A scientist/terrorist/general loon (not really sure what he is) puts a toxin in the local water supply that turns ordinary folk into rampaging zombie-like creatures. Wings Hauser, Bo Hopkins, and Company set off to put a stop to . . . well, to put a stop to whatever is going on. That's really all you need to know. The rest is either unexplained or makes no sense at all anyway.Is Nightmare at Noon good? No. Is Nightmare at Noon fun? You bet ya. Zombies, a mysteriously mute albino, explosions, Wings Hauser . . . what more do you need? For all its many (many, many, many, many, etc.) faults, being dull is not one of them. There's a shoot-out, chase scene, or murderous rampage around every corner. Highlights for me include: Brion James albino get-up - including white eyes, hat, and suit; George Kennedy - always a pro regardless of the material; the green acid-filled zombies; Kimberly Beck - always enjoy seeing her; and the above average amounts of sweet 80s cheese. God, what a good time!

"Nightmare at Noon" is a very uneasy mixture of high tech sci-fi and standard western shoot em up. Brion James is visually impressive as the albino mute villain, but that's about it. Bo Hopkins and Wings Hauser act like they are in a mismatched buddy cop movie, while George Kennedy plays the local sheriff. There is some dark humor that slightly elevates things, but overall this is simply a B movie. Lots of green goo, gratuitous big explosions, nice scenery, a great number of "F" bombs, and a goes on forever helicopter battle, which incidentally seems like it belongs in a completely different film. Not totally bad, but not even borderline good. - MERK

This is another one of those 'townspeople infected by toxins' films along the lines of The Crazies, Nightmare City and Mutant. Especially Mutant, as if this film also has Wings Hauser and Bo Hopkins in it.Bo, once again, is playing a cop, and Wings, as you can probably imagine, is playing a moron. Both of them end up in an isolated town which has, very covertly, had its water supply contaminated as some kind of government experiment by an albino Brion James and his cohorts. Anybody that drinks that water goes berserk and starts attacking everybody else. Much hilarity ensues.Bo and Wings, and George Kennedy, and probably some other folks I've forgotten about, find themselves up against an ever growing army of crazy folks running around beating each other up or shooting each other. Wings' wife also gets infected, leading to a scene which calls for the great man to 'emote'. I was rolling around on the floor laughing.This is pure B-movie hokum, but an extremely enjoyable one for all that. I think this may be down to the director being the same guy who made the infamous Island of Death, probably one of the most offensive (and funny) films I've ever watched. He might be making trash, but he's a technically competent director.Highly recommended for folks who love a good b-movie. It slides a bit at the end when it suddenly turns into a western, but it's a fun journey all the same.Look out for the motorcycle explosion scene - so over the top I didn't stop laughing for about ten minutes.

We begin with the 'Albino' (Brion James, his character is never given a specific name) sitting in the back of an APE van, APE being short for AGENCY FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT. He is operating a computer console. The message 'CANYONLAND POPULATION:963 ELEVATION:4014 EXPERIMENT STATUS:INITIATE' flashes up on a monitor in front of him. Along with several heavily armed guards he removes a test tube from a briefcase that contains an unknown fluorescent green liquid. He fires it from a high-tech gun into the town of Canyonlands water supply, a river. Back to the monitor, 'EXPERIMENT STATUS:INITIATED'. Ken Griffiths (Wings Hauser) is a lawyer who is travelling along in his posh camper van with his wife Cheri (Kimberly Beck) when they stop to pick up a hitchhiker and ex cop named Riley (Bo Hopkins). The three stop at a café in Canyonland for something to eat. While they eat their food a man named Charley (Neal Wheeler) walks in and sticks a knife into Lori, the waitresses (Jean Pflieger) hand. Charley attacks Ken and Riley when they try to intervene and the police are called. The 'Albino' types on his computer again, this time he jams all forms of electronic communication and sets up a magnetic field around the town which renders any electronic device useless, including cars. A female officer called Julia Hanks (Kimberly Ross) shows up and manages to restrain Charley. Her dad turns up too, Sheriff Hanks (George Kennedy) but Charley goes crazy and steals a police car and kills a woman in hair curlers (Tabi Cooper) and a Deputy (Mark Haarman) who just happens to be Charley's son, before he is pumped full of lead by the Sheriff. Charley bleeds green blood, which everyone quite rightly thinks is strange. More and more incidents of people killing each other are reported. The entire town seems infected and it's up to Sheriff Hanks, Julia, Riley, Ken and Cheri to stay alive long enough to put a stop to the mind-altering experiment. Who will survive and will they be able to stop the organisation behind this experiment?This action/sci-fi/horror film was co-edited, co-written, co-produced and directed by Nico Mastorakis and I thought the fist half an hour or so was great fun but the rest of the film was massively disappointing. The script by Mastorakis and Kirk Ellis is at it's best and most entertaining when it's silly, but falls way sort when it tries to be serious. It features black vans that make a strange noise as they drive along for no apparent reason, silly but fun. There is a scene where Wings Hauser as Ken is distraught because his wife has become infected and tries to act, oh dear not fun at all. One moment the film is great fun and the next it totally sucks. The zombie townspeople are only in the first half an hour, after that it forgets about them completely and concentrates on Riley going after the people responsible. At which point it becomes a little dull as Riley just sort of follows 'Albino' across the Utah desert on horseback for what seems like hours. The bad guys are never identified as to who they really are and the purpose of the experiment is never discussed or elaborated on. I didn't like the ending either, the zombie townspeople just appear 'cured' with no explanation as to how, and I was surprised that the bad guy Brion James didn't get a big over-the-top death sequence. There are some great cheesy one-liners like "I've got a wife in there who's half nuts!", "you get any time off in hell, come see us again!", "I was right this whole towns gone psycho!" and my personal favourite after Riley shoots a mechanic named Floyd (Bob Miles) he walks over to the body and says "no charge for the parts and labour Floyd!". The 'I'll appear in anything for money' cast is great, Wings Hauser, Bo Hopkins, George Kennedy who is in a class of his own as far as I'm concerned and Brion James as the bad guy who is sadly underused and in fact doesn't say a single word throughout the entire film, his death sequence was disappointing too as his actual death wasn't shown. It has some reasonable stunt work and action scenes, I thought the helicopter chase at the end was really impressive for what was probably a low-budget film and there were some decent explosions and car crashes. I liked the rocky mountain scenery at the end as well, I thought it looked cool. There isn't really any blood or gore, a few people get shot and a knife is stuck in a woman's hand. I can't, in good conscience, recommend Nightmare at Noon because as a whole film it's not that good but there are parts here and there that I really enjoyed on a 'bad' film level. If you can watch it on T.V. for free or get a copy cheap then I would say you could do a lot worse, unfortunately you could probably do a lot better too. Could have been great, a bit of a missed opportunity. I have equally good and bad thoughts about it, you'll have to make up your own mind about this one.