Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

This is Wes Craven's way of saying 'There, I fixed it. Don't touch, just leave it alone.' New Nightmare is a very different departure from the rest of the series, it's set in Hollywood where the tenth anniversary of the original Nightmare on Elm Street movie is approaching. Wes Craven is far from escaping the fame of the first film though as now after six films a demon in the form of Freddy is haunting him, coercing him to write a new script. Craven approaches Heather Langenkamp to revise her role as Nancy, now a wife and mother Heather is apprehensive as she prefers her TV career to her horror legacy, especially in the case of her son. However when Heather's husband dies and she realizes that someone is targeting her son Dylan, Heather has to revert into the dream-scape yet again to stop Freddy.

The seventh installment has, as do they all, the goods and the bad. Goods are this one has some actual thought behind it, as Wes Craven has tried to do with several of his films, but not just make it horror but connect it to real life. This is the predecessor to Scream, the characters within the movie recognize the Elm Street movies as films and Robert England as Freddy. There's parallels to Hansel and Gredel as well as a study of the connection between children and the horror industry today, or rather to how it was in the 90's. In this Craven produces a new look for Freddy that does not quite go with his original story, but it makes sense seeing how Freddy is more of an entity in this than an actual character. It does make for a more horrifying face though, which in addition to a number of other things revamps Freddy as scary. Particularly there's a horror reminescent of the fear caused in the first film, not being killed in your dreams but rather being pulled in to your own bed. Is that...yes...Freddy is actually using his claws! Oh my God what a concept. As my past reviews have hopefully let on that I have found a particular annoyance with that, but this time no he signs his signature on everything.

Craven does the duo role of writing and directing, he plays around with the fact to fiction in the screenplay, especially with the characters. Heather Langenkamp, who suffered a terrifying stalker incident in real life is reliving the fear as Freddy calls her house phone, harassing her and her son. Langenkamp is really quite good at playing herself, which along with other types of acting, such as playing dumb, gets underestimated and overlooked as easy. Robert England's spin is that he's a bit of a whore for the attention of the pop culture fandom, and he paints! England has fun with the depiction of the character and of course teases the viewer by having creepy moments, where you question if he's behind the murders. John Saxon comes back in a larger role (yay!) and Fran Bennett has a very memorable moment in her small scene. Other Nightmare characters like Lyn Shaye come in for cameos as well as Craven himself and Boy Shaye, the man behind all the films.

The downside is it's not a film for the hardcore fans. The ones who love Freddy as the pop culture icon he is and not so much of his terror or Craven's ability to write might not like the film as its not like the first six. The film isn't great, and it has had no where near the impact Scream had, but its not bad and unique. Don't go out of your way to watch it but if it happens to be on TV, click on it and check it out.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

WARNING: May contain some spoilers

After The Dream Child didn't live up to its two predecessors they went ahead and decided that introducing new characters would be the best route for the series. In Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare Freddy is aspiring to get out of Elm Street as a decade and a half (this film is set in 1999) of killing in Springfield has become tiresome, that and he's killed just about everyone under the age of eighteen. Chasing after the last teen proves to be a fail as John Doe escapes and ends up at a shelter for troubled youth. Dr. Maggie Burroughs is overseeing his case and in attempts to cure his amnesia wants to take him back to the town where he barely got away with his life. Meanwhile three other teens from the shelter escape only to end up in Springfield where they meet up with Dr. Burroughs and John Doe. The child absent town has left adults wandering, looking for meaning, leaving John Doe and Maggie free to uncover the identity of the former and find out who this mysterious Freddy Krueger is. The point of this film is to tie up lose ends, satisfy demanding fans, and make a profit off the now iconic Freddy.

In the documentary they mentioned that because this was the last one they just went ahead and self destructed, and that's a fair summary of the film. The back story of Freddy's child came out of nowhere, like literally nowhere. Not that it's impossible for a child killer to have a child but in context to Freddy's reasoning for existence it makes little sense as to why he loved his daughter but was more intent on killing the Elm Street teens than finding her, especially since she's thirty years old. The film tries far too hard to be comedic, having Roseanne Bar and Tom Arnold in it for cameos. The one liners...I'm sorry but just because you throw 'bitch' at the end of every small phrase (i.e. Kung Fu, bitch), does not make it funny. "Welcome to Prime Time, Bitch" was a classic line from the third film and they've managed to abuse its power in every film since. The deaths in this one are like the others they relate to the individual victim but are not scary, the only one I found upsetting was the kid with the hearing aid. The ending is pretty dismal, the 3D add on not really bringing too much to the series.

