Nightmare (1956)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Nightmare (1956) – M. Shane

Film noir – but weirder.  From a short story by Cornell Woolrich (whose work has been mined for many noirs: Phantom Lady, Black Angel, Night has a Thousand Eyes, Rear Window, more), this feels more like horror than noir at times.  Kevin McCarthy plays New Orleans jazz clarinetist Stan Grayson who has a terrible nightmare where he kills a man in a weird octagonal mirrored room.  He awakes the next day and finds some evidence that the dream may be real (a button, a key, blood and bruises on himself).  He asks his brother-in-law, homicide detective Rene Bressard, for some help but Bressard doesn’t believe that the dream could have any bearing on reality. That is, until Grayson guides them to a mysterious house in the bayou during a sudden rainstorm, a house that he claims to have never been to in his life.  Although pretty low budget, the film feels edgy and unusual – you never know for certain whether something supernatural is happening and you feel for Grayson.  The bit players keep things moving but it is really up to McCarthy and Robinson to carry the film – and they do.  Of course, it is all tied up nicely by the end but along the way, you just don’t know.  And it is still pretty weird, after all.