Nightmare Asylum (1992)

When I try to schedule for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I ask the people who follow me on Twitter about bad movies that I should check out.  The reason for this is that there may be bad movies out there that I don’t know about that are worth checking out.  The movies that I get suggested vary in how bad they are.  Some people suggest movies that they dislike, claiming that they are bad when they just don’t like them.  Other times, they are movies that are well made but are either boring or dumb.  Sure, there’s a place for these types of movies among the bad movies that I cover, yet there are still worse movies out there that could be suggested.  There are the boring movies that are a slog to get through because of how mind-numbingly dull they are.  These might be my least favourite because there is rarely anything to write about them.  Then there are movies like this week’s suggestion that are poorly made in every way imaginable, but there is enough there that I can figure out an angle to come in at in order to write about them.

This week’s movie is Nightmare Asylum, a shot-on-video film from 1992, I believe.  It is directed by famed shot-on-video auteur Todd Sheets.  The movie tells the story of a woman named Lisa (Lori Hassel) who is trapped in this dreamlike location, struggling to find her way out.  Along the way, she meets a strange family of people, and is chased and attacked by two vicious hooligans who like to murder people in an extremely violent manner.  With a few twists and turns along the way, it never leaves the dreamlike state that it begins with.

Now, the dreamlike state of the movie was out of necessity.  The movie was almost entirely filmed within a carnival haunted house.  The only moment that seems like it wasn’t filmed there was a short scene near the end of the movie set in a bedroom.  Having a limited location can give a filmmaker the determination to make a better movie because of the constraints forced upon them.  It has happened in other situations such as Buried, Rear Window, or The Breakfast Club.  Limiting the locations in which a movie is set can cause the writer to focus on the characters or story in a way that he or she may not have otherwise.  They must find new, interesting ways to utilize the location instead of throwing a bunch of visually stimulating scenery at the screen hoping that something will keep the interest of the viewers.

However, in the case of Nightmare Asylum, the story doesn’t have a strength to remain interesting.  Like many dreams, it makes little to no sense.  There was no explanation for Lisa to be in the location that she was in.  Thus, the movie is missing the important introduction that helps a story to feel complete.  It is fairly easy to understand the conflict being that she desires to escape the villainous killers, but the story could have been helped by showing how she came to be in the situation.  Or to at least have some sort of explanation in the movie about it.  Then we come to the fact that there is very little character development in the movie.  The entire thing is about the killers killing people and Lisa fleeing.  No time is taken to build up the characters.  At least, there is no understandable character building in the movie.

The weakest part of Nightmare Asylum came in the audio quality.  Almost none of the dialogue was comprehensible in any way whatsoever.  It is hard to sit through a seventy minute movie without subtitles that does not have proper audio.  When you don’t understand what the people are saying, you lose out on some of the motivations, and you miss the character interactions that make you invest in what is going on.  You can see the gory effects and you can see what the characters are doing, but you can’t invest in them because you don’t understand a word of what they’re saying.  Better care put into the audio quality of the film could have cleared things up and made it a much easier watch.

All that said, the gore effects in Nightmare Asylum were top notch for such a low budget film.  The mixture of butchered animal organs, food colouring, and whatever else they put into the effects made them stand out among the uninspired other aspects of the movie.  If there is one reason to watch this movie it is the effects.  The way that the villains are able to slice into people’s flesh looks more realistic than many CGI alternatives of the time, and looks more disgusting than most effects period.  The fact that the actors are handling real animal innards adds to the grotesque nature of what is happening on screen.  It makes everything grosser.

Nightmare Asylum is not a good movie.  Outside of the gore effects, there is nothing that can be taken away from the movie in a positive light.  The single location did not help the filmmakers to build a stronger story.  The audio quality was so poor that it was difficult to understand anything that the characters were saying.  There isn’t much merit in the movie and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone looking for some sort of entertainment in what they watch.  But, I do think it was worth watching this one time because of what I could take out of it.

Suggestions can provide me with a wide range of bad movies I might not know about.  Had it not been suggested, I might not have watched Nightmare Asylum.  It wasn’t a movie I had ever thought of for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  It might have been one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but it at least got me thinking of some of the aspects that could have been improved to make a better movie.  And that’s what I love about bad movies.  They highlight some of the things necessary to make good movies, and help push the medium forward by providing a counterpoint to any of the better made material out there.  You need the bad to find the good.  And that’s the facts of movie life.

There are a few quick notes I have to rifle off before I get out of here for the week:

• Nightmare Asylum was suggested by @Doug_Tilley, who also suggested Science Crazed.
• Have you seen Nightmare Asylum?  Have you seen anything by Todd Sheets?  What other movies have poor audio quality that keeps you from understanding anything?  You can discuss anything related to this post in the comments.
• If you have a movie to suggest for me to watch in future installments of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can do so by leaving your suggestion in the comments, on my Twitter page, or in my email at sundaybadmovies@gmail.com.
• Next week’s movie is going to be Getaway from 2013.  I haven’t seen the movie even though it seems like something I would have seen by now.  I’ll be back next week with something written about that movie.  See you then.