Nightmare (1981) on Netflix
George Tatum leaves the institution where he spent years after an experimental procedure. Hazy nightmares follow him south to Florida, where his ex-wife Susan Temper lives with their children.
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- Netflix2.2/5
- IMDb5.6/105,003 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes33%
Trailer
Plot summary
George Tatum has spent years in a psychiatric institution in New York City, diagnosed with schizophrenia, amnesia and epilepsy. An experimental procedure is meant to reprogram his brain, and the doctors release him, though hazy nightmares of a violent incident in his childhood stay with him. A visit to a Times Square peep show brings on flashbacks. He obtains a car and drives south to Florida, where his ex-wife, Susan Temper, lives with daughters Kim and Tammy and son C.J., a boy whose pranks disturb her and the babysitter, Kathy. Susan has a boyfriend, Bob Rosen. The house receives disturbing phone calls, and C.J. insists a strange man is following him.
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Nightmare (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Nightmare was one of 72 films branded "video nasties" in the United Kingdom, but the only one prosecuted for obscenity under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, and in October 1982 a judge ordered 212 videocassettes seized in raids on London and Leeds destroyed.
- Three executives of the film's British distributor, David Hamilton-Grant, Malcolm Fancey and Roger Morley, were prosecuted for releasing a cut containing 48 seconds of footage the BBFC had not approved; Hamilton-Grant and Fancey received 18 and 9 months, the former later reduced to 6, while Morley was fined £250.
SPOILER
Tom Savini denied working on Nightmare, but director Romano Scavolini insisted Savini oversaw all the master special effects sequences, including the beheading of George's parents, and guessed a salary dispute with Goldmine Productions caused the denial.- Italian director Romano Scavolini got the idea for Nightmare from Time and Newsweek articles about psychiatric patients who had been given powerful drugs that altered their behavior.
- Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures both screened Nightmare and would only buy it if its gore sequences were significantly cut; Scavolini refused, feeling the strongest scenes had to remain uncut because the film should be a scandalous event.
- The UK prosecution created a black market for Nightmare in the mid-to-late 1980s, where video copies of the banned film cost as much as £100.
- A clip from Nightmare features prominently in the 2021 British psychological horror film Censor, which centers on the United Kingdom's video nasty controversy.
