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Director John Erman's, NIGHTMARE, is an odd, unsettling
Sci-Fi tale.
Producer/Writer Joseph Stefano's Teleplay is an adult, psychological
study of men under stress. It seems to owe a lot to stories of Korean
P.O.W camp torture and brainwashing, which were still fresh in people's
minds in the early Sixties.
At one point, an Earth soldier has his voice taken away by an alien
device. A previously captured human military psychiatrist, who is cooperating
with the aliens, explains to the soldier, "The Ebonites can control
the senses, all five of them. They can give you back your voice, any
time they choose."
This episode has unusually strong acting, with Martin Sheen, Ed Nelson
("The Brain Eaters") and James Shigeta ("Die Hard")
delivering powerful portrayals of U.S. space soldiers. John Anderson
("Psycho") is also quite good as the chief alien interrogator.
This episode's aliens have large, sculpted/shaded heads that look disturbingly,
convincingly alien. Makeup supervisor, Fred B. Phillips, appears to
deserve the credit here.
The stark central set, courtesy of Art Director, Jack Poplin, and Set
Decorator, Chester Bayhi, is a mostly empty, semi-darkened stage, with
several stylized rock formations. While simple, the set forces us to
focus on the human drama and not the alien trappings.
My favorite scene has Sheen, under the influence of alien/mind control,
undergoing a hallucination in which he sees his mother who encourages
him to whisper secrets to her. The scene favorably brings to mind the
Sci-Fi/fantasy novelist, Ray Bradbury, and "The Martian Chronicles".
The music is tense and dramatic , increasing in intensity as the episode
proceeds. The taut score, entirely appropriate for a nightmare, was
composed by Dominic Frontiere.
Director of Photography, John M. Nickolaus, Jr., does creative work
here. Extremely effective is a vertigo inducing, overhead shot, looking
down at a human soldier and an alien, walking down a hall towards a
torture chamber.
NIGHTMARE should be fairly watchable for most Sci-Fi viewers. Martin
Sheen fans should get a kick out of seeing him in an a strong, early
career performance. NIGHTMARE is worth losing sleep over! BACK
TO: EPISODE
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