Child's Play (HEAVY SPOILERS)

Imagine my surprise when I jumped on here and saw that my last review was for Cult of Chucky. Ironic!

Alright, been another rough couple of years and not a lot of time to watch scary movies, but I'm working on a podcast project that I'm eventually going to transfer all of my attention to, so 'scuse me for not updating.

In that time it was announced that a Child's Play remake was finally moving forward. I allowed myself to be a little excited, because I love the Chuckster and Don Mancini has such a vice grip on the franchise (and I mean that in a positive way) that I was interested to see what someone else would do to the Child's Play elements if given a chance. Well, fast forward a little bit to when they revealed that Chucky was not going to be Charles Lee Ray, but a rogue AI. Cue complete and utter disappointment.

Then a few things happened to get me interested again. One was the advertising campaign, which was a lot of fun with a Kaslan Corp website and an interactive Buddi doll AMA on Reddit. Hey, the marketing people know how to get a buzz going. Cool! Also an announcement that Mark Hamill was going to be the voice of Chucky replacing the brilliant Brad Dourif (my man!) What a casting! I was wondering--if Brad isn't coming back, what brilliant VO could take on the mantle? But I will get to gushing about Mark's performance soon.

I guess in spite of my disappointment the ad campaign was enough to get me back on board the hype train, and I dragged my wife kicking and screaming to see the film yesterday. We both had so much fun. My wife, who is an admitted Not-Fan-of-Chucky-Films, seemed to really enjoy herself a lot.

So, what is going to make you go see this film, if you are a fan of the original and you find the idea of no-Charles disgusting? Well, I dunno. Maybe you should work on getting over your own prejudice and just try to have a fun time? But that's counter-intuitive. This movie is a lot of fun and it has a lot of fun with itself and the audience. The core characters--Andy, his mom, Andy's two friends, the detective who isn't Chris Sarandon but a black guy who is actually a really funny, down-to-earth character--all of them are great and a lot of fun. But the crowning achievement here goes to Mark Hamill.

Mark's Chucky is innocent, I tell ya. He is programmed to learn, but those programs have inhibiting functions that are disabled by a disgruntled factory worker (who goes on to commit suicide afterward). He's not evil in the sense that a sadist like Charles Lee Ray is evil. He's more of a Frankenstein's monster misguided evil. All he wants to do is be Andy's buddy, but what Andy and his friends teach him bad behaviors and he learns and applies his programming in the worst ways. And damn, Mark Hamill pulls the opposite performance of Brad Dourif and makes you SAD FOR CHUCKY. What the hell is this? And why is it working so well!? The performance Mark gives as a misunderstanding AI just trying to please its new best friend is...kinda heartwrenching for such a silly flick.

It gives a surprising depth to the proceedings, and Chucky's plight as a rogue AI reflects on all the characters he affects as well, giving them all a little blood drop's worth of depth as well. Through Chucky, Andy meets new friends--something he has been struggling with from the beginning of the film. But also through Chucky's manipulating later in the film, Andy almost loses everything. Through Chucky, Andy's mom learns of what an asshole her would-be boyfriend is. But also through Chucky, she is put through the ringer as a mother when he is murdered and she has to deal with her son who she believes is going nutters. Through Chucky, Andy and Detective Norris begin developing their own sweet relationship. But also through Chucky, that relationship becomes strained when a jealous Chucky murders Norris's mom, leading Norris on a trail back to Andy himself.

Chucky, it turns out, is a complicated character, and he complicates the story in the best possible ways. The best part about this new doll is that he is an Amazon Echo-like toy, and he is able to connect to other Kaslan products to help make playtime with kids a better experience for them. This means that when he goes rogue in the second half of the film, he's able to do all sorts of mean and nasty things like heat up the temperature of a room, turn off and on lights, control televisions, record video, etc.

The most fun thing that happens in the movie, however, is in the climax when Chucky is able to gain control of a Zed Mart's stock of Buddi 2 dolls--the latest iteration of the Buddi product. Chucky and his army of dolls go on a killing spree throughout the shopping center during the unveiling. Unfortunately, the army carnage doesn't last too long and we are back down to the one doll for a final showdown.

I loved this movie. It was just a lot of fun, just like the original and the rest of the movies in the series. It's not too scary (like an Ari Aster flick) and its...fun. That's all I can say about it. Just go and have fun. Forget about Charles Lee Ray for an instant and enjoy the Buddi doll iteration of Chucky. Besides, Don Mancini is still working on a Chucky series set in the original universe. What can you lose?

