Worse than your most shocking nightmare!
Frightmare is a 1974 British Slasher Movie.
Dorothy and Edmund Yates are a married couple who just got released from the asylum. You see, Dorothy is a homicidal cannibal, and Edmund feels like he has to cover up her depravities. Unfortunately, Dorothy was not cured, and starts to kill again. Meanwhile, her children live their lives, desperately trying to forget their parents' pasts. But one of them might have inherited her mum's appetites...
The film has received DVD releases from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Media Blasters.
Not to be confused with the 1983 film.
This film contains examples of:
- Bar Brawl: Debbie starts one by telling her boyfriend that the warfighter called her a tart.
- Big Bad: Dorothy Yates, a little old lady who loves murder.
- Bolivian Army Ending: The film ends as Dorothy and Debbie are advancing towards Jackie, cleavers in hand and with killing intent.
- Brain Food: Dorothy's favourite body part to eat is brains. Edmund and Jackie gave her animal brains in a desperate attempt to curb her compulsion to kill, but it only made things worse.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The opening is in black and white, to show that it's a flashback to 1957.
- Downer Ending: Debbie has been fully inducted into her mother's cannibalistic ways, and Edmund can only watch as the two butcher Jackie, his only other daughter.
- Evil Old Folks: Dorothy Yates, a seemingly-sweet old lady who kills and eats people.
- Freudian Excuse: Dorothy grew up during The Great Depression, and had to eat her beloved pet bunny to survive. She was so traumatized that she developed a compulsion to eat people.
- Henpecked Husband: Aside from the standard constant nagging this trope implies, Edmund also feels obligated to cover up her wife's homicides.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Dorothy eats her victims as part of a psychological compulsion.
- Insanity Defense: The only thing stopping the courts from putting the Yateses on death row is the fact that a psychologist labeled them both criminally insane. While Edmund faked madness out of devotion to his wife, Dorothy really is insane, having the compulsion to kill and eat human beings.
- Ms. Fanservice: Debbie regularly wears nothing but a shirt and underwear, showing her very nice legs.
- Not a Morning Person: Dorothy explicitly states that she doesn't like mornings and prefers to be active at night.
- Nun Too Holy: Debbie was thrown out of a convent for being an erratic wild child, and has only gotten worse since then.
- Portmantitle: "Fright"+"Nightmare"
- This Is a Drill: Dorothy dismembers the bodies of her victims with a power drill.
- Villainous Lineage: Dorothy's daughter Debbie has inherited her ma's killer instinct, and joins her in slaughtering random people.
- Wicked Stepmother: Jackie is the result of Edmund's previous marriage before he met Dorothy, which is why she's rather more stable than Debbie. As for the "wicked" part, well, the whole cannibalism thing has to count.
