Night Wars (1988) User Reviews

Not all THAT bad

[dinky-4 · 4/10 · 11 November 2001]

Viewers will find it easy to criticize this low-budget, no-name effort found only on the dusty backshelves of a few video stores. It suffers from the flat dialog, so-so acting, haphazard scripting, and awkward pacing so often found in these Grade-Z productions.

And yet there's something about the merger of nightmare and reality in "Night Wars" which gives it an odd, almost haunting quality which softens the edges of all its many faults. Or, putting it another way, considering the vast resources spent on "Pearl Harbor" versus the scant resources spent on this movie, which one is really the more satisfying achievement?

Aside from that blurring between waking and dreaming, the most distinctive feature here comes in the form of two torture scenes occurring in Vietnamese POW camps. In the first scene, Cameron Smith has a red-hot metal rod pressed against his bare chest while he's tied between two posts, and in the second, Brian O'Connor -- tied between two trees -- has strips of barb-wire tightened around his naked torso. Unlike many Hollywood movies in which the hero suffers stoically, these two men scream with open-mouthed agony. (You can even count the fillings in Cameron Smith's teeth.) And unlike many Hollywood heroes, these two men don't have perfectly-chiseled physiques. (O'Connor especially shows signs of middle-aged flab.) The result is unnerving because the torture seems to be inflicted on real men rather than movie actors.

Top-billed Dan Haggerty has little to do in his part and Steve Horton overdoes the wild-eyed look as the sadistic villain, but Jill Foor invokes suitable sympathy as Brian O'Connor's bewildered wife. As for the two tormented ex-POWs, O'Connor is earnest and almost even appealing and Cameron Smith has the born-to-be-tortured look which is just right for this part.

PLATOON meets ELM STREET...sort of

[capkronos · 3/10 · 6 June 2003]

Trent (Brian O'Connor) and Jimmy (Cameron Smith) are two Nam vet buddies who escaped a POW prison camp only to face worse horrors at home when the past literally comes back to haunt them. They're harassed by a soldier they left behind and a sadistic traitor who helped torture them, and when they're attacked in their dreams, they emerge with real scars (a la A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET). The two deck out in cameo and carry high-powered machine guns into their dreams to fight back after one's wife is raped and killed by a ghost. Dan (GRIZZLY ADAMS) Haggerty is the top-billed guest star. He plays a psychiatrist who tries to "help" by holding them at gunpoint, drugging them and tying them up in his office!

The premise is somewhat new, but the unconvincing Nam flashbacks look like the stars are playing War Games in the woods behind their house, the dialogue ("Let's do it!," "I'm scared, man!") is annoying and the action and horror scenes just aren't very exciting.

Prolific director David A. Prior also combined the war and horror genres in THE LOST PLATOON (1989) and also directed KILLER WORKOUT (1987), MARDI GRAS FOR THE DEVIL (1992) and MUTANT SPECIES (1995) in between all his cheapo action movies. He scripted from a story he wrote with his brother Ted Prior and William Zipp (both of whom acted in his previous films).

Night Wars is a good but silly attempt at seriousness from AIP.

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 18 April 2011]

Jim Lowery (Smith) and Trent Matthews (O'Connor) are 'Nam buddies who, nine years after the war, are both haunted by the specter of their compatriot Jhonny O'Connor (that's how they spell his first name, it's not a typo) (Hood). Jim and Trent must feel guilty for Jhonny's becoming a POW. But when their dreams are so vivid, their injuries and cuts appear in their waking lives, they know there's a serious problem. The torment of rogue mercenary McGregor (Horton) and his torture tactics have gotten to Jim and Trent so badly, Trent's concerned wife Susanne (Foors) calls in psychologist Dr. Mike Campbell (Haggerty) for help. But the boys must "sleep together" in their fatigues to defeat the enemies in their dreams. When dreams and real life blur, who knows what the truth really is?

