Short Attention Span Review - Nightmare Cinema (2019)

Short Attention Span Review - Nightmare Cinema (2019)

I could cry.  I was so hyped for this one, peeps.  I love anthologies.  I love Mickey Rourke.  I would rate Joe Dante among the very best directors out there, and Mick Garris is no slouch.  And there are other talents involved with this production who have a solid reputation within the horror genre and beyond.  And things started with a bang--I really, really enjoyed the first entry from Alejandro Brugues, an energetic romp that carved the slasher flick into entertaing slivers.  This unruly delight seemingly set the stage for exactly what I hoped Nightmare Cinema would be.  Man, we were off and rolling.  Dante's tale came next, and it started well enough, and didn't fail from an execution standpoint, though the conclusion was both lackluster and oh so tired and forced.  The third entry courtesy of Ryuhei Kitamura was a fucking mess; it seemed to be aiming for the same territory that the legendary bad movie The Visitor occupied, but it made that seminal catastraphe from 1979 seem coherent.  Lame, amateurish, ill-conceived, poorly plotted, and totally pedestrian--I was ready to bail, but I had to see if things would pick up.  The fourth tale was at least shot well by David Slade, and it held my interest, but it didn't offer much in the way of substance.  I appreciated the darkness and the precision that fueled this one, but as with Dante's work herein, it ended in such a way that it felt like yet another missed opportunity.  This brought me to the last story, directed by Garris, and it was okay, I guess, though it brought nothing new to the table and didn't offer much at all in the way of impact.  It was so-so at best.  Finally, the wraparound material (also directed by Garris) featuring Mickey Rourke as The Projectionist was shoddy at best and laughable at worst.  Rourke didn't even appear for a couple of segments, and while there was an idea there that could work in this context, it just felt like a lazy attempt to tie things together.  Nightmare Cinema is a loser, my friends, and it pains me to say that.  It's a loser where both anthologies and horror movies in general are concerned.  The first segment is a lot of fun, but it is the only piece of this lousy pie that is worthwhile.  What a bummer.

Final Grade: D-

Do Mickey a favor.  Watch The Wrestler instead.