Nightmare Detective: Review

You know, I’ve never been to a horror movie alone.  The walk from the subway to the theatre last night was filled with mild apprehension.  I really had no idea how I would handle being scared out of my pants with no moral support.  Well, I found out.

Sort of.

“Nightmare Detective“, from director Shinya Tsukamoto is a story about a man with the ability to enter and act in other people’s dreams. He comes to the aid of a detective investigating a case where people are apparently committing suicide while dreaming that someone is killing them.

The first ten minutes of the movie scared the crap out of me (not literally).  The camera work was hokey but the sound design made me hide behind my popcorn.  After the first death, however, it got kind of boring and predictable.  They hit us hard with a very scary scene right out of the gate and left us there.  The suspense didn’t really have anywhere to go after that.

There were a few things I didn’t like about the film and a couple I did like. The characters were flat.  Each of them were straight-up archetypes with no real dimension.  The story was about a guy entering people’s dreams and killing them… Nightmare on Elm Street anyone?  The ending actually had a flashback within a dream, within another dream.  It was messed up.  On the things-I-liked side, the tone of the movie creeped me out and the sound design really got me. Lot’s of knives scraping on surfaces.  Good stuff.

Overall, I wasn’t all that scared (except at the beginning) and I give it a Zombie Event.

~ Jason

P.S.  The short before the feature,”Key Lime Pie“, was absolutely amazing.  It’s an animated short by Trev Jimenez that chronicles a man’s obsession with Key Lime Pie.

Excellent work. ~ J