Nightwish (1989) User Reviews (35)

Enjoyable if somewhat flawed supernatural thriller

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 6/10 · 18 July 2014]

Journeying to a house in the countryside, a group of parapsychology students and their professor find the area's past as a home for demonic entities has been unleashed and causing them to wonder if what they see is really there.

This here is a rather enjoyable and somewhat entertaining effort that has some rather impressive moments but still has some minor flaws present. Among the good parts is the fact that the film clearly has a lot of ideas present about what it really wants to be, and that manifests itself in a really chaotic framework here with all sorts of creepy things going on. From the drive out into the hillside with a decrepit, run-down house that really should not be visited by anyone, the creepy procedures that must be followed before the séance scenes, all sorts of rather freaky scenes being utilized before getting into the twist involving the real reason they're there and the ensuing reactions they have because of this, which really drives this one all over the place but really remains quite level-headed about itself. There's never any real sense about this being too confusing or obscure in what it does to really hinder it all that much during these scenes by keeping the story lines going rather well, never really putting itself in place to become too confusing since the streamlined second-half keep their actions on target with how the rest of the movie has been going along, and this in turn forces the stories into pretty entertaining versions. By doing these different stories, it also brings about the enjoyable manners of forcing them into the story, so there's all sorts of rather creepy hallucinations and different settings about this being utilized for maximum effect, including the scenes down in the underground tunnels and the whole final half being a fine action-packed race to keep things on track as this heads into a rather inventive twist that really sells this quite well. However, there's still a few problems with this one in the fact that, despite how well it handles things, the film never really can settle on what it really wants to be because it has so many different elements wrapped inside it. Being a film about a creepy old house that was used to summon satanic demons first, then it turns into a demented captor forcing his students to do what he pleases and then finally an alien pod story that gets shoehorned into the film in an attempt to showcase a few nasty special effects scenes and then tries to make all these story lines make sense and it does so only through the finale's twist so this can get a little confusing with all the different elements in here. As well, the film does take a while to get going with there being quite a lot of useless time leading up to the house visit and forcing this to take a long time really getting going. Otherwise, this one wasn't all that bad.

Rated R: Language and Graphic Violence.

Beefcake Dean for President!

[Coventry · 5/10 · 28 September 2019]

Stupid as it may sound, I still think the best sequence of "Nightwish" plays rather early at the beginning, when this excessively muscled but dim-witted idiot named Dean deliberately drives over a cute little bunny rabbit with his ramshackle van. The other passengers are shocked and upset, but Dean just laughs hysterically and speaks the immortal words: "The fields is his, the highways is mine". Dean, played by Brian Thompson who previously demonstrated his acting talents in the Stallone vehicle "Cobra", isn't even one of the lead characters in "Nightwish", but he most definitely steals the show! There's more random footage of him sitting at the wheel of his beloved van and laughing out loud for no particular reason, or him toying around with the mentally disabled caretaker Wendall. "Nightwish" is a pretty ambitious and convoluted scientific/supernatural thriller, with decent performances and solid peaks of tension, but the only thing I'm most likely to remember is a beefcake in his minivan. It's sad, really...

For the record, "Nightwish" truly is a more than adequate late 80s genre effort, and I can certainly understand why the film has a fair share of loyal admirers. In terms of atmosphere, structure and script aspirations, it's somewhat comparable to David Cronenberg or perhaps some of John Carpenter's more complex movies (like "Prince of Darkness" or "In the Mouth of Madness"). There is a good amount of genuinely uncomfortable moments, explicit gore and overall absorbing weirdness. Jack Starrett is excellent as the obsessive university professor who lures four of his students to a remote mansion with a dubious past, and subsequently manipulates them to dream their own deaths as realistically as possible. The students are confronted with sadist monsters and ghostly hallucinations, but it's their own damn fault for volunteering to partake in extracurricular activities!

The script is ambitious but makes very little sense in the end, and even though the very last shot is surprisingly clever, the film continuously drags towards a predictable and clichéd finale. The two lead actresses, Elizabeth Keitan and Alisha Das, are stunningly beautiful and show a modest (but nevertheless welcome) bit of nudity.

