Load of rubbish!!

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Kevin McCarthy has a terrible nightmare one night, in which he finds himself inside a room with walls and doors covered in mirrors. He sees what looks like a burglary and tries to prevent it, but in the process kills the burglar. Panicking, he hides the body in one of the mirrored closets, before waking up in a cold sweat. When McCarthy finds a button and a key from his nightmare in his pocket the next day, he fears it might've been than a bad dream. Soon after, on a picnic with his girl Connie Russell, his sister Virginia Christine and brother-in-law Edward G. Robinson, they come across an abandoned house. In the house they find the mirrored room from McCarthy's dream, including a burned safe. And when they find out there's been a murder committed, the nightmare has truly come to life... Robinson, a homicide detective, is convinced McCarthy is guilty but after a failed suicide attempt by McCarthy and a crucial piece of information that he remembers, Robinson decides to look deeper into the matter.This is the 2nd film noir based on the Cornell Woolrich story 'And So To Death'. The first one, 'Fear In The Night', was made in 1947 and was directed by Maxwell Shane. And lo and behold, so is this one! Both movies are very alike and both are well worth watching. This one's set in New Orleans, and has the appropriate 50s jazzy soundtrack. McCarthy ('Invasion Of The Body Snatchers') gives a good if not great performance as a man who's possibly guilty of murder while Robinson ('Double Indemnity') almost phones it in here, which still means he's better than anybody else in the movie, hah... Russell and Christine have very little to do besides being 'the women', neither portray particularly strong women, altho Russell does some nice singing in this movie (if that's her real voice, I have no idea).Aside from fairly minor differences, the main ones being a difference in location and the climax in this one involves a lake and not a car chase, the movies are too alike really. I am not sure what Shane's idea was with this version, the original is a good noir as-is, and so is this one, but it doesn't improve or add anything really. He still does a decent job tho, but with the main story intact, it feels too much like a rehash. DoP Joseph Biroc ('Cry Danger', 'The Garment Jungle') does a good job, not just with the dream sequence but overall the movie is nicely shot. Unfortunately, and also like 'Fear...', this movie seems to be in public domain hell, the copy I saw is in better shape than the version I saw of 'Fear...' (which was really bad) but still washed out. I would love to see cleaned up copies of both, maybe on a 'double feature' DVD? Just don't watch them back-to-back. 7/10

Maxwell Shane remakes his own 1947 film Fear in the Night but with a better known cast and more money. Adapted from Cornell Woolrich's novel, story has Stan Grayson (Kevin McCarthy) as a New Orleans clarinetist who dreams he has committed a murder in a heavily mirrored room. Upon waking he finds clues that suggest he actually may have killed a man and frantically turns to his police detective brother-in-law, Rene Bressard (Edward G. Robinson), for help. But it doesn't look good for Stan... Fear in the Night is a good film, and so is this, but if you have seen the earlier version then this feels very much perfunctory. The opening titles are superb, as melted candle wax plays host to the roll call shown in moody dissolves. We jump into Grayson's dream, again this is very well constructed on noirish terms, and from there on in it's a competently crafted visual film noir picture with good tension and splendid jazzy interludes. However, nothing else makes it stand out, it just sort of exists as an exercise in late noir cycle film making, a pic that doesn't want to even try to push boundaries. The cast are dependable in performances, but nothing to really grab the attention, though Shane does work near wonders to cloak the characters in various levels of paranoia or suspicious machinations. New Orleans locales are a bonus, with cinematographer Joseph Biroc excelling at sweaty close-ups and the utilisation of shadows as foreboding presence's. It all resolves itself in a haze of improbability, but as most film noir fans will tell you, that's actually OK. Yet this is still a film that's far from essential viewing for the like minded noir crowd. More so if you happened to have seen the 1947 version first. 6/10

Maxwell Shea remade his own film; the cheap Noir thriller "Fear in the Night" as 1956's "Nightmare" with a bigger budget and an A-list cast, yet the film follows the formers structure so closely you wonder what was the point. The two films are basically the same movie yet where they differ "Fear in the Night" comes out the superior, its hokey plot felt more at home with its low-budget and it was nicely complimented by an effective dark atmosphere, also the films conclusion and hallucination/dream scenes were sharper and more creatively shot . The one thing "Nightmare" has over the original is in the cast, 'Noir' staple and the always great Edward G Robinson, takes the role of the protagonist cop brother in-law (which was fairly flat in the original) and injects it with the warmth and vitality that is expected from him. Kevin Mcarthy has played the 'average man pushed to hysteria' role before but for good reason; he does it well, his performance is preferable to Deforrest Kelly's big eye-balled take on the same character. Even though its neck and neck with the original "Nightmare" comes out short, which doesn't make it a bad film, I just wouldn't recommend it if you've seen the original, but if you haven't there are some cheap B-movie thrills to be fond in the A-list surroundings.

I saw this movie several years ago, and it scared me plenty. It used to run a lot on late night tv, but I haven't seen it in years. I'm surprised AMC doesn't pick it up with its' film noir series.