There's a '90s Dan Aykroyd Movie That's Supposed to Be a Comedy, But I Think It's Nightmare Fuel
After watching Dan Aykroyd’s 1991 film Nothing But Trouble, I realized I’ll never look at hot dogs the same way again. Though Aykroyd helped create some of the greatest comedies of the 1980s, this particular film feels anything but funny. It isn’t a dark comedy—it’s more like a disturbing fever dream.
The film features an impressive ensemble cast including Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy, yet their collective talent couldn’t redeem the bizarre tone and unsettling visuals. I caught the movie often on cable years ago and, while it was supposed to make me laugh, what stayed with me were the grotesque images and chaotic energy.
“Now, when I think back, I don’t think of the laughs; I think of the horrors of the movie.”
Aykroyd wrote and directed the film himself, adding to its curiosity. At the time, all four leads were riding high in their careers. Chase had just come off National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, widely considered a holiday classic. John Candy had made audiences roar in Home Alone. Demi Moore had recently starred in Ghost, one of the biggest hits of the early ’90s. Aykroyd had also appeared in My Girl that same year. With that lineup, expectations ran high—but the outcome was a cinematic misfire.
The story follows Chase and Moore’s characters on a road trip that detours into a creepy little town called Valkenvania, setting the stage for a series of weird, unsettling encounters that make the movie feel more like a nightmare than a comedy.
Author’s Summary
Despite its legendary cast and comic intentions, Dan Aykroyd’s Nothing But Trouble transforms a road-trip comedy into a surreal, unsettling horror experience few audiences ever forget.