American Nightmares Review

 Had it not been for Ralph Sepe, I would've never heard of this movie. Let me explain, Ralph had done two videos relating to Scorch (PFG TV), a crappy talk show now contaminated by Ralph's fanbase. Anyway, I found Scorch's IMDb and discovered he had a bit role in this film. It was between doing a review of an old VH1 movie relating to the PMRC hearing, which I may cover if the next few weeks are forgiving enough, or biting the bullet and reviewing one of Stephen Colbert's cartoons, well save for Our Cartoon President which I covered ages ago. That's not definite.

But lo and behold, this movie is on YouTube, at least for now. You know the funny thing? This and The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson (the movie mind you) are both on YouTube in the form of illegal uploads, and haven't been touched by copyright. I guess the moral behind that is don't have your movies distributed by Quiver Distribution.

Background

This movie is an enigma. It has nothing much beyond an IMDb page. The film was helmed by two directors, Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott. Both had previously worked on films like Tales from the Hood, which I actually enjoyed. The sequels? Not so much.

It's fair to assume this was produced on a very low budget. The film was produced by Patriot Pictures, a low profile company specializing in low end genre films, and it was released by Moonstone Entertainment in 2018, with Quiver releasing it in 2021. Looking at the cast, this seems to be a who's who of washed up actors looking for any form of publicity. The film stars Danny Trejo, of Breaking Wind fame and Jay Mohr. Not ringing any bells? He stared in Action and appeared in an episode of Night Visions, and both of those are objectively good TV shows, don't get it twisted. Also this was one of the final roles of Clarence Williams III, who starred in Tales from the Hood.

The Film

Follow along here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NztIvnUtMSg&t=4603s

This is a horror anthology film, featuring Danny Trejo hacking into the computers of some millennials to tell them some stories. I'm a sucker for horror anthologies, you never know what you'd get with them. I loved Terror Tract, Tales from the Hood, Creepshow 2, Campfire Tales, Tales from the Crypt, I also like most old religious thrillers, b-movies and Sonic games from Adventure to Unleashed, so take my musings with a grain of salt.

One thing I can immediately expect is a socio political slant. Cundieff is basically known for that already. The stories may be heavy handed, but at least I expect them to be. But hey, we got some neat star power, James Duvatl, Vivica At F-Zero-X, Noel G, wait who? Yeah, they think 1337 is the way to go.

The opening crawl is hammy at best. The anthologies I've mentioned before, even those beyond, establish a certain vibe or atmosphere. This just suggests they know what they're doing is low budget and destined to be on a rack at your local Dollar Tree. Hell even Tales from the Quadead Zone had a vibe, and even less of a budget. Last time I saw an intro this over-indulgent I watched New World Order, and that one was actually a good movie.

After the last shot shows people that really love Christianity, we get the age all classic cliche of making computer hacking look more exciting than it actually is. Naturally they scour for porn. I could rage about women's rights, or I could just consider this to be a constant cliche. Said cliche is mercifully ended, as Danny Trejo hacks their computer, succumbing to his inner feminist, and seeking to cover potential harassment claims coming his way.

I may be half right on half of what I said. I'd question if hacking is similar to TV interference, but I don't want to know.

Anyway, without any delay, we have our first story, and an issue I wanna bring up. There's a lack of a flow between the segments and the framework. In other films like Tales from the Hood, Crypt, Quadead Zone, Campfire Tales, and Terror Tract, the story is brought up after something related to it is before. We have an idea we'd learn more about something in the form of the story. If this isn't setup for a twist...

Mates

Unfortunately due to a lack of detailed plot information, I'd have to guess most of these stories as I go along.

So this one starts of with a woman and her deadbeat boyfriend. We get some serious whiplash at the start, cutting between the woman at a bar and her talking with her friend somewhere else. I have no idea what this is building up to, all I wanna do is tell her that being single won't be the end of the world. You really wanna be tied down in a relationship that probably won't last? Think about it.

The main woman, Shanika? Runs the risk of getting driven off of Twitter for her love of straight relationships, and gets a package, not one attached to a man but a box, not attached to a woman but, wait it's an envelope, which isn't a euphemism.

