Freddie Francis' Nightmare is one of those lesser-known movies from Hammer Films which usually finds itself lumped together in box sets dominated by their more popular Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy series. It's obscurity is slightly unfair, as this black-and-white psychological horror-come-slasher unravels itself cleverly and with a healthy dose of style. Written by Hammer regular Jimmy Sangster, Nightmare conjures up a fair share of creepiness despite its age, and often feels somewhat Hitchcockian in its execution.Janet (Jennie Linden) is a young girl attending boarding school. At night, she is plagued by nightmares of when she witnessed the stabbing of her father at the hands of her deranged mother. As her mental state worsens, she is sent back home to her guardian Henry Baxter (David Knight) and assigned a nurse Grace Maddox (Moira Redmond). Soon after arriving, Janet starts to have visions of a woman she has never seen before with a huge scar on her cheek. Essentially a movie broken into two parts, the second act cannot be summarised without giving away a spoiler.The visuals are rather bland - Hammer tended to churn out movies quickly and cheaply to serve as a starter for the main event in cinemas - but the black-and-white photography gives the film a Gothic, and almost noirish, sense of style. While Knight is enjoyably smug, the rest of the cast fail to make any real impression, with the pre- Women in Love (1969) Linden extremely lucky to find herself cast after a number of preferable choices, including Julie Christie who chose to make Billy Liar instead, were unavailable. But the film's flaws are to be expected - it is a quickie B-movie after all - and it makes the most of its limitations. The plot's mystery is engrossing and the pacing is odd yet intriguing, and I would recommend Nightmare to any fan of British horror.

Nightmare is directed by Freddie Francis and written by Jimmy Sangster. It stars Moira Redmond, David Knight, Jennie Linden, Brenda Bruce, George A. Cooper and Clytie Jessop. Music is by Don Banks and cinematography by John Wilcox.Young Janet (Linden) is subjected to nightmares about when she saw her insane mother knife her father to death. Sent home from boarding school to be in the care of her guardian, Janet continues to have nightmares about an unknown scar faced woman in white: Or does she?Hammer Films had already had great success reinventing the Universal monster creature features. After Psycho in 1960, they set about producing a number of psychological based thrillers to seize the "are they, are they not mad"? zeitgeist. Most of these films have sadly become either forgotten or under seen. There is just cause to seek them out now, for while they hardly break any new ground for the hardened psycho thriller film fan, there is much artistry and craft on show to make the time spent with them well worth while. Plus, the best of them, of which Nightmare certainly belongs, often contain kicker twists or macabre like finales.Nightmare is filmed in stark black and white HammerScope with director Francis, an ace cinematographer himself (The Innocents and latterly The Elephant Man), and Wilcox (The Evil of Frankenstein/Carve Her Name with Pride) brilliantly playing with film noirish shadows, eerie visuals and fluid sweeps of the camera. The family mansion at the centre of the story is perfect for such technical flourishes, while the trick in the tale is not letting the audience be sure about if poor Janet is actually witnessing a ghostly apparition or not? Once the answer is revealed, there is still a good third of the film to go, so it's with much credit to Sangster that the picture still has much to tell and surprise whilst keeping the suspense factor very high.Is it flawless? As good as Hammer's unsung masterpiece in this sub-genre, Scream of Fear? No! Of course not. There's some over acting from the principal gals and the makers only just hold the attention span for some passages of the (pre)story. While there is the chance that avid followers of this type of genre piece, both English speaking or otherwise, might these days lose some surprise factor come the outcome. But fans of eerie and atmospheric black & white thrillers should definitely get on board here, for it's the creepy 1960s Hammer train and it's well worth buying a return ticket for. 8/10

I've been a fan of Hammer horror for a while, and have only recently discovered this whole new side of theirs. Hammer have become synonymous with fun horror films, but their serious little black and white flicks show that they're certainly not limited to doing just what we know they're good at! Like Freddie Francis' Paranoiac a year earlier, Freddie Francis' Nightmare works through it's thick macabre atmosphere, tight plotting and great acting performances. The film is also very paranoid, which helps you to get under the skin of the plot and into the heads of the characters. The film starts off following young Janet. Janet's mother stabbed her father to death on her birthday many years ago and has spent her life in an insane asylum ever since. Janet is now having horrible dreams of her mother, and fears that she may go the same way...but after being sent home, her problems really start. The plot for this film is odd because once we reach the half-way point, it makes a full turnaround and we begin following two of the smaller characters from the first part of the film.The second half of the story is definitely more interesting than the first, so the switch is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. This film appears to have been an obvious influence on Pete Walker's exploitation flick 'Frightmare', as the two follow pretty much the same theme. Hammer's version of the story is far better, though. The ensemble cast here are excellent, with everyone giving a terrific performance. Jennie Linden is convincing as the young girl being terrified by her dreams and more than does justice to the role. The greatness of the plot can be summed up by the fact that I often find myself giving low ratings to Hammer's black and white films, simply because I love to see the colours that Hammer do so well. This film is so professionally handled, however, that the lack of colour doesn't harm the film at all - and actually helps it. The atmosphere would never be the same in colour, and the colours are made up for anyway by the wonderful use of lighting. On the whole, this isn't one of Hammer's most important films - but it is a very good one, and I highly recommend it! Just one thing to note...it's not recommended that you watch this film with a headache - there's a lot of screaming!

I recently wrote a review of Hammer's Paranoiac and, for the most part, I feel like I could change the name and delete references to Oliver Reed and post it as an original review for Nightmare. Oh, sure, there are differences between the two when you start talking about specific plot points, but the general theme is the same. Like Paranoiac, Nightmare is the story of a young woman who is either going insane or being driven insane as part of a fiendish plot. The girl has visions of a woman roaming the halls of her house. When she follows the woman, she inevitably finds her lying on a bed with a knife stuck in her chest.If Nightmare excels at anything it's acting and atmosphere. The cast of non-Hammer regulars is wonderful. I've read that Jennie Linden was a last minute replacement to fill the role of the insane young woman. She's wonderfully believable in one of her first roles. I doubt that someone with considerable experience could have pulled it off so convincingly. As for atmosphere, I've always been of the belief that solid atmosphere is essential for an effective horror/thriller. And director Freddie Francis creates some very effective atmosphere. Everything from the sets to the cinematography to character reactions appears to have been designed to wring every last drop of atmosphere out of the script.I couldn't be happier with the recently released eight-movie Hammer Horror Series. While most fans will surely purchase the set for the better known Frankenstein, Dracula, and Werewolf movies, I hope that most are as pleasantly surprised by the lesser known B&W Hammer films as I am.