Movie 171: The American Nightmare

The American Nightmare (2000) by Adam Simon
featuring John Landis, David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, George A. Romero, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, etc.



In a nutshell: Considering the content that it had to work with, this documentary was a complete snooze-fest

Quick synopsis: A tour through some iconic horror movies of the '70's and '80's

Content: I looked for a film about horror movies after catching Bravo's great 100 Scariest Movie Moments around Halloween and this is what Netflix gave me. The directors that contribute commentary are a murderer's row (no pun intended) of great horror directors, but they just kind of take turns kissing each other's behinds. The documentary focuses in on one movie by each of the featured filmmakers and some clips are shown, but never anything riveting like the Bravo special.

The documentary seems very dated even though it is less than 10 years old. It almost feels as though it was constructed from stock footage of interviews rather than of interviews conducted specifically for this movie. None of the movies covered are even from the 90's. I understand that they are covering "classic" horror films, but it still would have been nice if they could have related them to more modern work.

The choice of films is strange. It seems like there were certain directors they wanted to include, but clips from their best films cost too much, so more obscure titles were chosen. David Cronenberg is a perfect example. Of all his movies, they chose Shivers? And of all the good Wes Craven movies, they chose Last House on the Left?

There's really not much to say here. I wouldn't recommend The American Nightmare to anyone. It was too focused on a small handful of films and didn't really discuss anything else. There is some insight gained, but not much. Then at the end, they totally lost me when the subject changed to the cold war rather than movies. The whole thing was amateurish.

Rolling rankings:
1. Inglourious Basterds (#168)
2. Do The Right Thing (#162)
3. Where The Wild Things Are (#169)
4. Adventureland (#170)
5. Duplicity (#167)
6. Battle Royale (#165)
7. Into the Wild (#166)
8. Interview With The Vampire (#163)
9. I Love You, Man (#164)
10. The American Nightmare (#171)