Not Bad

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 25 October 2012]

A professor (Jack Starrett) and four graduate students journey to a crumbling mansion to investigate paranormal activity and must battle ghosts, aliens and satanic entities.

While there is no star in the cast, no famous writer or director or producer, it is worth noting that the special effects are from KNB, probably the best guys in the business. Somebody knew somebody to get those guys on board with this project.

I do like in the opening that the students try to dream of things that terrify them -- such as cannibalism -- and are attempting to project their own death. This plays off the old idea that you cannot die in your dream without dying in real life. Is it true? Maybe, maybe not. But it makes a good background to build off of.

Bonus: When one student screams, "The doctor is an alien!"

night of oddity

[lee_eisenberg · 5 October 2011]

You gotta give "Nightwish" credit for originality. It depicts some college students who go to a cabin for an experiment, and get more than they bargained for. It does have the sorts of thing that one can expect in this sort of movie, but the scene with the tunnels was the really cool part. The professor looked kind of like Christoph Waltz.

I guess that, once you get beyond the whole horror plot, the movie deals with the human subconscious (along with conspiracy theories about aliens). "Nightwish" is mostly your typical horror flick, but does contain some original stuff. It's definitely fun to watch.

So remember what Wendell and Stanley said.

Why?

[WisdomsHammer · 3/10 · 13 November 2018]

It starts with hot girl having a nightmare in a sensory deprivation tank, then goes on a road trip with three stereotypical characters (including Brian Thompson's mouth breathing one) to a farm/cabin in the woods, and ends with members of the group voluntarily letting themselves get tied up and slaughtered in a cellar. Why? The cheesy ending explains all. Or does it?

The overall story was what did me in. I wasn't invested in any of these characters and the ending was so predictable and lackluster that I groaned.

Most of the production wasn't bad, but the CGI was cartoonish. I honestly didn't mind. But don't play the drinking game where you take a shot every time you see the boom mike or you'll kill yourself. It's hilariously in frame way too often.

This one was a little difficult to rate for me, because I kind of liked parts of it, and absolutely hated others. There are a lot of 10 star reviews here and that is WAY too high for this thing! Most people would rate this higher than I did, and might even enjoy it, but I think would tend to agree that it's mediocre fare and not something they'd be anxious to watch again.

Messy Storyline

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 23 June 2022]

A Professor (Jack Starrett) researches with his students Donna (Elizabeth Kaitan), Kim (Alisha Das), Jack (Clayton Rohner) and Bill (Artur Cybulski) their dreams. The blonde Donna has a nightmare with a cannibal, disclosing one of her greatest fears. Then the driver Dean (Brian Thompson) takes the group in his van to an isolated cabin in the mountains to investigate paranormal activities. However, the Professor seems to go haywire and the students are affected by an entity. The Professor's assistant Stanley (Robert Tessier) is a sadistic lunatic and soon the paranoid Kim learns that the entity is an alien actually. What is happening in the cabin?

"Nightwish" is a horror movie with a messy storyline. With due respect, Brian Thompson is the lead actor, indicating the low-budget of this film. But despite the originality, the screenplay if quite non-sense. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Sonhos de Horror" ("Dreams of Horror")

I think my wish at night is better...

[Aaron1375 · 3/10 · 5 February 2023]

It was all a dream! Yup, if you do not see this one coming, you may want to reevaluate yourself at this point as they literally telegraph it from the get go. Not a fan of this concept, even here where it is warranted due to the big smack in the face they give you right at the beginning of the film. Had good gore in spots and it was somewhat interesting in places, but overall, it is just weakened by the lack of focus on what they wanted this thing to be. I have several dreams I can recall in great detail and none of them ever have portions where I am watching someone else do something and I am not there...

The story, a professor is conducting experiments. Not sure what, but it involves recording dreams and more specifically a person's death in dreams. Then it shifts to the group going to this house in a van with a super buff Matt Damon lookalike. They have come to this house to try and make demonic contact and something about aliens and the fact it has very little with dreams is also a big hint this is going to end in a wake up scene. Some craziness ensues and we get an alien scene out of nowhere and this and that, but what does any of it matter, nothing but a dream...