I give Child's Play 2019 an A-. Somebody buy me a Buddi doll please.

Cult of Chucky (SPOILERS AHEAD)

I have long had a love/love relationship with the Child's Play series (or the Chucky series, depending on whether or not you are a pleb--just kidding). I have watched and love every movie in the series, including Seed--because I know your first thought upon reading that sentence goes to that movie. The personality of Charles Lee Ray and the aesthetics of the Good Guy dolls are the perfect formula for good scary fun.

I don't think I ever gave a review for Curse of Chucky, and I should have when it first came out. I thought it was a good movie. Not a great movie, but a good step back in a direction I wanted the series to be in. While I do love the two "fun" Chucky films (Bride, Seed) I felt like if Chuck was going to come back, it needed to be big. And while Curse of Chucky was a good film to re-introduce a Chucky doll that could be intimidating and scary once again, I feel like Cult better represents a celebration of the series nearly thirty years on.

I mean, gawrsh. This film has so many cool ideas in it, and the surprising element to me was Andy Barclay. When he had a special post-credits scene in the last film I was ecstatic. It's cool to see the original character/victim/actor return to the franchise, but Cult goes out of its way in a good way to show just how much of a badass Andy has become. This is no longer a victim, no longer a guy willing to let the world get him down. No, he's putting himself out there, trying to meet women and live life--and when that doesn't work out he gets his rocks off torturing the original Chucky doll which is now just a severed head.

That's just the opening of the film. Throughout the rest of the film we follow Nica (the protagonist of Curse) as she lives her life at a psychiatric hospital getting therapy from the worst doctor you could ever have and dealing with the worst assortment of patients you could ever be forced to deal with.

This isn't a knock against any of these elements. This series succeeds by throwing our poor main victim/character into the fray with a bunch of snobby, snotty assholes and crazies that will eventually become Chucky fodder. These new characters do a fine job of making you sympathetic to their plights (some of them) and also at the same time wish they were dead.

But moreover the best thing--and possibly the worst thing--about this movie was the build-up throughout the entire film. Though Cult follows the standard trajectory of a Child's Play plot (doll kills a bunch of people and it is blamed on the main character who insists that they didn't kill anyone) you get a good sense that Chucky is up to something bigger this time around, especially when you learn that

THERE ARE MULTIPLE LIVING CHUCKY DOLLS.

As the film reaches its ending and the mayhem gets cranked up to the top, this film takes you on a wild ride until its strange ending comes out of nowhere.

Chucky wins. Wholeheartedly. It's, I think, the first movie in the series (maybe Seed takes that reward, but that is debatable) where Chucky gets everything that he wants in the end.

How crazy is that? While its a great twist, a part of me can't help but be disappointed. Chucky is so despicable in this movie and he gets away with it? At the end, Andy sees the reports of deaths at the hospital and decides its time to go out and take care of business, and he brings a Chucky doll with him (why? Oh don't worry, that'll be revealed and it's a pretty badass secret). He arrives at the hospital and checks himself in because he's going to try to rescue Nica and get out of there (or maybe finish off Chucky while he is at it). So when one of three revived Chucky dolls comes to kill him (the one he brought with him) he STICKS HIS HAND INTO ITS STOMACH AND PULLS OUT A GUN TO KILL THE DOLL WITH.

What a badass sequence. I cheered, I'll be honest. That was the highlight of the whole film for me. Unfortunately, I was expecting Andy to get a couple more great moments in before the end of the film, but by that point the "Cult" was doing some last minute clean up and the movie was drawing to a close. Andy gets trapped in his cell, Nica is now possessed by the doll, and she and Tiffany ride away into the sunset together to commit more devious acts together.

While I was hoping for an Andy cleans house ending, I feel like perhaps this film is building up to maybe one more movie, especially with the post-credits tease at the end with Kyle from Child's Play 2. I can only hope this is the case, because with Andy back in a big, BIG way I'm hoping they bring back Ronald Tyler from Child's Play 3 and then all of Chucky's original victims can join forces and fight the new ARMY of dolls. Who knows, maybe Nica can regain herself and join in too. I like her character and I don't think she deserves to die as Charles.

I give Cult of Chucky a B+. A great film, especially if it's building up to something even better in the next film (Please for the love of God, Mancini!)

