Runaway Nightmare is a film that is fairly straightforward in its absurdity while never quite settling on the genre it wants to play in. It is a movie with an obvious budget and all the failings that come with one and as unwatchable as it might be, for those that like to take a trip into the surreal, this picture is the perfect beast.

Watching this, viewers will see the movie start out as one thing, then become another and another and another as it moves along and though one may think they are watching a horror film, it becomes so much more than that. It does begin benignly enough with two guys Ralph and Jason yammering on in the desert when they hear a bit of a commotion. They spy a couple of guys burying a coffin and so, being as curious as they are, dig it up to discover a beautiful woman inside, still quite alive. The woman is a part of a cult, made up entirely of women who show up one day to claim her and take the men along part and parcel. It is not long before they find themselves on the brink of death themselves, not once but multiple times as the women cannot seem to figure out what they want to do with the men and yet, they go through all of that only to join the cult in the end. What follows are a lot of shenanigans, near-naked ladies, a maybe-witch, a duel, a heist, gangsters and more. Everything including the kitchen sink it seems.

Despite looking and sounding like a horror movie, Runaway Nightmare features very little one might even remotely call frightening. Despite there being a cult or what seems like cult, a witch or what seems like a witch and a few other minor things, writer and director Mike Cartel throws in Western leanings, bits of action and even a little crime drama. It is interesting to say the least and one never really knows exactly where this picture is going to go or what is going to happen. That in itself is a good thing and makes it worth a watch, not to mention seeing Cartel star within the film himself and delivering a few good lines here and there to lighten the mood. If only the script and the story were better, this might have been a truly good movie even with all the preposterousness the audience will discover along the way.

As for the good, there is little to be found. Maybe that in itself is a good thing for with the terrible acting, the zero budget, the incoherent narrative and more, it ends up being one of those films where all the bad makes for something more than bad. It starts out dreary enough, monotonous in its slow pacing and yet, by the final act, one cannot help but be captivated, wanting to see where this ridiculous movie is going to end up. As it is, watching this a single time is far more than enough, if one is even able to finish it.

1 out of 5