Oh boy, here we have another over-ambitious young filmmaker who single-handedly intends to restore everything that's wrong with nowadays horror cinema
Pardon my cynicism but we all heard this before and usually these youngsters fail to live up to their own expectations. For his debut film, videostore clerk turned director Dylan Bank comes up with a psychedelic but immensely confusing story about a film student who makes a movie about his own nightmare that miraculously appear to be taped on camera every morning when he wakes up. The idea is admirable and the film does feature a handful of nice touches, but Dylan Bank never really seems to realize that his visions and interpretations on horror AREN'T groundbreaking or even that shocking. This type of 'mental assault'-cinema is the territory of genius directors like David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Shinya Tsukamoto, only their films are more fascinating and truly a lot more disturbing! The story material has potential but "Nightmare" lacks involvement and commitment with the characters whereas, with Lynch, you pretty much feel like you're inside the protagonists' heads and you fear what they fear! The film often just exists of blurry and roughly edited images that make no sense or add nothing to the basic premise at all, but Bank uses them (as padding?) anyway. New characters and locations are introduced randomly and they simply disappear again without any form of coherence. Also, for being a new type of horror film, "Nightmare" doesn't contain much atmosphere, scary moments or even violent images. There's quite a lot of nudity (the non-artistic kind), the acting performances are acceptable and the use of uncanny music is very good. Worth a look if you're in an experimental mood once.
