Tags:
Film: American Nightmare
Year: 2002
Director: Jon Keeyes
Writer: Jon Keeyes
Starring: Debbie Rochon, Brandy Little and Johnny Sneed
Review:
This film begins with a group of people at a Halloween party in the woods. It is boring and everyone is ready to go back. The women go into deeper into the woods when one of them is feeling sick. They then hear screaming. They return to find that everyone has been killed. They see that one of their bosses, a nurse who is played by Debbie Rochon. She comes after them as well.
We shift to one year later. There is a group of friends who hang out at a coffee shop and play horror movie line trivia. While they are there, there is a pirate radio station playing. Since it is Halloween, he wants people to call in with their fears, the DJ played by Chris Ryan. The group of friends decides to call in and state what they are afraid of. Before they do, Rochon sits at the counter near them.
The main guy is played by Johnny Sneed. He is a computer nerd who is their ‘leader’. Sitting next to him is the woman he has a crush on, played by Brandy Little. She is a little on edge as she is the sister of one of the women killed a year before. Their other sister is there as well, played by Rebecca Stacey. She states on the radio that her fear is having what happens in Psycho happen to her.
There is also Kenyon Holmes, who’s a womanizer fresh out of a relationship. His biggest fear is having his manhood taken off. There is Kristin McCollum and her fear is death itself. There is Robert McCollum and he is scared of voodoo. Then finally Heather Haase and her fear is to be buried alive.
Everyone leaves the coffee shop except Sneed. Little goes to babysit for scream queen Brinke Stevens. The rest go to a Halloween party.
The film doesn’t take long to get started. Stacey is attacked at her home where she lives alone by someone. The power goes off when she is in the shower, but it is after she starts to dress does she get attacked.
We get more of Sneed and Little talking. She learns that he has a thing for her and she reveals that she has something for him. It is decided that since she is constantly being spooked, they will spend the night together. Sneed gets some chats from an unknown woman.
Rochon calls into the radio show and masturbates with her knife on the shop. Everyone of the group hears it, but they don’t realize who she is. She then goes out to the party and begins to pick off the friends while she is there. She puts a drug into Robert’s drink. She takes Holmes into a bedroom and they fool around. The drug takes some time to take effect, but when it does Robert becomes confused and not understanding what is going on around him. Haase puts herself in harm’s way by getting into Rochon’s car and then she is knocked out.
Sneed learns who the woman he is chatting with and Little is continued to be tormented. It is decided that Little will bring the girl she is babysitting to the coffee shop. She makes this decision when the girl states she is playing hide-and-go-seek with someone. Sneed recommends coming there when he sees a website Rochon has made showing the friends who have already died.
Will anyone survive this rampage? Who is Rochon? Why is she targeting this group? Will she be stopped before it is too late? Does Ryan have a part in this or he is just a means to an end?
I have to say that this does have a pretty solid concept, but that is where it stops. Really the only thing I like from it other than that is the horror film references that are used in the movie. I think they are highly creative and they use some that I didn’t get at first. That is pretty interesting.
There was a lot wrong with this film though. The acting is horrible. There is some nudity that is nice, but doesn’t save this one. The story itself is weak and there are quite a few errors. Like when Stacey is supposed to be dead and she is blinking her eyes, which was pretty obvious. This one suffered from a low-budget, but there are a lot of low-budget films that can do a lot with what they have. The ending was a twist, but I didn’t get what it was trying to show.
I wouldn’t recommend seeing this one, unless you like bad horror films. If you are a horror movie buff, you will like the game they are playing and trying to guess the movies gave it some enjoyment. The concept was interesting, but the story was not. It was hampered by bad writing and equally horrible acting. Unless you want a bad, low-budget horror, I would avoid this one.
My Rating: 3 out of 10