Hell House LLC./Lake Mungo and the problem of found footage movies

It's been a rough year for me. Don't worry, I'm not about to use a horror blog to soap box at you about the problems of a 20-something millenial in the big scary world. I know I post here extremely infrequently, but I've always been the type of person who only says something when they have something to say. I've had plenty I could say in the last year, but I went through a lot of drastic life changes every month it seemed, and my life is finally getting back to semi-normal.

One of these changes is that I have a fantastic career on a graveyard shift...somewhere. I'm really hesitant to break out details because I don't trust anyone with any information about where I am and what I'm doing. Super sorry. But I basically don't do shit all night and it affords me time to devote to doing what I love to do best: watching horror movies. I've watched some greats (The Devil's Candy, which is now on Netflix--please watch it, its very refreshing) and I've watched some just okays (We Are Still Here, which came highly recommended but it didn't do much for me).

I have JUST finished watching Hell House LLC. It also came highly recommended (guess which subreddit I frequent). Having finished the film all the way through, I have some concerns. That's right, you won't hear me soap box about life's ills but it is extremely important to voice my opinion on horror films in the hope that perhaps they will change.

Hell House LLC is a well made film for the most part. The found footage is found footage-y--actually the film serves as a found footage/mockumentary hybrid. You know what kind of camera work you will get for these movies, so I won't comment on that. It was decently acted, the suspense was properly managed throughout most of the film...but the story and some of the scares just disappointed me more than anything.

Well, what do I like from found footage movies? I guess one word I would use to sum up my feelings is "plausibility", but to go more in depth, maybe its best that I do a comparison review and compare Hell House LLC with a film I think may be the best mockumentary/found footage movie I've ever seen--Lake Mungo.

Lake Mungo is also a home footage/mockumentary hybrid. It is extremely well acted, surprisingly heart felt, extremely creepy and ridiculously depressing. In short, it's a roller coaster ride of a film in how it plays the viewers emotions. But let's get back to Hell House LLC so I can properly highlight what works in Lake Mungo that doesn't work in the former film.

Hell House LLC is about a company (the titular Hell House LLC.) who run a haunted house walk through attraction every year. They go around the country and set themselves up in well known locations and come Halloween time they scare the pants off people by jumping out at them and throwing blood everywhere.

I was very intrigued by this concept because walk-through scary experiences are a ripe setting for a horror movie and yet I haven't seen anyone do the concept any justice--including Hell House LLC. So what is the problem, then? It's not the characters, who act like I would expect they would act in this situation. It's not the story, which is vague--that's not a criticism. I like that the film makers didn't spell out everything for the viewer. They introduced issues between the leads that they never spelled out in any detail and I was fine with that because if this found footage were real, we wouldn't have characters who have a story arc--we'd have a snapshot of something horrible and we don't have any idea what the bigger picture would be. This aspect of Hell House LLC is highly commendable. Like The Blair Witch Project, there seems to be a lot of ideas that aren't elaborated on and go nowhere, and the mystery of it all contributes to the unease that the viewer is supposed to leave the experience feeling.

Lake Mungo's central mystery is much the same--what is "found" on the found footage is cleverly used as the climactic event of the film, where the viewer simultaneously learns what is going on and then gets really confused about what is going on and why it happened. There is "footage" sprinkled throughout the film and the more you see, the deeper you go into a puzzle and when the answer is flung into your face, you're still left wondering "why?"

But where Hell House LLC fails is where most other found footage movies fail--including the Blair Witch Project sequel that came out last year:

Things just get way too explicit. The mystery of the movie is revealed in the climax, but unlike Lake Mungo where that image will haunt you for the rest of your life after you see it, Hell House LLC just disappoints you because it spells too much out.

There's something creepy about watching a video that is sold to you as something real, and what you see is never very explicit. It's grainy, its hard to tell what is going on, you're not sure where to look to see what you're supposed to see--and then you see something. And your heart skips a beat. It's freaky, because its subtle. You see the split second as the camera turns and there is a mysterious shape or a face that quickly flashes by. It's subtlety makes it more likely to be real somehow.

Hell House LLC spells out all of its scares, to the point where I was wondering if all along it was going to be a set up. It wasn't. Things are so in your face in this movie that I had a hard time buying into what I was seeing, and with a found footage movie selling this story to your audience is the most important thing you can do. Its a found footage movie's job to trick the audience into thinking what they are seeing is real. It's not just having someone hold a camera and you put shit in the cameras view.

