Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

*CAUTION - BIG SPOILERS*A 17-year old girl called Janet (Jennie Linden) is mentally disturbed by a recurring nightmare in which she dreams of being trapped with her mother in a cell at the insane asylum. On her eleventh birthday Janet saw her mother stab her father to death. At her boarding school, Janet's teacher, Mary (Brenda Bruce), arranges for her to return home for a while to recover. At High Towers, the family mansion, they are met by Grace (Moira Redmond), a nurse sent by Janet's legal guardian, Henry (David Knight), to look after her. Janet becomes disturbed by the figure of a tall, attractive, yet at the same time, sinister looking woman clad in white finding her stabbed to death on a couple of occasions. The family doctor recommends psychiatric help, but things get worse when Henry arrives with his wife, Helen (Clytie Jessop), who is the woman of Janet's nightmares. Janet cracks and stabs Helen to death. As she is driven off to the asylum, we learn that the events at High Towers were a cleverly engineered plot by Henry to murder his wife so he can marry his mistress, Grace. The pair believe that their scheme has made them untouchable, but the whole thing backfires on them with horrifying consequences...The second horror film that Oscar-winning cinematographer turned director Freddie Francis made for Hammer following the success of Paranoiac (1963). It stands as one of his best - not only for that studio - but out of all the genre films he made throughout the sixties and seventies. It shows that had Francis escaped the confines of horror, something that he openly admitted he never had any real affection for, he could have easily achieved the same level of acclaim as a director that he did as a lighting cameraman.Jimmy Sangster's story - man drives a vulnerable and mentally fragile woman insane so he can ditch his wife for another woman - was already starting to look tired by the time this came out but, here, it is a case of directorial style transcending the basic material. Francis proved that, after Terence Fisher, he was certainly this country's leading horror director and his sense of Gothic style was at its peak here. The opening dream sequence sees Janet making her way through the pitch black corridors of the asylum looking for her mother whose disembodied voice is calling for her. Then we cut to inside her cell where her mother gleefully tells her: "They've got us both now, we're both mad" before the door slams locked behind her and the mother breaks out into evil laughter is especially effective. It is masterfully shot with John Wilcox's b/w lighting recalling that of Francis' own on The Innocents (1961). The sense of dread and mysteriousness is aided by Don Banks' superb score that is, quite possibly, the best he ever composed for Hammer. The build up to Janet stabbing Henry's wife is also beautifully staged with the phantom woman (Clytie Jessop who also appeared as the fairground figurine holding the Shears of Fate in Francis' anthology film Torture Garden) terrorising her in the old rambling country estate late at night with Francis indulging in some wonderful camera-work including magnificent dollies that see the camera tracking through dark, enticing corridors. These sequences are genuinely unsettling and the entire film is made all the more so by the beautiful location shooting around the countryside shot during the hard winter of 1963 with the snow drenched landscapes adding to the creepy beauty of the piece.Towards the climax the giggles threaten to set in as Moira Redmond overacts in the scenes where she throws tantrums at Henry when she believes that she is cheating on him with another woman. But, on the whole, performances are good throughout. Jennie Linden, in a part originally intended for Julie Christie, is convincingly vulnerable and unstable as Janet and we as the audience can sympathise with her plight. Knight makes a good leading man skilfully portraying the false Henry as the seemingly kind and caring guardian of Janet and when he reveals his true colours as the ruthless, cold blooded killer, his transition is well enough done to startle the viewers. Also of note are George A Cooper as the chauffeur and Brenda Bruce as Mary in smaller roles, but both are perfectly cast and their role in bringing about the downfall of Henry and Grace is well enough concealed from us until the end so as to have the maximum possible impact.Nightmare was released as the support feature to Francis and Hammer's own The Evil Of Frankenstein in 1964. Thankfully the proposed title for the former, Here's The Knife Dear, Now Use it was dropped as it would have given the impression that it was a trashy, exploitation feature.

Sweet young Janet (well played by the fetching Jennie Linden) saw her mother brutally kill her father when she was only eleven years old. Janet now has nightmares about the horrific incident. Is she destined to go crazy just like her dear old mom? Or is something more sinister going on? Director Freddie Francis, working from a wickedly clever and compelling script by Jimmy Sangster, does his usual bang-up job of maintaining a steady pace and creating a truly eerie atmosphere (the bravura opening nightmare sequence is especially creepy and unnerving). Moreover, Linden makes for a strong and sympathetic troubled heroine; she receives excellent support from Moira Redmond as kindly nurse Grace, David Knight as her suave lawyer guardian Henry, Irene Richmond as protective escort Mary Lewis, Brenda Bruce as cheery housekeeper Mrs. Gibbs, George Cooper as loyal butler John, Clytie Jessop as the mysterious woman in white, and Isla Cameron as Janet's insane mother. John Wilcox's beautifully crisp black and white cinematography, Don Banks' lush moody'n'spooky orchestral score, and one whammy of a genuinely startling surprise twist ending further enhance the overall sound quality of this solid and satisfying thriller.

