Nightwish

Year: 1989

Director: Bruce R. Cook

Written by: Bruce R. Cook

Threat: Demon

Weapon of Choice: Hallucination

Based upon: Original

IMDb page: IMDb link

      Nightwish

Other movies in this series:
None

The tyranist's thoughts
Every once in a while, in the course of watching horror movies, we stumble onto good but inexplicable movies like this one. Wait, that makes it sound like I liked the movie, which I didn't, mostly. What I think I'm trying to say is that while the ideas and acting and fundamental concept behind this movie are all sound, the end product is confusing and poorly strung together.
A bunch of grad students are participating in dream research for a professor of parapsychology, in the course of their work they all head out to an abandoned house that sits on top of a mine for a closer look at the being that inhabits it. Well, mayhem insuse, with people dying and aliens and demons and whatever else the filmmakeers could get out of KNB.
On that topic, I have to say that the KNB effects were actually pretty good, especially the little parasite things. That is really the only clear memory I have of the movie though, since it winds its way through half a dozen different little sub-genres and never really makes up its mind about what it wants to be. Even when the end rolls around, things still aren't really resolved.
Skip this one. It just isn't worth the effort. You could probably get about the same effect by watching TV and changing the station to something new about every five minutes.

Total Skulls: 20

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS skull
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex skull
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location skull
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise skull
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door skull
Camera is the killer skull
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls skull
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start skull
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence skullskull
Hallucination/Vision skullskull
No one believes only witness skull
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead skull
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim skull
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood hits camera
Poor death effect
Excessive gore skull
No one dies at all skull
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending skullskull
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell? skull