Nightmare.
Movie kindly submitted by producer Morgan Pehme
Featured at Bifff2006
Did you ever give it a thought what would happen if somebody would make your dreams come true? I did it on several occasions and, I have to say those thoughts looks very tempting. However, what would happen if someone would make your nightmare come true? I never gave that a thought, but producer/writer Morgan Pehme and director/writer Dylan Banks did. They even made a movie about it and believe me, it is one damned big Nightmare.
When watching this movie, you’ll be confronted with two major assets. The first one is undeniable the many of nude scenes that fill this flick, the other one is the snuff content of the movie.
I'm pretty sure that the ‘sexual’ content (without ever crossing the line into porn) will attract as many people as it will scare them away. I wouldn't go that far to call it a sexploitation movie or even an exploitation movie, none of the nudity is senseless, yet it does capture the feeling of those older movies. Natalya (Nicole Roderick) falls head over heels in love with a student director (Jason Cambell who is never gets named in the movie) and ends up in bed for a one-night stand. The morning after, when they wake, it seems that someone has taped their nightly activities. Puzzled and curious by this recording, they start watching it, but instead of seeing what they remember from the night before, they find some disturbing images of slaughter on the tape. The student is too late for class and leaves Natalya somewhat bewildered, behind with the footage.
The young director is seen as one of the top of his class. He had promised to present his latest movie idea this morning. So when he arrives (late) at the lesson, his co-students and teacher are in expectation of a great fresh idea. At first he makes up something about the civil war and delivers a clumsy idea about making an epic battle movie with one camera. When confronted by his fellow students with the difficulties that come with that idea, he quickly changes his mind and tells them about a crazy idea. He wants to make a movie about a young director, who wakes up one morning with his one-night stand, only to find out a camera is pointed at their bed.
Nightmare now turns into a movie about making a movie. Both leading characters Natalya as actress and the scholar as director play a part in both films (the one we are watching and the one they are making). He somewhat forces Natalaya to re-play their nightly sexual endeavours (this explains the many nude scenes) with the leading actor of this student movie being Omar (Amin Joseph). When the class starts raising questions about the director's ideas, he becomes agitated and besides directing the movie, he takes over his own part in the movie, in the movie.
From this point on everything seems to go haywire, as viewer you might wonder if the whole thing isn't a dream in a dream instead of reality. Who is real? What is real? It's not that obvious. For most of us, dreaming is a form escapism, for the director it is a way of creating things. But how can ‘creating’ become ‘destroying’? Is the reality of the movie ‘really’ the reality?I don't have the intention to give away the end of the movie. I'm afraid it will be disappointing for some, as I was, when I first viewed the movie. Then again, when you reminisce about the film, you get that the feeling that you've been tricked and the appreciation for the film grows. But that's something for you to decide. The movie is made in a very clever way. A bit slow paced in the first half hour or so, which is probably done intentionally to build up an anticlimax.
I don't think the movie will break through in the commercial circuit in this cut. This movie is a bit too independent to be hailed by the great distributors. Yet this movie will without doubt be the bliss of the next festivals. As it has already done at the New York Festival winning the top prizes, best actress and best actor and at the Chicago Horror Film festival for Best Director.
To end, I want to say something about the score. The theme song is composed by director Dylan Banks and rapper Kangol (remember him from that eighties band UTFO with their smash rap song “Roxanne Roxanne” and their follow up “The Real Roxanne”). An electronic version was send to Olivia Pehme Peters (the aunt of Morgan Pehme), in Tenerife. She is a professional violinist and her husband is a cellist, and they drew together an assortment of classical musicians from the Canary Islands to record the final version of the music. Olivia arranged all of the music and composed an additional piece for the dramatic sunset scene.
There is also a critical drum solo in the film, which is composed and played by Charlie Walker, the famed drummer of Gavin Rossdale's new band Institute. The rest of the music for the film is performed by Bubble Core and Fat Cat Records' artists like Hilmar Hilmarsson, Him, and The Dylan Group.
A well-constructed plot, a good group of actors, a tremendous theme song and a good soundtrack makes this film a sure hit! Check it out wherever you can, but we surely hope that BIFFF will be the first place to see it in Europe.
more info on :
http://www.nightmarethemovie.com