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.

I've been having Nightmares

From the moment I opened my wife's Christmas present this past Christmas Eve, I realized I was dreaming. We decided to open up our gifts on the evening of Christmas Eve instead of the next morning, because I had to be at work early. The gift was wrapped in gold, if I recall correctly, and was shaped like a blu-ray. I just couldn't quite figure out what it was.

It turns out that my wife is a frickin' evil genius. The gift was something I wasn't really expecting, but which I could appreciate very much: My wife had bought for me the complete Nightmare on Elm Street Collection. I'd practically watched the whole series before, more or less. I've seen the first film many times, and I'd seen the third, Freddy's Dead, and New Nightmare, and bits and pieces of Freddy's Revenge, but to have them all to watch and enjoy at any moment was almost a child hood dream come true.

I know I always go into great detail about those precious moments, when, as a kid, I would accompany my mother to the grocery store where they had a movie rental in the center. While she shopped for her food I always rushed to the rentals to look at horror movies. It was almost like pornography for me, because I had to make sure for some reason no one in my family knew what I was looking at, lest I get into trouble. Looking around making sure I'm not watched, I would peruse the different horror movies on the shelf, seeing movies that would actually haunt me for the rest of my days until fairly recently: Return to Horror High, the many Friday the 13th movies, Night of the Living Dead and its two sequels (since Land hadn't been released yet) and of course, Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

The three movie series that made up the biggest parts of my horror movie Muse were the Halloween series, the Nightmare series, and the Friday the 13th series. I was fascinated with the different movies, and in my head I always imagined that they got scarier and scarier and more mind-bogglingly terrifying as they went along. Of course, what I realize now is that some movies can actually be quite hard to swallow in terms of their subpar quality, and indeed past a certain point these series kind of fell from their high mountains.

However, the one that is the most consisten in terms of actual good quality are the Nightmare films. Their sequences of dreams and Freddy's nightmare land that makes an appearance in almost every installment is still kind of terrifying despite the fact that the movies get a little bit cheesier as they go along. It's the imagery, and not Freddy's countenance that carry the sequels as they continue. Despite his character becoming less frightening, his mind is still a terrifying place where he puts each of his victims, and the moments where he shares with the horrified characters the souls of those he has imprisoned in torment forever are still very frightening.

Jesus, this is just an introduction and its gone on far too long. Anyway, the point of all this is that I have committed to sitting down and watching the series in order over the next couple of nights. I've watched through the third installment, so I'm going to try to write up some thoughts on the films for now and then continue my watch, but I'm having a blast so far, and when I get to talking about each movie individually I'll be able to better bring up some key talking points I want to discuss.

I hope that you'll look forward to: Inception: The Horror Series.

Adapting A Critically Acclaimed, Classic Horror Novel Into A Movie, And Why It Seems So Difficult.

Hey guys. Or Rebecca. Whoever is reading this. I'm back from another hiatus. I don't really call them hiatuses. I just haven't had much to talk about lately. I've been getting most of my horror fill through watching The Walking Dead on television, and that's been a journey. I've just bought all four seasons on Blu Ray, and I'm going to try to run through them all in the period leading up to Season 5. I've been getting into the mood of reading horror literature for the fall season. The weather is starting to change, the days are becoming shorter, gloomier. What perfect time to pick up your favorite horror novels, put on your favorite mood music, and read a bit!

I will tell you, as a fan of the horror genre in general, I've done my reading. I've read the classics and the not so classics, and the should be classics (seriously, House of Leaves. Poor Tom Navidson). But maybe sometimes I don't want to read these novels. Maybe sometimes I want to experience these stories that I love through another medium: Film!

Ah, but there begins a knot that apparently no human hand can untangle. There have been countless adaptations of horror classics to the screen, from the silent film era to the modern day, and yet, of the thousands of Dracula movies that have been made, almost all of them fail at adapting the novel to the screen. And don't you dare throw Coppola's 1992 film at me. I like it. I like the actors in it. I love Hopkins's portrayal of Professor Van Helsing (HE IS LITERALLY JUST AN OLD, WISE, WORLD WEARY MAN. HE IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL VAMPIRE HUNTER, YOU SODS) as almost insane. But I absolutely hate that Coppola tried to make his own vision of Dracula instead of respecting the nature and vision of Stoker's original classic novel.