It looks like this story is gonna go into the evils of internet dating, or she would set up her own demise with the creation of an ideal man. If it were up to me, I'd say the twist is her definition of a perfect man is the asshole who got this started in the first place.

So far the quality of this... is at 240p, so I can't complain about the quality, and I had a good joke comparing this to something by Charles Band. Check out Kill Joy and you'll see what I mean, and for a great movie recommendation.

And soon, Shanika meets long, tan and unsure of who he's looking for. Credit where it's due, this dating scene doesn't seem too forced. I mean you gotta force yourself in these situations so it's always gonna seem forced. I mean it's less forced than the sex scene. I'm just saying, if you make The Room's sex scene and a makeout scene featuring a young Rob McElhenney look more natural, then this is unnatural. I blew it.

At this point I'm still speculating. Is her date like a vampire, who sucks out souls and energy from women through sex? Actually no, I spoke too soon. He is a robot, and the dating site she found sent him as part of a free trial. I mean I guess that makes sense, how else can the perfect date be crafted? I honestly didn't know what to expect. And that includes how her deadbeat old boyfriend was in on it, to teach her a lesson relating to perfection.

I assume he's gonna die soon. He is more hammy than a comedic actor trying to play an abusive father. Yes, that was a Tales from the Hood reference. For however shitty he is, I admire his patience, he allows Shanika to dig through her purse to find a credit card so she can activate the robot again and let him get killed. You don't find patient individuals that often anymore.

Oh wait he was getting the robot, apparently he's as patient as he is strong to lift human AI, also can't believe how hilarious he is. So yeah, he tries to strangle her, the robot saves her and that's essentially the end. He could lift him but he can't so much as punch him in the face. But wait, he shoots him, and the bullet... hits the shooter in the chest? Death by convenience, go figure.

Though I understand the broader implications of having AI in our lives, something you can control can make life easier. Marriage is always a gamble.

Anyway, back to the hackers, almost abruptly, maybe Danny's just shooting the shit with those willing to listen to him? Our next tale, point blank, deals with judiciary concerns. If this is a story about Brett Kavanaugh I'm gonna be pissed.

The Prosecutor

Oh gee, white judges cracking down on black defendants, how is this gonna go down? This was years before June the fifteenth at least.

So, is the crook innocent? Is the prosecutor who's running for governor racist? Did he kill the people the crook is accused of killing? Is this gonna be where I find Scorch?

I'm probably more concerned this is gonna be a rehash of a story from Tales from the Hood. Just because you directed both movies doesn't mean you should copy them. Turns out he didn't, the real killer was found, and I guess the prosecutor, Mooreland? He doesn't want to change the verdict. So he's gonna die, this is clearly a message about our corrupt legal system, and showing me how inconsistent the movie is with its accents.

Apparently this segment is big on family. Either this is a metaphor or setting up the end twist, or maybe Mooreland is a huge Fast and the Furious fan.

With the crook escaping from prison and a sudden power outage, I feel like poetic justice is about to happen. After a scene of the crook reading the bible and praying to God, I mean before, he breaks into the house and shoots at Mooreland. Is this a nightmare? A stab at religious hypocrisy? Did he actually kill his family? Did Mooreland have a hand in killing the crook's family?

I'm not in suspense, or interested, I'm not even 30 minutes into the film. So it cuts back to the crook in the cell. Was this a revenge fantasy? Was this actually why he was on death row? Did he use telepathic means to conduct the murders? No, poetic justice. The crook kills Mooreland's family, and he is framed for it. Okay, how? Was there a deleted scene where he consults with Scorch to have his soul exit the body and hunt Mooreland down?

If this is a stab at politics, it's sorta like using Soul Calibur to vent out your frustrations with your community college professor.

Okay so the crook was executed beforehand. It was ghosts, and bad sequencing to try and establish a twist, also he gets executed.

There's justice, then there's justice not well executed. I mean to be fair, at least they didn't make him a Klansman or give him a name that's a composite of numerous white supremacists.

I'm against injustice, but damn, drama makes it less palatable.

What's next? Wait, a confederate flag? No statements on that.

