Theme Song:
“Nightmare Fantasy” by Mariam Stockley.
Interesting Dated References: Hopefully having to review Troma movies will soon be an interesting dated reference.
Best Line: When trying to fight a man at a bar say, “I’m quality, you’re quantity”
Social Context: As a whole, I think Troma movies address the much broader social context about why society is falling apart. Any civilization able to market things like this as entertainment is obviously on the way out.
Summary: This is a Troma movie. I’ve made it plenty clear about my distaste for said production company. More so than the company, it’s the people who enjoy these films who really boil my potatoes. Did you notice they’re always trying to push the films on you? You tell them, “Oh yeah, I don’t really get into those movies,” and inevitably they say, “No man, you’ve gotta check them out, they’re hilarious.”
Nightmare Weekend starts out with some really dark footage of two dudes trying to climb some type of satellite tower. Without notice, there’s suddenly footage of some 8-bit computer screens and a hand puppet from The Land of Make Believe. One of the guys dies because of some mysterious orb that is apparently being controlled by the hand puppet with the Commodore 64. Then the title card appears and we’re at a college.
In college you do aerobics. As two girls chatter, one reveals she is going to take part in some type of experiment and earn $500. The other girl is going to go home to visit her parents and spend time with her dad. This also happens to be where the hand puppet guy lives. Apparently, the hand puppet is some type of family pet named George. Oh, he also happens to control a computer that no doubt will be used for evil deeds later in the film. At one point the girl plays a video game on the computer. It’s a racing game, and it just so happens that playing the game affects a real car, probably because of that orb thing. The other girl goes with three other hot 80s chicks to a bar.
So it turns out the girl’s dad is in control of said experiments that her friend is participating in. He also has a partner who gets power hungry and fucks the experiments up. Everyone goes crazy and gets silver orbs in their mouth. At some point in there the one girl falls in love with the guy from Pet Cemetery. Then everyone dies. Oh, and that hand puppet thing was supposed to be a robot. That’s that. Thank you Troma for another awesome effort. It was so insane when those metal orbs possessed everyone and that giant flashing computer screen blew my mind.
Poster and Box Art: This box cover actually has pretty good 80s airbrushing. It’s one of those covers you remember seeing on the shelf at the store when you were little. Luckily though you never rented it. Or maybe you did which would explain why you sit around at work reading about shitty movies.
Availability: It’s Troma, of course it’s available. On a DVD with no less than two other garbage movies. Have fun.