the audience applauded

best movie i've ever seen.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

First of all, a quick message to the crew of the movie. When you go onto a site like IMDb, where people can click on the user-name you made up in two seconds by mashing on the keyboard to make up good reviews for your own movie, it is a good idea to maybe review some other titles first? Just so you don't, you know, look like you are shamelessly self-promoting. Because that makes you look like a scab.Anyway, I digress.Our hero of the story, a film student who is celebrating his latest well-received project, goes to a party and meets a girl. Within about an hour of meeting the girl, the two bump ugly for most of the night. Waking up the next morning, they find a mysterious camcorder. And on the camcorder is what appears to be the two of them committing a murder. Rather than do the logical thing and either turn it in to the police or destroy it, our hero decides to use not just the concept, but the camera its self for his latest script.Now. This is the best way I can describe the movie: naked. This movie is very naked. Softcore porn naked. In fact, this movie could pretty much be described as such with a violent bent. Nearly every character in the movie struts about naked, with most of the primaries including the two protagonists strutting about in their birthday suits for at least a quarter of the movie, in many scenes to where it becomes farcical. In one instance, the main character goes out into a hallway and strikes up a conversation with another character in the buff for no apparent reason.But then again, a lot of things in this movie seem to happen for no apparent reason. Once you get past the point where they discover the camera and tape, the film begins to get shaky. And by the middle of the film, the plot completely derails. Where the main characters are and what their motivations are become fuzzier and fuzzier. And that is if they make it to the end of the movie without completely vanishing. Character development, save their development towards an inevitable nude scene is practically non-existent. And where it does exist, it goes off into irrelevant tangents and confused "twists". Ultimately, little if anything gets resolved. Even the initial plot starter--the mysterious tape--is never explained or largely even touched upon.Another core aspect of the movie is the violence. Just as prevalent as the nudity and often accompanying it are violent scenes that are literally senseless. This is not at all enhanced by poor effects that often seem better suited for some D-grade slasher or monster movie. It contributes nothing to the plot and is clearly made only to shock and disturb.Nightmare is, in summation a pretentious and cheap shlock film. It almost seems as if it were written and directed by a pubescent pre-teen, claiming some shaky premise of artistic merit and using his time behind the camera to get as much fake blood and as many people naked on-screen as possible. If you want to watch a movie in the style this attempts, go watch Jacobs Ladder. It is in far, far better taste.

I rented this film because the blurb said it was a 'thinking man's horror film.' It is neither, definitely no thinking was involved in making this piece of drek, and it's certainly not a horror film. I am writing this to warn any possible renters away from this awful excuse for a film project. I can only believe that the positive reviews here are from people who helped make it. I checked the spoiler alert but there's nothing to spoil: the movie doesn't make any sense. It is stupid in the extreme. The only spoiler I can think of: don't see this movie, it will ruin your day! Okay. A guy and a girl wake up in a room with a video camera parked at the foot of their bed which wasn't there the night before. They play the video in the camera and it looks like something shot by a chimpanzee--you see flashes of naked bodies and fake blood but it's all too jerky and blurry to make out anything. Maybe you can see flashes of faces and two of them might be the very guy and girl who are viewing the tape. Though the film in the camera is blurry and jerky we are meant to see that it shows the guy and the girl killing a nude woman or two. Did the two of them murder someone during the night and they can't remember it? There are no clues in the room, no blood or weapons anywhere. The experience is strange and disturbing but they don't tell anyone about it. Now get this: the guy is a student film maker and the mysterious camera at the foot of the bed that morning inspires him to come up with a brilliant idea for his film project-- he'll make a movie about a guy who wakes up with his girlfriend from a night of sex and finds a video camera pointed at the bed and so they view the tape...and of course the film class (full of total nerds and halfwits) thinks that's a wonderful idea for a movie. So the guy goes around finding some people who are willing to pose naked in a sort of soft- core gore romp with a lot of fake blood. Lucky filmmaker, he gets to work with naked girls! The fact that none of them can act doesn't matter because nothing else matters in this sorry excuse for a story. But the actor who plays the filmmaker guy plays him as a brain-dead zombie most of the time who has no idea what to do from one moment to the next. But maybe he's not acting, maybe that's how he really is. Certainly it never occurs to him to call the police.I could go on, but you get the point. Not really a spoiler alert but a DUMB alert.

What a relief to see that smart movies still exist ! Dylan Bank plays with everyone including himself with a great story about reality and fiction. a great mix full of humor where the only nightmare was the fear to have a trivial ending. But no ! The director doesn't hesitate to put the pressure on his shoulder, using directly his cast to destroy all possibilities of an easy ending. one of the best movies I've seen during the Brussels fantasy Film Festival, for sure: I was so tired of those linear plots, where you can anticipate every move, so exhausted to see exactly the same thing with different actors, that I finally woke up from this awful nightmare with your beautiful independent movie ! And, Dylan, come grab a beer whenever you want at the castle ! John (the beard man)

Oh boy, here we have another over-ambitious young filmmaker who single-handedly intends to restore everything that's wrong with nowadays horror cinema…Pardon my cynicism but we all heard this before and – usually – these youngsters fail to live up to their own expectations. For his debut film, videostore clerk turned director Dylan Bank comes up with a psychedelic but immensely confusing story about a film student who makes a movie about his own nightmare that miraculously appear to be taped on camera every morning when he wakes up. The idea is admirable and the film does feature a handful of nice touches, but Dylan Bank never really seems to realize that his visions and interpretations on horror AREN'T groundbreaking or even that shocking. This type of 'mental assault'-cinema is the territory of genius directors like David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Shinya Tsukamoto, only their films are more fascinating and truly a lot more disturbing! The story material has potential but "Nightmare" lacks involvement and commitment with the characters whereas, with Lynch, you pretty much feel like you're inside the protagonists' heads and you fear what they fear! The film often just exists of blurry and roughly edited images that make no sense or add nothing to the basic premise at all, but Bank uses them (as padding?) anyway. New characters and locations are introduced randomly and they simply disappear again without any form of coherence. Also, for being a new type of horror film, "Nightmare" doesn't contain much atmosphere, scary moments or even violent images. There's quite a lot of nudity (the non-artistic kind), the acting performances are acceptable and the use of uncanny music is very good. Worth a look if you're in an experimental mood once.