Twisted Nightmare (1987)

Pretty Good

Powerful

Disappointment for a huge fan!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Some old school friends each win a free weekend at Camp Paradise, the place where they all used to go on vacation together when they were younger. While there, a superhuman, growling man-beast bumps them off one-by-one (except for the couple making love outside… he kills both of them at the same time).On the slasher horror checklist, this one ticks all the boxes and then some: you got a group of horny teenagers in a remote woodland retreat, multiple kills, lots of gratuitous female nudity (all the girls gets their clothes off at some point), mullets, an old man who warns the kids "you're all going to die!, a flashback scene, an Indian burial ground and an ancient curse.So why the low rating? Well, there is not one ounce of originality in the whole thing, the kills occur mostly off-screen and are relatively gore-less (the kid having his arm torn off and the cop losing his head being the notable exceptions), the acting is atrocious (the OAP sheriff winning my award for worst performance), and a lot of the action is way too dark (except for some of the night-time woodland scenes which are back-lit with a 10000w blue lamp that can be seen from outer space).At the end, it should come as no surprise to anyone as to who has been behind the killings.3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for the party scene, which sees our happy campers making merry to some of the worst music imaginable. Those wild and crazy kids.

Strictly speaking in terms of 80's slashers, "Twisted Nightmare" really isn't as bad as some of my fellow reviewers make it out to be. Admittedly the plot is overly simplistic, the pacing is a bit slow and the acting performances are humiliatingly bad, but there are also a handful of good aspects. The body count, for example, is quite high (around 12) for a low-budget slasher and practically all the female cast members go topless. And yes, they're all quite pretty. The murder sequences are also reasonably gruesome and the set pieces are guaranteed to be good as well, since the film used the exact same sets as one of the earlier "Friday the 13th" sequels. Two years after her brother died in a horrible camping accident, Laura and all of her high school friends return to the Camp Paradise site where they used to spend all their holidays together. The site is build on an ancient Indian burial ground, however, and Laura's mentally retarded brother died because he wandered off in the barn all by himself and spontaneously caught fire. On their first night already, some members of the group encounter a savage and forceful beast that clearly intends to slaughter the entire gang. Luckily the script doesn't elaborate too much on the whole Indian curse/desecrated burial ground aspect, because I'm quite allergic to Indian spells and gibberish after too many movies like "The Dark Power", "Poltergeist" etc… In fact, the script doesn't elaborate too much on anything. With all the butchering going on, there isn't much time left for plot development, tension building or surprise twists. The only sub plot centers on the "rescue attempt" of the local Sheriff who looks approximately 105 years of age. The acting performances are hilariously bad! Especially the beefcake Asia guy and the arrogant mustache bloke easily rank among the worst slasher victims in 80's horror history. "Twisted Nightmare" honestly isn't a complete waste of time. It's reminiscent to decent slashers like "The Burning", "Night of the Demon", "Madman" and it features a really cool axe-through-back-of- the-head kill.PS: the cover illustration on the IMDb page is NOT from "Twisted Nightmare", but from some David DeCoteau flick about an Aztec Mummmy

I've just finished watching this movie with a mate and thought it was so bad it was great. Firstly I thought the overall look of the film as well as the gore were quite good (not great but good). While the plot is very basic and flawed, it is the bad acting that really makes this movie fun to watch. Often you will watch a movie where all the actors are putting in such a bad performance that they have a certain chemistry between them. With this movie not only are they all acting poorly, but they have no chemistry with one another at all. Extra bad points go to the muscle Asian guy Tak who never changes expression or tone, and the aggressive moustache boyfriend with the over the top bad attitude. It is the bad acting that make this film enjoyable. If you want a good and effective horror movie then stay away. If you want a good unintentional laugh, then check it out.

