BLOOD AND SEX NIGHTMARE

Amy (Julia Morizawa, STAR TREK: OPERATION BETA SHIELD) returns to America from her Dad's funeral in Japan. She's not feeling her best and unfortunately her boyfriend Nick (Andy McGuinness) isn't much comfort: he's more concerned with their sex life, or lack of.

Nick proposes they spend the weekend at Pleasant Mountain Adult Retreat (a woodside campus where horny couples can indulge in their kinkiest fantasies) but Amy doesn't fancy that at all. However, Nick goes into full on sulk mode and before long Amy relents.

Upon arriving at their cabin, Amy and Nick are confronted by creepy groundskeeper Walter (Dan Petit). He leers at Amy and ominously mutters under his breath about how he'll fuck her soon, when her boyfriend's dead.

Ignoring weird Walter, Amy and Nick enter their cabin. He tries out the springs on the bed while Amy retrieves an old mirror from the closet. She becomes oddly beguiled with the object and places it on her bedside table. During the night, a hideous face appears in the mirror to terrify Amy - but she's later unsure whether the apparition was real or just a nightmare.

She's lucky - the couple in a neighbouring cabin have a REALLY bad night. When the boy is interrupted from taking bondage photographs of his girl, he goes outside to scare off what he assumes is nosy kids … only to wind up the victim of a surprisingly effective castration. Moments later, his unseen killer storms into the cabin and forces the dismembered love truncheon down the unfortunate girl's throat.

The following morning, oblivious to her neighbours' ill fates, Amy has a run-in with Walter. He jars her with his tale of a serial rapist and killer who was raised in that part of the woods, whose mother would touch him inappropriately as a child, and who grew into a sex monster that apparently hung himself 40 years ago but is said to still roam the woods. Amy wonders to herself whether it was the monster's face that appeared to her the previous evening - and if so, why? What could it possibly want with the hot, sexually repressed Amy?!

Who cares, because before long it's nighttime again and that means three more luckless swingers are going to meet a sticky end. As they are each dispatched of in gory fashion, we get our first glimpse of the monster (Tom Thatcher) - a Leatherface lookalike, no less - and also discover that Walter is more involved than he'd care to admit.

But there's more to come, with chain saw massacres, necrophilia and a distinctly supernatural climax. Also, you may want to stick around to see whether (a) Nick will get his end away with uptight Amy, or (b) he'll get his just-desserts for being such an inconsiderate prick.

NIGHTMARE is a very cheap production with washed out mini-DV values and minimal plotting or characterisation (it's only 58 minutes long). From the pre-credits sequence of a topless girl being groped by a knife-wielding psycho, it's clear that the film has only one goal in mind: to live up to it's salacious title.

And it does, on frequent occasion. There's plenty of female nudity on offer, and the gore scenes are enjoyably over-the-top. In what is sure to be the most talked-about scene of the film, one character is pinned down to her bed while the monster squats over her and masturbates, cumming thick jets of blood over her torso and face.

But there are a lot of cheap films sneaking straight out onto DVD these days, promising a wealth of tasteless excess but precious little else. And, aside from the sex 'n' gore dished out generously, NIGHTMARE is the same. Performances are dubious, the script is trite and the plot lifts liberally from dozens of better horror films - most notably THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, MADMAN and FRIDAY THE 13TH.

On a plus note, the film is fast-moving and delivered with undeniable energy. It's unpretentious, at the very least.

The film is presented uncut in a 1.33:1 full-frame aspect ratio. From the framing, this appears to be correct. Images are washed out and overly dark on occasion, but such qualms don't harm a film like NIGHTMARE: the rough presentation suits its 80's slasher-style aspirations. Having said that, colours are strong and details are relatively sharp.

The English 2.0 audio is good, doing its job without issue.

Although there is no scene-selection menu, a quick click on "Display" on the remote handset reveals 23 chapters on the main feature.

The disc opens with trailers for A FEAST OF FLESH, AMERICAN PUNKS and PSYCHO KICKBOXER THE DARK ANGEL.

Extras are meagre, and barely related to NIGHTMARE.

First up is a 7-minute music video for the song "The Devil's Everywhere" by EYEZ. This shot-on-video effort is peppered with clips from NIGHTMARE, but is essentially a dreadful addition to the already tired hip-hop cycle.

Two short films follow.

The first, "Chef Boyardemon", is the lengthier of the two, clocking in at 5 minutes in length. It's a mix of live-action gore and bizarre hand-puppet segments, all shot in the style of a silent movie. The fact that it's been treated to a blue-tinted sepia look helps keep it visually interesting.

The second short is "The Roarin' 20's" which is presented in grainy black-and-white, and again is shot in the style of an old silent film (even boasting title cards where dialogue is needed). This one, only 2 minutes in length, essentially involves a couple who realise their true love for one another when the woman stabs the man repeatedly then performs oral sex on him. Sadly, it's nowhere near as remarkable as it sounds.

There are also trailers for a whopping 13 more titles on the disc, including one for NIGHTMARE itself.

Finally - and best of all - is a 6-page foldout booklet with colour photographs and some insightful liner notes from NIGHTMARE director Joseph R Kolbek.

If you'll watch anything that offers boobs, chain saws and bloody masturbation scenes, then BLOOD AND SEX NIGHTMARE is something you'll want to catch.

Review by Stuart Willis