Nightwish (1989)

"You must welcome death, out of curiosity. " - Professor

A professor and students try to solve the mysteries of the paranormal.
Starring: Elizabeth Kaitan, Jack Starrett, Alisha Das, Robert Tessier, and Brian Thompson

Link to IMDB

Donna

Under the care of their professor, four college students have been conducting parapsychological research into dreams, where they learn to face their greatest fears. Now they are going to do some field research at an old estate which has been a hot spot for alien sightings, ghosts and even rumours of Satanists.

Donna is our lead character, along with her peers Kim, Jack, Bill, and their very intense driver named Dean. They arrive at the abandoned house with all the gear they need to capture hard evidence of the paranormal, but unfortunately Dean heads off on other business... Come back, Dean! You're the best part of the movie! Luckily, he does eventually return.
Anyways, the Prof and the his students begin their investigations, and it seems like the place is truly haunted by some spooky spirits.


The Professor begins to act strange, as he becomes desperate to contact the entity that haunts the house so that he can enter its dimension. During a summoning ritual, he kills Bill in order to attract the spirits, and now everyone else is freaking out!

   Kim                                     Dean                               Professor

Donna and her friends are forced to help the Professor out of fear, but they're also trying to find a way to escape. The spirits are getting restless and violent, but the Professor is bent on trying to control them, despite the danger... If only Dean would hurry up and come back to save them!

Nightwish tries really hard to be tense and suspenseful, and while it does create a decent atmosphere of spookiness and takes itself serious most of the time, it is far from an effective thriller.
The entity haunting the house is left unexplained, and despite the movie throwing around concepts like aliens, monsters and Satan, none of that is ever shown. All we get are some random green phantoms, and they don't even seem to mean anything.

There is some levity and kookiness here as things slowly become more bonkers, but it never reaches the heights of actually being outright fun. Overall, it has a "made for TV in the 80's" vibe to it, so there's very little here that I haven't seen before.

But hey, we do get more Dean near the end, and Dean is awesome.

Be sure not to miss:
- The weird bongo song Dean listens to on the car radio.
- The boom mic is seen many times, but this is likely due to the film not being in its theatrical aspect ratio, instead of just sloppiness.
- Epic line delivery: "The highway is mine."
- Rats enough!

Internet review:
"This movie is about as focused and sensible as a drunk driver." - Cheel

Should I watch it?
It has its moments, but not essential viewing.

Where can I find it?
Here on YouTube.

Nightwish gets...