Nightmares in Red, White and Blue (2009)

Very well executed

Fantastic!

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The acting in this movie is really good.

An excellent documentary about American horror movies from Thomas Edison's 'Frankenstien' to 'The Mist'. It talks about the evolution of horror movies and the times they were made. But it it is interesting how these movies reflected their era. From the aftermath of World War I all the way to 9/11.I never figured Lance Hendrickson would be a good narrator, but he was. And I like all the film historian's insight. What's really cool is the interviews of the 'Masters of Horror', Mick Garris, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Joe Dante, etc... and how they all loved horror films as kids. I loved it when George Remero talks about 'The Thing', and his own 'Night of the Living Dead'. You find out horror directors are not sick, demented people. They simply make these movies because they enjoy them and the have a true passion for good horror movies. And they are not above shaking things up a bit as well.You find out true horror movies aren't always madmen killing sexually active teenagers in strange ways, but how true horror is all around us every day and these movies reflect that. It also shows horror films will never die. Like it or not they will always be with us.

The beginning of this movie was actually pretty good; I enjoyed the discussion (albeit brief) of the birth of horror films. It got a bit muddled when it entered the 30's and 40's...I feel like they were trying to make too many political points where none really existed.When it got to the 50's, that's really when the politics overtakes the discussion of the movies. This is partially because most of the directors grew up in or started directing in the 60's and they were all counter-culture types. Normally when you watch a documentary about something, you get a full view, not an utterly biased piece of propaganda...I'm sorry, comparing Ronald Reagan to Freddy Krueger as the scariest person in the 80's? Really??? Most Americans would disagree - I mean other than the staunchest leftists who see Obama as too conservative still hold any sort of vindictiveness for Reagan.If you were looking for a documentary about how these films came into being or where the horror genre has been and where it's going...eh, you'll get a very thin layer of that. The directors they have in here spend way too much time discussing how important their relatively unimportant films were in establishing the political tones (who really looks at horror movies for politics?) and too little time actually discussing American horror films.It would have been nice for them to discuss how British horror films influenced American horror films (Universal competing against Hammer for instance) or how authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Shirley Jackson, and Richard Matheson provided much of the fodder for the horror films in the 50's and 60's...other than a passing mention of Poe, there is no mention of any author other than Stephen King.This is a poor attempt to document the history of the horror film genre. There are plenty of clips from films, but they are far too brief to really enjoy. Too little time is given to too many films for there to be any real depth here. Ironically, there is almost no mention of contemporary horror films that actually are worthwhile...namely independent directors and films that aren't just blood and gorefests. Oh well! Don't bother with this.

Horror and sci-fi veteran Lance Henriksen narrates this look at the history of the American horror film, examining the earliest monster movies of the silent era up to the scariest modern-day masterpieces. Highlights include interviews with genre masters Roger Corman, Joe Dante, John Carpenter and George A. Romero, plus clips from classic films like The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead and Rosemary's Baby.I have seen my share of horror documentaries, I have read my share of interviews and interviewed my share of people in the horror industry. I have met most of the people in this documentary personally. So, my thought on this film going in was: this is going to be fun and a bit of a refresher for things I already know, a good thing to kick back and watch lazily. Nothing new to be learned here! Well, that may not have been completely true. While the film covered a lot of the same ground as things I was familiar with: the politics, the culture, how films of the 1950s reflected nuclear fears... the documentary had some new angles, too. Who thought we would see a horror documentary that brings in "Easy Rider" and the James Bond films? I never thought so.As I said, there is much talk of politics, particularly Reagan. Vietnam comes in, as does the Great Depression and the Cold War to a point. But the 1980s dominate, from John Carpenter's "They Live" to "American Psycho". There is even an argument made (which I find very dubious) that the 80s were a decade of excess, and this is in part why there is such an excess of blood in "Evil Dead 2". I doubt Sam Raimi would agree.Larry Cohen says early on, "If a horror film is cutting off people's thumbs and gouging your eyes out, I guess that's a certain of horror. But it's not the kind of horror film that interests me." I liked this distinction, because horror seems to be heading in the direction where more films are just violence without any fun, suspense or subtle message. And that is just cheap. Horror films may not win Oscars, but they still range from bad to good, and the best are more than just torture.The documentary also touched on numerous many overlooked films (such as "Atomic War Bride"), some that ought to have been overlooked ("Uncle Sam") and some lesser-known modern ones such as "The Devil's Backbone". The focus was on American films, so Hammer is not here, nor are the current foreign films of Japan. No Italian giallo. I think Vincent Price received far too little screen time, but overall the film covered just about every American film you could name that affected the history of horror in some way.

"Nightmares" is as much of a social and political history lesson as it is a documentary of the origins of Horror films. I was taken back at how extensively and intelligently this film covered my favorite genre of film. There is a constant link made between the different subcategories of horror that have emerged over the years and the different social and political ties that drive them. "Nightmares" ended up being far more philosophical in its approach to the reasons why our society craves horror and violence on film. This is the closest I've ever seen to a "Ken Burns" history lesson on Horror Movies. I not only loved it, I learned something.