Night Wars is a good attempt at seriousness from AIP, but, once again, comes off as silly most of the time. That might be because of the constant, uncanny casting of goofy-looking sweaty people in almost every role. But there are some cool ideas and effects mixed in with the standard machine-gun firefights. This movie asks the question: what if the emotional trauma of returning Vietnam vets mutated into an actual, physical horror after the war? Try to imagine Jungle Assault (1989) crossed with A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). What if Freddy Krueger was a Vietnam vet?

The role of Jim Lowery should have been played by Wings Hauser, and he and Trent surely are the Bill and Ted of AIP movies, but mention (not necessarily honorable) must go to Dan Haggerty as the "cool" psychologist with the necklace and the pared-down beard. He's really showing his range here. He's not Grizzly Adams or the guy from Elves (1989). He's a doctor. It's really one of his best sweaters, er, performances.

There are the prerequisite torture sequences, but this time, they are really heaped on. There's also the typical jungle/war clichés, but this time they are mixed with a dash of spookiness. Also it must be noted that this film has the most amount of people bellowing "NOOOOooooo!!!!!" that we've seen to date - it occurs four times during the movie.

While the ideas in Night Wars can't exactly be described as original (many are lifted wholesale from Elm Street), the attempt to marry the Vietnam war film with the phantasmagoric dream film gives this AIP outing an interesting and noteworthy edge above some of the others. It really gives new meaning to the term "Dream Warriors". Dokken take note.

For a war/horror hybrid film served up AIP style, look no further than Night Wars.

for more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

My Nominee for the Golden Turkey Award

[timothycurry · 3 September 2001]

Oh, dear, this one is awful! I once bet a Navy Chief Petty Officer, a Marine Gunnery Sergeant, and a couple of enlisted guys a case of beer if they could get through it without "losing it," and I let them decide for themselves what "losing it" meant. I won the beer.

One learns a number of interesting things about infantry combat in this little retcher - for one thing, the Viet Cong ought to sue the makers for defamation (it was shot in Mexico, and most of the bad guys are remarkably un-Asian types who the credits reveal have names ending in "ez.") Let's start with the a new martial arts technique - get your opponent face-down and pull his hair back and voila! his neck breaks. Evidently that's what my little sister was after lo those many years ago...

The idea, of course, is a post-traumatic-syndrome exploitation flick. One views a patrol of good guys, evidently Woodstock castoffs, stumbling through the Vietnamese jungles falling over one another - "combat separation" here evidently refers to "get 12 guys into the camera's viewfinder simultaneously." One shot down the trail would have shish-kebab'd these goofs out of their misery. And what misery it was...

Here we have the hero, in the middle of a desperate firefight, ducking behind a tree and for some reason popping the magazine out from his .45 - perhaps to see how many "bullets" were left - I use the term "bullets" advisedly since the camera closeup reveals, in all its brassy glory, the crimped end of a blank cartridge. Appalling.

The climax involves our heroes stuffing a cheap hotel room with enough ordnance to sink an aircraft carrier, then, as do all who are minutes away from furious mortal combat, falling asleep. I shall leave the denouement for those stubborn enough to last that far...

Three thumbs-down, but a decent effort for the truly masochistic.

One, Two, McGregor's coming for you...

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 29 October 2018]

Vietnam veterans Trent Matthews (Brian Edward O'Connor, a poor man's Robert Ginty) and Jim Lowery (Cameron Smith) are suffering from recurring dreams about the war; as they sleep, they battle the Vietcong in an attempt to rescue fellow soldier Johnny (Chet Hood), who they had to leave behind during their escape from a prisoner-of-war camp nine years earlier. Also haunting their nightmares is sadistic traitor McGregor (Steve Horton, overacting wildly), who wants to continue with his torture of the men.

Waking to find that injuries sustained in their dreams leave real marks on their bodies, Trent and Jim realise that they must confront their fears or die. Arming themselves to the teeth, they enter their dreams to make one last ditch effort to find Johnny and drag him into reality.