After Psycho proved a hit, Hammer were only too happy to jump on the bandwagon and do their own psycho-thrillers which, to be honest, all had similar story lines involving, insanity, driving people to insanity, impostors, family solicitors, pots of cash waiting to be inherited etc etc etc and as many twists and turns that could possibly be put into the story. Nightmare is one of the, if not the, best of this Hammer sub-genre. A young girl witnesses her mother stab her father to death on her birthday and, not surprisingly, this leads to a breakdown and to nightmares, with the girl believing that she is going the same way as her mother i.e. buying the one-way ticket to the asylum. But is she? As always, nothing is as it seems. Admittedly you can usually spot the twists coming but it doesn't matter here. The look of the film is fantastic. A clean, crisp black and white that director Freddie Francis makes full use of and at times his visuals alone set your spine tingling. The opening scene of the film as the young girl walks down the darkened corridors looking for the voice that is calling her is one of Hammer's most haunting set pieces and a great start to the film. Where this film differs from the others is at the half-way point the focus switches from the young girl to two of the other up-to-now minor characters and the young girl doesn't appear too much afterwards. This doesn't jar as much as you might expect, as Francis paves the way by dropping hints and enticing the viewers with possible plots before this happens. The end of the film, although not totally unexpected is certainly satisfying. Yet another minor Hammer classic that's guaranteed to get your bumps goosed!

Title: Nightmare (1964) Director: Freddie Francis (Dracula has Risen from the Grave) Cast: Jennie Linden, David Knight, Moira RedmondReview: Hammer Studios didn't just make movies about vampires, frankensteins creature and the mummy. Nope they also once in a while ventured into the territory of the suspenseful psychological thrillers. In my opinion these guys really suceeded in doing it! Nightmare is about this young girl named Janet who has been screwed in the head after she saw her own mother killing her father on the day of her birthday. So naturally the girl starts to experience horrendous nightmares of her mother repeatedly stabbing her father in the chest. And her mother continues to haunt her nightmares for years to the point where she cant even be in school anymore and has to be taken away to her legal guardians home. There she will try to grasp a bit of normality once again and calm down her nightmares...or will she? This movie was awesome! OK, first things off. Its fairly obvious that these guys were imitating Hithcocks style of directing. This movie came out just a few years after Hitchcocks Psycho did and it was just trying to ride on the tails of the popularity that Hitchcock had given to psychological thrillers. But so bleeping what? They did it right! I'm of the mind that if your going to imitate something you might as well do it the best way possible. And Freddi Francis did it with this here film.The movie looks great. Freddie Francis has been known for filling his movies with beautiful scenes with lush and vivid colors (just see Dracula Has Risen From the Grave to understand what I mean) but here even though the film is in black and white, the movie looks incredibly beautiful. The house is perfectly illuminated to evoke dark feelings of fright. To chill you to the bone, hallways are filled with shadows and streaks of light...scenes only lit by the soft flame of candlelight. Perfectly eerie illumination that really helps makes the movie all that more nerve wrecking.Standing true to its title, the film is filled with Nightmare-like sequences. Often times we will dwell into Janets mind and see the horrible nightmares that are tormenting her. Some of the sequences involving Janets vision were truly horrifying. There's this show stopping sequence in which Janet is seeing a lady in a long white dress and a scar on her face walking down a hallway that is incredibly creepy as hell! Anyhows, keeping its faithfulnes to Hitchcocks methods the film has a few twists and turns around the ending that end up being quite good. I enjoyed every second of them! The characters in the film (as they are in many of Hitchcocks films) are not squeaky clean perfectly honest people. I loved that about Hitchcocks films, how often times he would portray people as being really evil and not the "Leave it to Beaver" perfection that was seen back in those days. And here in Nightmare its no different. These characters are real scumbags and they will show their true colors by the end of the film.This movie doesn't have any major stars, but they deliver great performances non the less. In fact the fact that I had never seen any of these actors before really helped in creating a tense mood. I had no idea what to expect from these characters.All in all a really good suspenseful psychological thriller that will certainly not disappoint those in the mood for a good spooky mystery. Highly recommended.Rating: 5 out of 5