After Dark Films, founded by Courtney Solomon (Dungeons & Dragons and An American Haunting), is making a splash in the low-budget horror scene. In 2006 the After Dark Horror Fest arrived, spotlighting eight films that would otherwise have been relegated to the straight-to-video market where they would most likely have been ignored. The festival gives horror fans an opportunity to see these films on the big screen, and gives the filmmakers some added exposure.
This year, the festival's second, I was able to take in five of the features. Are all of them great? No, but each has something to offer, something outside the mainstream glut of remakes and imports. One of these features is Nightmare Man.
Nightmare Man opens with Ellen (Blythe Metz) receiving a package she has been desperately waiting for. It is an ornamental African mask of a fertility idol. Apparently, she has been having some intimacy issues with her husband, Bill (Luciano Szafir). But her plan backfires, as she opens the package only to discover the demonic-looking devil mask, red and complete with horns. Instead of instigating some good loving, it gives Ellen nightmares, which get so bad she has to be put on medication (pills that look suspiciously like Tic-Tacs) to help keep the bad dreams at bay.
However, those Tic-Tacs - sorry, pills - are unable to keep the dreams away forever. They return. In them, a character with a face just like the mask has some unsavory plans for the young woman. Fearing she may be losing her mind, Bill bundles her into the car and they head for the local mental hospital. As luck, fate, or horror cliché (take your pick) would have it, the car runs out of gas in the middle of nowhere on a lonely road.
Bill heads off to find a gas station (indicating one way and walking the other), leaving Ellen alone with her nightmares, which suddenly seem all too real. The Nightmare Man shows up, in the flesh, looking to send Ellen to the afterlife with a big ol' hunting knife.
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