Borrowing heavily from A Nightmare on Elm Street, but with a Vietnam war film twist, Night Wars is wholly unoriginal late-'80s straight-to-video nonsense that suffers from a serious lack of logic. Now I know what you're thinking - dreams don't have to make sense - but the film needs to adhere to a few rules for it to work.

Case in point: taking weapons into the dreams. When Trent and Jim fall asleep, they do so with loaded firearms in their hands, which they fire in reality whenever they do so in their dream. In their final rescue attempt, they also lob around a fair few grenades, but conveniently fail to throw a single real grenade in the room in which they are asleep. Consistency be damned!

The film is also unclear about how Johnny and McGregor are projecting themselves into Trent and Jim's dreams. There is no suggestion that they are dead. Is it astral projection? If so, how did they learn to pull off this trick? At one point, McGregor even attacks Trent's wife as she sleeps, with no explanation about how he manages this. And are Trent and Jim astrally projecting themselves as they snooze, their spirits manifesting in Vietnam? None of it makes a lick of sense.

I will give props for the number of bloody squibs used in the shootouts - hence my generous rating of 3/10 - but there are better things you could be doing with your time.

N.B. Despite getting top billing, Dan Haggerty only has a supporting role as concerned doctor Mike Campbell.

Sgt. Fred Krueger presents: Tour of Duty on Elm Street

[Coventry · 4/10 · 26 March 2021]

Ha! I notice that practically all my fellow reviewers also make tongue-in-cheek references towards "Nightmare on Elm Street" in their user-comment titles. Logically, because this "Night Wars" is a shameless and blatant imitation of the NoES formula - albeit, admittedly, with a Vietnam war-movie twist!

Vietnam movies, or at least horror/action movies with links to 'Nam, were somewhat the hobbyhorse of writer-director David A. Prior. For more than three decades straight, Mr. Prior was one of the most over-active and prolific trash directors in the business. Nearly forty terrible films in thirty years, that's what I call perseverance and dedication! He was enthusiast and creative, to say the least, but he still couldn't direct very well at the end of his life. After two lousy horror movies ("Sledgehammer" and "Killer Workout"), he quickly turned to jungle adventures and Vietnam action vehicles, with the phenomenal 1987 "Deadly Prey" as their absolute and inarguable highlight. Now there's a movie that everybody in the whole wide world needs to watch, if you ask me!

Trent and Jim are two war buddies with recurring nightmares about their Tour in Vietnam, and then particularly how they were forced to leave behind their pal Johnny as a POW and how another platoon member McGregor turned out to be a psychotic mercenary traitor. The nightmares grow increasingly realistic, however, and the boys are even getting injured in them. They soon realize they'll have to enter their dreams armed to the teeth in order to rescue Johnny and eliminate McGregor who's terrorizing them from beyond the grave. Now, the plot of "Night Wars" isn't entirely bad, but it's totally lacking logic and structure and - with all due respect - David A. Prior doesn't have the intellect for it. He constantly falls into the traps of paradoxes that automatically ensue from a plot like this. On the bright side, there's plenty of gunfire, preposterous warfare (you know, the Asian soldiers shoot a thousand times but never hit anything, whereas the white soldiers never miss) and horrendously over-the-top acting performances (especially Steve Horton).

The flick is "alright"

[pahlsmyth · 4/10 · 14 July 2006]

The movie was alright..The used car man was hot! The salesman..those eyes. They don't make men like that in the 2000's. He is played by David Ott. Are there any other films featuring him (topless hopefully).

The car chase doesn't last long enough.

He's cute.

Acting is OK but he is quite the comic relief.

At first glance he looks like the late Michael Hutchance from INXS.

Would like to see him today.

Thought I caught him uncredited in Vanilla Shy but that is some years later.