White Flight

A white family moves out of a neighborhood with black residents, they suffer in the end. My hang-up with these is predictability. If people didn't like Karen, chances are we'd deal with a badly written take on a legitimate issue. If no African American neighbors are giving you trouble, your animosity stems from racism alone. I mean that could be the direction they take, but they'd tell it in a way that ruins the prospect.

We see a man walk up to a house. This man apparently has telepathy, because he could knock on a door even though he's nowhere near it before jump cutting to the front of it. We meet our dead meat Thomas, and oh, that's where the obnoxious attitude went from Mooreland to. Look, I get you want to display how bad racism is, but there are better ways to do it. A racist white depiction is like a minstrel show, we already have stereotypes.

Oh and he's a racist cop too. I feel like Jordan Peele rose above because his movies weren't as lacking in subtlety, and maybe Get Out was actually really good.

Strommy McWallaceByrdMetzgerWaters gets a package, and it's a means of sending them to an all white area, a dimensional transporter. Robot AI and ghosts more plausible, frankly.

Side note, this segment might've featured Duane Whitaker, who appeared in Tales from the Hood.

This is looking to be cartoonishly cringey, they even have an over the top sign to that effect. So, does this mean the transport turned them black in the eyes of the residents of this new town? I'm a quarter right, it's his family that's seen as blacks. After an alarm is sounded, a police car door is slowly opened and a man is seen drinking in a diner. These are apparently important enough to show, but wait, they are, the sequencing is just total ass.

Okay quick delaying the inevitable, we know they're gonna get hassled.

But there's a twist, there is a twist, you ready for it? The people in this town aren't racist, they just didn't want people with black hair. It's stupid, but you know what? I'll take it. I didn't see it coming, and it kinda fits with the discussion on racism, and there is a lynching... a baby lynching, and he gets arrested. This is sorta like the end of the first segment in The Twilight Zone movie, but at least the actor in this got to live to see another day.

So, they set this up like a very basic racism revenge plot, but threw in a twist, no matter how stupid it was, which still fits the allegory they were going for. This has the most palatable twist I've seen in the movie just far, and I still have a ways to go.

After that, we get insight that the millenials spammed nudes of a girl who owed one of them money on social media, and I assume they're either gonna pay for it, or this is gonna serve as the basis for the next story. And she offed herself by the way, that may come into play.

So I did a little looking around, and I either have only four or five stories to go.

The Samaritan

I noticed a theme around clowns for the first few seconds, let's see where this goes.

After close to a minute of establishing shots, a man and a woman hold up a sick man for... ransom? Rent payment? Is he a hitman? Does he work for tips? This next scene has him offered to dress like a clown. I'm lost, I'll be right back.

So apparently the woman with the money collector is a prostitute with a pimp, and dressing as a clown is a sexual favor, where the payer is actually a murderer.

After finding her pimp asleep with his eyes open, she attempts to escape. I'll give it this, I like the mannerisms of the psycho in this. Could make for a b-grade Joker if anything. Somehow, upon giving a ghost her crucifix, both girls kill the clown. There was no socio political slant, though his actor once played John Wilkes Booth in The Ridiculous 6.

Okay, seven minutes to the hour mark, no use quitting now.

Hate Radio

Believe it or not, it's not what you think. It's not about racism, it's about everything. Alec Baldwin's possible twin, or Hugh Bluff, is our lead in this. Hugh Bluff? Why not Hugh Jastle? It's every right wing stereotype stuffed into one. This would've been a perfect time to have Scorch do his best Alex Jones impression.

It's an AM radio show, meaning this movie would be right down Cinema Snob's alley.

Okay, maybe with the over the top nature presented here they're not going after moderates. I can understand there are plenty of dickbags out there that function like this, but the issue here is a lack of a balance. We're equal, not one above another. Otherwise we're gonna see a white Martin Luther King Jr. one of these days, you want that on your conscious? A continuous debate that would inspire more hatred than anyone's comfortable with?

Look, I don't agree with anything he's saying. If you want to see a good story with a hateful radio show host, check out the Tales from the Darkside episode Devil's Advocate, or the Night Visions episode Dead Air.

