The three bishops

Yesterday's post was about the Darkroom TV series. Today's follows closely behind it for a reason I will explain in a moment. Here is today's film.

NIGHTMARES from the year 1983.




YouTube linkie for you.

Here's a random picture.

So, Nightmares. I said there was a relation to the TV series, Darkroom. Yes. Nightmares is an anthology that is comprised of four short stories that were originally made for Darkroom but didn't make the cut because it was felt that they were too intense for a TV show. So they compiled them together and Nightmares was born.

So here's a basic rundown of the stories.

Story #1: Terror in Topanga
A woman goes out late one night for cigarettes and is terrorized by an escaped killer.

Story #2: The Bishop of Battle
Emilio Estevez plays a teen obsessed with beating a video game called The Bishop of Battle. The eventual outcome is not what he expects.

Story #3: The Benediction
Lance Henricksen plays a priest who has lost his faith and has a run in with the Devil who drives a pickup truck.

Story #4: Night of the Rat
Veronica Cartwright and Richard Masur play a couple dealing with a giant rat.

Now you may be wondering the significance of the title of today's blog. The first bishop is the obvious one.

This is the Bishop of Battle, the antagonist of Emilio in the second story. The second bishop is a reference to Lance Henricksen, who played Bishop in the Alien film series. The third bishop is a minor character in the same episode, The Benediction. So many bishops.

My personal favorite story, and usually the one most talked about is The Bishop of Battle, where Estevez has it out with an evil video game.

It's got that cheesy early 80's vector graphic appeal. Terrified yet?

As a whole, Nightmares is just a fun movie. And isn't that the point?