My Nightmare (1993) User Reviews

I think this is garbage

[sevdah · 1/10 · 19 August 2007]

Why do I think this short movie is garbage? The idea is lame, unimaginative and disappointing ( to me at least ). The previous reviewer claims there are some disturbing images in the movie. Where are they? Maybe the part where the photographer drinks girl's urine. There is no violence. No sadism. Nothing to make the ending seem more effective. When it ended , I though - Hey, is that all? I felt like a jackass for wasting my time on this pale, irrelevant, pathetic piece of cinematic masturbation.

It's not that this movie is absolutely without quality , it's just that I get irritated over the lack of any decent idea. " My nightmare " could have been a lot better - but there was not enough creativity involved.

1 out of 10.

Ironic and humorous

[gothicgoblin1334 · 10/10 · 30 December 2006]

Richard Kern shows us once again why he is the best Goth in cinema. This film, "my nightmare" revolves around the sexual perversion of a photographer. Who masturbates while imagining a rough sexual intercourse with his model. It at first may seem like simple pornography until it becomes sadistic and disturbing. Eeerier the music becomes and more violent the illusion disintegrates. The film ends with the actual model coming into his home, not in the dream, and he attempts to have sexual intercourse with her. Yet once he tries, he is slapped and rejected. Truly I recommend this film because of its great cinematography, ironic and dark concepts as well as disturbing images.

When desires fail to come through in reality

[StevePulaski · 9/10 · 18 May 2015]

Richard Kern's My Nightmare is a frightening short film about trying to realize the desires man has long internalized, be it about women, sex, or pleasure. In this film, shots of a man (Kern himself) lying on a bed masturbating to the thoughts of a woman (Susan McNamara) stripping and performing a wide variety of fetishes with him are juxtaposed together, creating a very vivid masturbatory fantasy before the woman finally enters the man's life.

Kern uses canted angles quite frequently during My Nightmare, which help provide for a pleasantly uneasy effect, making us question if we're supposed to be uncomfortable or aroused during these particular scenes. As always, Kern knows no boundaries, fully allowing both the male and female bodies to be explored by one another and themselves for the six minute duration of this short. It's so raw and scuzzy that the limits it pushes are the most attractive thing about it.

When the woman finally meets the man at his front door, we see all the spark and flutter of this relationship drop down a few notches. What was once very lively, spontaneous, and sexual becomes a very rote and perfunctory modeling shoot for McNamara's character by the Kern character. My Nightmare details the sharp contrast between the beauty of imagination and the drollness of reality. It's one of the many things juxtaposed here that shouldn't go unnoticed or unappreciated.

Starring: Richard Kern and Susan McNamara. Directed by: Richard Kern.