Hammer and Amicus Blogathon IV: Nightmare (dir. Freddie Francis, 1964)

Few things can offer as much pleasure as “going into a movie blind.” Such was the case with Nightmare, a 1964 thriller from Hammer I had never heard of until recently. Hammer is most often remembered for their interpretations of classic horror staples like Dracula and Frankenstein, shaking up these familiar tales with onscreen bloodletting and ripe sensuality. In that sea of Kensington gore, it’s easy to see how a little film like Nightmare could be swallowed whole. Lacking gore or sex, Nightmare is no less indebted to the Victorian gothic than the more celebrated Hammer classics. Though set in the 1960s, one could easily imagine the story taking place one hundred years earlier.

A troubled teenage girl named Janet (Jennie Linden) is plagued by nightmares about her mother. When Janet was a child, her mother stabbed her father to death, resulting in her being shut away in a mental institution. Janet wonders if she might inherit her mother’s insanity. When she returns home from boarding school, her servants hope she’ll be able to get some rest. Instead, she experiences strange visions, driving her to violence. And then, matters get really strange—

And that’s as far as I’ll go with plot details because a large part of the fun comes from the twisty story. Though it cribs heavily from the gothic playbook with is shrieking damsels in flowing nightgowns and nighttime wanderings down shadowy corridors, Nightmare combines these familiar tropes with a post-Psycho sensibility. Unashamedly Hitchcockian in its stylistic playfulness (a similarity not limited to Psycho— there’s some Dial M for Murder sprinkled in there too), the film shifts focus in its second half while hurtling forward to a brutal and ironic conclusion.

Nightmare shares the quiet gloom of other 60s thrillers like Séance on a Wet Afternoon and The Innocents, an atmosphere enhanced by its chilling black-and-white cinematography. I’ve always felt monochrome best suited psychological horror like this, where the filmmakers are more interested in getting under your skin than making you jump out of it. It’s hard to imagine this film in color and it makes me all the sadder that within a few years of Nightmare’s release color was no longer an artistic choice, but a mandatory rule for mainstream filmmaking.

The settings also provide a heightened sense of isolation. Janet’s grand family home is hardly a beacon of familial warmth. The shadows within the room are downright suffocating. The gothic settings augment Janet’s psychological isolation as well: she has no friends her own age and the adults around her at the house are either servants or remote authority figures. As a result, even her childhood home seems a perilous place, perhaps even more dangerous than anything in the outside world.

Nightmare lacks the pulpy charms of the better-known Hammer franchises, so I doubt it will ever reach their continuing popularity. But for those who love hidden gems and twisty thrillers rich in ghostly atmosphere, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This post is part of the Hammer and Amicus Blogathon.