Nightmares (1983)

Oh man, it was a sleeper alright. Parts of it were an absolute snooze-fest. But, you can't rent it, so you know what that means!

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There were some stories for the TV Darkroom that were just too...dark? Gorey. Expensive to film. If you'd seen Darkroom, you'll see a lot of the same names attached to this project. Christopher Crowe was all over this baby.

This is not a good movie. It has moments, like the "grasping the areal on the car and then it wiping back and forth" in the first story, "Terror in Topanga", which was cheese blocking but strangely effective.

The second story, "The Bishop of Battle", is the one most folks who have seen this will remember. We were joking about how funny it was that people thought you could make any money as "video game hustler". Well, it was the 80s.

Hey! Check out this fantastic thing A\Very found! (Warning: sound auto-plays.)

For me, the third story, "The Benediction", was the best. The story-telling is tight enough (in context), and Lance puts on a good show. I love the truck bursting from the ground (thanks for spoiling that, trailer). The story isn't too complex or obvious with where it's going and it resolves as it should.

Ugh! Finally we get "Night of the Rat". This is truly terrible. Fresh off the set of Alien, Veronica Cartwright is perfectly hysterical throughout. Richard Masur is a dickish dad, but I keep waiting for him to burst out with a BOOGEDY!!! ....just kidding..... The monster reveal at the end is of such laughably poor quality that it sucks the drama away and leaves the audience feeling cheated. You want to make rats scarey? DON'T SHOW THEM. Heck, I learned that watching During Barty's Party.

Oh man, Beasts was some actual nightmare inducing stuff. That was a great series.