This was one of the many films banned in the UK that received the wonderful moniker Video Nasty. The difference between this movie and say Evil Dead or Dawn of the Dead is that you've heard of those movies. Odds are you've never heard this slasher film or you've heard it called simply Nightmare, which was the title it went under for a while, too. Regardless, there is a reason this film is obscure and that's because it sucks.

George Tatum suffers from the following: schizophrenia, mild amnesia, homicidal tendencies, dream fixations, and seizures. He is participating in a secret experimental drug program and goes missing. His doctor and psychiatrist worry about the fact that a homicidal maniac is on the loose and it's their fault. Meanwhile, George spends his days sleeping, taking pills and having weird nightmares about him as a kid watching his dad get beat around by a dominatrix that may or may not be his mother. I use the term "may or may not" because the biggest flaw of this film is that it leaves a lot unexplained so it makes the telling of the story kind of hard. Anyway, George spends his nights cruising strip joints and watching girls shake their goods. In one incredibly filthy scene he watches a woman masturbate. You don't see anything, but man if the camera moved an inch downward you would have! George also wanders around killing women for no apparent reason, but then again a maniac never really needs one.

We are also introduced to Susan and her three kids. Susan is a terrible, terrible shrew of a mother and she blames her frazzled nerves on her son CJ, a troublemaking prankster. Susan's husband left years ago and she has been left behind to take care of the family, but she is doing a horrible job. Luckily, she's started dating this furry-faced guy who owns a boat. He wants to marry her and the kids seem to like him. CJ, however, continues to cause trouble and terrorize Kathy the babysitter. In one scene CJ is laying on the floor bleeding and all Susan can do is cry and moan. Sure, it turns out to be a gag, but if the kid had actually been stabbed in the stomach like he said, what was stopping that idiot mother from calling the paramedics? Illogical scenes and characters like these really aggravate me. George arrives and keeps a vigil on this family. He frequently sneaks inside to snoop around and makes heavy-breathing calls to the house.

In the thrilling (read that last part with sarcasm) third act Susan and furry-face go on a date while Kathy the babysitter stays with the kids. George the psycho puts on an old man mask for some stupid reason and sneaks back into the house. He chokes Kathy's boyfriend to death and stabs Kathy in the back with an ice pick. CJ hears the noises and finds the killer in his house. He runs upstairs and searches through his sock drawer until he finds the revolver he had hidden there. What he is doing with a revolver is never referenced or explained. He blows away George who is trying to claw into his room, then takes his sisters outside. George is not dead so CJ grabs a shotgun and blows him away again. But before George died he called CJ's name. How did he know it? Why was he watching this family anyway? Because it was his family! Susan comes home and when the cops unmask the killer she starts screaming that it's her husband. CJ killed his father like little George killed his father and his dominatrix hooker. The cycle of homicidal back-story is kept within the family, like the circle of life.

The film has a great, creepy soundtrack and some decent gore work. That's about as nice as I can get about this movie. George is an interesting psycho (he even kills kids!), but the film spends way too much (WAY TOO MUCH) time with Susan and her bratty kids, making this more of a drama than a straight-up slasher film. Then there are the ton of dumb ass things in the film that make you wonder why no one said anything. When Kathy is being killed she thinks its CJ the prankster behind the old man mask, but is she that stupid not to realize that CJ is a kid and was never TALLER THAN HER? There is another scene where the doctors confer with a computer about George's whereabouts, and the utter retardedness of that scene hurts. They simply type in questions (like "Where is George?") and the computer, obviously being some type of sentient god, answers them accurately. And why the hell would George want to kill his kids? It sounded like he wanted to get CJ's attention at the end by calling his name, but why didn't he take off the mask and why did he want to chop down his son's door? Add the unlikable cast, the boring pacing, and the lack of a defined storyline until the end, and not even the gore and boobies makes this film worthy of a second viewing.

- Jose Prendes