NIGHTMARE WEEKEND (1985)
Theme Song:
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“Nightmare Fantasy” by Mariam Stockley.
Interesting Dated References: Hopefully me having to review Troma movies will soon be an interesting dated reference.
Best Line: When trying to fight a man at a bar say, “I’m quality, you’re quantity”
Social Context: As a whole, I think Troma movies address the much broader social context about why society is falling apart. Any civilization able to market things like this as entertainment is obviously on the way out.
Summary: Son of a bitch. This is a Troma movie. I’ve made it plenty clear about my distaste for said production company. More so than the company, it’s the people who enjoy these films who really boil my potatoes. Did you notice they’re always trying to push the shit on you? Like, you tell them, “Oh yeah, I don’t really get into those movies,” and inevitably they say, “No man, you’ve gotta check them out, they’re hilarious.” Then you wind up walking away because the party sucks and you’re talking to some asshole about Troma movies. This happens to me all the time. Oh well.
Nightmare Weekend starts out with some really dark footage of two dudes trying to climb some type of satellite tower. Without notice, there’s suddenly footage of some 8-bit computer screens and a hand puppet from The Land of Make Believe. Fuck, this movie isn’t even into the opening credits and it’s already choppy as hell. Not that good kind of choppy where you can tell they edited the movie, but the bad kind of 80s choppy where you can tell they would film a line of dialogue, stop camera, get another actor’s reaction, stop camera, then film another line of dialogue. Whoever thought that was a good idea is an asshole. Okay, I don’t know, one of the guys dies because of some mysterious orb that is apparently being controlled by the hand puppet with the Commodore 64. Totally trippin’ ballz, man! Then the title card appears and we’re at a college.
In college you do aerobics. As two girls chatter, one reveals she is going to take part in some type of experiment and earn $500. The other girl is going to go home to visit her parents and spend time with her dad. So far all of these plans beat what I did all weekend, which mainly consisted of sitting alone at home and leering at women when in public.
Man, this shit is so confusing and terribly edited. So, the one girl goes home to see her dad. This also happens to be where the hand puppet guy lives. Apparently, the hand puppet is some type of family pet named George. Oh, he also happens to control a computer that no doubt will be used for evil deeds later in the film. At one point the girl plays a video game on the computer. It’s a racing game, and it just so happens that playing the game affects a real car, probably because of that orb thing. Totally engrossed in the plot, man. The other girl goes with three other hot 80s chicks to a bar.
Fuck man, this shit sucks. It’s like campy tongue-in-cheek half-assed slapstick fucking garbage. What kind of assholes enjoy these films? Probably guys with Bob Marley posters and vertically striped shirts. Fuck them. Fuck this movie. Fuck me.
So it turns out the girl’s dad is in control of said experiments that her friend is participating in. He also has a partner who gets power hungry and fucks the experiments up. Everyone goes crazy and gets silver orbs in their mouth. At some point in there the one girl falls in love with the guy from Pet Cemetery. Then everyone dies. You wanna talk about a nightmare weekend, man, last night at the bar was fucking confusing. I was trying to unwind and have a good time and then all of a sudden I see that the girl that is the teller at my bank was there. Can you imagine? What if I would have been less wasted and tried to hit on her? I would have had to switch banks. I can’t have some woman running around a bar who knows my personal business. Jesus. Oh, and that hand puppet thing was supposed to be a robot. That’s that. Thank you Troma for another awesome effort. It was so insane when those metal orbs possessed everyone and that giant flashing computer screen blew my mind. Trip major fucking balls.
Poster and Box Art: This box cover actually has pretty good 80s airbrushing. It’s one of those covers you remember seeing on the shelf at the store when you were little. Luckily though you never rented it. Or maybe you did which would explain why you sit around at work reading about shitty movies.
Availability: It’s Troma, of course it’s available. On a DVD with no less than two other garbage movies. Have fun.