American Nightmare (2002)

You can have the shower scene in Psycho, if you want, but I will take Rebecca Stacey anytime. The Psycho scene is her greatest fear and she joins six of her friends who express what they fear the most while a killer (Debbie Rochon) is listening in."Don't you get lonely" Sure, I do, Debbie, and you can tie me up and do your stuff and I will die a happy man.But, I wasn't real happy with what I thought was going to be a slasher flick, and it turned out to just be a mind game.The ending was weird, too. But Debbie Rochon was pretty much in the whole picture, so it was a treat.

Seven friends meet in a favorite café before getting dressed for a Halloween party. Commemorating the massacre of four college students the previous year; host Caligari(Chris Ryan)of a dusk to dawn pirate radio show called "American Nightmare" invites listeners to call in and reveal their deepest and worst fears. The friends dare each other to call Caligari as they listen to the broadcast before going off to their fun night festivities. Also listening is the psycho responsible for the killings the year before. As the friends go their separate ways, they are taunted by sinister calls to the radio show. With fears at a feverish pitch the night becomes long and dangerous.Not the best, nor the worst of flicks...but interesting enough. Some of the acting may be over-the-top; but the message is there. A person's own fears can be fatal. Starring are: Debbie Rochon, Kimberly Grant, Johnny Sneed, Kristin McCollum, Kenyon Homes and Rebecca Stacey. And being a former air personality myself, I was impressed like hell with Ryan, who actually is on the air in Dallas.

I was very disappointed with this film and did not think it was even worth the £4.50 i paid to rent it out! I think it should have been in the comedy section as i spent most of the film either laughing because it was so rubbish, or fast-forwarding through all the slow, tedious parts. The music did not at all fit in with the film and i felt embarrassed to watch it - for the actors and for the producers. I am not sure if any one else noticed, but when she shot her sister (who was then dead), she somehow still had enough life in her to blink about 3 or 4 times!!! What is with that? You would think that when they watched it back someone would notice and maybe edit it out??? Or better still get a better actress, but then again taking a look at the rest of the film i guess not. I take into consideration that the writer my have had a good idea - pity it didn't turn out that way!

This film is by no means a great film. What it is, however, is bordering on some of the best you can get in its genre with its budget (just $56k!), and I marvel at just how well-conceived this film is.A lot of the dialogue is pretty cornball and self-referential to the point of nauseating, but the self-referential crap runs dry about a quarter of the way through as our slasher goes on the move. Where most good Hollywood films are just consistently witting and entertaining the whole way through, spread out evenly, this one moves almost in fits. There are lulls in the dialogue, and then absolute sparks of brilliance and a lot of tongue-in-cheek laughs.The directing style is fairly utilitarian, which may or may not be your cup of tea, but suits me just fine. Some of the edits are poor, but most of it is dead on, and a scene where a character begins to space out and freak out is shot very well.The script itself? Apart from the sometimes stupid dialogue, there are a lot of shining gems in the dialogue and indeed, while some of the characters may not be perfectly fleshed out, they're very realistically written. We don't really have stupid characters in this movie, surprisingly enough. They speak intelligently, and act intelligently and realistically, and I appreciate that.In terms of gore - 'cause I know that's what all the rest of us horror fans are after - there isn't much. T&A? A decent share.What's really on parade here is how well-written a lot of it is and how well-acted the film is as a whole. The plot has a lot of tweaks of inventiveness (a genuine female slasher!), a couple grisly scenes...the movie just works.If you think you can get past its stumbles, I would strongly suggest you check it out. This film's a must-see for horror buffs.