With Lake Mungo, everything is so subtle that sometimes you actually have to rewind the film to see what the hell people are talking about. That kind of interactivity actually goes a long way with getting your audience into the film. Once you get them actively watching, then they are engaged. Some people may like the more explicit kind of scare, but in my opinion that isn't what a found footage movie should be about.

When you're dealing with the supernatural in a film, make it subtle. Make it not pop out. Make people look for it. It's a good way to get them involved in your story, and its a great way to put in a nice, deep scare for when their eyes are searching for the story.

Now, there were moments of subtlety in Hell House LLC and I will give them credit--however, those moments of subtlety are immediately trampled upon by the film going back immediately and showing you explicitly what was supposed to be hidden. It's a cop out.

To be fair, Lake Mungo does this too, but with how that movie is written, how it moves--it's a lot more organic. Those moments of review when they give you a second chance to see the creepy things serve the story in a very real, plausible way. A lot of the pay off of Lake Mungo happens during its CREDITS--AFTER the film has already run its course. And boy, what a creepy pay off it is. I will never be able to scrub its imagery out of my head.

Hell House LLC, sadly, suffers from a lot of what other found footage movies suffer from. Making a movie is a difficult task, I'm sure, but found footage movies are constantly breaking the rules of plausibility, and I think that that affects how effective they can be with their story telling. Jump scares are fine if you build them up well enough.

But like Randy in Scream, there need to at least be some ground rules you should establish when you get out there to make a found footage movie.

1. If there is something supernatural going on, don't make it explicit. Subtlety is key. How often do you as an audience member hear about how a person experienced something so drastic like a person entering a haunted house and jumping through weird time loops, while at the same time dodging moving furniture and getting chased by a very visual in your face demon? No one, right?

2. If you're dealing with a human threat, you can break a few more rules, because human evils love to break rules. Subtlety is nice at first, but if the problem is an evil stalker, those things do realistically tend to escalate.

3. Keep your audience in the dark as much as possible, no matter the threat. Let the mystery of the events haunt them for the rest of their lives. No conveniences to conjure up scary imagery. The more you let your footage speak for itself, the better--and that means not giving the audience any sort of in your face idea of what is going on. The Blair Witch Project gave us several different nuggets of "backstory" but those ideas never really came back for pay off in any really big way (save for one strange detail).

4. Steadicam is for losers. Make people sick. No one in their right mind is going to keep a camera so ridiculously steady when they are running from a perceived danger. Hell, no one may even keep a camera around when there is danger. The footage of that poor gentleman lost in the catacombs of Paris is a good, (maybe) real life example.

Actually, that's a perfect example of how to do a good found footage film overall. That dude in the catacombs got so scared he said "fuck this" to his camera and ran off into the dark, never to be seen again. What was he running from? Did he ever get out? Those questions tend to stay with you long after you see that video. They haunt you. They engage you long after you're done watching.

To an extent, the ending of Hell House LLC leaves you in the dark about what actually happened, but its what the viewer sees that is the big problem. When you can clearly see what is endangering your players, it gets more and more implausible as long as your dealing with a supernatural threat.

Your found footage film's final moments are the pay off to the rest of your film. Don't fuck it up and ruin the immersion. That's dumb. Think of Ghostwatch. It's so effective because its haunt is barely noticeable throughout the film, and only on playback can you find all of its appearances. That's creepy. It makes you feel unsafe. It violates that rule of safety that you think you have in the real world, because now you're going to be looking around wondering what you're missing.

Lake Mungo's final moments are the summation of the sad mystery behind a girl's death, and though the revelation resolves everything that came before it, it still leaves the viewer haunted and wondering why. It helps that what you see is almost indiscernible, because it makes you look closer to see the details. That is plausibility.

To make a long story short (a summary introduction that my dear father loves to use frequently, and so I take a page from his vernacular) Lake Mungo works by having everything Hell House LLC has, but uses those elements to greater effect by virtually hiding them from the audience, like dangling a carrot above their heads. Hell House LLC ruins its build up by trying to make its hauntings flashy and intense. And that ruins the movie for good.

In the future, I hope found footage movies can move from fantastical, immersion ruining experiences and back into more unsure territory.