So, some good visuals in here, but a wasted premise. Perhaps had they simply jumped into the action at the house starting with the drive up and skip the intro scene that shows us they are working with dreams and it may have been a surprise. Or at least incorporate the dream research as a reason they are up at the house, it is so apparent this film is happening in the brunette's mind the entire time!

So not a fan overall; however, it was interesting to watch. Kept hoping for something, anything to happen that would be different from what I was expecting to, but to no avail. The characters are all awful and it is a shame that they were not killed by something in the end, honestly. So be prepared for the most obviously it is all a dream ever put to film!

Did I dream this one? No.

[lost-in-limbo · 7/10 · 26 September 2008]

That was totally screwed-up!? What this junky cheaply made b-grade production covers ranges from the premise looking into subconscious dreams, paranormal activity and Extra-Terrestrial involvement. Oh man everything (done in a very uncertain tone) but the kitchen sink in chucked into this one! The concept is original and strange, but it never truly comes together leaving the continuity being a complete jumble of unrealized ideas and far-fetched twists. It's illogically questionable, but maybe it's supposed to be so due to the bewilderingly tricksy context and one of those twisted endings. Love or hate it. But I found it rather effective.

How to give an outline of the story without revealing too much. Tough one. But here goes. A couple of grad students along with their professor head to an abandoned cabin to record and study some paranormal/otherworldly disturbances that plague the area. Not too long the indescribable occurrences begin to take its toll on the group.

It's silly, wild and campy (just look at those gooey, rubbery make-up FX and colourful optical special effects). Even then a dread-like atmosphere smothers proceedings and the growing paranoia is exceptionally pitched, as it's so hard to tell what's real or just hallucinations due to the genuine nature. As each others fears are conjured up. Trying to unsettle and overcome their senses. Amongst the sequences are some gruesomely icky deaths and titillatingly erotic inclusions.

Writer/director Bruce R. Cook erratically puts it together with some professional tinge and inserts few unusual imagery and experimental lighting composition, but at times it did drag. All talk (mainly uncanny babbling), little headway up until the last half-hour. The elastic script has some witty pitch black humour abound, but also random scientific theories. The off-kilter score is vibrantly rich and served up is a credible theme song of the same title.

There's a curious cast on hand. Straight performances between quirky ones. Jack Starret is deliciously malevolent and glassy (like out of some sort of mad scientist) as the professor with a hidden agenda. The beautifully magnetic leads Alisha Das and Elizabeth Kaitan are soundly good. Robert Tessier is enjoyable, but it's a testosterone imposing Brain Thompson ("the highway is mine!") that's a complete blast.

A fascinatingly nightmarish head trip in to the weird, which doesn't pull out any stops.

This was boring...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 20 October 2019]

Granted, I had little to no expectations of being in for anything grand here when I sat down to watch "Nightwish" here late in 2019. Actually, I hadn't even heard about the movie before now.

The only reasons why I did sit down to watch it was because I hadn't seen it before, and also because Brian Thompson was in it. Yeah, yeah, well I am not a fan of his, but this is Brian Thompson after all - say what you like.

The 1989 movie "Nightwish" from writer and director Bruce R. Cook wasn't anything extraordinary. Actually it was quite the opposite, because it was bland and downright boring. I managed to endure an hour of the ordeal before I gave up. By then I had simply lost all interest in the movie and the pointless storyline and the random happenings of events that made little sense.

And to top it off, then Brian Thompson wasn't really in the movie all that much. Perhaps if he was, then I would have endured the last 30 minutes that I will never be returning to watch, simply because I have no interest in the movie's script or storyline whatsoever.

This is a boring movie, and I don't even think that back in 1989 that this movie was anything grand. I mean, just look at a movie such as "Poltergeist" which predates this movie and is light years ahead in terms of entertainment value and special effects.

I am rating "Nightwish" three out of ten stars, solely because there is a good production value to the movie, and it wasn't a full-blown low budget movie, they did manage some good things after all. However, hardly a movie that is worth the time or effort to sit down and watch actually, as there are far better movies readily available.

Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 16 February 2020]

"Nightwish" is an interesting mishmash of a movie. Part supernatural horror, part sci-fi / horror, and part backwoods horror, all assembled into a muddled but interesting whole. Written & directed by Bruce R. Cook, it's nothing if not amusing, and this viewer thinks that it does succeed in creating atmosphere and a sense of weirdness. It's highly likely that Cook intended to smooth over any gaps / flaws in his narrative with that standard "it's all supposed to take on the tones of a nightmare" approach. All in all, it's a respectable, fun, but not great attempt to play in the sandbox created by Wes Craven a few years previous.

The parapsychology students of a reckless professor (actor / film director Jack Starrett, whom you'll know as Gabby in "Blazing Saddles" and the vicious Deputy Galt in "First Blood") head for the California wilderness. There they intend to explore / exploit the spook house value of a residence with a history. As the story plays out, the character of Kim (Alisha Das, "Firepower") thinks that she has everything figured out. But will she, or ANYBODY, survive to tell the tale?

Aided by a shuddery score by Mark Ryder & Phil Davies, as well as the guaranteed-to-gross-you-out gore effects by the KNB guys, "Nightwish" is pretty entertaining for the 80s horror-loving crowd. The cast - Elizabeth Kaitan ("Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2"), Clayton Rohner ("I, Madman"), Artur Cybulski ("The Hunt for Red October"), Brian Thompson ("Cobra"), Robert Tessier ("The Longest Yard"), Tom Dugan ("Hellraiser: Bloodline") - is entertaining to watch, although Starrett's ill health is apparent. He would die a year after filming, but before the movie saw a release.

Cook begins right away with unreality, with his Dutch angles adding to the dreamlike quality of the opening sequence. He takes us on a pretty strange trip; while the movie isn't altogether successful, it at least stands out in a decade full of slashers.

Seven out of 10.

Boring and confusing mess

[The_Void · 5/10 · 4 May 2009]

Nightwish is an obscure eighties horror effort; and I'm not surprised it never hit the mainstream; there's a hell of a lot of ideas in this film, and really that's the problem; it just bites off far more than it can chew and tries to do too much - the result is just a big gory mess. The plot would appear to take some influence from A Nightmare on Elm Street at first glance; but with all the additional nonsense that gets added in, by the end of it I wasn't really sure exactly where writer-director Bruce R. Cook got his inspiration from. Anyway, the plot focuses on a group of people researching dreams. They go to an old mansion where, allegedly, there have been some paranormal goings-on. It's not long after arriving at the house that the group finds that there are indeed some evil forces at work and pretty soon members of the group are being possessed, while others are hallucinating and nobody is really sure what is reality and what is just their imagination. I wasn't sure either because it's all so confusing!

First of all, I've got to give this film some credit for the atmosphere; 'the old house' is a popular location because it brings with it a certain malevolence; and the director really capitalises on that well. Unfortunately, he doesn't match this with his plot and special effects. The special effects are a rather mixed bunch; some of it quite gory and realistic, while at other times the effects are ridiculous and look like something you'd find on a Saturday morning kids show. Once we actually get to the house, the plot rather just goes out of the window and instead we focus on the basic premise; which just involves the characters hallucinating and stuff. I really can't say any of this stuff is interesting and the only really well done sequence that occurs during the main bulk of the movie is a part that sees some of the main characters tortured. I started to care less and less about the film the further it went on and was so bored by the end that I really didn't care about the awful conclusion. Overall, Nightwish could have been decent; but due to poor handling it isn't.

General praise for an unexpectedly fine movie

[Patguy · 8/10 · 16 October 1998]

A strange and unnerving film, Nightwish moves among horror movie conventions the way The Player moves among genres. Never quite comprehensible, the movie follows its own associative logic while pretending to become, at various times, an alien invasion film, a mad scientist film, a ghost story, a beast-from--beyond-perhaps-it's-Satan-himself movie, and uncountable others. The acting is quirkily good, the writing witty, and the off-balance nature of the scenes allow the film to move between eeriness, gross-out horror, humor and an even odder element of eroticism--the latter supplied mostly by the lovely Alisha Das, whose character at times seems to treat the proceedings like an especially elaborate session of unnatural foreplay.

