Frightmare (1983) - Norman Thaddeus Vane

​Like most of the Troma catalogue, one of Norman Thaddeus Vane's Frightmare core virtues is the love it exhibits for the horror genre, with this film in particular being a rather pointed yet playful examination of the evolution of the horror genre.  In Frightmare, a Bela Lugosi/Vincent Price type surrogate terrorizes a group of rebellious teenagers whom have committed an unspeakable act of disrespect, and the film seems to be going through this narrative schematic for more than just thrills, exhibiting a larger commentary about the genre as a whole, one rooted in transition and respect for one's predecessors.   Frightmare provides gleeful bouts of macabre as it synthesizes the old icons of horror with the modern movement of the 1980s in which rebellious teens receive pittance for their perceived moral shortcomings.   Managing to be a fun, ingenious low-budget horror film while simultaneously touching on the shift of the genre that was rather prescient given its early 1980s release,  Frightmare narratively traverses the contemporary horror archetype in a way which feels just as much a tribute to the old as it does a commentary on the new,  in which horror icons such as Vincent Price & Bela Lugosi were supplanted by the proliferation of the slasher genre - 'immoral teenagers getting served a pittance'.