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Nightmare

Nightmare

Thriller · Horror · Mystery · 1964

A young woman is plagued by nightmares of her asylum-patient mother. Upon returning to her family home, the nightmares become real when she sees a strange woman pacing the halls.

Movie details

Nightmare

“THREE SHOCKING MURDERS...did she DREAM them? ...or DO them?”

1964 Thriller · Horror · Mystery 1h 23m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.8 / 10

Community rating

A young woman is plagued by nightmares of her asylum-patient mother. Upon returning to her family home, the nightmares become real when she sees a strange woman pacing the halls.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Nightmare?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

The Night Walker

The Night Walker

Thriller · 1964

A woman is haunted by recurring nightmares, which seem to be instigated by her late husband who supposedly was killed in a fire.

Night Watch

Night Watch

Mystery · 1973

A woman recovering from a nervous breakdown tries to convince her husband and and the local London police that she has witnessed a murder in the abandoned house next door.

Mermaid Down

Mermaid Down

Horror · 2019

A mermaid is ripped from the ocean by a fishing crew only to be tortured and to have her tail cut off. A seemingly helpful stranger intervenes, but then locks her away in an institution for mentally disturbed young women, where no one believes she is a mermaid. With no way out, she is forced to count on her survival instincts, and fight for her life at all costs.

Twisted Nerve

Twisted Nerve

Thriller · 1968

Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.

Paranoiac

Paranoiac

Thriller · 1963

Eleven years ago, the wealthy Ashby family was shattered when Mr and Mrs Ashby died in an airplane crash and their grieving son Tony committed suicide. All who remains is cruel Simon, an alcoholic in desperate need of funds; his mentally fragile sister Eleanor; and his protective aunt Harriet. Simon is just weeks away from receiving his inheritance, but there's a hitch in his plans when the long-believed dead Tony suddenly arrives.

Chasing Sleep

Chasing Sleep

Horror · 2001

A college professor wakes up to find his wife has not returned home, then struggles to understand her disappearance.

The Astronaut

The Astronaut

Horror · 2025

After returning from her first space mission, astronaut Sam Walker is placed under NASA’s care at a high security house for rehabilitation and medical testing. However, when disturbing occurrences begin happening around the property, she fears that something extraterrestrial has followed her back to Earth

The Invisible

The Invisible

Fantasy · 2007

After an attack leaves him in limbo -- invisible to the living and also near death -- a teenager discovers the only person who might be able help him is his attacker.

The Cellar

The Cellar

Horror · 2022

When Keira Woods' daughter mysteriously vanishes in the cellar of their new house in the country, she soon discovers there is an ancient and powerful entity controlling their home that she will have to face or risk losing her family's souls forever.

Fear in the Night

Fear in the Night

Mystery · 1972

It took Peggy Heller a long time to recover from the trauma of a brutal physical assault, suffered in her youth. When she married Robert, he provided her with the love and reassurance she craved for and the two settled down in a pretty house in the grounds of the public school where Robert was a master. But the headmaster of the school is not what he seems and Peggy is convinced he means to harm her - is her fear a figment of her tortured imagination or are there forces at work that intend to manipulate her anxieties with fatal consequences?

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Freddie Francis

Written by

Jimmy Sangster

David Knight

David Knight

Henry Baxter

Moira Redmond

Moira Redmond

Grace Maddox

Jennie Linden

Jennie Linden

Janet Freeman

Brenda Bruce

Brenda Bruce

Mary Lewis

George A. Cooper

George A. Cooper

John

I

Irene Richmond

Mrs. Gibbs

Timothy Bateson

Timothy Bateson

Hotel Bartender

Court is in session

Put Nightmare on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Arthouse Gremlin

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.