Lisa Zane plays the doctor and daughter to Freddy, she was alright having the adult role in the film so her acting shines above the teens. Breckin Mayer is in the film, he's a known face but not a household name (he was an 90's teen actor who never got that big). Robert England flows with the Freddy change, he's not formidable but he's as gleeful and witty as ever. I was excited to see Alice Cooper as Freddy's step-father but it was a brief 10 seconds and I noticed that they also managed to rip off Stephen King's The Shinning by using the phrase "Take Your Medicine", while crushing my dreams. There's more plot in this one than the previous film, which was completely absent of one. Despite that though the film was a lot worse than warranted, especially since Rachel Talalay was the director. She started out as the Assistant Production Manager on the first film and worked her way up to director. She has a fairly lengthy list of films to her directorial career but this is her first film so its really not bad. In all honesty the biggest fault in the film is the writing, it's too silly to be commended as a horror script, it's clearly a comedy. However, unlike nightmare five Rachel went in with intent to be ridiculous, so it's not quite the same fault as in the fifth when it falls on its face.

I'd like to point out that the tagline inaccurately presaged the film, on both accounts. This is not the last nor is it the best. Freddy's makeup has been loosing its quality for a few films now, looking less like a burn victim and more like a makeup school's first prosthetic project. I'm not sure what else to say other than that it seems like little effort was put into this, almost like The Blair Witch Project the publicity was more interesting than the film (Freddy had a funeral). This was the only film out of the franchise that I wanted to turn off. It's not like it was horrendously bad, of course not. Despite an excess of one liners, bad acting, and a ridiculous plot this is not the worst film I've seen, far from actually. My verdict is that if your not out to watch all the nightmare films than this one is an easy miss.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

Before I start this week's Nightmare review I like to point out that I've made my first clickable side image thing! I'm quite proud at my half ass photoshop skills as it's now more easier than ever (as if the 7 different tags I have isn't) to locate the reviews. I've also decided that it really wouldn't be complete if I didn't fully do the whole eight films so Freddy Vs. Jason will happen. I may even throw in a review of the documentary, who knows. The other news that basically made me fall off my chair...I have my first follower! I'm beyond appreciative to you that I'm literally at a loss for words, but thank you. And finally I've been tampering with the blog to make it look good. I'm not doing to great so any feedback (if anyone is there) would be helpful.

What is there to say about A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child? Not much I suppose as the film was a bit of a let down. The opening scene is Alice and Dan, from the fourth film, having sex before their graduation. Generally all seems well for our two survivors, new friends, new life, and a promising relationship, until Dan dies that is and Alice finds out briefly afterwards that she is pregnant. Freddy is back again and as a side project to his mundane teen killings he's contriving a more permanent body as he enters through the mind of Alice's sleeping unborn baby. Dealing with the stress of Freddy coming back, her friend's dying all over the place again, and being pregnant Alice is struggling to fight off whats to come. Not all is at fault though, Alice has help from an unlikely entity, Amanda Krueger, Freddy's mother.

If you haven't guessed by my inconsistent posting record that I watched these films awhile ago. Most I wrote down thoughts after seeing so my reviews have been based on those brief commentaries but this is one where I forgot to write a few sentences of the review down as an outline, so I'm purely going off from memory and tidbits of info on IMDB. As blury as some may be I do remember a distinct feeling of having my time being wasted while watching the film. I was not pulled in because there was no plot. Really, it's aimless wandering for the most part, and typically I don't mind shallow almost absent plots but having one with watery characters was just to much of a miss to be a good film. The deaths continue to be creatively concieved but non are so much scary as just weird (Greta's death anyone?). The horror in this I'd say is in the scene where they show the attack on Amanda Krueger, its not graphic as it doesn't show the rape but watching Freddy's future maniac father (England without makeup) stalk through the crowd is pretty effective in capturing that random horror to the whole scenario. Also, the film plays with that hopeless Rosemary Baby element, what's growing inside of you is killing you, and it works out proactively towards the film.