Lake Mungo gets a hard A+ for me, but Hell House LLC. recieves a C. It had some fantastic build up at times, but its payoff drags the rest of the film down into its haunted basement.

I'm sorry that got a little ramble-y, but when my brain vomits out shit I have to write it down, and I want to remain pretty unfiltered and unedited. Once again, if that's not your bag, my bad.

So, I just finished the Scream TV Series

It's been a little while since our last outing. I know there is a little bit of continuity error since our last chat, but I tried my darndest to find the words to pen for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, 5, and 6, so let me just sum up my thoughts for you before we continue:

I didn't like them. On one hand I was simultaneously impressed and appalled by the writing in the three movies. The plots and weak excuses to bring Freddy back were awful. Absolutely awful. But the dialogue, especially Freddy's, was great. The imagery was also fantastic. But I wouldn't watch them again.

OKAY! On to Scream!

So way back when when they first announced the series and its concept everyone was angry. Not just skeptical, mind you, because its the internet. They were fuming. Which I thought was strange, because most horror fans I know hate Scream and consider it the end of classic horror instead of it being a revitalizing of the slasher genre. But people were mad, all the same. And why were they mad? Because Scream: The TV Series was announced to have nothing to do with the films from which it borrows its namesake.

The TV series doesn't have Ghostface or Sidney or Dewey or even connections through characters as small as Randy's distant distant distant relative. No, everything about the series is original. Original killer, original mask. Original heroine, original movie geek. Original original original--which makes people mad.

Don't get me wrong, I think they had a little right to be mad. Everything fans loved about the movies was being discarded to bring in something new, and its hard for people to accept that sort of change sometimes. But Scream The TV Series has managed to be something new while successfully translating what made the movies fun to a TV audience.

Because it's a TV Series it's going to take longer to establish who characters are. It's not like a movie where they have to cram character development quickly and you get that immediate satisfaction of knowing who these characters are. Scream takes its time, but unfortunately at first you have to be subjected to MTV levels of drama while you wait to learn the big stuff. That is pretty much the only big adjustment you will have to make as a member of the audience.

The rest of the show is good solid Scream fun. It's actually kind of like a remake of the first film, with the second season bringing in elements from the second film.

You have Emma--new Sidney--Noah--new Randy--Brooke--new Tatum--Will and Jake--Billy and Stu, though with a twist, and then there's Piper, the new Gale...it's all very familiar, but different. Consequently there is a new Ghostface character: Branden James. James has a very Ghostface-esque mask, and the killer who comes to Lakewood wearing that same mask borrows a lot of familiar elements from the old Ghostface character: creepy Munch-esque mask, creepy voice to make phone calls with, etc.

I was surprised when I was watching just how well they put the movie concept into the TV show, and despite having no familiar characters the show manages to follow the beats of the first movie really well. And then its even more fun when you're following those beats and the show does something to go against what you thought you knew.

Give Scream: The TV Series a shot, if you're a fan of the movies. Just have more patience for a ten episode show. You should already be a patient person anyways.

I give Scream a B+. Solidly entertaining. Don't expect a masterpiece.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

I haven't watched this movie since I was a younger lad in my middle school years. Back then my friends and I would stay at each others houses and rent scary movies to watch, since my parents would never allow that sort of thing. But around every Halloween time we always played Freddy vs Jason or Freddy vs Michael Myers or a combination of every big slasher villain that was well known versus each other in battle, and this was before the actual film Freddy vs Jason came out. Ironically, even though that film has a hell of a lot to do with Freddy it is not included in the nice blu ray box set, but I guess that is for good reason.

Having seen a lot of the later movies in the Nightmare series before watching the other ones, I found this one on re-watch to be a really joyful experience. It had the best of everything I loved about the series, from the fun to the scares, and the plot was pretty atypical for a slasher for that time period.

The film begins with our heroine, Kristen, mid-dream outside of the Thompson house which has served--and will continue to serve--as the series' anchor. She chases a girl into the home and meets Freddy. Ol' Fred is after the last of the Elm Street Children, a specific group of kids who are kin to the townsfolk that burned Freddy alive, and he's managed to lure them to a psychiatric facility.

