George Tatum has spent years in a psychiatric hospital but is judged to be fit for release after taking experimental drugs which ‘reprogramme’ murderers. He was originally placed in the facility after he had murdered a whole family but after being released, he disappears. He drives from New York to Florida where his ex-wife resides.

Nightmares in a Damaged Brain has quite the backstory. It was written and directed by Italian Romano Scavolini and had the original title of Nightmare. It was given it’s longer title by the British distributers who were eager to release the title on UK home video. At a Manchester video trade show, the distributors held a ‘Guess The Weight of the Human Brain’ contest as a way of publicising the film. The spirit of William Castle lives on…

After the film was released on video, it was one of the lucky (!) releases to be named as a Video Nasty when the DPP started to crackdown on titles that had been released unclassified. The thing that separated Nightmares in a Damaged Brain from the other titles on the list though, was that it was actually ruled to be ‘obscene’ in a court of law and so two of the film’s distributors were given prison sentences whilst the third was given a fine. I’ll just repeat that so that you can fully comprehend how insane the Video Nasties moral panic was- TWO OF THEM WENT TO PRISON BECAUSE THEY DISTRIBUTED A HORROR FILM!!! Utterly bizarre.

Now, in 2025, the film is completely uncut here in the UK and has been cleaned up in 4K so that it looks and sounds as good as possible.

I didn’t get to see it on video before it was banned, but there was a special event in London in the late 90’s at the ICA which involved films that were still banned by the BBFC but had been allowed to be shown for one day only. I naturally saw each film, one of which was ‘Nightmares…’

The film itself is fantastic. It pulls no punches when it comes to the themes it deals with and comes up with a genuinely brilliant plot paired with amazing performances. Baird Stafford is utterly unhinged as George and he reminds me of Tony Beckley in When A Stranger Calls. I love how he veers from completely deranged to being completely vulnerable and not wanting to kill anyone. There’s a hilarious scene of him hidden in a closet desperately trying to take his medication so that he doesn’t bump anyone else off.

I also loved the character of the young kid called CJ who gets into trouble at every turn mainly because of all of the sick pranks and tricks he plays on those around him. One of his pranks is very Taffy Davenport (if you know, you know).

There’s also an iconic performance given by Scott Praetorius as the young George as we see the event that haunts George years later. I don’t want to spoil the fun, I’ll just say that it’s a showstopper and is made all the more striking that he’s wearing a dickie-bow when he, erm, does what he does.

But there’s an air of pure sleaze and realism to the film that makes it a true one off. Whether it’s the psychiatric hospital, Times Square or the Florida locales, the film feels utterly serious and doom-laden. The countdown captions help massively too.

The special effects help matters greatly amd have prompted a mystery regarding who really carried them out. The film’s director insists that Tom Savini did most of them. Savini, however, says that he only acted as a consultant and threatened to sue if his name was used in promotional material. There is a picture that exists of him on set for the film as a consultant.

One things for sure though, Nightmare is a twisted ride from start to finish and it’s inclusion on the Video Nasties list, even though it proved disastrous for the film’s UK distributors, meant that it would be remembered for decades to come. And rightly so.

4.5 out of 5 stars