Possibly has short role in "Sex and the City"

Vietnam Vets on Elm Street

[Coffee_in_the_Clink · 5/10 · 20 April 2020]

Nine years ago, Trent and Jim managed to escape from a POW camp in Vietnam. They had been captured and were being tortured by a soldier named McGregor, who had been part of their platoon but turned over to the communists. During the escape, they were unable to save their friend Johnny, and were forced to abandon him. This has left a lasting shadow of guilt over the men now that they have returned to civvie street. Trent is married and has a stable job, while Jim is an alcoholic and lives alone. Now, Trent and Jim find that they are both having recurring nightmares about the event and when they wake up, they are cut and bruised, and sometimes bring things back with them from their nightmares. And they are beginning to see Johnny on the streets, and driving around. It seems that McGregor, and their pal Johnny, have unfinished business with them...

This made me think of Chuck Norris vs. Freddy Krueger, in that the "Missing in Action" series meets "A Nightmare on Elm Street". Vietnam Vets return to the war to bring a man home through the dream-world. Certainly not as bad as the low-budget and obscurity suggests. The performances are decent and the dream sequences are quite good. I really enjoyed it, but the ending did leave a lot to be desired. I think Prior just lost control of the film by then as there appeared to be some confusion over where the dream-world ended and reality began. Wes Craven did it better, but "Night Wars" still has an appeal to it.

I'm afraid every year has dozens of films that will only have limited appeal. For 1988, this is one of them.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 14 May 2023]

There were dozens of Vietnam War themed films from the mid 80's on up, continuing a trend that briefly took over movie screens in the late 1970's. Only a few have become classics, with many others feeling exploitive of the most unpopular war in American history. Cheaply made, almost seeming like a student film, overloaded with really bad keyboard music (so tinny that it hurts the ears), this definitely exploits the horrors of that war by mixing in the war theme with the horrors genre, and sadly unrealistic and forced on the war theme while tacktless and ugly in utilizing horror elements.

The nightmares that the vets have from the war are badly filmed, and the acting isn't all that good either. Only Dan Hagerty ("Grizzly Adams") has any name recognition, and he's completely wasted as the doctor treating these vets. Bad special effects involve lots of red filters, and the settings used for woodsy Vietnam don't seem realistic either, obviously some cleaned out Southern California mountain area, with an occasional use of bamboo for huts or traps thrown in. Pretty painful to watch overall, with the use of violence and torture reaffirming my belief that this used far too much exploitation without regards to creating a strong story or characters that the audience would want to spend 90 minutes with.

Neat, Creepy Stuff!

[Zantara Xenophobe · 7/10 · 20 March 2003]

I have commented before on how I generally find David A. Prior's ideas to be really cool, but his direction to be very poor. The big exception to this was `Lock ‘N Load,' which I found to be great. Other good Prior movies are the higher-budgeted `Raw Nerve' and the silly but fun `Invasion Force.' I watched `Night Wars' not really knowing what to expect. The plot sounded neat, but it was still a low-budget AIP movie with only one name star, Dan Haggerty. But as it unfolded, I was really surprised.

Two Vietnam buddies, Trent and Jim, trying to live normal lives, start to have bad dreams nine years after their time in the war. Their nightmares are always about the war and a third friend, Johnny, who they left behind in the hands of an American turncoat, McGregor. Eventually, the nightmares begin infesting themselves in the daylight hours when Trent and Jim start to fall asleep at any given moment, and that's when events in the dream start to cross over into reality, like when one of them gets cut in a dream, they get cut in reality. That is when the two friends realize they must somehow enter the nightmares willingly and either get Johnny out this time or die trying. At the same time, Trent's wife has contacted a psychologist (Haggerty), also a Vietnam vet, about her husband's odd activity. Concerned, he tries to intervene at the worst possible time.

