DVD Artwork
After the glory days of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, the slasher genre went way the fuck underground. If you wanted to see a slasher flick, you had to resort a DV flick released directly to home video. Frightmare is one of those dime-a-dozen movies from the nineties, with a guy killing other people, with one exception…Frightmare is good.
We’re dealing with a disturbed gentleman the media refers to as the Conscience Killer. He leaves notes at the scene of his crimes that outline the inner struggle he has between what is wrong and what is right. Sure, he’s murdering the innocent, but who is to decide what innocence is? Besides, as he says, soon the roaches will come and they will tell him his name. It borders on bad sophomore poetry, but when you combine it with the arcane symbols left at the murders drawn in his victims’ blood, it takes on a bit more depth.
The film opens as the CK stalks a girl through Gold’s Gym. Nice plug, by the way, Mr. Director. She finally runs out of the building, still unsure if anyone is really following her, but freaked out nonetheless. The girl, wearing an atrociously fluorescent lime-green workout suit-thing, goes home to her parents. As she enters, she doesn’t seem to notice the male and female mannequins sitting on the couch. Maybe they were there before. And maybe their interior decorator was Delia Dietz from Beetlejuice. Her attention deficit disorder notwithstanding, she is quickly apprehended by the Conscience Killer, who rams her pretty little face into a mirror a couple of times. When the girl awakens, she is off the ground in her backward, tied between two trees. Even as she begs for her life, the CK rams his terrible knife into her chest and rips down. Nothing comes out of her except blood. This is a minor quibble, but I think if you’re going to eviscerate someone, then viscera should probably be plopping onto the ground. It doesn’t happen here. Then again, that girl-victim did work out. Her abdominal muscles were tight and strong, even in death. Thank you, Gold’s Gym!
All the kids at the high school are abuzz with the news of the Conscience Killer taking up residence in their podunk little town, Sugar Hill, GA. No one could be happier about it than aspiring journalist Susan Falls (Shanda Besler, who looks like Heather Donahue and is just as shriekingly hot), who sells front page stories to the local newspaper. Her latest story, “What to do if you’re stalked by a serial killer,” has the town up in arms with the news of the latest murder. The other kids consider Susan to be a little bit weird. Why worry about the CK when the senior class is trying to raise enough money to go to the Cayman Islands?
The senior trip is of utmost importance, and the haunted house they’ve rigged up as a fundraiser is opening that night. It may be in bad taste in light of current events, but this is the Cayman Islands we’re talking about here.
After the haunted house, Sarah and her weird little group of friends are invited to a party by a friend known affectionately as Hellraiser (Denny Zartman). On the way to ‘raiser’s house, the car breaks down in front of an old house. Their radiator is bone dry, but maybe there’s someone in the house who can give them some water. As they investigate the house, which has lit candle everywhere, even up the stairs, they discover an upstairs room with news clippings about the Conscience Killer pinned to the walls. In the closet hang a variety of weapons. And outside the window, on the roof, stands the Conscience Killer himself, wielding a chainsaw! Scream and run, children! Everyone heads back out to the car, which amazingly enough, starts. They take off.
Things are very much bad now, because the CK now sort of knows what these kids look like. And when the next murders happen, Sarah realizes that the victims look like her friends Courtney and Michael, who were with her at the house that night. Mistaken identity? Perhaps. What is clear is that the Conscience Killer is after her and her friends. The question is only, where will he show up? At the haunted house fund-raiser? At the serial-killer themed rave Hellraiser throws to raise even more money? Or at Sarah’s house?
Frightmare starts off badly. I mean, really badly. I almost turned it off. The opening gambit was Scream-like, which puts a bad taste in my mouth right away. I hung with it though, mostly because I knew I owed the review and because I’d already masturbated three times that day. I had nothing else to do.
I’m glad I hung with it though, because Frightmare, while adding nothing new to the genre, doesn’t betray it in the least. It’s a sweet little mystery with some better than average acting. High marks especially to Shanda Besler for being hot. God-awful painfully hot. She doesn’t get naked, which is a damned shame, but she’s enough to give any hetero man a wrist cramp immediately. The fact that she can also deliver a line without sounding like an old Speak and Spell helps too. Her performance helps ground the movie when it threatens to veer off into the Land of the Utterly Stupid, which is about every ten minutes or so.
The gore effects, limited in number, are pretty effective. There’s some quick boobage in the backseat of a car, but that’s all. What holds Frightmare together is Besler’s acting, the curiosity over the identity of the Conscience Killer and a story that gets better as it goes.
Is all that enough to overcome Frightmare’s weak points? After all, we are dealing with shitty oversaturated DV here, filmed by a DP who apparently doesn’t understand the phrase, “white balance.” Some scenes are so bright you can barely make out the faces of the actors. The other main problem is the look of the Conscience Killer. His mask appears to have been constructed out of peeled-apart green bean cans and the wig The Boy wore last Halloween, when he went trick or treating as Samara from The Ring. Yup, he’s a goofy looking fucker.
The last forty-five minutes really pick up steam, however. The story starts to come together, the twist you think is coming doesn’t and another one takes its place. Essentially, Frightmare is half of a good movie. The other half? Well, remember the last time the dog got sick in your car? Well, it smells like that.
If your patience level is high, like mine is, then I will suggest Frightmare to you as a nice evening diversion. If you can’t make it through a shaky beginning, then get something else to soothe your slasher jones.
