Alice Cooper: The Nightmare (1975) **** (out of 4) If you're an Alice Cooper and horror fan then there's no way that you couldn't love this television special. This here was basically a promotional movie for Alice Cooper's first solo album 'Welcome to My Nightmare' and as an added bonus the rock star managed to get Vincent Price on board. If you're familiar with the album then you'll know the songs. The plot here is basically Cooper playing Steven, a young boy who finds himself in a nightmare where Price plays the Spirit.ALICE COOPER: THE NIGHTMARE is a great, great little movie on so many levels. For starters, the album itself is a terrific one with a number of great and menacing songs. Another major plus is that all of the "videos" are extremely well done and there's just a surreal nature to many of them that really makes this something great to watch during Halloween. Of course, one of the best thing about the special is the fact that you get to see Cooper and Price working together.If you're a fan of Cooper then you'll already know that he loves horror movies and loved Price. You can just see the joy in him getting to work with someone he admired and this really bleeds into the film and helps the entertainment value. Again, there are some truly great songs on the album including Welcome to My Nightmare, The Black Widow, the wonderful Only Women Bleed and the use of The Ballad of Dwight Frye from the 'Love it to Death' album.

I am not sure how Vincent Price came to be involved with pop/rock music but, apart from his famed contribution to Michael Jackson's song "Thriller" from his eponymous (and top-selling) 1982 record, he appeared in this TV special inspired by Heavy Metal exponent Alice Cooper's concept album "Welcome To My Nightmare". On a personal note, I had long been interested in checking out Cooper's earliest albums, given that they had been produced by Bob Ezrin and featured guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner – all 3 of whom were also involved with Lou Reed's 1973 solo masterpiece "Berlin" and, Hunter and Wagner only, Reed's successive release, "Rock 'N' Roll Animal" – to my mind the best live album ever! The basic premise here is simple: a man finds that he cannot wake up from his own nightmare. Guiding him through the maze of vaguely surreal visions (clichéd Halloween imagery giving way to a lair of spider/human hybrids, a refrigerator graveyard, and even having a top-hatted Cooper engaged in a tap-dance routine with a trio of likewise-attired skeletons!) is an ageing Price – making intermittent campy appearances to spout unspeakable lines and laugh himself silly – as The Spirit Of The Nightmare. Cooper is shown in and out of (his recognizable face-painted) character, as the young man asleep in bed dreaming and, of course, the protagonist of the "phantasm" (as Price vividly puts it). Throughout, he is also made to reflect on his life – childhood memories evoked by a fairground ride and the recounting of his success story being literally 'torn from the headlines'.The approach to this early form of (extended) music video is typical of the era: a gaudily elaborate mise-en-scene (exemplified by distracting and pointless choreography, even if the color scheme is imaginatively-deployed) undercut by poor technical quality. On the other hand, the artist's essence emerges well enough (with the outstanding track being the eventual single release "Only Women Bleed"), and he clearly relished the opportunity since he would often return to the screen in subsequent years (albeit mostly in small roles and guest spots)! At 66 minutes, the program is tolerable and even mildly enjoyable for what it tries to do (though, regrettably, it requires Vincent Price to be embarrassed somewhat – in any case, he would re-unite with the same performer on THE STRANGE CASE OF ALICE COOPER in 1979). For what it is worth, Cooper's live staging of the album the following year would also be caught on tape and, since last year, has reportedly been busy at work on a sequel to the original album to be titled "Welcome 2 My Nightmare"!

Some people might remember this (or not), but back in the Seventies ABC had a late night variety series called "ABC's Wide World of Entertainment." It showed after prime-time, mostly on Friday and Saturday nights, and featured a rotating roster of specials, series and concerts. It was this show that first introduced me to "ALICE COOPER: THE NIGHTMARE." I don't think I had bought the "Welcome To My Nightmare" LP yet, but "Only Women Bleed" was already a Top 40 hit. I was sort of familiar with Alice as one of those Gothic rock figures that made anything BUT sunny-happy pop music, and I'd heard some songs of his I'd liked ("School's Out", "I'm Eighteen", "Elected.") But when I found out that my childhood horror hero, the one-and-only Vincent Price was involved with this "video movie," I was completely sold.Time has dimmed my memory of that initial experience somewhat, and I'm sure that if by some happy twist of fate that this program were to be re-released at last on DVD, the images would look pretty dated, even cheesy by comparison with today's videos. Nevertheless, there are still images that stick with me: Alice as the fly stuck in a glittery web with glistening, black body-stockinged beauties during the "Black Widow" segment; the cool and chilling dance with a dead lover in "Cold Ethyl," and the spooky ballerina of "Only Women Bleed." But best of all was Vincent Price lending his ghoulishly gleeful presence as the "Spirit of the Nightmare" from which there is no escape for Alice as "Steven." And someday I have to thank Alice personally for that particular number, should I ever be fortunate enough to have the chance...I was so inspired by the song and the performance, that I recreated "Steven" in high school drama class. And got an 'A'.Which, in spite of its age, I would give to ALICE COOPER: THE NIGHTMARE. If it were available on DVD.I hope that someone heard me say that...like the folks at ABC, or Dark Sky Films, who seem to specialize in finding this stuff.

is a Classic Performance Video that features ONLY Alice Cooper and Vincent Price, it consists of conceptual videos acted on a stage and has a running time of 66 minutes. So it shouldn't be confused with "Welcome to my Nightmare"...which the IMDB is referring to here. The Nightmare is quite Rare but not impossible to find...and it is fantastic fun...14 songs each introduced by Vincent Price. Features great scenes of Cooper and Vincent Price interacting together...the two were made to work together!