There are a few positive things I can say about "Frightmare". Ferdy Mayne is well cast as the villainous horror actor - he's a cross of Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, and Bela Lugosi, and the movie gets a burst of energy whenever he's in action. Second, while this was a low budget movie, it doesn't look as cheap as other low budget horror movies of the era. Also, there is a lot of atmosphere here. There's a moody feel to most of the movie, and it could have been part of a great movie, which this isn't. This movie is extremely slow, for one thing. How slow? Well, for one thing, it takes over half of the movie before the first of the youths is killed. And none of the kills is that spectacular or memorable. Also, we learn nothing about these youths. They have no personalities, just brainless pieces of flesh that are waiting to be slaughtered. The movie also has poorly recorded audio that makes it hard to make out dialogue at times. If you still decide to buy this on DVD despite my warnings, beware. The Troma DVD release of the movie is not only full-frame, but has some video glitches, suggesting they simply copied from an ex-rental video tape.

I thought maybe... maybe this could be good. An early appearance by the Re-Animator (Jeffery Combs); many homage's to old horror movies; the Troma label on the front… this movie could be a gem! I thought wrong.Frightmare is a boring, overplayed, half assed homage to the fright films of yore. The story is an old one, young people breaking into a house, getting drunk, making love, and tampering with things that shouldn't be tampered with. The oft – recycled slasher film formula is used here, this time with a thought to be dead actor named Conrad Radzoff doing the killing. In fact, the performance by the Radzoff's actor Ferdy Mayne is the only redeeming quality of this film. He does the snooty Dracula style character very well. But as for the kids, its not so good, with Combs only having a minimal part.The film lacks entertainment value, and only features one cool character, and one or two scenes that can hold your attention. I do not recommend this film unless you are desperate for something to watch, and this is the only movie left at blockbuster.

I don't get it! The teenage leads in "Horror Star" supposedly all are devoted horror fans, yet when their favorite idol (Conrad Radzoff) passes away, they dig up his corpse and do all sorts of disrespectful stuff with it, like disco-dancing it around the house and throw food leftovers at it. That doesn't sound like something real horror fans would do, now does it? I'm a big horror fan and I immensely idolize departed icons like Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Boris Karloff, but it would never come to my mind to ridicule their memory. No wonder Conrad comes back from the dead – admittedly, after a séance – to wipe them all off the face of the earth! Mr. Radzoff already wasn't known for his friendliness in life, since he occasionally killed the directors that disagreed with his visions, and even after his death he suffers from a tremendous ego. Even inside his tomb there are video messages to petrify possible visitors and the group of teenagers will vividly experience that he also enjoys the murdering business outside his film sets. "Horror Star" (a.k.a. "Frightmare" and "Body Snatchers") is a pretty lame 80's horror flick, but there are a handful of cheesy & gory highlights to enjoy. The film mainly suffers from its own stupid plot, since no one – not even a film school student – is stupid enough to steal a recently buried corpse and actually think he'll get away with it, and there are too many tedious moments to struggle through. Conrad's video-speeches from beyond the grave are overly talkative and definitely undermine the tension, but on the other hand his killing methods are pleasingly inventive. One teenager enjoys the experience of getting cremated alive and another one (Jeffrey Combs in one of his first roles!) loses his head in a delightful decapitation sequence. In the absolute messiest sequence, a poor girl' head is crushed by a coffin. Writer/director Norman Thaddeus Vane wanted to bring homage to vintage horror cinema and he obviously how to make film look sinister. The locations and scenery are great, but Vane lacked the necessary funds to provide his film with a proper continuity and editing-job. The acting performances are overall decent, with Ferdy Mayne (imitating Christopher Lee) and Jeffrey Combs delivering the most memorable roles. "Horror Star" can hardly be called a must-see or even a good film, but it's worth tracking down in case you're an admirer of enthusiastically made B-horror.

Frightmare is an interesting attempt to combine the old thirties style horror with eighties slasher. Ferdinand Mayne stars as Conrad Ragzoff, an arrogant old ham horror actor who dies of a stroke. Some of his fans steal his body from his tomb(what fans!) and all heck breaks loose. Mayne is lots of fun, appearing on a special monitor in the tomb and taunting his soon to be victims. The opening parts of the movie are wonderful; showing Conrad's old movies, him taking care of an unlikeable director, etc. The scenes in the old house, where Conrad stalks the kids, are a little more basic, but still entertaining.Jeffery Combs is good, but the movie really belongs to Mayne. He seems to enjoy himself and makes the movie lots of fun. So basically, it's not one of the great horror movies or anything like that, but still well worth seeing for fans of eighties horror.