This movie has a lot going for it and for once an AIP movie is not at all hindered by its budget. Prior's early dream sequences are quite good. He makes good use of lighting to make them scary. He keeps early dreams dark and adds neat touches like red tints which makes soldiers wearing dime store rubber skull masks look convincing and freaky where in any other way they would have looked silly. There are also some rather impressive effects. The scene where Trent sees McGregor in the mirror and McGregor sticks a gun into the mirror is a radical and inexpensive special effect. The soldiers rising out of the dirt had a good effect, too. And the scene where Haggerty, having given Trent and Jim sedatives, is racing to Trent's home to try and save Trent's wife is exceptionally done. And of course it is all made better by a fine musical score by Tim James and Steve McClintock. I was all set to give this movie an 8 or 9, surpassing `Lock ‘N Load' as the best of Prior's movies, when the ending happened. I won't reveal what it consisted of, but I will say that it was a cop-out. Gone was the adrenalin in my blood for what would happen next. Gone was the hope that an explanation of how the events were happening would arrive. Gone was the atmosphere that had been looming so well over the whole movie. This is the only black mark on an otherwise great low budget film (well, other than spotting a crew member's hand tossing a gun onto the screen after a soldier was shot), but it is a serious one. The result for me is that it ties `Lock N' Load' as Priors best movie (out of the twelve I have seen). Zantara's score: 7 out of 10.

The twist that occurred at the end was not enough to save this film

[jordondave-28085 · 5/10 · 28 April 2023]

(1988) Night Wars WAR/ SUPERNATURAL

Straight-to-rental flick that is co-written and directed by David A. Prior, which is like a Freddy Krueger-like war movie with two Nam friends by the names of Trent (Brian Edward O'Connor) and Jim (Cameron Smith) become telepathically linked to one another after figuring out that an old war vet is still alive at an POW Vietnam camp assumed to be dead. But, as a result of many spontaneous dream sequences which the only thing they dream about is still being in Vietnam again, a double crossing Vietnam war soldier by the name of McGregor (Steve Horton) keeps appearing in there so-called dreams, just so he can continue his torture tactics. And upon the two stars waking up again, they would even have the scars where they were tortured too without fully understanding how they got them in the first place, except to remember that they got them as a result of a dream that is similar to the 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' movies. What's kind of ludicrous is the fact that viewers are never shown how they ended up getting these dreams in the first place. I mean, was there some strange ritual ever practiced on them before they manage to escape, and then settle back to the States? And the answer is no. The other ludicrous thing is the fact that the two main stars never had to spend money on a plane ticket back to Vietnam to save the friend they left behind because they can do that while they're sleeping, and firing their weapons at the same time. The only thing that's saving this film from being a complete disaster is the fact that there's an unexpected twist that occurred at the end, and can give viewers something to think about besides tolerating the awful second rate performances. Dan Haggerty also stars who's best known for playing 'Grizzly Adams' as Mike Campbell as Trent's doctor and shrink.

Vietnam nightmares become "real"

[lor_ · 27 March 2023]

My review was written in September 1988 after a screening at Selwyn theater on Manhattan's 42nd Street.

"Night Wars" presents an extremely goofy approach to the familiar theme of Vietnam War vets' malaise, treated in supernatural terms. Pic is a standard-issue quickie, more for video than theatrical fans.

Brian O'Connor and Cameron Smith are the vets who have nightmares and hallucinations relating to their leaving behind platoon mate Chet Hood back in Vietnam. Problem is that the nightmares are for real, with wounds inflicted while sleeping still there upon wakeup and even Hood's severed finger materializing for real.

Another war buddy, Dan Haggerty, is now a shrink who rather laughably doesn't believe the heroes' tales of their predicament and gives them a sedative instead of keeping them awake. When machine gun fire from the Great Beyond kills Matthews' pretty wife Jill Foor, Haggerty is a believer.

Silliest scene has O'Connor and Smith putting on camouflage makeup and outfits, arming themselves to the teeth and lying down on a bed together to sleep -they're to do battle with their renegade nemesis Steve Horton, but visually it's campy.

Director David Prior's action scenes are perfunctory, but the acting is okay, except for a very hammy turn by Horton. The supernatural content linking dreams with reality is unconvincing, used in "anything goes" fashion.