"Day of the Nightmare" is a dandy psycho picture. Now I am not saying it's a great film, but in light of the very low budget, it's awfully entertaining.The film begins with two strange events. The first is when a couple are heard arguing violently in their apartment and the police are called. The couple is gone, but their dog has been viciously kicked to death--and the police assume the woman was murdered since some neighbor saw a man hauling away a large trunk nearby. The second involves a woman stalking another lady--you think there's going to be a murder, but a friend shows up and frightens away the attacker. The problem is, that the intended victim doesn't know she was almost killed. How does all this fit together? See the film for yourself to find out.For 1965, this is a rather scandalous film and must have caught audiences by surprise. I guessed the surprise twist--but that is because now in 2013, practically anything goes on TV and in films! My only serious complaint is that this twist was revealed a bit too early and impaired the suspense just a bit. Still, worth seeing and really strange for the time in which it was made.

It could only be DAY OF THE NIGHTMARE (1965); a mix between a nudie and PSYCHO, with a pinch of HOMICIDAL thrown in for good measure. I think it's a bit better and more entertaining than the 4.1 rating on IMDb might suggest. I liked it.The unknown Cliff Fields delivers an outrageously OTT performance as deranged painter Jonathan Crane. He's impotent because his parents were swingers and as a child he walked in on mom doing one of her lovers, who then spanked the voyeuristic little weirdo. Now Johnny gets his jollies by tying up topless models and smacking their bums with a belt until he, uh, well you know. If that isn't entertaining enough, Jonathan is also a schizo who slaps on a cone bra, trench-coat, pageboy wig and sunglasses and goes on a murder spree under his secondary persona, "Doris Mays." Neighbors who spot Doris leaving her apartment think she's just your run-of-the-mill "bull d**e" but no one seems to be able to put two and two together that Cliff and Doris are actually the same person. Jonathan is married to the sweet but very naive Barbara (Barbara Bain) and she tries to be understanding that her husband is always away on "business." Little does she know, but "business" equals putting on ladies underthings, hiring lesbian prostitutes and murdering women who remind him of his impotence! Sometimes when hubby is gone, Barbara is stalked by "Doris," who hangs around outside the home spying on her and eventually sneaks inside her home, attacks her with a knife and chases her around in the woods for about five minutes. Here and there, the film throws in a gratuitous nude scene, such as when three swinger couples put on blindfolds, spin around until they're disoriented and then feel/crawl around the room looking for members of the opposite sex they can start groping (!) Oh yeah, and for some reason "Doris" slays a chihuahua because its barking is annoying her. I can't stand yippy little ankle biters either, so this didn't bother me. The movie is very funny at times and seems just as confused about what it wants to be as Jonathan. There are lots of crazy flashbacks attempting to explain Jonathan's behavior, obligatory psycho-babble, several surprisingly creepy moments and even a bit of suspense. I'm convinced Brian De Palma watched this before he made DRESSED TO KILL. Both obviously take their cue from PSYCHO, but have a lot in common otherwise, right down to the killer's disguise (the wig, trench coat and sunglasses).Top-billed John Ireland (an Oscar nominee just fifteen years earlier) "stars" as the lead detective on the case, but his performance is forgettable, and his scenes are boring. John Hart (BLACKENSTEIN) is pretty awful as Jonathan's self-centered psychiatrist father, who sleeps with his female patients. Legendary Liz Renay (of John Waters' DESPERATE LIVING fame) has an uncredited one-scene cameo as one of the dad's lascivious patients. Bette Treadville (who looks like she belongs in a Waters movie) is the 300-pound black maid. And Elena Verdugo (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) has just one scene as an art agent. Bain was pretty good as the female lead, but the movie is dominated by Fields, who gets to act like an arrogant, eye-rolling jerk as Jonathan, gets to scream and cry when recalling a traumatic childhood with two oversexed parents, and (with help from a female dub-over) gets to act dainty, mannered and feminine as "Doris." It's a shame he didn't get any other starring roles.The DVD is from Something Weird, who have paired it with another movie called SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY (1965). I started watching SCREAM last night and it seemed like it might be decent enough to merit a purchase of this disc. It's about an adulterous platinum blonde bikini-clad tramp named Marla (Nelida Lobato) who conspires with her lover to kill her wealthy tycoon husband, who married her after a week-long fling. Seems more noir/thriller than horror, but I'll try to finish it and write a review. It's well shot by Ray Dennis Steckler (R.I.P.) and seems to have pretty amusing dialogue, nude scenes from the busty leading lady, plus a hilarious rip-off of the FROM HERE TO ETERNITY beach scene.

Nice locations and decent "daytime" cinematography in La Jolla, but a terrible low-grade exploitation flick..YUCK! Lots of booze bottles and tacky paintings in this movie. The father and son look to be the same age. The cross-dressing psycho is completely idiotic..he has such a pretty wife. What's his problem? Best line of dialogue - "People go crazy...every day people go crazy". What is John Ireland doing in this one? I know he made some bad flicks, but this is too much. Some nudity. A 2 out of 10. Best performance = Beverly Bain. Ms. Bain plays the attractive and very normal wife of the crazy. Elena Verdugo from MARCUS WELBY, M.D. has a small role as does Liz Renay from John Waters flicks.The Good Deed Mission guys are right out of the Bowery Boys. Not much to recommend here with the acting low-grade and repellent passivity of most of the characters, especially Mr. Ireland as the world-weary detective. Terrible!

Contrary to what the plot summary says, this is NOT about a woman returning from the dead! The story concerns Jonathan Crane, an artist with a decidedly sick way of getting his models in the mood to pose. The movie opens with Jonathan having a topless lovely lay across a couch, then binding her ankles and wrists and beating her back with a belt while wailing, "Unclean!Unclean!" Ooohkaaay. To top THAT off, Jonathan's wife is being stalked by a mysterious woman who slips into the house and chases the wife out and through some woods. The wife is baffled as to who the woman is, but she's someone closer to Mrs. Crane than she realizes . . .A weird psychosexual drama with all kinds of dysfunctional kinkiness. In between the story concerning Jonathan's kinkiness and the mystery woman are some sleazy scenes including an orgy and a flashback revealing an adolescent sex encounter between Jonathan and an older woman that indicates where he got his taste for whipping from. Grotesquely fascinating.