Many low budget horror movies try to recapture the look and feel of old ‘70s Grindhouse movies by using fake intermission ads, trailers, and scratched prints. Very few go for the “Taped Off Television in the ‘80s” vibe. The WNUF Halloween Special is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Runaway Nightmare is a neat attempt to recreate that bygone era with fake station breaks, regional TV commercials, and bumpers. (Like The WNUF Halloween Special, the broadcast takes place on Halloween.)
This is basically a riff on the old After School Specials, but when you’re watching it, it has commercials for psychics, thrift shops, and Halloween stores left intact. My only real complaint is that the movie itself never quite feels like a real After School Special. It just feels like… you know… another Dustin Ferguson movie. However, the ads and commercials are really well done and are worth the price of admission on their own merit. In fact, I might go so far to say that Runaway Nightmare (which has no relation to the 1982 flick of the same name), just might be my favorite Ferguson joint so far.
The plot of the movie within a movie has a teenager fighting off the advances of her drunken stepfather and accidentally killing him in the process. She flees the scene and is picked up off the side of the road by two degenerates who drug her and sell her to some Satanists looking to sacrifice a virgin on Halloween night.
Many ads are repeated throughout, which I’m sure served two purposes: To recreate the experience of watching old TV broadcasts who always used the same couple of sponsors, and to pad out the running time. (It’s only thirty-eight minutes long.) I’m not really complaining since many of them are pretty sweet. My favorite bit was a Trick or Treat montage set to “The Monster Mash”. (I’m not entirely sure how Ferguson got the rights to the song, but hey, don’t ask, don’t tell, right?)
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