric and Chris talking to Dr. Salvador. Dr. Salvador and the boys discuss a conspiracy meant to manipulate Helen into suicide.

Helen shoots Dr. Salvador, who had also transformed. Helen takes Eric and Chris and exits the building as the weird world continues decaying around her.

DEAD (Mick Garris) – Charity and her husband Jared watch their music prodigy son Riley Everson perform a piano recital. Outside the venue, a gunman named Orson shoots Riley and murders both parents during a botched abduction attempt.

Riley dies for 17 minutes before recovering in a hospital. Riley discovers he can now see dead people, including his mother Charity, who repeatedly invites Riley to join her in death.

Riley meets fellow patient Casey Weber. Casey explains that she briefly died following a suicide attempt and can now see dead people too. Casey warns Riley that his mother wants him to die, which causes Charity to kill Casey when she is alone later.

Looking to silence the witness who saw his face, Orson infiltrates the hospital, cuts a nurse’s throat, and attacks Riley. As Orson chokes him with a mop handle, Charity tells Riley to let go while Casey implores him to fight. Riley ends up killing the gunman.

Hospital staff wheels Riley back to his room. On the way, Riley sees visions of Casey, Charity, and Jared. However, Orson’s ghost then menacingly confronts Riley.

THE PROJECTIONIST (Mick Garris) – One at a time, The Projectionist welcomes Samantha Smith, Anna and David, Father Benedict, and Helen Chester into the haunted Rialto movie theater. The Projectionist shows them their stories before they die and he collects their deaths in film cans. The Projectionist allows Riley to escape as the sole survivor.

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Review:

Horror anthology reviews should avoid two things. First, referencing the phrase “mixed bag.” In general, “mixed bag” ought to be stricken from the vocabulary of every critic for the crime of being ridiculously overused. It’s a catchall copout that boringly says, “there are some good things and some bad things,” which doesn’t benefit anyone looking for committed insight. It’s particularly pointless for an anthology because by definition, what is a collection of shorts from different creative teams if not a “mixed bag?”

A lesser landmine worth sidestepping involves making comparisons to “Creepshow” (review here). That’s a tougher task since the classic George A. Romero/Stephen King collaboration remains the gold standard by which all horror anthologies should be measured. I’m guilty of making that reference repeatedly, but it gets to be like leaning on “Lynchian” or “fever dream” to say something is hallucinatory or unsettlingly ethereal.

“Nightmare Cinema,” a quintet of horror shorts from Mick Garris and four of his filmmaking friends, makes it impossible to put “Creepshow” out of mind by deliberately aping that movie’s memorable piano theme. I searched end credits for a callout to “Creepshow” composer John Harrison thinking “Nightmare Cinema” either licensed his work outright or at least nodded at Harrison’s inspiration. Instead I discovered Richard Band recorded the wraparound’s music. Band was notably instructed to pay homage to or to rip off (I’ll accept either as correct) Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” theme on “Re-Animator.” Seems like Band operated under a similar directive here, as “Nightmare Cinema’s” opening sounds criminally identical to “Creepshow’s.”

Horror anthologies usually save the best for last. “Nightmare Cinema” instead plays its ace early. Alejandro Brugues condenses a complete slasher film into 20 minutes with “The Thing in the Woods.” Starting as a straightforward setup where a masked murderer stalks two teens, things take a sharp turn into cosmic possession with an unexpected twist. The segment toys with slasher tropes the entire time, yet only touches the tip of its tongue to its cheek to be sassily self-aware without veering into absurdist parody. It’s flighty in a fun way, and probably the pick of the litter. Grade: A-

Working from a Richard Christian Matheson screenplay, Joe Dante stays true to his characteristic style by going slightly more comic with his creepiness. In “Mirari,” Anna’s impending nuptials inspire her to address the scar on her face with plastic surgery. Her fiancé David facilitates everything with a bizarro doctor awkwardly played by TV legend Richard Chamberlain, who seems to have skipped rehearsals. Off-kilter atmosphere demands a 5/4 time signature, yet Dante slows the piece to 3/4, dragging “Mirari” into a cheeky message about appearance obsession that becomes muddled by a poorly revealed payoff. Grade: C

Ryuhei Kitamura hits unsteadiness too, although his segment about a demon haunting a Catholic boarding school provides “Nightmare Cinema’s” most gruesome slice of horror. “Mashit” wanders between beats of sinful clergy, suicidal children, and parental concern without settling into consistency regarding what it wishes to convey. More superficially, “Mashit” at least puts on a splattery display of sacrilegious slaughter featuring plenty of kids bloodily dismembered inside a chapel. If the term weren’t verboten, I’d definitely call this a “mixed bag.” Grade: C+

Based on Lawrence C. Connolly’s short story “Traumatic Descent,” director David Slade rights the ship with “This Way to Egress.” As a narrative, this black and white tale of a single mother unraveling while the world seemingly decays around her falters because its resolution doesn’t really satisfy a story. As a tangible portrait of intangible madness however, Elizabeth Reaser intriguingly entrances with an intense performance as a woman whose mental illness manifests as a “Twilight Zone” nightmare. “This Way to Egress” is the segment most certain to stick in the mind’s eye. It’s a frighteningly fantastical visual representation of what an unstable brain undergoes after breaking from reality. Grade: A-

If Kitamura’s “Mashit” is the anthology’s centerpiece for gore, “Dead” occupies “Nightmare Cinema’s” space for most traditional terror tale. Mick Garris directs a solid story about a young music prodigy whose near-death experience gives him the power of Haley Joel Osment in “The Sixth Sense.” Neither exceptional nor forgettable, “Dead” lands in its namesake’s center when ranking each short according to enjoyment level. Grade: B-

I’ve seen horror anthologies with throwaway wraparounds before, but “Nightmare Cinema’s” is as arbitrary as it gets. Mickey Rourke receives prominent billing as a bare-chested weightlifter in a leather duster weirdly posing as the projectionist of a haunted theater. A key character from each segment staggers in to watch his/her story onscreen and Rourke briefly appears for one minute at the end to imply everyone died or something. “The Projectionist” is so disposable, I don’t know why producers included it at all. Grade: D-

“Nightmare Cinema” shakes somewhat. That’s bound to happen with this many moving parts of disparate tones, themes, and talent. But it wobbles into wicked weirdness more often than it flirts with creative collapse. Totaling together two outstanding segments, three midrange ones, and one dumb wraparound, “Nightmare Cinema” averages out to a decently entertaining feature. It’s more “mixed bag” than “Creepshow,” but what horror anthology isn’t?

Review Score: 65

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