Directed by Joseph Sargent, it's split into 4 unconnected stories: 1) "Terror in Topanga" offers up that old chestnut about a dark night and an escaped killer on the prowl. Featuring Christina Raines and William Sanderson. 2) "The Bishop of Battle" stars Emilio Estevez as a video game expert determined to get to the final level on a new arcade game. Careful what you wish for! Also with Moon Unit Zappa. 3) "The Benediction" is a Duel take-off with Lance Henriksen as a priest who has lost his faith and may have run into the devil in the form of a menacing black truck on the highway. 4) "Night of the Rat" features a suburban family terrorized by, you guessed it, rats. With Richard Masur and Veronica Cartwright.The effects are chintzy (including some very early computer effects), and a lot of it is one-note. But there's a camp charm to it, and it makes good viewing for those in the mood for some cheesy but not ghastly frights. Featuring some early 80's punk music by the likes of X, Black Flag, and Fear.

I first saw this film back in the good old days of VHS. It wasn't easy to find on DVD, but I got it in the end, hence this review.A feature of British horror movies in the 60s and 70s were the compendiums brought out by producers like Amicus, where a frame story formed the background for three or four short films. Nightmares looks like something similar, but without the framework. The four short stories were actually intended for television, but were deemed too intense for that medium, so were sewn together as a film.So what do we have? In the first story, a nicotine-addicted woman braves a dark night with a serial killer on the loose to get some cigarettes. In the second, a video game addict meets his match. The third sees a priest who has lost his faith confronted by a dark enemy, while the fourth has a suburban family attracting the attention of a giant rodent.For me, the first two stories were the ones that worked the best. Maybe the conclusion of the first (Terror in Topanga) is predictable, but it works. The second (The Bishop of Battle) has probably the most memorable quote – "I am the Bishop of Battle, master of all I survey" – and its conclusion satisfies in context. However, the third one (The Benediction) is absorbing enough for a while, but seems to lose interest in its story and the ending is rather abrupt. The fourth one (Night of the Rat) suffers a severe case of cute kid syndrome and just can't resist the temptation to sink into mawkish sentimentality that spoils so many films for me.Given the time it was made and what looks like a modest budget, production values, including special effects, are satisfactory and performances aren't bad. The music isn't up to much though.This was a favorite of mine as a teenager and remains so now. It won't be long before I watch it again.Rating: 7/10.

Joseph Sargent's "Nightmares" is a very dull, childish and forgettable 80's horror anthology, completely gore-free and not even bothering to connect the different tales through a wraparound story. There have been great horror omnibuses since the 1940's already ("Dead of Night", for example) and the concept reached its peak during the 60's (with Bava's "Black Sabbath") and especially in the early 70's, when the British Amicus Studios specialized in them ("The House that Dripped Blood", "Tales that witness Madness", "Asylum"…). Like it did with so many other things, the 80's decade pretty much ruined the "portmanteau" horror film and only mediocre efforts got released like "From a Whisper to a Scream", both the "Creepshow" films and "Deadtime Stories". This movie "Nightmares" is worse than just mediocre; it's lame and incomprehensibly mundane. The first segment is not even a real story. It's one giant cliché that features a woman as she goes out late at night to buy cigarettes while there's a maniac killer loose in the area. Gee, do you think the killer ends up in the backseat of her car??? This is just an ordinary urban legend that has been done a million times before... And much better. The second story is considered to be the best by many people, but it merely just gave me a headache. Emilio Estevez plays a rebellious teenager (apparently he did that often in the eighties…) obsessed with a stupid video game. He's destined to reach the legendary 13th level and breaks into the mall at night. When J.J. thinks he completed his mission, the evil game comes to life and intergalactic war breaks loose for real. How is that possible? Who knows! Because it was the 80's and scriptwriters could get away with all kind of crazy stuff? The third chapter opens promisingly but quickly goes downhill again. Lance Henriksen stars as a priest struggling with a crisis of faith. He flees from his parish but encounters a diabolical car in the desert. "The Benediction", as this story is called, is simply a shameless copy of Steven Spielberg's "Duel", padded with needless religious undertones. The fourth and final comes from a different writer than the first three, but sadly that doesn't bring any improvement. On the contrary, "Night of the Rat" is feels like Disney-horror for kids with an annoying middle-class family battling against a giant mythological rodent that lives in the walls of their house. "Nightmares" as a wholesome doesn't contain the slightest bit of suspense. I honestly don't understand why it was labeled as "too intense for TV", as this is exactly what it looks like: a tame and bloodless TV-production accessible to younger audiences. It's definitely NOT the stuff real nightmares are made of.

The 80's is the decade famous for delivering many a camp horror movie, so going into this omnibus film, I was expecting a very camp time indeed. Suffice to say, this film didn't live up to my expectations and all it offers is four, very mundane, tales of 'horror'. As usual with omnibuses, the tales themselves are of varying quality; but the ones in this film are all low quality, and none of them really stand out enough to make the film memorable on the whole. The first one is the most dismal of them all, and simply follows a woman out late at night. There's a maniac on the loose...and I'm sure you'll be able to see what's coming. I couldn't believe how mundane it was. The second, and probably best, of the omnibus sees a kid obsessed by a video game. Emilo Estivez takes the lead role in the tale about obsession and actually does a fairly good job. You can believe that he would be addicted to an arcade game. The best thing about this tale for me wasn't the horror at all, however, it was the way it showed how rubbish electronics were in the eighties. Seeing the kid's personal tape player is almost surreal when compared to the mp3 players we have nowadays.The fourth tale stars Lance Henriksen and I thought it might be worth watching for that reason. It actually turned out to be a lot like the first tale, in that it's unbelievably shallow and the plot is overly simplistic. It's like Dual, with a supernatural twist. Not really horror though...more of a chase thriller. Not worth watching really. The fourth tale is about a giant rat, and I thought that it might add some much needed fun into the film. I was wrong again, as although it's not a bad little story, and easily better than tales number one and three; the way it's handled once again lets it down. It takes ages for anything to happen, and although the build up to seeing the giant rat at the end has some suspense; for a daft eighties horror, it has very little payoff. The giant rat is hilarious, though, and the way that the climax is handled is good in that it actually has a little bit of emotion! On the whole, even if you like omnibus horror films, I don't recommend this one. See Dead of Night, or Black Sabbath, or one of the Amicus omnibuses from the seventies...this film is worth missing.