He gets a call from New Mexico, and rather than voice his grievances with Woodrow Wilson, well you can guess.

Best case they're going for a show don't tell approach, or maybe it is tell because they just keep stretching this out. Again, I don't agree with a word coming out of this guy's mouth, or the callers for that matter, but it did do one thing for me, it made me appreciate commercial breaks.

Things are straightforward then... Make America Great Again.... okay, just a statement, not gonna complain about that, just them including an image of Donald Trump for good measure. So basically the writers think people are idiots who need literal reminders over things that have been engrained in our conscious a thousand times over?

I can't quit now, chances are people would lump me with either side if I do at this point. I have a hard enough time escaping politics already.

Hey guys, he's a Republican, he's bad. We assume you don't know that because we have no respect for your intelligence. Take our side you dummies, otherwise you're as bad as this potato sack we keep parading around.

The deal with this is that this man is turned into a woman, also evil portrait.

It worked better in Tales from the Hood with a racist man inhabiting a plantation and him getting attacked by living voodoo dolls, he deserved what came to him.

He turns into the woman and out of awareness for how bad the effect would look, covers any parts that would need to be seen to properly display the change. Also bad wig. This movie has a fascination with dragging scenes out, at least right here. It seems most of the budget was put toward that fake penis that fell out.

Though it may be racist to do so, I'd have to question Cundieff and Scott on their closeted sexist beliefs. They gave Hugh giant breasts, with clear clevage. Hell I'd even go as far as to consider this a touch transphobic. You really want these men to discuss issues women and transsexuals face every day, when they use a transition as a punishment? They don't decide your gender identity, you do.

What would happen if I said that to either two?

If I say I'm glad it's over, it's because this dragged on for so long I got the sum of it well before it ended. I was able to pick up everything in that overlong tirade at the start, so I have an idea how this ends. She claims that women deserve to be killed by serial killers, or something similar, and the same thing happens to her. And I guess the killer is one of the callers from before, somehow I was able to piece that together, I'm smarter than this movie gives me credit for it seems. Take a wild guess what happens.

So what's the moral of this story? Just transition to a female actor if you're gonna make a TG look half-assed. Also don't leave discussions on sexism in the hands of someone who thinks lowly of their audience's intelligence.

The Healer

Is this gonna be about religion? Evangelics? Faith healers. I'm just gonna let this play until something interesting happens.

So the plot of this is that a faith healer uses fake holy water for his miracles, and he is a fraud. It's obvious, and making me hanker for Moses Gunn in that episode of Tales from the Crypt. At this point I'm surprised they have an African American as a villain, I mean to be fair the first segment did. I'm forgetting already.

Clarence Williams III comes out of nowhere and knocks out the pastor, who's name is Bishop Love. Apparently Fazion doesn't talk much about his conniving brother. Anyhow, this is about the kidnapper's daughter dying, owed to the faith she put in Bishop's false faith.

Also the kidnapper knows voodoo now, plaguing Bishop with imperfections fraudulently dealt with.

Okay, think we have one more, right after the wraparound. Things go all occult real fast. I consider Jesus to be my lord and savior, but at the same time I'm so desensitized to basic horror this just doesn't phase me.

Thy Will Be Done

...if it ever starts. They linger on the summoning scene. Wait, is this the final segment? No, that would've been a neat little twist.

I assume this story is about pregnancy or something related? She gets kidnapped out of nowhere, and this turns out to be... a pro-abortion tale I'm sure, so I'm gonna go look for spoilers. She claims the baby isn't a good thing, and the ending is what you'd expect, so fuck it, I'm done.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the most condescending movies I have ever sat through. It wears its views on its sleeve and does nothing with them. All this does is validate the worst possible stereotypes right wingers thrown at the other side, all in a crappy d-movie package. I'd respect this more if it handled its topics with the proper care and didn't reduce them to the most useless degrees.

Rusty Cundieff has never been able to land much of a break since Tales from the Hood, and this is an example of why, along with Tales from the Hood 2 and 3 if you wanna go that far. I could've been doing homework, yet I watched this movie. This wasn't worth it at all.