I'm sure Leroux would rip his hair out if he had to sit through another adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera that makes Erik more likable and handsome than he should be. The original Phantom is sympathetic, to be sure, but there is never any moment in the story that Christine Daae is utterly infatuated with him and consumed by his sexiness. He's a skeleton man. She is afraid of him. Despite this, I still find myself singing Point of No Return because  it's actually a good song, and I absolutely HATE musicals.

(And okay, I will throw a bone. Lon Chaney's silent film version is probably one of the greatest adaptations of a horror novel, or any novel in general. It's so perfect it hurts. I just wish someone could replicate that for the new age, so new kids can appreciate the horrific real story.)

Why can't we get a fantastic adaptation of Frankenstein? Why is the brilliant Aaron Eckhart choosing to take part in horrific movies with the Frankenstein name? I feel like Shelley has gotten the worst treatment out of all these classics, because most adaptations of her novel in the early days of film always depicted the Monster as some big, speechless brute. Kenneth Branagh did an okay job with his 1994 flick. It told most of the real story, and De Niro was a FANTASTIC monster. His portrayal of Victor's creation inspired both terror and sadness. It was the perfect range of emotion one needed to feel for Shelley's flawed antagonist. Yet, even the respectful Kenneth Branagh takes some missteps in his film.

Is it so hard for movie directors to humble themselves before the novelists and say, "I want to respect your vision. I want every last letter to be emulated on screen so that your already near perfect vision can be brought to a whole new generation of people." These stories are fantastic enough on their own without superfluous changes to the story that change it just a teeny bit. Directors make the excuse that. "most everyone knows the story of X book or movie. We want to show a DIFFERENT side." Except, this is becoming less true as time goes on. No one I grew up with has even tried to read or seriously study Bram Stoker's Dracula. No one has tried to subject themselves to a devotional of Frankenstein, or tried to solve the mystery of Gaston Leroux's Opera House. No one has tried to stay a few days in Shirley Jackson's Hill House, or turn the Governess's screws.

Maybe I'm just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but our intimate knowledge of classic literature is fading. Why aren't kids being encouraged to read more? This is why I feel it is important for respectful, deep adaptations of not only the greatest horror novels, but the greatest novels of literature in general to be created for the public, to restore the entertainment and ethical value of these works. If people begin to make such films, maybe we can point the audiences back to how it all started, and bring about a resurgence in reading the very books that our modern films are deriving themselves from.

Rants aside, I do want to pay my respects to the adaptations we have had of these classic books. Despite their poor undertaking of lifting the characters off the page, they have endeared themselves into the hearts of many, myself included, for the duration of their existence. The Universal Monster movies are indeed the poorest adaptations of the novels on which they are based, but no one can deny the lasting impact they continue to make in the world of cinema. Bela Lugosi's Dracula:  the suave, charming but ruthless vampire. Karloff's Monster, who with his unpredictable nature keeps you on the edge of your seat as you wait for something to go horrifically wrong. Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolf Man--Lawrence Talbot--who battles his animalistic nature as it slowly consumes his life, and his loved ones. Karloff once again as Imhotep, a 3000 year old mummy determined to prove that love conquers all, including death. Claude Rains playing the scarred and often times invisible monsters of that era, including Erik the Phantom and Dr. Griffin.

Because of the memorable performances of their actors, and the otherworldly set pieces, these movies are what caused me to be interested in the horror genre. I have my father to thank for providing such culture to me, his son. I don't know what I would do without my monsters.

The point, however, still stands. I do not call for the destruction of the old and unfaithful, but rather, I say there should be unshakable respect for the novels that people committed themselves to write, so that they may thrive beside the classics of old. Let's hope we can soon live in THAT world.

A Quick Word on The Walking Dead

As someone who grew up being absolutely obsessed with Romero's Holy Trilogy (later a saga, I guess. Land of the Dead was awesome, I don't care what anyone says), I am naturally inclined to like and enjoy The Walking Dead. When the comics first debuted in the early 2000s, I skimmed through them. At the time, Kirkman was just a guy to me riding the coat tails of the greater genius, George-y Boy. But I eventually grew to respect Robert for keeping the zombie dream alive (and Danny Boyle, whose 28 Days Later pretty much kickstarted the modern zombie craze that still hasn't ended yet.)

