Movie Review

Twisted Nightmare (1987)

2.5/5

Halloween (1978) perfected the slasher film template, but no slasher is more imitated than Friday the 13th (1980). The bunch of teens in a location far from civilization is just the perfect plot and setting for a monster-running-wild slasher flick. One of those imitation films is Twisted Nightmare, released in 1987 but shot in 1982 (I believe), which doubles down on the inspiration and is shot on the same camp set as Friday the 13th Part III (1982).

It’s about a group of teens… young adults… people in their thirties who get invited to a summer camp they attended as kids—Camp Paradise. No adult should ever go anywhere when they get a mysterious invitation, especially if somebody died when they were there under strange circumstances. Laura, the first one we see get an invitation, has reservations about going, since it was her disabled brother who died. It’s obvious what happens next, but there is an addition of a native American shaman.

Twisted Nightmare is impressively unoriginal; however, it has a lot of charm since it’s so inanely written and all together stupid. There are some decent performances, while others are straight out of Miami Connection (1987). The film has a great soundtrack, it’s fun, especially if you aren’t hoping for a masterpiece (that do exist in the slasher genre, but they are few), and the makeup done by special effects artist Cleve Hall (who has worked on some fantastic flicks like TerrorVision (1986) and Ghoulies (1984)) makes it a worthwhile watch.

Twisted Nightmare (1987)
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