The House of Milan was a major producer of bondage magazines and movies in the 1980s under the direction of Barbara Behr. The genius behind the HOM heyday was Jason Whitman, who also used the name John Blackmore. Whitman got on with HOM as a still photographer, later parlaying his degree in cinematography into making loops and talkies. HOM produced what are known as "roughies," where the models are put into strenuous positions intended to create discomfort and distress. Suspension and tight crotch ropes are a constant feature of Whitman's style.
Whitman had a warehouse which he rented and constructed sets in for magazine photo vignettes, and for filming. Backgrounds consisted of brick walls, sturdy beams and posts, ropes and pulleys going everywhere, and props stacked in the background for whatever effect Whitman wanted to create. He recycled his sets; the opening set in Sweet Nightmares, for example, can also be seen in other talkies, several loops, and in still photo shoots. The bondage is always inventively different, though.
Whitman films appealed to a niche, but they were nonetheless films. You can see him using solid cinematic technique to move his story lines along. In a point-and-shoot genre, Whitman's movie stand out because they really are movies.
Sweet Nightmares is a star vehicle for HOM's mid-80s superstar, Sharon Montgomery (Curiosity Excited the Kat, Punished 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6). Sharon, as Kay, is telling to her husband over dinner about the nightmares she has been having lately about being tied up. They can't really be nightmares, because it looks like they're lots of fun, in the HOM meaning of the word. Sharon shows why all eyes were on her in this corner of the bondage world. She gets tied and "tormented," most of the time dressed in only enough underwear to get past the Reagan-era censors (and that ain't very much), gets to do a little tormenting herself, and in separate scenes watches Laura Sharp and Toni Stern, another oft-used HOM beauty, in suspension and being played with. This is a solid work, currently available on DVD. Highly recommended.