This is where I regret watching the documentary before the films as I remember the actors mentioning that that director was never in one place as he had to address other issues on set, leaving the actors to direct themselves. It shows, on both accounts, in acting Laurie Wilcox returns as Alice and she's comfortable enough in her part where she's convincing, but it still carries an peculiar note to it as it did in the last film. Alice has a new black friend and as the actress mentions in the documentary, she lives! That's The Dream Child for ya, breaking stereotypes since 1989. Let's give it up to Super Freddy actor Michael Bailey Smith for not only tacking the role of Freddy but being brave enough to show his ass on film (yes that is not Dan's ass in the opening scene, I hate to disappoint you).

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 is one of those films where no one stopped to notice how bad things were. It may have helped if they nixed the the Elm Street teen killings and drove the story more towards the rebirth of Freddy and expanded more on his roots. I don't hate the film but I'd say a low dislike is fair enough. I didn't dislike Dream Master but maybe the slasher plot line that follows in the next two films drowns my neutral viewing experience a bit. Freddy's one liners become glaringly annoying at this point and his makeup is in all it's pizza face glory. I feel like my review would have a lot more positive notes if I had written after watching the film cause all I can recall is the negative, so in truth maybe it's not best to take my advice on the review this week. Maybe the only honest statement I can tell you is that I did feel like I wasted a good movie experience after watching it, all missing plots and bad directing aside.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

I am the wizard master! Oh wait wrong Nightmare. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master starts with our previous heroine Kristen having nightmares again, although Freddy is DEAD and Kincaid and Joey try to convince her otherwise she is bothered by the thought that he might be back. By a hellish chain of events Freddy is resurrected and kills Kristen, but not before Kristen pulls Alice, a friend of her's from school, into the dream and gives her power over to her. From there it becomes the contrived plot line of Alice and her friends trying to stay awake and live through Freddy's nightmares. Nightmare on Elm Street 4 proves to not be as good as its predecessor but not awful all around.

The film is quite visually pretty, my favorite being the water bed scene that illuminates green's in blues in a darkly lit room. The death's in this one don't register as anything special in my eyes, and maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine but what's the point of Freddy's claws if he isn't going to kill anybody with them? In truth the best, more creative I should rather say, is Freddy's death, which I loved! In the reviews for the Nightmare remake I noticed that a lot of individuals were criticizing the fact that Freddy didn't toy with his victims before killing them, which I have to agree would annoy me too since it's one of my favorite things about Freddy. But this film seemed to fall victim to the same fault, he toyed with two teens, Alice and Kristen but offed the others without second thought. Am I being picky? Maybe.

Its saddening that Patricia Arquette did not come back for this one, her replacement is deficient, to say the least. Her scream sounds more like her having an orgasm rather than her burning in a pit of fire, every line out her mouth is forced, and she just didn't really get the Kristen character. I liked Alice's transformation, a nice layer to the movie that worked out subtly enough. As for the others well Alice has a lot of friends, who die of course, all of which are played by eager young adults wanting to be in a movie, but their names aren't memorable enough nor is their performances. Is it appropriate for me to gush over the same actor in 7 reviews straight? Probably not so I'll just say that it's Robert England playing Freddy Krueger.

I didn't hate the film, that's a bit drastic to say, but in a lot of ways it wasn't for me. I've observed that in the past three Nightmare's that Freddy's makeup is pretty weak, not really looking like burns. Maybe I'm just nit picking because the first one of is one of my favorites but who knows. This is also the film where the one liners become a small annoyance, nothing too excessive but you notice. As I was saying I don't hate the film, but the lack of blood and the shift in separating some of the mythology from the first film is enough to surpass good direction and a visually satisfying film.

Sam Ash

Normally I don't like to do a lot of irrelevant posts because they are, well, exactly that, irrelevant. Not that I mind them on other blogs, because they are usually funny and such, but I felt that I needed to address this to my non existent audience.

I watch Burn Notice, which to my content has Bruce Campbell in it. Normally I don't look at him and think Ash! He's a good actor and it's easy to separate him from his horror nobility to his ex navy seals persona on the show. However; last night's episode he put on these cerebral looking glasses and I got a wave of Evil Dead. 