This is a smart script, folks. For a horror movie with such a concept as dream slaying to put kids into a psychiatric facility that will try to administer them sleeping pills to help them conquer their anxiety is fucking smart. The adults who run this facility don't give a damn about the ramblings of a scary man haunting their dreams. They take the naturalist approach to try and explain this in as down-to-earth fashion as possible. These kids aren't actually being dream-stalked, they just need to be medicated and put to sleep! Fucking gold, Wes Craven. I know you helped write this. The brilliant writing in this movie heightens the tension, because as a viewer you understand what is going on and these kids are all likable enough to where you really don't want them to meet their eventual deaths.

Of course, the film's plot gets even more interesting when it is discovered that each of these children can manipulate their dreams in order to fight Freddy off. So basically they are like super-humans in their sleep with interesting abilities. This might sound stupid to some people, but they really made it work in the movie. 

And the kills? The premise of this series once again shines out its genius, as it ensures that each kill is ridiculously interesting and gory. What the audience sees is what the kids and Freddy are dreaming, and in a dream, anything can happen. This means that you don't have to rely on more tits or overkill-gore to make these movies interesting. Their very premise allows them more freedoms, and that's why the Nightmare series comes out as the ultimate champ of the eighties/early-nineties slasher arms race.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Nancy and her dad are back! Fantastic performers Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon reprise their roles from the first film and work out all the issues that were left hanging. As a matter of fact, this film wraps up the original trilogy of films quite nicely until the fourth kind of destroys that little support structure and brings the house down.

This movie is well worth a watch if you are a fan of the original. Hell, its fair to give them all a watch, because everyone is different and has different tastes, but still. This one is a lot of fun. It gets flack from online reviewers as the first film to make Freddy silly, but I didn't see that as much. Freddy is more terrifying than ever, and the Freddy worm scene is one of his scariest moments for me. He does have what people call one-liners, but they are not really "haha, he said THAT!?" sort of lines like they are in the next couple of films. And they're not really funny. It's like the devil making fun of all your worst traits kind of humor.

I give A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors an A-. It's very nature as a sequel gets it knocked down from an A+, but that doesn't mean anything towards the actual quality of the movie. Peace out.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

This movie was weird. It was weird in a way that when it was good, it was pretty good, and when it was bad, it was pretty bad.

I don't really have too many tiny commentary to make about his film. This was the first time I'd seen it besides bits and pieces on television, and while I had fun when the movie is good, towards the end there were some choices made that I thought were kind of odd.

For one, let's talk about how this film ties into the first. It being a sequel it has to connect back to the first in some fashion. For starters, the main character, Jesse, and his family have moved into the Thompson house on Elm Street. I can't recall off the top of my head if the film gives reference to the fates of the characters from the first, Nancy included, but it makes reference to some aspects of the first film.

Freddy is still around of course, but apparently he can't kill people on his own power anymore. Presumably, we can connect this to the fact that Nancy weakened him in the last movie (defeated him as well) by turning her back on him and not giving into her fear. So Freddy decides to target Jesse, not to kill him, but to corral him into killing people for him. Now, as to how this helps Freddy at all isn't really elaborated upon. Since the series hasn't introduced the remaining Elm Street kids into the picture, we can assume that at this point that Freddy wasn't trying to get Jesse to eliminate them for him. There is kind of an answer to this question, but that will come a little later into the movie. First, let's get back to the set up.

So poor, unfortunate Jesse has just moved into a new town and a new school, and right off the bat he has to deal with a nice girl who has a crush on him, and a dead serial killer dream manipulator who wants him to kill people.

The Temptation of Jesse moments are where this film really shines. The kills are effective enough to keep audience interest, but its the moments that Freddy is mind fucking Jesse that the movie REALLY shines. There's a fantastic scene wherein Freddy literally rips himself out of Jesse's body in order to kill Jesse's new best friend Grady. The SFX are fantastically done, and the nightmarish imagery immersive.

Jesse has the unfortunate luck to keep discovering himself near the site of murder crimes that he has dreamed about, wearing Freddy's glove that he found in the basement. This is where Freddy's motives become clear. He doesn't want Jesse to just kill for him. He wants Jesse to surrender him his body so that he (Freddy) can continue his legacy of killing kids and teens. I guess people like to think that this was dumb, but given the fact that the extent of Freddy's powers at this point hadn't been elaborated upon and the fact of all the shit he can do in the later sequels, this shouldn't be a point against the movie like I always see it is on message boards and the like.

Where the film ultimately fails is the ending. So far, it had done a decent enough job as a Nightmare sequel, and you really feel sorry for Jesse as he is psychologically tormented. But when Freddy takes control of Jesse's body near the end of the movie, its not just Jesse running around with the glove on and a crazy expression on his face. No. It's literally just Freddy.