Then, when they announced The Walking Dead tv series, naturally, I was ecstatic. I can't help it, I love zombies. And it's been a hell of a ride these four seasons, with tonight's "No Sanctuary" beginning a fifth season. But I'm not just in it for the zombies, or killing them. I actually think zombie slaying is the weakest part of any zombie movie/game.

From when I was young, I ALWAYS understood that zombie movies weren't just about fighting off hordes of Returners. That was just a tertiary part of The Zombie Movie. The MEAT of these movies is all about the characters--what they go through, how living through a zombie apocalypse changes them.

I don't think people who watch The Walking Dead understand this. Everywhere I go on the internet, I see people criticizing The Walking Dead for being such a slow burn at times. The episodes with a lot of zombie killing action are given high reviews, while the episodes with characters talking and doing less exciting things are criticized for not having zombie killing action.

I think this is a byproduct of the modern zombie movie-making machine. Every zombie film you find on Netflix is about a character who eventually becomes a Badass Zombie Killing Machine, slaying the undead left and right with a variety of clever weaponry. It's like taking the formula for a successful slasher series sequel like Friday the 13th where the focus is not on the creeps or the scare factor but the cleverness of how Jason can kill his random stupid victim with a piece of cardboard and applying that sort of scenario to zombies, and while its fun and preposterous, zombie movies throughout their history have been anything but fun.

I just don't understand criticism of a work of fiction for focusing more on serious drama. Not like East Los High drama where it's just a bunch of "teenagers" talking behind each others backs, I'm talking real drama. The moral dilemma of whether or not a group of people needs to kill a character because they may or may not be a danger to their survival. That shit is real. By the way, if you want true horror, try to sit through an episode of East Los High. It's phenomenal how shows like that get made. Absolutely phenomenal. I actually haven't sat through an episode of East Los High, but I would never force anyone else to do so.

I think there is a huge rift developing between the outside world and their likes and opinions and me. I love the Star Wars movies. All six of them. And I like the Clone Wars television show that just recently ended. I hated Frozen. With a passion. Tangled was a much better Disney Princess movie AND experience. Yet everyone else just ate up that fucking movie. Seriously, it was a movie predicated on the fact that every character is dumb and makes dumb decisions but never suffers any serious consequences for their actions.

I am majorly digressing, so I apologize, but do you understand where I am coming from? How can a movie like Prometheus or Man of Steel get made and everyone trash it for being horrible and making absolutely no sense? What cut of these films did these people watch to jump to that conclusion? And why is it not okay for characters to explore deep issues in the middle of a zombie apocalypse without being criticized for being boring? Why is the world so backwards and whyamIsoalone idon'tunderstand.

To really wrap this mess of a post up with a nice pretty bow, I want to apologize and thank Robert Kirkman and the other contributors to the Walking Dead machine for ensuring the survival of zombies and respecting the legacy of that genre and George A. Romero. I may have misjudged you all those years ago when I was a young dumb teenager, and for that I am sorry. Keep doing what you're doing, carry on the legacy and make it more of your own.

The Conjuring (Review)

I can't believe people haven't figured out by now that "Based on a true story" means, "not actually based on a true story". Yes, there was a family that was supposedly tormented by a demonic force. Yes, Ed and Lorraine Warren are real people, but the veracity of their profession is up for opinion. The devil is literally in the details, here, because with cases like these its hard to withdraw facts, and I'm not speaking as a skeptic. I believe in the supernatural to a certain degree, and I believe that the horrors that the Perron family were subjected to in this film could actually happen (despite, apparently, none of the events of the film actually happening according to one of the daughters of said family.) Yet people still buy into this stuff and they don't bother to do any research to identify the truth. And this isn't with just horror movies, but politics. But that's a horror story for another day. Right now, we're discussing The Conjuring.

Right from the get go, this movie convinces you that it should belong to the Holy-Canon-of-'70s-Horror-Movies, to which The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, and Halloween belong. Even the font lettering when the title rises up on screen looks like a horror font you'd find in '70s titles.

The plot is your typical "family moves into haunted house" affair that we've been introduced to in films like:

The Amityville Horror
Poltergeist
The Haunting in Connecticut
The Haunting of Molly Hartley
The Haunting of Helena
The Haunting The Haunting blah blah blah why the hell are there so many movies that begin with the words "The Haunting of..."?

Anyway, despite its typicality, the filmmakers take the plot in interesting, atypical directions. Much of the focus is on the investigation by Ed and Lorraine Warren, who the Perrons call to help them with their particularly frightening haint. The characters all act very realistically, too, and I always imagined people in real life would act and react to events like these characters did in the movie.

And lets talk about the haunts themselves. The reason I despise a lot of these movies is because they are so unsubtle about their ghosts and demons. I'm pretty sure it's a direct result of filmmakers trying to emulate the very visual nature of spirits in Asian horror movies, but I feel like hauntings need to be subtle and move subtly to truly spark fear in the imagination. Immediately, the spirits of The Innocents come to mind, as although you see one of them up close, you see so little of him that it retains its creep factor. You are unsure of what you are seeing, and that in turn makes you freaked out more. Hell, the woman spirit in the Innocents is one of the most frightening ghosts I've seen committed to celluloid and it's because she's always seen at such a distance her facial features are either hidden in shadow or distorted. But today, it's all about indulging in a fantasy. This is problematic for a horror movie, because the established rule that has driven all great scare experiences is that the less you see, the more you fear.

This film indulges in fantasy and un-subtlety a little too much for my taste, but the scares are still terribly effective. It's saying something that I can get scared by a horror movie, and I found myself to be terrified of the ride this movie will take you on.

Having said all that, is this movie good? Like, is it good enough to join the Holy Canon forever and ever? Well, no. I have too many problems with this movie to try to elevate it to any status it doesn't deserve. It's frightening, but unsubtle. It's melodramatic, but most of the time in a bad way. I wish it was a more honest movie. The filmmakers don't want us to form bonds with these characters (the family or the Warrens). Their main goal is to frighten us. So why then are you guys trying to stick in some little sappy moment that is so minor it doesn't deserve to have the big payoff it does at the end? If you're going to make a character driven film with emotions and such, make that movie. You can't just awkwardly stick in a moment just so you can say, "well, we have met our emotion goal, lets get back to the scariness". Either do that movie and do it proper or don't do it at all.

The best "haunt" movies have been character driven. The Changeling and Jacob's Ladder come to mind, as well as The Haunting (1963) and The Sixth Sense (1999). These are movies that examine haunts through the eyes and the mind of a certain character, and you get to witness their highs and lows in a realistic manner. This movie is not that. It is just a thrill ride and it should be treated as such, and it should allow the audience to form its own emotions regarding the characters and the situation.


I'm totally giving this film a B+, because it deserves it, but it could've been better. It could've stuck to the "facts" that the family actually reported rather than embellish in scary things that don't actually happen, it could have been more character driven. But it wasn't. However, what it was despite my complaints was a truly frightening experience, and it really doesn't need to conform to the "truth", since The Exorcist and Amityville don't exactly follow the true stories they are supposedly based on either.

A lot has happened since last we met.

I have graduated from college with a history degree. I received a writing award from my university for my paper on zombies in the modern day pop culture perception in comparison to the Christian Tradition of resurrection. Lengthy, I know, and that's just a paraphrase of the title. So as you can see, I have not lost my horror spirit.

I just feel like horror is on another downturn. This happened in the early 1990s after the film industry had over-saturated its media with formulaic slasher films, and newer ideas were becoming less prominent. Fortunately for horror fans, even though we weren't seeing a whole lot of good, scary movies in the theater, we had shows like Tales of the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside on television to give us good, scary fun. But those shows could only do so much for horror.

I feel like horror has taken another downturn. I have not lost interest in horror or its impact on the lives of its captive audience, but I feel that no new avenues are being explored. Nothing is being said that can bring new perspectives to those who baptize themselves in horror fiction. That isn't to say that there aren't still movies and books being created by passionate, horror loving people that aren't doing these things. They are just very, VERY hard to find. Especially for someone with my tastes.

Even beloved horror sites are failing to share good movies with their followers. I concur with the assessment by blogger Dorian Dawes that horror media is rapidly decaying, (indeed, reading their article is really what inspired me to write this one.)

But when I have something to say to you, you damn well better believe I am going to come on here and speak my mind. I am still a believer in good horror fiction. It's still out there, and I still appreciate it.