Why so much hype?

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I must have seen the VHS box for this a million times in a million different video stores and always passed it up. It wasn't until this last week when I got an email from a friend describing this as an absolutely mind blowing WTF-fest that I finally decided to check this out. And how glad I am - this is the dopey kind of misguided flick that I live for.Let's see if I can make this plot make sense - scientist Edward Brake (Wellington Meffert) has developed a behavior modification computer system called APACHE which takes a personal item of the subject, turns it into a silver ball and then shoots that ball into their mouth. Somehow that makes people change and is a scientific breakthrough. What Brake doesn't count on is his assistant Julie (Debbie Laster) conducting experiments on three college girls for a mysterious backer. And what Julie does count on is Brake's daughter Jessica (Debra Hunter) falling in love with Julie's assistant Ken (Dale Midkiff). Or Jessica having a super high-tech computer named "George" (which has an accessory of a talking puppet!?!) that can prevent Jessica from being harmed. From beginning to end, this is one oddball flick. It has everything 80s (aerobics, walkmen, roller skates, leg warmers, Coke, pinball) and more. Feast your eyes up the scene where a biker makes out with his chick in front of a bar while playing pinball. Or the couple who make out in the back of a limo as the driver changes the tire and some random dude in the woods bops to music on his walkman. Or the chauffeur who disguises his drinking by placing his mini-bottles between two slices of bread. Or a guy being attacked by some silk panties! And that mystery man shown through out the flick? We never find out who he is!If I didn't know any better, I'd swear this was an 80s Italian flick shot in Florida - weird dubbing, odd delivery, everything so slightly off balance and with hint of not knowing how Americans really act. But the credits betray me and it looks like real Americans made it. The end credits list it as a co-production between England, France and the US. The director is credited on screen as H. Sala and the IMDb says he is one Henry Sala. Either that is a pseudonym or he bowed out after his masterpiece. The producer is listed as one Bachoo Sen (gesundheit!). I have to know more about who made this. Another amazing aspect of this movie is the cast. Low budget flicks often feature a future star here and there, but this one features three future mainstream stars - Dale Midkiff, Andrea Thompson (NYPD BLUE) and Robert John Burke. WHAT!?! Was this flick some kind of Faustian porthole? Everyone else in the cast and crew were one and done.

There are no words to explain how bad NIGHTMARE WEEKEND is. It simply defies description. Something about a computer that can change personal objects into silver balls that enter the victims' mouth, which kills them or turns them into zombies. The whole thing is so wonky that it's stunning. There's also a girl with personal computer in her room and the computer talks via a hand puppet!!!!!!!! I'm not making this stuff up. The computer also controls things like cars, even though there's nothing linking the computer with the vehicle.The "film" is total trash. Surreal bad trash. Spectacularly, one-of-a-kind bad trash. There's a lot of sex scenes thrown here and there, which aren't very hot or erotic. There's even one scene where a woman seemingly makes love or wants to French kiss a tarantula, which had me rolling on the floor.Definitely one of the worst movies ever made. Up there with the equally wretched direct-to-home video BOARDINGHOUSE, or BOOGEYMAN II (both NIGHTMARE WEEKEND and BOOGEYMAN II have scenes with a killer toothbrush!). At least it's fun to watch it and try to make sense of whatever is going on.

That's a snippet of choice dialogue delivered by the evil, ballbusting lady assistant of a famous scientist to her prim maid just before she lures three incredibly dumb college girls to a mansion for behavior modification experiments. Meanwhile, at the local bar, people drink and dance to lame 80s rock songs. A biker punk has sex with a cycle slut on a pinball table in front of a crowd of people, then tries to rape the scientist's virginal daughter Jessica (Debra Hunter), who is in love with another biker (Dale Midkiff, from PET SEMATARY), who, in turn, is in cohorts with the assistant! Back at the house, the sorority bimbos swim, shower, change clothes and have sex with men from the bar. A small silver ball (part of the experiment) flies into victims mouths and turns them into drooling, killer zombies!If that isn't enough to entertain you, there's a hilarious theme song ("Nightmare Fantasy"), roller skating, some serious daisy dukes and a psychic hand puppet (!?) that warns "DANGER! DANGER!" just like the LOST IN SPACE robot and recommends hitchhiking as one of the best ways to pick up men!This filmed-in-Florida mess is so mind-numbingly awful that multiple viewings are recommended to soak it all in. And, hey isn't that NYPD Blue's Detective Jill Kirkendall turned CNN newscaster Andrea Thompson as one of oft-nude bimbos? Sure is! Supposedly this was started in 1982 and new footage was added later for the video release in 1985.Score: 1 out of 10 (and I mean that in a good way!)

I agree with those reviews I have read here, and I have no words to define such a turkey like this, but despite everything, I still can find a reason for movies like this to exist. Do you remenber those happy days in which video was a prosperous business, and a lot of movies were made with the only reason of filling the shelves of the video stores? this movie comes from that period and I can imagine that was the only reason for which it was produced and the same happened with many, many, many other stinkers. Do you remember "Rambo" imitations? and so many slashers of Z grade?, I still feel nostalgia for that period.About this movie I can say I didn´t waste my time watching it because I pressed the fast forward button after the first fifteen minutes, just to find a very funny scene in which a guy was pushing an axe against heads which exploded because, as you perfectly notice, they were made of plastic. And about the end, well, it was so badly filmed I could not understand what happened. That´s the same, I had not followed the non-existing plot at all. But boy, Video-age was a great age despite movies like this.