I had reasonably high hopes when first watching this "horror" of a movie, based on other IMDb users' reviews. I was quickly disappointed. After the ridiculous "firefly" opening credit sequence (or flaming ashes or whatever the hell they were supposed to be), we get to see the bulk of the cast preparing to head back to an old summer camp they used to frequent, having all won a free trip. None of them seem very enthusiastic due to events past, but since it's free and they can all catch-up with each other after a year or so they decide to go for it.Later, when they're all there, tensions start building and people are at each other's throats over the "death" that happened last time they stayed at camp. The main character's boyfriend knows nothing of it, so some girls explain it to him - his girlfriend's mentally-challenged brother was burnt to death in a barn out front. We get a nice flashback that tells the whole story, except what the hell actually caused him to self-combust. The brother wanders into the shed in a sulk and inexplicably looks up to see a flashing red light, which makes him scream. Why? Next thing you know he bursts out of the barn on fire, and his sister appears from nowhere screaming in slow motion. Reeling from the news, the boyfriend is wary of the days ahead...A few minutes later one of the couples is murdered in the same barn; no one notices. The next morning, more are murdered - no one notices. Each time a character disappears and is killed, no one knows they are gone, and when someone is asked of their whereabouts, they reply with some noncommittal answer. Some friends, eh? The killer is exposed as some half-human, half-beast creature that growls like a drowning zombie. Tracking him (apparently he's been there the whole time the group were last at camp) is the ground's caretaker, an Indian descendant who's ancestors were burned at the stake by Civil War soldiers. He claims one of them put a curse on the campground, and thinks this thing is the result. The film makes great play of hiding his motives... is he actually the killer or is he just out to stop the real one? He spends all of his time screaming and threatening the group and at one point nearly bursts into tears in front of one couple about his kittens - "I NEED 'EM!" he shouts.Also coming on the scene later is the town sheriff, whom one of the girls manages to call before getting killed. He arrives in his old, '50s-vintage rust bucket that he had to get his granddaughter to help him fix in an earlier scene while a random African-American man sat watching in disbelief! I couldn't help but join him! Didn't the County Sheriff's department see fit for him to have a proper police vehicle? He's also very old and spends nearly a minute examining two victims in the dark before deciding to do something about it. He doesn't do much. At the end the killer is exposed as someone we know and the lead female character has something to do with it. Can her new boyfriend and the miserable old caretaker stop them in time before all are lost? Barely. The film also fails to tie up all loose ends, such as motive and what the hell exactly happened to the brother. Was it the old Indian curse or what that made him self-combust? This kind of writing affects the film badly. It is a shoddy mess, with what looks like a lot of ad-libbing and last-minute ideas. How someone could fund such a screenplay is beyond me. The characters are typical wannabees who think they're all so cool and spend their time doing nothing but drinking and moaning. I did like that older, mustached guy though. Can't remember the name. He drove the silver Ford Thunderbird that had sugar in the gas tank (another lame plot point). A lot of his lines are actually genuinely funny, although the scene where he snaps at the cabin and goes off at everyone, screaming "You're an asshole! F@#% you! And your brother was an asshole too! I'm glad he's dead!", etc is unintentionally hilarious. I was rolling around at that scene. The other actors just stare at him and you can tell one girl is trying not to laugh. Great stuff.The same unfortunately cannot be said for the technical side of the film. The direction is uninspired and dull. Lighting in a lot of the scenes is poor and I don't know what was going on with the music, I don't even remember it. The gore scenes were fairly effective, though some parts defy belief (the first victim flying up in slow motion in the barn). There was quite a bit of blood and also some nudity, which never hurts. I also have to say that the acting is pathetic, although it looks like some of them really did try. It just didn't make a difference. The script however was the worst, and the fact that the director didn't do anything about it and fix the mistakes ruined the film. Not as bad as some of them, but not the best of the '80s slashers either. You can do much better in terms of sheer entertainment value.Oh yeah, that ice shed was pathetic, too. Stocked year-round when no one has been there for over a year and ice is still in large, perfect blocks even with a hatch in the roof wide open and no obvious refrigeration source. The girl who is trapped in there also goes into hysterics after ten seconds, even though she thinks her friends did it... See what I mean about the acting?