Nightmare Detective (2006) 4/10

Nightmare Detective was directed by cult Japanese director Shinya Tsukomoto of Tetsuo: The Iron Man and A Snake Of June fame. I was expecting a bizarre creepfest. What i got was a middle of the road borefest.

Nightmare Detective is about a man who convinces people to commit suicide by talking to them over their cell phones. Once asleep the killer attacks the person in their dream, killing them, but in waking life the person is actually killing themselves. Its up to a mentally unstable man to enter the victims dreams to hunt down the killer. Of course he's driven to do this by a tough as nails female detective.

First off, I like the fact that at least the storyline is somewhat different. Sure its a blatant ripoff of A Nightmare on Elm Street, but hey, there haven't been too many of those. Perhaps its a cultural difference that I don't connect with, but I found the characters to be one dimensional and irritating. Since the film is mostly character driven this becomes intolerable after a while. I don't mind crappy characters within reason as long as the plot is action driven, but here we find alot of talking and not alot of doing. Even though the film is nearly 2 hours, the film feels thin and overly simple. That makes for a dull watch indeed. What little action there is in the film is mostly shaky camera-i-don't-know-whats-going-on-but-i-kinda-get-the-idea type stuff. For a film on Dimension's Extreme label, the film is pretty damn tame.

The bottom line is this film feels like a higher budget venture for the director, and nothing more then a money maker to fund more unique and interesting films. Bland city.

Gore-mild

Nudity-none

Overall - 4/10