It’s not a Nightmare. It’s a “Frightmare” on Blu-ray!
Aging horror icon Conrad Radzoff is on the verge of being forgotten by all except for a few handfuls of diehard fans who gather around a horror society that appreciate classics that are quickly fading from public view. Arrogant and conceited, Radzoff doesn’t take criticism all too well. In fact, he kills over it. After murdering a commercial director and his longtime collaborating director, both of whom loathed his tyrannical, prima donna attitude, Radzoff dies of heart failure shortly after. The youthful members of the horror society steal his body from Radzoff’s elaborate decorated and booby-trapped mausoleum on a whim and spends the night dining, dancing, and photographing with his lifeless corpse until Radzoff’s wife uses a medium to locate her late husband’s body and inadvertently resurrects him from dead with supernatural psychic powers to pick off his naïve graverobbers one-by-bone in what will be his last great horror performance.
“Frightmare,” aka “The Horror Star,” is the supernatural slasher that tears into the fabric of being forgotten with a lasting impression, one with deadly consequences for a mischievous teens disrespecting the past in order to live with impunity in the present. The 1983 picture is written-and-directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane, co-director of “The Black Room” and the Elvira-inspired 1988 film “Midnight.” Shot mostly in the Los Angeles area, “Frightmare’s” principal photography and wrap was completed during 1981 but the film itself was not released until two years later and is not a remake of and has no connection to the Pete Walker film of the same title years earlier in 1974, which focuses on a seemingly mentally disturbed rehabilitated woman released years after committing deadly crimes. This more necromancing and resurrecting slasher “Frightmare” is produced by Callie and Patrick Wright and with “Shadow of the Hawk’s” Henry Gellis serving as executive producer under the Screenwriters Production Company.
“Frightmare” would undoubtedly become director Norman Thaddeus Vane’s first attempt at replicating a horror icon shell that would later inspire him to direct “Midnight” that pulls influences off horror hostesses, such as Elvira or Vampira. The centralized character, one who’s prim-and-proper snobbish attitude and flair for the theatrical in film and in life, is loosely, in Conrad Radzoff is loosely based off the Vincent Prices and the Christopher Lees of the genre, classically trained method actors astute to the craft. Radzoff is, however, embellished with a hellish soul, unlike Price or Lee who sustained a rather indifferent or benevolent character. There’s a lot to take in and enjoy from Ferdy Mayne’s performance as Radzoff. Mayne’s first role of it’s kind for the actor with its meta intent to be an actor playing a horror actor reawakened as psychic sociopath from the depths of Hell groomed and garbed as a Vincent Price/Christopher Lee-like gothic vampire, in which Mayne was quite trained for having starred in vampiric films such as “The Vampire Lovers” and “The Fearless Vampire Hunters” in the 1970s, and he crushes the performance with profound effect with Vane’s Euro-style slasher that keeps tabs on the killer as he lurks through the property of the horror society, consisting of going from contravening teens to the unfortunate victims played by Luca Bercovici (“Parasite”), Jennifer Starrett (Run, Angel, Run!”), Alan Stock (“Poison Ivy”), Scott Thomason (“Ghoulies”), then Michael Biehn’s now ex-wife Carlene Olson, Donna McDaniel (“Angel”), and one Jeffrey Combs that would be one of his first films pre-“Re-Animator.” Narratively, this laid out is the core cast of characters but there are peripheral support characters that are introduced and have key moments but are quickly diminished or erased from completing their story arc. Radzoff’s wife Ette (Barbara Pilavin, “Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence”) barely has five minutes of screentime but provides the undead Radzoff the key, go-ahead directive to kill his body snatchers but after that intense moment where they psychically connect, her scenes are no more other than one moment with a lightly knotted loose end. Same can about the intensity of Mrs. Rohmer (Nita Talbot, “Puppet Master II”) that it pops clean off after connecting with Radzoff. Leon Askin (Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls”), Chuck Mitchell (“Porky’s”), and Peter Kastner (“Steambath”) fill in the cast.
