Directed by Joseph Sargent in 1983, Nightmares began life as a television project but it was then cut together into a four story anthology film and given a theatrical release when the producers at Universal felt that the content was too extreme for the TV audience of the day. By today's standards, particularly when you factor in how strong some of the content showing on cable is, most of this seems pretty tame but there's still a lot of fun to be had with this movie. As anthology films made a bit of a comeback in the eighties, this probably made sound financial sense to the backers.

The first of the four stories is Terror In Topanga and it tells the tale of a woman named Lisa (Cristina Raines) who really does love few things more in life than smoking cigarettes! When she runs out and gets a late night craving for some coffin nails, she heads out into the darkness to get her fix only to be stalked by an insane serial killer who has escaped from a nearby mental hospital named William Henry Glazier (played by FEAR's Lee Ving, credited as Lee James Jude). This isn't the most original story in the bunch and the ‘twist' that comes at the end is a bit too easy to see but it's well paced and who in their right mind wouldn't want to watch Lee Ving play an escaped lunatic? William Sanderson pops up in this one too, playing a gas station attendant.

Our second story is The Bishop Of Battle and here a man named J.J. Cooney (Emilio Estevez) whittles away as much time as he can playing video games. Really, this guy more or less lives at the local arcade and he wouldn't have it any other way. His pal Zock (Billy Jacoby) isn't much better. J.J.'s mission in life is to finish the final level of his favorite new game, Battle, but when the arcade closes for the night, he's denied. That is, until he decides to break in after-hours… when the game seems a bit different than it was during the day. This one is a lot of fun. While it's very much a product of the early eighties and therefore probably more appealing to those who grew up during the boom years of the video arcade phenomena, it's plenty entertaining and one of the more effects heavy entries in the film.

Story number three is titled Benediction and it introduces us to a priest named Macleod (Lance Henrikson) who wrestles not only with his faith, but with demon alcohol as well. To get his head screwed back on right, he decides he's going to go for a nice, relaxing drive through the middle of nowhere, which seems like a great idea until he runs afoul of a mysterious black pickup truck that seems determined to drive him off the road and to his death! This one is basically a rehash of Duel but when you put Lance Henrikson in something, it's always worth watching. He plays our world weary priest rather well. There's some good action and suspense in here which helps to make up for the film's most ridiculous moment (we won't spoil it) and a fairly derivative plot.

The fourth and final story in the film is The Night Of The Rat and it revolves around a married couple comprised of Steven (Richard Masur) and Claire Houston (Veronica Cartwright). They live together in the family home where Claire is sure she can hear rodents running around. Steven, however, is not at all convinced that they have a problem with rodents. Of course, one of them is wrong and it's not Claire. Borrowing elements from Of Unknown Origin and Food Of The Gods this is an enjoyable, if fairly ridiculous, giant killer rat movie. Cartwright and Masur are fun to watch here but the effects haven't aged so well.

Nowhere near as solid as eighties anthology classics Tales From The Darkside or Creepshow, Nightmares is entertaining enough in its own right. Each story moves briskly enough that the movie is easy to watch and there production values are decent here. Some fun cast members appear in each of the four parts and while the TV origins of the material seem evident in that this one never really ‘goes for it' the way the aforementioned horror pictures do, this is worth a watch for fans of eighties horror.

Video:

Shout! Factory gives you the option to watch the film either in 1.78.1 widescreen or 1.33.1 fullframe, both transfers in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. The fullframe version definitely shows a lot of extra headroom while the 1.78.1 option provides better compositions. Image quality is pretty solid here, colors are reproduced nicely and there's a pretty good level of detail present in the picture. Black levels are decent, skin tones look pretty lifelike and the image is free of any noise reduction or compression problems. The picture is also quite clean, there isn't much in the way of print damage to note.