American Nightmare (film)

American Nightmare is a 1983 Canadian horror/thriller film directed by Don McBrearty and starring Lawrence Day, Neil Dainard, Michael Ironside and Alexandra Paul.^[1]

Plot

The film opens with a prostitute named Isabelle (Alexandra Paul) in a cheap motel room, naked in bed and smoking a joint. She is talking to a man in the bathroom, who is washing his hands and putting on a pair of surgical latex gloves. Isabelle is apologizing about some videotapes being made and swears she didn't know anything about it. The man comes out of the bathroom dressed in nothing but a towel, mounts Isabelle and then graphically slits her throat with a straight-razor.

We are then introduced to Isabelle's brother Eric (Lawrence S. Day), a classically-trained pianist and best-selling recording artist, as he knocks on Isabelle's apartment door (he hasn't talked to Isabelle in quite a while, but she sent him a letter saying that she was in big trouble and needs his help), but gets no answer. Her cross-dressing across-the-hall neighbor Dolly (Larry Aubrey) informs Eric that Isabelle is a stripper that uses the name "Tanya" and that he hasn't seen her in a couple of days.

This leads Eric to streets that are full of strip clubs, porno stores, porno theaters and prostitutes. When Isabelle, a.k.a. "Tanya", doesn't show up for her normal stripping gig, club manager Wally (Peter Lavender) asks the off-duty Tina (Lenore Zann) to fill in for her. Tina agrees because Tanya is a friend and doesn't want her to be fired, so she goes on stage, wearing a Devil costume and dancing provocatively with a pitchfork, much to the dismay of her boyfriend Mark (Page Fletcher), who would rather Tina come home with him. Eric confronts his estranged father, Hamilton Blake (Tom Harvey), the owner of the huge corporation Blake Industries, with the note Isabelle sent him and asks for help in finding her, but Hamilton says it was her and Eric's choice to leave the family and he wants nothing more to do with her. When Eric leaves, Hamilton pulls a photo of Isabelle out of his desk and fondles it.

Eric starts interviewing "Tanya's" friends: strippers Louise (Lora Staley) and Andrea (Claudia Udy) but comes away with little information. He then goes to the police, where he talks to Sgt. Skylar (Michael Ironside), who tells Eric that he doesn't have much faith in what strippers say, but he will look into it. Meanwhile, the faceless killer murders Andrea by slitting her wrists and drowning her in the bathtub, making it look like a suicide. As the killer is exiting the building, he bumps into the cross-dressing Dolly, who gets a good look at the killer's face. Louise doesn't believe that Andrea committed suicide and Eric asks her for help at Andrea's funeral. At first she turns him down, but when the killer tries to murder her and fails, she forms an uneasy alliance with Eric to discover the truth. Hamilton's right-hand man, Tony Shaw (Neil Dainard), asks Eric to play the piano at his father's telethon, but Eric tells Tony to tell his father to go to hell. Eric thinks he can trace Isabelle/Tanya's whereabouts by finding out what telephone calls she received from her answering service (the same service Louise uses). Eric and Louise get a list of numbers after bribing the lady at the answering service and notice there were several calls made by someone known as "The Fixer" at a cheap hotel. Dolly decides he is better off leaving town for good, but he chooses too late, as the killer grabs him in an alley and stabs him in the heart. Eric and Louise are nearly mugged, until Eric intervenes and turns the table on the mugger. After Louise witnesses Eric saving her life, they become lovers and have sex at Eric's apartment.

While Louise is sleeping, Eric sneaks out and heads to the cheap hotel and strong-arms the hotel manager (Paul Bradley). The manager tells him that The Fixer videotapes all the girls having sex with their tricks, but only The Fixer has the videotapes and he has no idea where he is. Eric and Louise look through the slimier streets of town, looking for The Fixer and when Louise goes home because she is tired, Eric finds The Fixer (Mike Copeman) in a porno theater and uses The Fixer's own gun to force him to tell Eric where the videotapes are (at a bus station locker). While Mark is being sweated by Sgt. Skylar as the possible killer, the real one shows up after hours at the strip club and slices Tina's throat with a knife. When Eric watches the videotapes, he sees familiar faces on one of the tapes. One is Isabelle, and the other is their father; the video is them having sex. When Eric confronts him with the evidence, Hamilton reveals they started having sex a few months after their mother died. Eric leaves to turn it over to the Press and the police, and Hamilton commits suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Eric later finds Dolly's body & realizes who the killer is when he finds a UniSave pin in Dolly's hand. Meanwhile, Louise arrives for her second audition for Blake's company, where the killer is revealed to be Tony, who was trying to keep his boss clean by burying the evidence and killing off those involved, including Isabelle. Eric arrives just in time as Tony chases Louise to the roof. After a short struggle between the two men, Tony falls to his death.

Cast

• Lawrence Day as Eric
• Lora Staley as Louise
• Larry Aubrey as Dolly
• Michael Ironside as Sgt. Skylar
• Alexandra Paul as Isabelle

Reception

Brett H. from Oh, the Horror! gave the film a positive review, writing, "American Nightmare will impress some and turn off others, but its decaying and seedy aspects are undeniable".^[2]

Home Media

American Nightmare was released on DVD by Scorpion Records on Nov 6, 2012.^[3]

References

External links

• American Nightmare on IMDb
• American Nightmare at AllMovie