This is why this is a bad thing: why would taking over someones body make them look like Freddy? It doesn't REALLY make a whole lot of sense, but above all Freddy just running around a pool of screaming idiotic teenagers like he is some spooky mascot at a Halloween event is just the movie going out of its way to ruin the terrifying monster its been building up this whole time. And the fact that SO many people see Freddy who don't get killed off? You'd think the whole town ought to know by the next few films (and I actually partly also blame the next few films for not elaborating on this. I mean, even adults see him, for goodness sakes).

After this, the movie settles back down and is okay. Lisa rescues Jesse from inside Freddy by appealing to Jesse's heart, and he's able to regain control of his body as Freddy disintegrates from all the love. There's a happy en--oh, no wait. Girl was stabbed through the chest on the bus at the end. Well, maybe next time.

This film was decent. But the climax really undermines the rest of the film in a bad way. Apparently there's some homosexual subtext as well. I guess I could see where they are coming from but it kind of seems like they are demonizing it in a way. So Jesse is struggling with his own sexuality, trying not to let it bubble to the surface? Are you saying homosexuality is a bad thing? I'm sure that would offend someone who is openly gay, or maybe not. Maybe the point is not that its bad, but that the movie is trying to give its audience a look into the mind of someone struggling to out themselves. Maybe the movie accurately reflects what it is like for someone who is unsure of just how to express what is inside of them. Regardless, the movie could have done better with a few of its elements. Freddy is still terrifying here until the end, and the nightmare imagery is still fantastic, so that's that.

I give A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge a C+. Better luck next time, Fred. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Thinking back on it, it's kind of ironic how the first Nightmare on Elm Street film I watched was technically the last. I grew up in a Christian home, and I still profess to be a Christian, but my mother was the kind of person who didn't really allow the stuff of the occult into our home. One day I was watching Psycho III on television and my mother wouldn't let me watch anymore after she caught me pretending to be Norman Bates, stabbing people left and right. So I never got the opportunity to rent horror movies and enjoy them in that manner.

Another point of irony is that I always caught horror movies on the television during AMC's Halloween run. One night, I was lucky enough to catch Freddy's Dead playing on the channel, and I got a chance to watch it from beginning to end, edited for TV of course.  I remember it being a lot of fun back then, but even know it was my first time seeing an actual Nightmare film, I've known all about Freddy from when I was a kid.

Years later, I nabbed the opportunity to see the original, and I was dazzled by how great it actually was. Regardless of what horror fans of old think, these films really do have a place in the pantheon, next to the Universal Monsters of the '30s and '40s and the atomic creations of the '50s, to the more down to earth, frightening next door neighbor types of the '60s, including Peeping Tom, Psycho, and Night of the Hunter. Freddy is a horror icon, and his terror will survive for years to come.

But lets REALLY dig in. A Nightmare on Elm Street concerns Tina--oh wait she's dead, never mind. I forget this is a Craven film. He always makes you think that the main character is Person A, but then that person dies early and you're left with Person B. In this case, Person B is Nancy. Nancy is an all around nice girl. Maybe she's as promiscuous as Tina, but she's never really given a chance to let her sexuality shine when she is pushed into such stressful circumstances. You see, her friends are dying one by one, killed in their sleep by a man they've all seen in their dreams. And they don't really know why its happening.

And of course, they all die in horribly painful, brutal ways. You see, Freddy gets his powers from their fear, so instead of just killing them out right, he stalks them in their dreams, much like how Jason or Michael would spend the first 45 minutes of each film stalking their films in real life (Craven taking the tried and true formula and evolving it to suit his needs.) He gives them little slashes of pain now and then, and then when he makes them feel absolutely powerless to stop him, he kills them in the most bloody way imaginable. He guts Tina and drags her across the ceiling, he suffocates and breaks the neck of Rod while he is in jail for Tina's murder. He sucks Glenn into his bed, does God knows what to him in there and spits out ALL of his blood...

It's hard to technically "review" a film I've seen before, many times. I was tempted to go off the beaten path and talk about some deep ass shit, but this is a review, and I am planning on going deeper into the films as a whole after I review them all individually.

I give A Nightmare on Elm Street an A+. It's a classic. If you haven't seen it and you enjoy horror movies you've got issues.