Rish's Reviews
Bad movie anyone? Before I say a single word about this singular work of art, just scroll down for a moment and LOOK AT ALL THOSE SKULLS! Wow, it has been a good long time since I've seen a movie that so follows our acclaimed formula.
Basically, a bunch of high schoolers are starting up a haunted house to raise some money so they can go on a neat Senior trip, but a visitng serial killer sort of throws a monkeywrench into their plans. It's always something, in't it?
A long time ago, tyranist and I watched some movie (I've since blocked its title out) that shamelessly ripped off John Carpenter's Halloween, and helped us decide to create a "Rips Off Earlier Film" Skull. Unfortunately, we seldom encountered a movie afterward that was such a blatant copy of an earlier work, and I often regretted our choice of Skull category. However, just a few minutes into Frightmare (aka Paranoid), I began to ask myself, "Isn't this just a giant ripoff of Scream?" As the film progressed, the parallels became clearer and clearer (there was even a girl who uttered the line, "I think she's a crazy slut like her sister."). It's like somebody out there worships Scream more than I do and decided to remake it . . . only badly. For good measure, there was one scene stolen from Halloween as well.
This movie sucks so much I found myself swearing at the television set. My notes are covered with curse-words (I'll keep them to myself though, so as to appear superior to those who made this movie).
There was an awful lead actress who went from unlikeable to someone I downright HATED. The characters are idiots (we expected/tolerated this kind of behaviour in the Eighties, but it doesn't cut it in a post-80's, post-Scream, postmodern flick. For example, they go into a house with candles lit and a television on. The guy says, "I don't think anybody lives here." WTF?
It featured some disturbing music that felt nice at the beginning, but later . . . gay. They didn't even bother to remove the marks from the set. And wasn't the title of "Frightmare" already used?
I am usually able to take some good from any movie (even Batman & Robin, just ask tyranist). Sure, it's bad, it's terrible, but . . . they do feature a local charity haunted house, which you don't see much. The male characters are named, oddly enough, Michael, Jason, Norman, Freddy, and Hellraiser (no joke). With girls we have names like Courtney and Jamie. The cleverest part is when the phonelines are cut and the lead girl goes for her cellphone. "Where's my cellphone?" she asks the room, with the camera angled just so you can see the phone abandoned beneath the covers on her bed. It was a pretty good moment in a film without many. Hey, now you don't have to see it!
I was constantly surprised by how bad Frightmare was. And for that, it's destined to become a classic. If this were a student film, I could forgive some of this, but from a C grade direct-to-video cheapie Slasher? No such luck.
Best Scare: There was one scare where the girl is sure the killer is in the house, so she runs to the window (why not the door? I don't know), opens it, and the killer pops up. It was such a good scare that I'm sure it was accidental.
Posted: July 15, 2002

The tyranist's thoughts
Okay, so I finally got around to seeing this one (thanks to Rish) and the best thing I can say about it is that I didn't have to pay to see it. Thank God.
I don't think I disliked it as much as Rish did, but there honestly wasn't much to the movie that was likeable. It is almost a dead-on Scream rip-off and only in instances when whoever wrote the script obviously forgot some plot point from Scream and managed to bungle up all kinds of stuff did the movie try to be creative. I was actually tempted to turn it off half-way through so that I could just watch the original which was way more interesting.
The acting wasn't completely abominable, but it certainly wasn't top-notch. I didn't dislike the lead girl as much as Rish, but then he and I are different enough that this is not an unusual scenario. The script is predictable and the dialogue really terrible at times. The production values were bargain-basement low, but then I guess that's how a lot of these little peripheral production companies make their money. Rip-off a really good movie cheaply and sell it direct-to-video with almost zero promotion that actually involves elements of the film, and some poor sap is bound to buy it to rent to other poor saps.
Maybe I've seen too many of this kind of movie. What it comes down to is that this particular rip-off is worse than all the other Scream rip-offs that have been made in the last few years. Bottom of the heap. There is less than no need to see this.
Posted: October 16, 2002