This
faded movie palace looks ominous, yet it will still bring on waves of nostalgia
for many viewers. It is a place of nightmares, but at least it is aesthetically
appealing. On the other hand, hospitals and medical offices turn out to be
nearly as deadly, but they are totally lacking in style points when they factor
in three of the five macabre tales that make up Nightmare Cinema, a new
horror anthology film overseen by Mick Garris, who helmed the wrap around
segments and the final constituent story.
When
people wander into the Rialto, the creepy projectionist shows them a film of their
ultimate personal nightmare—and then kills them, or maybe leaves them in some
sort of nether-limbo. The first tale, “The Thing in the Woods,” is a wild ride
involving a slasher dubbed “The Welder,” due to his mask and torch, who soon gives
way to a swarm of rampaging alien spiders. Director Alejandro Brugues plays it
all for bloody, gory, over-the-top laughs and succeeds on his own meathead
terms.
Surprisingly,
Joe Dante’s “Mirari” is the weakest of the bunch, even though it stars
Richard Chamberlain as the titular plastic surgeon. Dante’s foray feels like a derivative
riff on the original Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder,” especially
since it was written by Richard Christian Matheson (even though the classic
teleplay was penned by Serling rather than his father). Still, Chamberlain
chews the scenery with admirable glee.
Ryuhei
Kitamura’s “Mashit” is similar in spirit to “The Thing in the Woods,” with
restraint and good taste getting thrown to the wind in favor of nutty visuals
and escalating chaos. It starts as a rather dark and moody yarn regarding
demonic possession in a Catholic school but it builds to the spectacle of the
morally compromised headmaster priest hacking and slashing throngs of possessed
kids. That really is the whole point of it all, so there is no point in
protesting its typical anti-Catholic biases.
David
Slade’s “This Way to Egress” is easily the best, most stylish, original, and
unsettling entry of the bunch, by far. A disturbed mother is stuck in a Kafkaesque
doctor’s waiting room, growing increasingly concerned by her young sons’
erratic behavior, the rather inhuman look of the receptionist, and the apparent
dirtiness of the environment. Something is definitely off, so she has started
to fear for her sanity. She probably is going crazy, but the truth of her
situation is considerably more desperate.
Slade
engages in some remarkably economical world-building during the course of “Egress,”
taking the audience someplace very strange and basically twisting our minds. It
would make sense to end with it as the grand crescendo, but there are reasons
why Garris’s “Dead” still fits best at the end. Riley is a piano prodigy who
sees his parents murdered before him—and then he starts seeing dead people, like
the kid in The Sixth Sense. Naturally, there are plenty of dead people
to see in the hospital, where he is recuperating, but the dangers he faces are
very human. Faly Rakotohanana is believable and engaging as Riley, but Lexy
Panterra really steals all her scenes as Casey, a slightly older girl in his
ward, who also has the “shine.”
