Nomads is a 1986 horror film which was written and directed by John McTiernan and stars Pierce Brosnan.
The story involves a French anthropologist who is an expert on nomads. He stumbles across a group of urban nomads who turn out to be more than he expected. It was a sleeper hit, becoming better known after its release.
Plot
The Beginning
The movie begins with the violent and painful death of its protagonist, French sociologist Jean-Charles Pommier (Pierce Brosnan). The moment he dies in the Emergency Room of a Los Angeles city hospital the physician treating him, Dr. Eileen Flax (Lesley-Anne Down), becomes possessed with his memories.
Dr. Flax relives every moment of Pommier’s life until the moment of his death.
Pommier’s Story
After travelling abroad and studying the spiritual beliefs and religious practices of primitive peoples, Pommier finally settles down with his patient wife Niki (Anna Maria Monticelli) in Los Angeles to teach at UCLA.
His home in the suburbs is vandalized one night by a gang of street punks who travel about in a black van. They are very interested in his house and he finds that they have built a macabre shrine in his garage to a murderer who recently killed two girls who lived in the house. He then starts to study them because they are an urban nomad culture that is strikingly similar to the ones he has studied.
He begins to observe them, following them around and covertly taking their pictures. He develops the pictures and is puzzled to find that they don’t show up in them.
Then he begins to realize that they are actually the Einwetok, demonic Inuit trickster spirits that take human form, commit acts of violence and mischief, and who are attracted to places of violence and death. Now that they are aware of him, they plan to claim his soul to keep their existence a secret.
