The two big questions I had while watching 1989’s Nightwish were “where is the night” (it’s one of those rare horror films that mostly takes place during the day) and “where is the wish”. The night eventually comes, but I never understood what the wish was.

The movie starts with an elaborate horror sequence which turns out to be the dream of a university student (the gorgeous Elizabeth Kaitan from “Necromancer”) being studied in a lab. The lab’s head scientist has created a technology that can record people’s dreams (I think that was it; I didn’t really care.) His goal is to use the technology to record a dream in which the slumberer dies.

Then the intro credits roll and when the group reappears, they seem to be tied up in a completely different project, which is going into a spooky house and recording signs of paranormal activity. For the next hour, various twists, turns and betrayals occur, and some women lose their tops. Pretty standard fare for 1980s horror.

Late in the film, a conceit arrives that causes the characters to wonder if what they are seeing is real. It’s effective and creates some real drama, but should have appeared much earlier.

The ending actually does have some real cleverness to it. It uses a trope we’ve all seen a million times, but it works.

Does the good outweigh the bad in “Nightwish”? Not really, but if you’re on the couch recovering from Covid or something (I wasn’t), it could be worth a watch.