Nightmares in a Damaged Brain (1982)
Posted on April 18, 2006
Filed Under Movies, Nasties, Serial killers, Slashers
One of the films successfully prosecuted by the DPP in their crackdown on so-called ‘video nasties’, Romano Scavolini’s film (originally titled Nightmare - the lurid qualifier was added for the video release) isn’t actually nearly as bad as you might think. It falls just short of actually being a good film, but it’s sufficiently interesting and diverting to raise it above much of the other exploitation schlock that fell foul of the law in the mid 80s. Baird Stafford plays George Tatum, a test subject in an experiment to ‘rebuild’ mental patients with radical new medication. Successfully reformed, George is released, but when he is plagued by flashbacks to a particularly traumatic childhood event, he flips and goes on a killing rampage…
It’s probably worth pointing out at the outset that this film contains gore, and lots of it - and for many, this is where its appeal (or at least its notoriety) will lie. Whilst some of the bloodier scenes tend to slip into Giallo / exploitation cliche (there are several tight close-ups of expanses of flesh being pierced and punctured - so far, so Argento), there is also some nauseatingly effective imagery here, particularly in the dreamlike opening sequence, in which George finds the piled-up remains of a butchered body in the bottom of his bed. Thankfully, Scavolini chooses to give us more than simply a catalogue of atrocities; although the plot becomes suspiciously similar to that of Halloween (particularly when George begins to stalk his wife and children wearing a spooky mask), the direction is sufficiently stylised and distinctive so as to prevent it looking like a straight rip-off. Particularly effective is Scavolini’s non-linear approach to narrative; the main story is very clearly delineated (with caption cards marking “The First Night”, “The Second Night”, and so on), but at the same time we are drip-fed elements of backstory via flashback which helps us piece together what is going on. The flashbacks play out - in excruciating detail - the childhood event which left George so scarred; even though it’s pretty clear what actually happened long before Scavolini spells it out for us, there’s a satisfying sense of narrative closure, given added punch by the implication that George’s son CJ, having escaped his murderous father, may end up inheriting this legacy of violence.
It’s an interesting setup, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite gel mainly due to the film’s erratic pacing. It sags terribly in the middle, and the plot strand concerning George’s experimental therapy is left frustratingly undeveloped. In places the film feels unnecessarily padded; CJ’s compulsive lying feels like it was only included in order to extend the plot, and it’s an aspect of his character that’s left without any narrative payoff. The opening is quite unsettlingly bewildering, but the stalk ‘n’ slash scenes of the film’s second half have a familiarity to them mainly due to their similarity with the aforementioned Halloween. The mainly domestic setting means that the production values feel a lot less threadbare than many of the other nasties, and most of the dialogue is passable, but the acting never rises above adequate; what the film needs is a knockout performance, but most of the participants are largely unmemorable. That said, special mention must be made of the child who plays the young George in the flashback scenes, who brings a quiet solemnity to his role that is actually quite suspenseful.
Nightmares in a Damaged Brain is no masterpiece, but it’s not a disaster either. Lurking beneath the technical limitations of low-budget cinema and the unoriginal premise, there’s an interesting approach at work that makes the film watchable at the very least. Nightmares is, surprisingly, a film I’d quite like to see remade - as it stands, it promises much but ultimately doesn’t quite deliver.
Comments
Leave a Reply