Horror and science fiction have always been a part of the television canvas, and constant attempts have been made over the years to produce classic entertainment. Some have fallen by the wayside, while others became mainstream phenomena. With “TV Terrors,” we take a look back at the many genre efforts from the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s, exploring some shows that became cult classics, and others that sank in to obscurity.
In this installment, we head back into the “Nightmare Café“…
- Aired in 1992
- Aired on NBC
In 1984, Wes Craven and Robert Englund helped to completely reshape the horror genre for the eighties, inventing one of the most prevalent icons of horror cinema with A Nightmare on Elm Street. Over the years subsequent, Craven and Englund continued finding projects together and one of them was “Nightmare Café.” In 1992, Freddy Krueger was dead and buried, Wes Craven was mostly reserved to television projects, and NBC was looking for a compliment to their ratings hit “Must See Thursday” with edgier Friday Night Fare.
Along came “Nightmare Café,” a creative collaboration between Englund and Craven that delivered genre fare to–mixed results, despite being wiped off the NBC canvas almost immediately. Loved by some and dismissed by others, “Nightmare Café” plays out almost like the antithesis to the eighties anthology “Freddy’s Nightmares,” where Craven and Englund took the darker, campier, menacing tone of the series and amped it up for a broader primetime audience.
“Nightmare Café” was initially intended to be an anthology horror series in the realm of “The Twilight Zone” where Robert Englund would introduce every tale as the supernatural narrator Blackie, whose enigmatic presence struck a chord like the clawed, scarred maniac he’d portrayed for years. Donning a suit and his trademark mischievous grin, Englund’s Blackie is the shop keeper of the titular “Nightmare Café,” a cafe that acted as its own doorway to another realm that could appear anywhere and lure in people that the owner would then confront.
The original tone of “Nightmare Café” sounded very much like a mixture of “Fantasy Island,” “Night Gallery,” and “The Twilight Zone,” with a hint of “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Here, our only recurring character was Blackie, who would scrutinize each customer at the café through television monitors. I assume given its original course, “Nightmare Café” was tailored for a wider audience and changed to an episodic fantasy thriller with a much lighter and hopeful tone; sure it was dark, but in the way that film noir is dark.
The Phillip Noyce-directed pilot entitled “Nightmare Café’ is forty five minutes of exposition as we get to meet the series’ heroes, both of whom are thrust into a circular plot involving political corruption with a chemical plant, gangsters, and an attempted suicide that eventually leads them into one another’s arms. Blackie spends most of his time watching the pair and tinkering with the fabric of time and space at only certain points, allowing them to gain the upper hand, but trusting that they can right certain wrongs in reality. Think “Quantum Leap” meets “Highway to Heaven” with ring leader Robert Englund’s Blackie possessing the charm of Ricardo Montalban with the danger of Krueger… sans scars. The enigmatic shopkeeper is joined by Café cook Frank and waitress Fay (daytime television stars Jack Coleman and Lindsay Frost), dead characters given a second chance to help other lost souls in need of something like redemption, or sanctuary.
Englund’s Blackie is perhaps the most fascinating element of “Nightmare Café” as we’re never quite sure who or what he is. Is he God? Satan? Is he an angel? Is he the boat man from the River of Styx? Are Frank and Fay cursed? Are they being held prisoner? Or are they earning their place in the afterlife? Most of those elements are pretty much left in the air for the duration of the six episode run of “Nightmare Café,” with much of the series shifting aesthetics constantly. Sometimes “Nightmare Café” watches like a dark fantasy (“Sanctuary for a Child,” co-starring Angela Bassett), sometimes drama (“Fay & Ivy,” co-starring Molly Parker), sometimes like a crime thriller, and oftentimes it even dabbles in comedy (episode six, “Aliens Ate My Lunch”).
The series’ short run involves a lot of Frank and Fay aiding in the personal welfare of others, as well as patching up their own personal lives as a form of redemption at the behest of Blackie. Despite being completely forgotten in the annals of Wes Craven’s groundbreaking work like “Scream” and “The Last House on the Left,” Craven’s series with NBC is not bad; in fact it can be quite good in the way it runs with its concept, and has fun with Robert Englund as its star.
Subsequent to its cancellation, “Nightmare Café” was carried over to the Syfy in the mid-1990s, playing in rotation in syndication. In 2009 it played for a short period on the now defunct Chiller TV Channel. “Nightmare Café” watches well enough if you give it some leeway in the weird tonal shifts, and somewhat ill-conceived (and Craven-directed) series finale. Plus the series ends providing almost no answers to anything that’s introduced. This includes Blackie’s whole purpose, what the Nightmare Café is supposed to be and what will happen to Frank and Fay if they accomplish enough good deeds. Either way I recommend it as a great conversation piece for hardcore Craven and Englund fans, if nothing more.
Is It On DVD/Blu-Ray? Not at all; considering it only lasted six episodes, the likelihood of it being brought to DVD or Blu-ray seems slim. If you look hard enough you can find episodes; some online shops sell copies of the entire series. There is still a lot of odd memorabilia out there, too, including a “Nightmare Café” soundtrack on cassette tape!
