The wrap-around story — characters from the shorts wander into an empty, old-school theater and begin seeing themselves on-screen — is more or less an afterthought, with Mickey Rourke popping up as “The Projectionist” at the 45-minute mark. It’s a nonsensical, meaningless gimmick. Rourke welcomes a priest into his “nightmare cinema” and the third short begins. We see a nun attempt to save a rabid schoolboy on a green screen church roof but WHOOPS…
This third segment was directed by Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura (Godzilla: Final Wars, and many other movies I haven’t seen yet) and it is completely batshit insane. Look at this priest doing battle with a broadsword against a horde of possessed demon children…
This transitions into another shockingly good short film, a stripped-down psychological horror in black and white by David Slade (Hard Candy, one of the Twilight sequels, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, etc.). Starring Elizabeth Reaser, this was probably the best of the bunch overall. Then we come to the aforementioned Garris entry, which is a snooze. We cut back to Mickey Rourke one final time…
It seemed like Rourke was set to have a resurgence after The Wrestler but almost the complete opposite transpired. I’m kind of fascinated by his career over the last decade or so. Anyway, I came to this because of Dante and, although his segment didn’t deliver, there’s a couple genuinely good shorts in here that make it worth checking out.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,891 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,893 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #1,891 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,893 ⫸
Nightmare Cinema is a 2018 American horror anthology film featuring work by directors Alejandro Brugués, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Ryūhei Kitamura, and David Slade. It was released on July 13, 2018.
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