A scientific look at dreams, spooky haunted house tale or sci-fi encounter with aliens?

[Wuchakk · 6/10 · 28 December 2022]

A professor (Jack Starrett) and a few graduate students (Elizabeth Kaitan, Clayton Rohner and Alisha Das) travel to a dilapidated mining house on top of a mountain north of Los Angeles to conduct paranormal research. When weird, threatening things start happening, will they make it back alive? Brian Thompson is on hand as a macho guy.

"Nightwish" (1989) combines the cabin-in-the-woods plot with haunted house flicks and the 'look' of "Re-Animator" (1985), which is understandable since art director Robert A. Burns worked on both films, as well as "Tourist Trap" (1979) and the revered "The Howling" (1981).

Elizabeth Kaitan is easy on the eyes in the female department. You might remember her from "Necromancer" and "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood," both released the previous year.

With the exploration of subconscious dreaming, the creepy ghost angle and the possibility of mysterious extraterrestrials, this movie is all over the place. Yet it has some surprisingly well-done bits and is entertaining enough if you like any of the flicks noted. "Pumpkinhead" (1988) is another reference point as far as milieu and tone are concerned.

The film runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot at Zorthian Ranch in the hills north of Pasadena while the interiors were shot on sets built in a warehouse in Los Angeles.

GRADE: B-

Worst movie ever

[mrcool1122 · 1/10 · 20 December 2002]

I have seen many a horror flick in my time, all of them absurdly bad, but none reach the depths that this piece of trash lowers itself to. This movie made me angrier and angrier as I watched it as I tried to wrap my head around exactly what this movie was about. Now, after I've seen it, I understand - sort of - what was going on and why, but the movie itself is just too confusing to be enjoyable when you're watching it. Yes, there are the customary scenes of gratuitious violence, one-liners that show the mind-blowing insightfulness of its characters ("The highway belongs to me...ME!"), and enough nudity to sufficiently distract us from the "plot", but still you'll leave this movie feeling alone and taken advantage of, like a puppy who isn't wanted anymore and is left in a box by the side of the road. Blech.

edgy horror movie. Interesting ending.

[estroh · 20 October 2004]

This is a unique one. I really enjoyed the twisted ending even though most

other reviewers did not. Alisha Das is the highlight of this movie, along with the two villains. I'm surprised no one mentioned the awesome bondage scene

where all the students, including Alisha, are handcuffed for a long time. One of the best scenes of its type. There are a lot of twists and turns and , yes, it is a low budget flick, but even after seeing this movie a number of times I'm not exactly sure what the director had in mind EXACTLY as to what happened in the end. I've seen much worse. Give it a try.

Waste of time

[mmooney418 · 1/10 · 22 January 2020]

I blame myself really not seeing that ending coming a mile away. Unfortunately that ending is what ruins the entire movie and wasted my time. It did maintain an air of suspense and dread with some OK effects for the time. Brian Thompson is cool in it if not a bit of a caricature of the male tough guy. He went on to be a part of the X-files TV series and played Shao Kahn in the movie version of MKII. The two lead ladies aren't the typical final girls or damsels in distress. They both are proactive in their attempts to escape the ongoing situation that takes up most of the run time. The two male students are kind of wimps. I recognize the one from Just One of the Guys and the other seemed familiar but couldn't place him at the time. Their professor or doctor or whatever takes the primary antagonist spot along with two Igor like henchmen. One is a slow witted gate keeper the other a brute who is a patient of the doctor. I rated this movie so poorly due to the telegraphed ending and the trope attached to it. Otherwise I'd have given it a 5 or 6 so it might be worth checking out. I'm finding a lot of these obscure 80s horror movies on the various streaming services. Some are better than others...

Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Film

[NoDakTatum · 4/10 · 29 October 2023]

Bruce R. Cook loads this small horror film with everything but the kitchen sink, and loses the viewer in the process. An unnamed professor (Jack Starrett) puts his graduate parapsychology students through the paces, able to record their dreams onto video while searching for someone to foresee their own deaths. The students are assigned to a problematic house in the California wilderness. The crumbling house is on a fault line, there was a murder, mutant animals roam around the grounds, and aliens may be involved. Jack (Clayton Rohner), Donna (Elizabeth Kaitan), and Kim (Alisha Das) are driven by obnoxious Dean (the always entertaining Brian Thompson) to the house, where the professor, and bitter Bill (Artur Cybulski), await. The group gets in after learning of the mysterious groundskeeper Wendell (Tom Dugan). The students set about with their monitors and thermometers, and hold an impromptu seance that produces a green snake-like entity. It turns out the seance was rigged, but the entity was real. The professor goes a little nuts, shackling his students and calling up the entity again. Bill gets stabbed in the process, and suddenly the professor calls up his henchman Stanley (Robert Tessier) to hold the now very reluctant students to their assignments. As the students pretend to work, and try to escape, Dean returns, and Kim finds an alien breeding ground in an abandoned mine. The gory climax is a letdown, on par with the rest of the film.

Cook is certainly a competent director. He has some nice shots, and Dean's fate is inspired. KNB EFX does some great gore effects, but the weak animated entity effects are lousy. Also, Cook's script is too much. You got aliens, ghosts, satanic entities, a nutty professor, dimwitted henchmen, bunny murder, and an annoying green light that indicates "scary." There is never a focus on a heroic main character, either, as Cook jumps from Jack to Donna to Kim without giving the audience a chance to breathe. The screenplay should have been shorn of at least three or four characters, and a couple of subplots. Instead, while there is so much going on here, I was never distracted from a completely predictable climax that I knew was coming since the first two scenes of the film. With a couple of scary gore effects and Brian Thompson, Cook's film is not a complete failure. Trimming some of the fat would have made a leaner, meaner "Nightwish."

A disgrace to bad movies

[danieljmcewen · 1/10 · 4 January 2021]

I'm trying to think about what could have been good in this movie. It's not a case of "it's so bad it's good". It's just mad.

The acting was atrocious. The professor behaved like a villain pretty much from the start. The students aren't especially intelligent. Not necessarily needed for participation in an experiment so that's not the worst thing.

Too many variables in play. Per the description there were ghosts, aliens and satanic entities. Hard to focus on what elements are at play at any given time.

I have no problem with horror movies being campy. My problem here is that it wasn't fun to watch. I found it boring. I stuck through to the end but I regret it. The ending didn't leave me satisfied.

Crazy, twisted mess

[dworldeater · 6/10 · 12 October 2022]

Nightwish is an ambitious horror flick that can be described as John Carpenter's Prince Of Darkness on crack. Nightwish is much lower budgeted and cheesy affair that goes way off the tracks and fails to make much sense. All in the name of science, an experiment goes deep in the subconscious to show a full range of fears and horrors. Throwing everything but the kitchen sink in there, demonic stuff, aliens, it's all good in Nightwish. This has Brian Thompson from Cobra in a smaller, but memorable role and the guy who played Rick in Just One Of The Guys. Nightwish is creepy, gory and very cheesy 80's horror that is has a incoherent plot, a decent score, gooey special f/x and occasional boobage to shake a stick at. The acting is pretty over the top as well. So, if you get lost and wonder WTF is going on , don't worry there is enough to entertain you until the movie ends. Nightwish is far from a great movie, but at least the people who made this clearly tried.

I think I get it.

[twonebody · 5/10 · 11 December 2020]

The movie starts one way and then goes all over the place but I think it makes sense because if you can control your fear you can control your dream. At least that's what the professor and his students are trying to do.

The Inception of 80's horror?

[selfdestructo · 7/10 · 7 May 2022]

Nah, it ain't that smart. But I did find this bizarre relic (which could only have come out of the 1980's) to be real entertaining. Definitely jumps on the Nightmare On Elm Street bandwagon, but I would say Nightwish was even slimier! I'm probably not giving the movie enough credit, because it does present an interesting take on all this, where students are subjected to fear and death studies by a mad doctor via a sensory deprivation tank. It gets a little incoherent, but hey, anything can happen in a dream state! Some real characters in this (plus the obligatory foxy ladies).

