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American Nightmare
USA 2002
produced by Richard T. Carey, Jon Keeyes for Highland Myst Entertainment
directed by Jon Keeyes
starring Debbie Rochon, Brandy Little, Johnny Sneed, Chris Ryan, Robert McCollum, Kristin McCollum, Heather Haase, Kenyon Holmes, Rebecca Stacey, Kimberly Grant (as Kimberly Deanne Morgan), Hayden Tweedie, Scott Phillips, Brinke Stevens, Michael H. Price, Jessica Reed, Bill Sebastian, Zane Michael Scott, Ben Jackson, Marcus Freeman, David R. Dean, Anjanette Clewis, Shawn Lynch, Sam Shank, Christopher Kalley, Rex Rivers, John Russell, Lane Lindsey, Jim McNeil, Lyle Blackburn, Queeno deVamps, Jake Middlefinger, Robert 'Lizard' Lizario, X-Ray Charles, J. Luis
written by Jon Keeyes, music by Peter Gannon, David Rosenblad
review by Mike Haberfelner
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It's Halloween, and with nothing better to do, seven friends - Jessie
(Brandy Little), Wayne (Johnny Sneed), Tony (Tobert McCollum), Cynthia
(Kristin McCollum), Melanie (Heather Haase), Bruce (Kenyon Homes) and
Misty (Rebecca Stacey) - call into a pirate radio show hosted by one
Caligari (Chris Ryan) to talk about their deepest fears - just for fun of
course, there's no deeper meaning behind it. Thing is, their calls are
overheared by Jane (Debbie Rochon), on the outside a pretty, even
seductive, goth, but within a soul as dark as they come, as of course she
has taken note of the seven friends, and now proceeds to kill them, their
murders being based on their deepest fears - so Misty's soon stabbed to
death taking a shower, Bruce is tricked into doing some bondage play,
Melanie's buried alive and so forth. Eventually, the friends are down to
two, virtuous Jessie who has skipped all partying to babysit
Lisa (Brinke Stevens) and Stan's (Michael H. Price) daughter
(Hayden Tweedie), and her wannabe-but-not-quite boyfriend Wayne. Thing is,
with Jessie it's personal for Jane, as she has killed Jessie's sister
(Kimberly Grant) only a year ago, and Jane knows how to play Jessie, both
physically and mentally ...
With Scream, which hit the theatres only 6 years before
American Nightmare's release, the slasher genre had reached its
post-modern phase, where all films became incredibly self-aware,
formula-aware, and often self-ironic. And while I won't slack off any
individual film, least of all Scream, this approach became a pretty
tiring and super-repetitive pretty soon. American Nightmare though
is the exception to the rule, treating us to in the best sense of the word
old-fashioned slasher entertainment, where less emphasis is put on the
formula as such, but more on suspense filmmaking, on creative kills, on
relatable characters, and on just delivering genre entertainment without
trying to be too clever for its own good. And while the film does borrow
from genre classics, first and foremost the original Halloween,
American Nightmare is a film that's able to totally hold its own
and that delivers very solid genre entertainment - oh and of course,
Debbie Rochon in the villain role is a treat in itself already.
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