ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

lost-in-limbo "Twisted Nightmare" won't pull out any surprises as it's a deranged, if run-of-a-mill camp-based slasher, but it does have some interesting novelties ranging from the fact it was filmed around the same time as "Friday the 13th Part 3" (to only be released a couple years later) and that in was shot in the same area as that film too. Those would remember the barn of doom (and again it seems to hold some sort of attraction).A group of old friends are mysteriously invited back to Camp Paradise, but no one has been there since the strange death of Matthew (a simple kid who was picked on by them). His death was unexplainable as he was turned into a scorching human torch and the body was never found. So the friends are together again along with Matthew's sister, but not too soon one-by-one the group start getting picked off.For being a low-end slasher it has its recycled conventions, but it was a competently done (on the technical side) for what it is. A quickie, but well delivered slasher that reminded me of a cheaper version of woodland slashers "The Burning" and "Madman". The killer is pretty much in the same mould as "Madman" --- an unstoppable scruffy brute that's disfigured and who likes to growl. The story is old-hat (despite an interesting back-story about how the campsite is cursed) with a sluggish beginning before getting on with things before leading onto a insanely predictable revelation, the forced dialogues are lame and the acting for most part is bad (leaden or ripe). However it does bestow a healthy body count throws about the nudity quite freely and has its nasty moments. Junky and cheesy, but entertaining. Director Peter Hunt uses the locations rather well, but it seems to work better during the night sequences with the cat and mouse chases between the bulky killer and self-obsessed victims. There are some atmospheric touches with beaming blue lighting and mist, but even then the vision can become quite murky and editing rather jerky (like the first death sequence). The death scenes are hit or miss, some coming off while others not so. Moments do become laughable, like the use of slow-motion. The music is an unhinged, but mangled mixture sounding ominous but then breaking into something sunny and bright.

Luisito Joaquin Gonzalez (LuisitoJoaquinGonzalez) So you like clichés eh? Well, I'll give you clichés alright. I'll give you so many clichés that you'll loose count before the ten-minute mark!Completed in eighty-two, but shelved for five years due to a total lack of confidence from the entire production team, Twisted Nightmare is not a movie. It may have a cast and a crew and all the ingredients that you would associate with a feature film, but in fact it's just a check-list of slasher platitudes rapped up into ninety-minutes of cheap videotape and cunningly disguised as a motion picture. What you don't believe me? Then why don't you check out this fabulous synopsis: A group of 'ahem' teenagers head off to a summer camp (Friday the 13th) where a few years earlier, the brother of one of their number was burned beyond recognition by an unseen menace. (The Burning). Before the accident, he had been the victim of malicious bullying by the rest of the group, who tormented his inability to attract the opposite sex (Terror Train). This particular camp site is not the best place for a summer vacation as it had been cursed by Native Americans many years ago and it's rumoured that the curse lives on (Ghost Dance). Before long a disfigured lunatic turns up and begins killing off the cast members one by one. (Just about every slasher movie ever produced).Now do you believe me? In all seriousness, Twisted Nightmare is an uncomfortably tough film to review. That's simply because it's hard to explain exactly what went wrong with the feature and why it never lived up to its obvious potential. It's not an awkward task to write a mocking review of a bad movie, but it's a lot harder to try and define the reasons why an offering so full of possibilities just didn't make the grade. It would be easy to blame the rancid dramatics or the inane scripting, but the cast of Friday the 13th were hardly method actors and that was still an infinitely better effort than this. Slasher flicks are different from almost every other genre, because they can still make a profit or at least grab an audience without most of the ingredients that other categories of cinema take for granted. For example, could you imagine a poorly acted drama being successful? Or perhaps an awfully scripted comedy? Stalk and slash features consistently commit gross cinema crimes and still the production line of titles shows no sign of slowing down.If anything, Twisted Nightmare tries too hard and due to the director's insistence of ticking every single box on the slasher check list, the movie breaks that age-old 'less is more' ground rule. Alfred Hitchcock once said that the key ingredient to the production of suspense is isolation, but that's where Paul Hunt's opus comes unstuck. His feature boasts an unusually high body count and there's also some impressive gore sequences. Unfortunately, with so many characters getting butchered in such a small space of time, things get very boring very quickly and the deaths rapidly loose their impact.Another negative is the film's one-tone pacing, which never seems to change throughout the runtime. Characters get killed, characters get naked. Characters make-out and characters argue, but it all happens at such a snail-like momentum that that any attempts at a 'money-shot' just pass by without recognition. The plodding direction adds no bite to the suspense scenarios and an infuriating lack of lighting takes the credit away from Cleve Hall's decent make-up effects. The script doesn't help matters and the plot is littered with more holes than a hash smoker's mattress. Cast members are slaughtered and none of their colleagues question their disappearances and some of the gaps in continuity are so obviously dumb that it's almost unbelievable that this was the effort of a man with as much cinematic experience as Paul Hunt.The slasher genre is no stranger to poor movies. However, if you take an experienced director, a good budget, an excellent location, some great gore effects, a group of ambitious cast members and still end up with a feature as jumbled as this, then something is very, very wrong.On the plus side as I mentioned earlier there's some decent gore and as many people have noted previously, Nightmare generates an eighties feel much better than many of its counterparts from the period. It's also worth noting that this was one of the first slashers to incorporate African-American victims into its body count, which is an interesting piece of trivia. But aside from that there's really nothing here to recommend and the movie only remains notable for being one of the biggest wastes of potential in the history of splatter cinema.It's impossible to recommend Twisted Nightmare to anybody as it really is that irredeemably bad. At least its original production date of 1982 means that it was among the first of its ilk and I guess that makes it slightly collectible. As I said in my opening sentence, this is not much of a feature film. It's best remembered as a long-winded collection of poorly-delivered clichés.

demonchirps I've just finished watching this movie with a mate and thought it was so bad it was great. Firstly I thought the overall look of the film as well as the gore were quite good (not great but good). While the plot is very basic and flawed, it is the bad acting that really makes this movie fun to watch. Often you will watch a movie where all the actors are putting in such a bad performance that they have a certain chemistry between them. With this movie not only are they all acting poorly, but they have no chemistry with one another at all. Extra bad points go to the muscle Asian guy Tak who never changes expression or tone, and the aggressive moustache boyfriend with the over the top bad attitude. It is the bad acting that make this film enjoyable. If you want a good and effective horror movie then stay away. If you want a good unintentional laugh, then check it out.

brandonsites1981 Dumb, moronic film was shelved for 5 years (completed in '82, released in '87), because of poor pacing, editing, and horrible death scenes. What little plot there is, is about teenagers winning a vaction to a camp they once attended when they were younger. However once they get there and people start turning up missing they start to believe that the disapperances have something to do with the accidental death of a friend at the camp years earlier. Sound familiar??Rated R; Graphic Violence, Sexual Situations, Profanity, and Graphic Nudity.