After ‘Night of the Juggler’ (this Jan), and ‘Night of the Night of the…’ (long distant past), HFVC (RIP) are back for a double nightmare frenzy! It’s the NIGHT OF THE NIGHTMARES! Who will survive with their brain intact? Who can decipher the meaning of these transmissions from the long-forgotten outposts of 80s video purgatory?

Despite the hyperbole of these titles, don’t stay away if scares aren’t your bag. What we have is something better: A double bill of wildly off-piste, dream logic testaments to flawed human endeavour – lumbering on to the big screen in all their misshapen and confused glory. Come and gawp.

8.15 PM: Runaway Nightmare (Mike Cartel, 1982, USA, 105 mins, no cert (over 18s only)

After discovering a woman buried alive, a pair of dopey Death Valley worm farmers are kidnapped by an all-female cult and taken to their desert commune, where they discover that the women are gun runners who are planning to force them to assist in a crazed plan to steal a suitcase full of platinum back from the mafia. 

A passion project began in the late 70s by writer-director-actor Mike Cartel, this film is an unclassifiable slice of high-grade nonsense, which operates on its own woozy frequency. Like many of our favourite oddball movies, the vagaries of time are such that it is now impossible to tell how much of this is the vision of an outright lunatic, or a wonky product of compromise and inexperience. But who cares when the end result is as discombobulating as this?

10 PM: Nightmare Weekend (Dir. Henri Sala, 1986, USA/France/UK, 88 mins, no cert (over 18s only)

An apparently brilliant scientist invents a computer programme designed to rehabilitate bad behaviour. Readying to share his brilliant creation with the world at large, he invites a scientist colleague to test his invention.  Unfortunately for him, she immediately begins to steal his work for dastardly means, setting to work using the programme to turn three college girls into murderous loons - wreaking havoc in the Malibu landscape!

Once billing itself as “the first ‘hi-tech terror film”, this pretty much defies description, so the bare bones of a synopsis aren’t going to give you much of a taster for how this total malfunction of a movie feels to watch. Perhaps fittingly for something with such a wildly misfiring understanding of computer technology, it’s hard to believe this was made by actual humans with functioning brains... Is this the perfect antidote to AI slop? We hope so.