Nightmare at Noon (1988) Questionable character, dated, yet an amazing action spectacle (Review)

Nightmare at Noon is an all-guns-blazing action-horror spectacle that is so explosive, so gung-ho, and so deeply, proudly American that it could only have been made by a Greek man. Co-written and directed by genre veteran Nico Mastorakis, a man whose decades-spanning career has covered everything from action to slasher flicks to even an infamous “video nasty” in the form of 1976’s Island of Death, this lesser-known ‘80s B-movie is a prime example of the kind of excessive independent genre picture that the decade is frequently associated with.

The film follows rockstar lawyer Ken Griffiths (played by the infamously difficult Wings Hauser) and his wife Cheri (Friday the 13^th final girl Kimberly Beck), a road-tripping city-dwelling couple who quickly become stranded in the small Utah town of Canyonland after picking up a hitchhiker, the discharged cop Reilly (veteran character-actor Bo Hopkins). When the group stop off for a drink at a local diner, things take a turn for the worse as a previously friendly bar patron suddenly springs into a rabid, murderous frenzy, spewing oozing green slime from his body in place of blood. As the townies begin to turn into brainless, bloodthirsty maniacs en-masse, it becomes clear that the town is being used as a petri dish in some kind of sinister bio-weapons experiment – and there’s something in the water in Canyonland. Teaming up with local police chief Sheriff Hanks (the legendary George Kennedy), city and country must join forces in order to unmask the figure behind the chemical attack, cure as many crazed civilians as they can, and survive the onslaught of trigger-happy zombies.

As you can probably tell from the bombastic manner in which I described the film, it’s a fun, dumb time. I by no means intend that in a derogatory sense – it’s a simple, straightforward, cheesy ‘80s actioner featuring sub-par one-liners and a stereotypical sunglasses-wearing action-man, sure, but that’s all part of the charm of Nightmare at Noon, and what makes it so entertaining. That being said, it cannot be understated how impressive the stunt work in the film is – not to mention the sheer variety of it on display. Truth be told, the film is a veritable smorgasbord of action set-pieces; right off the bat, we have car crashes, motorcycle jumps, explosions, full-body fire stunts, flamethrowers, stunts performed on horseback, and, most impressive of all, the probably un-replicable extended helicopter dogfight through the landscape of Utah’s gorgeous Arches National Park. For an independently-made feature to depict all of this, in a pre-CGI era, with shooting often taking place on the streets of a real Utah township, you can’t help but sit back in awe, no matter your thoughts on the quality of the overall film. It really is the kind of genuine action spectacle that you don’t get to see today, all the more notable for the fact that it was made outside of the Hollywood studio system.

Less interesting, admittedly, are the film’s characters. Hauser is fairly bland and forgettable as the film’s leading man, taking a back seat to Hopkins’s tough-as-nails Dirty Harry-type “good guy with a gun”. Hopkins is fun enough in the role, though his very of-its-time action hero might not charm as much as he would have back in the ‘80s; his attitudes towards women are frequently questionable, though they seem to charm the film’s unlikely romantic lead Julia (Pumpkinhead’s Kimberly Ross), and his compulsion to drop one-liners at the sight of violence often comes off as more cold and uncomfortable than charismatic and funny – well, at least funny in the way that was intended. It’s nice to see Blade Runner’s Brion James in a small role as “the Albino”, the villainous John Carpenter lookalike and the brains behind the Canyonland operation, though the character’s condition being used simply as a means of making him look more “evil” hasn’t exactly aged well. In terms of how Nightmare at Noon might appeal to modern sensibilities, it’s an interesting beast; for all of the jokes in its script at the expense of the FBI and law enforcement, some of which cut fairly deep, it could easily be argued that the film is a cut-and-dry example of “copaganda”.

Nightmare at Noon was filmed in the gorgeous locale of Moab, Utah, a town depicted in multiple classic John Ford westerns. Indeed, this is a film which is indebted to many of those cowboy pictures of old, but most notably pays tribute (both in the film itself and even in its title) to Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon – the film itself is even name-dropped a couple of times throughout the course of this latter Noon picture. It’s the crazed townie portion of the film where its western roots show the most, which sadly takes up less of the film’s focus than you would expect, and part of me wishes that the film had veered fully into the territory of survival horror, with our leads holed up in the police station, fending off the horde of zombified townsfolk – though that may be more down to me than the film itself, so your mileage may vary on that one.

In a time when water contamination and top-secret scandals are in U.K. headlines more than ever before, it’s not surprising that Arrow Video has chosen this time to release this lesser-known Mastorakis video-store spectacular. For a film like this to feature giant pyrotechnic stunts, a recognisable cast of genre faces, and some truly impressive vehicle work, only to be largely forgotten and relegated to the annals of VHS B-picture obscurity, really does show just how important Arrow’s original mission of resurrecting obscure titles for restoration and re-appraisal is. Restored in high definition from the original negative, Nightmare at Noon has never looked better, and this new clean transfer helps to showcase just how beautifully shot this little action-horror gem is. Extras include the fantastic 30-minute documentary The Films of Nico Mastorakis: Nightmare at Noon, which features essential production anecdotes from director Mastorakis, an enlightening on-set interview with George Kennedy, and some truly breathtaking behind-the-scenes footage of the film’s challenging stunt work – including alternate angles of the climactic helicopter fight which are bound to astonish anybody who was impressed by the aerial stunts in Top Gun: Maverick.

Robyn’s Archive: Nightmare at Noon (1988)