If only one element stood out as “Frightmare’s” most redeeming characteristic, Joel King’s cinematography takes the top spot on the podium with a diffused fog machine backlighting that’s out of this world, angles and movements that complex the simplest and most stationary scenes, and an ingenuity that manifests the magic of a macabre movie also assisted by both of the aforementioned lighting techniques and the camera placements. “Frightmare’s” also heavily infused with Gothic nuances that pay tribute to the subgenre as well as add to the sinister and oppressive tone of a rapidly enclosing atmosphere of darkness, shadow, and vaulted architecture from Radzoff’s Victorian-era, aristocratic black and white attire to the wood dark-toned and concreated exterior, two-story mansion that becomes the prison to the horror society they can’t escape from, in life with their hobby and in death with Radzoff hunting them through secret passages, dumbwaiters, and its delicately antiquatedly trimmed rooms and hallways. Blood is accentuated with slow motion and splatter along walls and out of gash wounds with practical effects constructed by “Critters’” Chuck E. Stewart who can build a ghastly looking burned up and smoking body dead on the ground. “Frightmare” isn’t a narrative that’ll strike fear around every corner but is rather a campy, supernatural slasher with hammed performances and a solid method for one-by-one offing. The story’s a bit thin with motivations that keep Radzoff’s egocentric boasting about his last performance in death, his deathtrap mausoleum as if the actor knew there would be intruders, and the whole stealing of the corpse that just seemed to be a fruitless, ill-advised whim where there would be no escape from authorities or even the smell of an actively rotting corpse being stowed away in a non-climate controlled attic.
Troma re-releases the Vinger Syndrome transfer onto their own Blu-ray through a partnership contract where Vinegar Syndrome receives first dibs on the upgraded, high definition 1080p, 2K transfer from the original amera negative with the title holding partner, Troma, releasing their own Blu-ray upon after the agreed term and the VS edition now out of print circulation. The identical AVC encoded onto a BD50 “Frightmare” is presented on a Tromatic Special Edition set that retains the same quality as the Vinegar Syndrome 2021 release even, carrying over some Vinegar Syndrome special features. Graded toward a dark tone, Joel King’s diffused backlighting and primary color tint elevates “Frightmare’s” kitschy, campy posture toward saturated spooky atmospherics. Details are more than generally reproduced with deep absorbing in the smaller aspects of eliciting skin surfaces and object textures, such as the mansion wood-grain aesthetic and cobweb strung attic. There are darker scenes that have unavoidable crush outside the colorful haze key lighting, but most retain pitchy space in the 1.78:1 aspect ratioed framing. The English audio mix is a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix that also the same as Vinegar Syndrome’s release that has adequate audio propagation and diffusion without the lift of distinct layer and multi-channeling. All through single channel can collide at times, especially between Jerry Mosely’s (“Bloodtide”) inclusively gothic score and the dialogue, but despite the rough audio patches, the single-conduit tracks are constructively discernible for a better part of the runtime. English subtitles are available. Special features are blend between Vinegar Syndrome produced historical commentary with David Del Valle and David DeCoteau, a now historical commentary by The Hysteria Continues podcast hosts, an archived interview with director Normal Thaddeus Vane, and a video interview featurette with director of photography Joel King and Troma exclusive supplementaries that are not entirely related to the feature, those include an old Debbie Rechon and Lloyd Kaufman generic intro from the original DVD version (Rechon and Kaufman a years younger), Lloyd Kaufman gives his personal lesson opinion to aspire indie filmmakers from the set of “Meat for Satan’s Ice Box,” the music video for “INNARDS!,” an artwork gallery, the original theatrical trailer, and the ever included Troma Radiation March. “Frightmare” receives new Troma sleeve art that covers the macabre more than the usual campy slapstick with a horror flair, slipped inside a Blu-ray Amaray with no extra accoutrements inside or on the reverse side the sleeve. The 86-minute Troma release is region free and is like the R-rated version, much like the Vinegar Syndrome was, but is unlisted on the backside or on the disc.
Last Rites: A supernatural slasher gothic in tone and crude around the edges, “Frightmare” is one of Troma’s more earnest acquirements into the horror genre that looks now leagues better in high-definition with Joel King’s hazy effervescent lighting, Norman Thaddeous Vane’s looping self-referential narrative, and reliable physical gore.
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