Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare

What this video is

Released on July 18, 2010, 'Nightmare' arrived as the lead single from Avenged Sevenfold's fifth studio album, the band's first without founding drummer Jimmy 'The Rev' Sullivan, who died on December 28, 2009. The music video functions as an elaborate public grief ritual, converting the horror-film language of psychological torment into an emotionally legible tribute. By grounding the concept in Jacob's Ladder —…

Why it matters

A landmark heavy metal music video of the 2010s, 'Nightmare' demonstrates the genre's full embrace of cinematic narrative filmmaking as tribute medium. Its intertextual density, production scale, and explicit memorial function elevated the music video format beyond promotional content into…

The director

Wayne Isham (born December 2, 1958, Vinita, Oklahoma) is an American film and music video director with over 200 directing credits. A UC Santa Barbara alumnus, he cited David Bowie's 'Ashes to Ashes' as his career inspiration. He became a defining force in…