NightmareatNoon

Nightmare at Noon (1988)

Imagine what you would get if you tossed in an old school western with a sci-fi movie and added a bit of infected ala 28 Days later into a blender and hit puree. That is what Nightmare at Noon feels like. A couple of vans show up at a small town’s water supply and contaminate it with a chemical. We know they are bad guys because they machine gun a local who drives by and stops to chat. Later on we find out that anyone who drinks the water becomes a homicidal maniac with green acid for blood. An out of town lawyer, his wife, a drifter, the sheriff, and his daughter are forced to try and get control of a town full of maniacs. So this part of the movie plays much like an infected film where they have to shoot the green-faced townsfolk before they get killed themselves. Once the infected are taken care of then they wait and ambush the bad guys who arrive to clean up the mess. They end up chasing them into the desert on horseback (all the vehicles had been disabled) until there is a final showdown. This plays out like a western. But the clincher is the exciting helicopter fight that is tacked on at the end for fun and really has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

This is a great bit of 80s cheese that I loved. First you have a story that could be really awful, but manages to keep so much happening on screen that it is never boring. From the point where the first steak knife is jammed thru a hand until the helicopter explodes from rocket fire there is always some sort of mayhem to entertain us. Does it really make sense? No not at all. But the point here is that the plot is nothing more than an excuse for all kinds of action sequences. Exploding cars, flamethrowers, snipers, green skinned psychos, helicopters, and an old fashioned shoot out at the pass. What isn’t to love? Additionally they did a really smart thing here and cast four leads that are great on screen in pretty much whatever they are in. Wings Hauser (Mutant) is the lawyer Ken, Bo Hopkins (Tentacles) is Reilly the drifter, Brion James is the Albino (Crime Wave), and the legendary George Kennedy is the sheriff. So basically they put together a cast that is talented and charismatic, which maybe makes the really bad material easier to swallow. All I can say is that the movie is fun.

There is a lot of action in this movie. We get to see many old cars smash into each other, jump off of badly hidden ramps, and explode in flames. Sure it looks like an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard. But this was the 80s so get in the spirit and lighten up a bit. There really isn’t any gore except for a neat steak knife thru a hand early on, and even that isn’t much of a big deal. Did I mention the cool helicopter chase? Yeah it rules.

This is the kind of movie that references old westerns and then feels the need to constantly point that out with dialogue that mentions the Ok Corral several times or lingers on a drive-in marquee that advertises High Noon right before a big showdown. Hell the heroes are running around out dropping bad guys with their six shooters, all while being sprayed down with machine gun fire (outgunned anyone?). Still maybe it is my love for bad movies, but I enjoyed the heck out of Nightmare at Noon and recommend it for all lovers of 80s cheese.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer