Nightmares (1983) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - September 3, 1983

I remember reading a small blurb about a planned TV series titled Nightmares in Fangoria magazine, way back in what had to have been early 1983.  Because my family would be uprooting and moving to Hong Kong in June of that year.

A quick check of Fangoria's archive revealed that blurb appeared in the Monster Invasion section of issue 26. Yet again I waver between being delighted and amazed at just how photographic my recall of something as insignificant as a blurb in a magazine was/is, while entire swaths of my childhood seems that have been forgotten or deleted. 

One hyperbolic quote, attributed to screenwriter-producer Christopher Crowe, and that may or may not have been culled from a press release, promised a show that would "go as far as television propriety will allow." That got me both interested and excited about the series.

Flash forward a few months and the un-aired pilot, which had been deemed 'too intense' for television, was given a theatrical release. Even with a gratuitous insert scene shot so the film could get an R-rating, it was pretty tame TV-level stuff. So I call bullshit on that too intense for TV marketing nonsense.

There is a Fandom Legend that asserts Nightmares was comprised of stories written or pitched for another failed horror anthology series, Darkroom. The reason for this might be that screenwriter-producer Christopher Crowe had worked on Darkroom, penning an adaptation of William F. Nolan's short story The Partnership.

Crowe might be best known to some for creating and writing the long-running series B.J. and the Bear, as well as writing The Last of the Mohicans (1992).

Nightmares was directed by none-other than Joseph Sargent. Two worthy high-points in Sargent's long and storied Hollywood career are the excellent science-fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) and the taunt heist thriller The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three (1974). Both are worth seeking out.

The most infamous low-point of Sargent's career has to have been directing Jaws the Revenge (1987). Oof. That is NOT worth seeking out.

Oh, and if you had tuned in to watch John Stanley on Creature Features that night, as I would have done if able to do so, the movie being shown was The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975).