If you were watching Nightmares In A Damaged Brain for the first time you couldn't be blamed for wondering what all the fuss is about. Ya, it's grim and a couple of moments are pretty vicious but there's nothing here that should have landed the film on the video nasty lis...... oh no, wait, there it is. There's the shot a man got sent to jail for. Genuinely.
The screams of a psychotic man reverberate around the padded rooms of a psychiatric hospital in New York City. They're coming from George Tatum who's been there for quite a while after he was found guilty of murdering an entire family and his crimes have left quite the mark on him. He's haunted by dreams and visions every night but the doctors in the institute are trying a cocktail of medication to keep him on the straight and narrow. When they succeed he's released into the world where he goes straight to a Times Square sex show which triggers bloody flashbacks to his youth in Florida. In Florida his ex wife Susan is having her own struggles and her son CJ is the cause of all of them. He's a troubled young boy, prone to ghastly pranks that have left Susan's nerves on a cliff edge. That thin veil of normality she's clinging to is in trouble when she realises her ex is heading south for a visit.
1982. Nightmares In A Damaged Brain hits the BBFC offices and gets snipped to bits as was the norm for horror films in the heyday of BBFC director James Ferman. A year later the full version is released on VHS into the unregulated home video market and all the blood and guts chopped out the year before are back and British consumers lap it all up. Unfortunately for the film and it's distributor David Hamilton Grant the video nasty furore is in full effect and the unexpurgated version catches the eye of the BBFC and the director of public prosecutions. The film is instantly banned and because of this the supply of unclassified videos became a criminal offence. DHG was caught with copies of the film which he refused to edit back to the cinema version and jailed for 18 months becoming the only person (i think) to actually spend time behind bars because of a video nasty. It's a bit much for a horror film ain't it. What was all the hassle about anyway?
Near the end of the film we get a full flashback and see why George turned out the way he did. As a child he witnessed his parents up to naughtiness with ropes and slaps and decided to mince em' both with an axe. Rather graphically. Mam's head ends up rolling across the floor and Dad gets his mush bisected. It's a genuinely grubby and grim moment created with some rather extreme practical effects. In other nasties it's a moment you might have laughed at but the fact of the matter is that Nightmares In A Damaged Brain is a well made and quite well acted film that works hard to earn it's shocking climax. Throughout it's hinted at and glimpsed but when we actually see it in full the whole film suddenly makes sense. Things that confused us earlier are seen in a different context. It's clever film making and quite ahead of it's time in terms of it's fractured narrative.
But to the BBFC it was butchery, gratuitous gore and shock value. The fact that a child was involved in it's most infamous moment meant it was always going to have a target on it's back. it's conflicting themes of nature vs nurture were ignored and it's a pity. The film became infamous for it's gore but deserved to be recognised for it's story too.
Did it deserve to be a video nasty notoriety? These days people wouldn't even blink an eye at it but in the heady days of 1983 that climactic moment was always going to be trouble.
Would I recommend? Yup. Definitely. It's one of the best of the bunch. A well made, tense, intelligent shocker.
P.S.
The FX maestro Tom Savini denies having anything to do with this film. Writer/Director Romano Scavolini says this is nonsense. Savini says he had no part in it. But photos of him exist on set during the filming of it's most infamous moment. Why would he deny having anything to do with a film arguably better than a lot of his other output? Odd.
Another odd thing. David Hamilton Grant, the jailed distributor, was murdered in 1991, supposedly the victim of a contract killing. Aside from feature film distribution he had a finger in many unsavoury pies, pornography production and even, according to British tabloids, drug dealing. A strange end to a strange life.
Next up - Night Of The Bloody Apes. Back into the shitpit again.
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