There's only one twist this movie is going to end with, and they give it to you, so you will either laugh or groan (I don't think being surprised is in the cards). Then they do the same twist on top of that one! Yeah, if you enjoy cheesy horror straight from the 80's, this is a pretty fun evening at home.

Nightwish plunges the viewer into a nightmare world.

[paulclaassen · 5/10 · 20 September 2022]

Simply from the opening scene, I knew there was going to be a twist to the movie at the end, and I was right. Only, it was a rather interesting twist, twist.

'Nightwish' is the stuff nightmares are made of - literally in this case, and it was quite wonderful, actually. Four students - who are part of a dream experiment - and their somewhat mysterious Professor - simply known as Professor - go to a secluded, dilapidated mansion to conduct séances in the hopes of conjuring the psychic entity within the building.

Off course, things go horribly wrong, but not nearly in a predictable, clichéd manner we've become accustomed to in 80s horrors. The film is pretty unpredictable and some of the characters indeed go through agony and terrible, nightmarish incidents. The practical effects are gross, but exceptionally well done - typical of 80s horror movies, well before CGI took over.

The performances nor the dialogue are not the greatest, but I thought Brian Thompson did a great job, in a small role. Another actor in a small role who did a very good job, was Robert Tessier as Stanley. Stanley is a somewhat intellectually challenged man who assists Professor, but he has a devious and twisted mind.

The film plunges the viewer smack bang into a nightmare world and these dream-like sequences were very well done. I also liked the setting in the house, which was built on top of an old mine, with the mine now serving as the house's basement.

As mentioned, there's an interesting twist. But wait, there's more still...

Truly unique

[blindganger · 10/10 · 25 May 2003]

One of the most under rated campy films of the 80's. This film obviously influenced many episodes of X Files. Especially considering Carter cast two lead actors from the movie in the X Files.

The video is grainy and washed out. The laser disc is a tiny bit better (but still full frame). If a nice transfer comes out on dvd I am sure it will age with grace. One of the best paranoia films of all time. You really don't know what's going to happen one minute to the next.

Give it a try!

A Warp Back to the 80s

[Tweetienator · 5/10 · 11 November 2022]

I did watch Nightwish a couple of days ago, and I believe for the first time, at least nothing did stir up something in my memory system. Anyway, this little flick is a decent cheesy horror B-movie effort still on full 80s mode, spiced up with a little hunch of gore here and there, some twist in the end (which may be pleasing or displeasing to some), and some nudity here and there. The story is okay, some experiments with dreaming and so on that lead to other revelations, which I did not coming but did also not enlighten my heart and soul. I read some reviews on Imdb and I can't agree with those overpraising Nightwish nor those whose verdict indicates that Nightwish may be worth a place in the Hall of Fame of the Worst Movies Ever Created By Mankind. My opinion: good enough to kill some sparetime, at least if you still like to watch horror movies 80s style from time to time.

One of the Most Original Movies

[CMRKeyboadist · 10/10 · 13 January 2006]

When you think of a bizarre movie usually titles like "Videodrome" or "Lost Highway" will pop up in your head. This movie goes right up there as a weird one. This movie is so bizarre that you can watch it over and over and still not fully understand what's happening.

A group of college students and their professor head out to an old abandoned mansion in an area that has been haunted for years. Also, there is talk of alien lifeforms. There reason for going to the house is to invoke whatever supernatural lifeforms they can. This all becomes someones worst nightmare very quickly.

I really loved this movie and find myself watching it over and over again. I also really wanted to give this movie a 10 out of 10 but the acting is just atrocious at times except for Brian Thompson as Dean and Robert Tessier. The special effects in this movie are well done also mixing up gore and just bizarre imagery. This movie literally feels like a nightmare. People tend to complain about the continuity of the movie but the director wanted to have continuity problems because the movie is suppose to play off like a dream.

Anyway, a great movie and highly recommend to anyone looking for something different (really different). 9/10 stars