6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Five strangers converge at a haunted movie theater owned by The Projectionist (Mickey Rourke). Once inside, the audience members witness a series of screenings that shows them their deepest fears and darkest secrets over five tales.
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Richard Chamberlain, Adam Godley, Orson Chaplin, Kevin FonteyneHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
If you were walking around your town in the, um, Dead of Night, in an area that looked like “the wrong side of the tracks”, with nary another living, breathing soul in evidence, and you suddenly saw your name emblazoned on a decrepit old movie house marquee, what would you do? Well, there’s absolutely no question for the several characters in Nightmare Cinema who experience just this phenonmenon, and like any good horror movie stooge, they all simply walk into the theater, where they are promptly held captive as they watch a film ostensibly about them unfold. Let’s just cut to the chase and state that the movies on display don’t tend to end well for many of the characters in them, not necessarily limited to the “marks” who have been “invited” to watch. Nightmare Cinema is a rather interesting attempt to reinvigorate the horror anthology genre, with a series of people lured into the old time movie house where they meet their fates, in more ways than one. A quintet of “films within the film” unspool (each directed by a different person), and while they don’t really have a bunch in common (other than a kind of weird emphasis on scary hospitals in a couple of cases), there are some fairly cheeky “meta” references scattered throughout for fans who like to be on the hunt for such things. To cite just a couple of examples, both somewhat linked to the second story, Mirare , directed by horror icon Joe Dante — a nefarious plastic surgeon in this tale is played by none other than erstwhile heartthrob Dr. Kildare Richard Chamberlain, and then shortly after this tale of “artistic” surgery gone awry ends, we’re introduced to a linking character called The Projectionist, played by (in?)famous plastic surgery survivor Mickey Rourke.
Nightmare Cinema is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The closing credits roll includes the Alexa logo, which suggests that despite the contributions of several directors and cinematographers, the same camera was utilized, and I'm as usual assuming that everything was finished at a 2K DI. This has a largely sleek and nicely detailed appearance, with the understanding that there are several long sequences in several of the "films" that are rather dark, where general murk can prevail and fine detail levels can be slightly lacking. There are various tweaks to the imagery, including POV shots by some unexpected "beasts" in one film (see screenshot 9), where things look skewed and probably intentionally a good deal softer. The black and white cinematography in This Way to Egress boasts excellent contrast and nicely deep black levels. The color segments offer a generally natural looking palette, though as seems to be unavoidable in contemporary thrillers, several scenes, notably a lot of the hospital material in two of the "films", has been graded toward ice cool blue tones. A lot of the material featuring Rourke is virtually swathed in darkness, and so detail levels can be somewhat less fulsome in these scenes as well.
Nightmare Cinema features a nicely boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, though I had a laugh when checking out the English SDH subtitles and one of the opening descriptions said something like "meditative piano music" when there was a strident, Bernard Herrmann-esque minor second in strings blaring forth. That unintended comedy aside, the track itself has nice surround elements in all of the "films", with regular placement of ambient environmental effects and some quasi-subliminal anxiety inducing sound effects in the side and rear channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation and there are no problems of any kind with regard to damage, distortion or dropouts.
There are no supplements of any kind on this Blu-ray disc. The main menu only offers options for Play and Subtitles.
Nightmare Cinema may provide some good pre-Halloween viewing for fans, though it's no modern classic. It seems possible that the film's creative staff are attempting to develop a new anthology franchise with the character of The Projectionist, but they might want to up the ante with regard to the "films" this character shows to really make this a going enterprise. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.
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