American Nightmare (2002)

Plot Outline: On Halloween, a group of friends phone up a pirate radio station to confess their fears. Unknown to them a serial killer is listening in and is intent on confronting them with their fears before the night is over.

The Review: Another plodding horror effort released from an independent studio, American Nightmare isn't in the same bog awful category as other similar trash as Hell Asylum and Camp Blood. But the production values are more or less the same, the acting is pretty horrible and the script is lousy. We know who the killer is right from the start so this isn't your everyday "whodunnit" slasher film with blokes in masks. The film isn't about that for a change. The film is about fear and confronting it - unfortunately once the characters have all confessed their fears on the radio, nothing much is done about it. Not all of the characters are subjected to their fears and even when they do, they aren't subjected to them in an extreme way to make them really crap themselves. Debbie Rochon is the sole reason to watch this film. She's been around for a while in these B-movies and she's really good in them. She's hot to trot too which doesn't harm anything. But she can act and her psycho turn in this film is amazingly realistic. On one hand she's sexy and alluring and on the other hand she's a complete fruitcake and you've got to decide for yourself whether you'd take the risk of getting her in the sack and being killed in the process. It'd be a hell of a way to go though I tell ya! The rest of the cast sucks big time though and is made up of the usual brothers/cousins/best mates of the director - or at least that's the impression I got because, Rochon aside, these people will be hard pressed to find work in the future.

Final Verdict: American Nightmare deserves forgetting immediately and that's probably what will happen to it (hopefully). Rochon needs to hire a new agent and get some decent stuff under her belt because the babe is much better than this.

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