I don't know why, as Sam's uneasy tow truck cover doesn't really have anything in common with Ash's unhinged zombie killing personality (especially in that picture), but it happened. I couldn't really shake it for the rest of the episode, maybe it's just time for me to re-watch the series again, or maybe it's because I found out this week that Evil Dead 4 is a maybe.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Before the Never Sleep Again mission the third film in the series, and coined as the fan favorite, is one I've previously seen before and as I recall, I very much enjoyed it. A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 is set in a hospital for anxious teenagers, who unknowingly have something in common, they are the last of the Elm Street kids. The main character is Kristen, a newly admitted patient to the facility, her arrival brings on Freddy's killing spree within the ward and soon following her is an expert in the field, Nancy. Nancy, now a psychologist, struggles to help the teens while still remaining logical to her peers. But soon Nancy and Kristen learn that the days of helpless dreaming are over, as they are introduced to the dream powers they each posses inside of them.

Re-watching this I did have a mutual experience as of last time, I really liked the film for bring back Nancy, setting up the series's reputation of creativity, and giving Freddy witty dialog. The deaths in this one are really unique and amp the dream concept up in that they tend to the characters personally. My favorite was the marionette, it looked painful and puppet Freddy was adorable yet creepy. And of course I must mention the notorious TV death with spawned the pop icon Freddy, with his line; "Welcome to prime time, bitch". This also, in my opinion, has the best lines and the worst lines. The best going to Freddy and the worst to Taryan for "In my dreams I'm beautiful *cue swtichblades* and bad". And of course others in between. 

The teens are all likable and were convincing as friends. This is Patricia Arquette's first film and she's actually good in it. John Saxon comes back for a brief cameo, nuff said. In the first Nightmare film I enjoyed the fiestiness to Nancy's character, this time around Heather Langenkemp plays a much more relaxed Nancy, having settled into being adult, but of course when it comes to Freddy that raw fight she displays in the first film comes out. And....Robert England. The script was written by a collection of writers, the more noted ones being Frank Darabont and Wes Craven, both who I think largely contributed to the success of the film. Not that the other two are bad by any means, it's just to their name they have less horror film credit. Directing wise Chuck Russel has an interesting take on how the dreams appear, unlike that typical misty facade he uses open sets and the synthetic pizza face Freddy look to contrast in lighting and set design.

The third film in the Nightmare franchise is not as scary as the first but does a lot better as a sequel than the actually sequel did. The dream gifts bring out an inalienable competency in the films which opt for a more action based dream sequence than the typical running-from-the-boogeyman-slasher-build-up. This one may be the deciding factor in your interest in this franchise, if you like this one you'll probably want to keep watching. If you didn't, however, than I'd stop now because this is the high point in the series. Still if you're going to see any of them, this is the one to view.  

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge, returns to the the famous Elm Street house in the first one. Five years later a new teeanger, Jesse Walsh, has moved in with his family. Jesse, as so many, is struggling a bit with growing up, and has more issues now that Freddy Krueger is haunting him. Freddy is still angry about being one uped by Nancy, so in his attempts to solve his anger he decides to seek revenge, through Jesse. But have no fear, Jesse and his girlfriend Lisa find Nancy's diary, guiding them through the nightmares. I must say part 2 has flaws, to put it kindly. Between plot, character, and directing issues.

Manipulating the dream/reality complex proves to be to disorienting in this one as Jesse is in neither one nor the other. Freddy no longer is able to solely control the dreams of teenagers but as well as the physical elements around them. That first off breaks the dream barrier that was well constructed in the first film. And secondly, as I said before, it's hard to distinguish what's going on. A lot of Freddy's actions this time are not so much Freddy. He doesn't really toy with Jesse but rather uses him, He preforms a lot of Poltergeist tricks, i.e. setting the toaster oven on fire, making the birds go crazy (in truth the Walsh family has a good case for paranormal investigators). The ending is dull, the boiler scene leaves little to nothing to remember.

A rumor with this one is that the films contains gay subtext. I've heard those who see it and those who don't, in my opinion...yeah it's a little bit leaning that way. Jesse seems to be teetering on his sexuality bounds throughout the film. There's subtle clues (board game Probe in the closet anyone?) and there's the not so subtle clues, like Coach Schneider's death. But its not bad in anyway, in fact it gives more depth to a script that lacks any real meaning or connection. The Never Sleep Again documentary had interviews with the director and he mentioned not liking the first film, however, a lot of people DID like the first film. It seems more that he set out to make a quick fix horror film than anything that stems off Craven's first piece.

The second took a steep fall from the level the first one was on. It, in short, missed the point. A Nightmare on Elm Street is known for being an imaginative series, though I don't think that title got earned until the third film, this is still however lacking. I did like though that they managed to clear some confusion to the ending of the first film in this. It's not great, if anything watch it for Jesse's infamous man scream.