Let’s Go Camping Part 5 (Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning,1985)

I like to think of this film as the “Scooby Doo” version of Friday the 13th movies. It picks up with little Tommy (Corey Feldman!) walking in the rain. He stumbles through the woods and comes upon the grave of Jason. Suddenly, two hooligans come into the clearing and do the things hooligans do. You know, dig up the graves of mass murderers and stuff. But boy do they get a shock. Jason gets up out of his grave and kills them. And worse-he sees Tommy! So he starts to chase him. Finally Jason catches up and lifts his machete and WAIT! It was all a nightmare! Tommy has grown up to look nothing like Corey Feldman. Tommy (Not Corey Feldman!) has apparently been in and out of institutions over the years. Apparently cutting someone up into pieces can make you unstable. Who knew?

So he gets transferred to a halfway house for troubled teens. And boy are they troubled. There is the kid who stutters. The red headed girl. The fat kid. The punk/goth chick. The horny couple. The black kid (to be fair, he is the groundskeeper’s grandson). Oh, and the crazy, homicidal axe wielding angry kid. The last guy gets annoyed with the fat kid when the fat kid offers him a chocolate bar. So he does the reasonable thing and chops him up into little pieces.

And the poor dead fat kid. There is no one to mourn him, because no one likes fat kids. His mother died and nobody knows who his father is. Well, the paramedics come and haul him away. There is additional trouble in that the local angry hick and her son keep harassing the Halfway house residents threatening to kill them. But she is okay, she is just eccentric, right?

So, as the time passes, people start getting killed by a hockey masked killer. Has Jason returned?! Tommy thinks so, he sees Jason everywhere. And so do Jason’s victims. Lots of beheading, impaling and other gruesome deaths ensue. That wacky Jason. But hey, people are starting to suspect Tommy. Tommy does not talk much, and we all know people who are quiet are cauldrons of homicidal rage (you did know that…RIGHT?).

Pretty soon Jason has offed everyone but the black kid, Tommy and the Hot Woman in charge of the halfway house. Now, normally, the minority is dead by this point, luckily for him he is about thirteen, meaning he gets to live. So he and the Hot Woman find all the dead bodies and then see Jason, who they think is really Tommy. Jason tries to kill them, but they are pretty crafty. Finally, Jason chases them into one of the many generic barns on Crystal Lake. And boy are they shocked…Tommy walks up. MAYBE IT IS JASON!!! Maybe Tommy is right.

He has an old fashioned stare down with Jason. Of course, since Jason is wearing a hockey mask, he could be blinking a mile a minute. But Tommy will never know. Jason finally tries to kill Tommy with his machete. Jason has pretty bad aim all of the sudden, and nicks Tommy. Tommy runs and climbs the ladder in the barn. Jason follows them up to the hay loft for a battle royal. He rushes after the Hot Woman and she dodges and causes him to fly over the edge. Everyone is relived as they sit close to the edge of the door. SHOCK! Jason grabs the leg of the black kid. Threatening to take the kid with him, Jason now seems to have a chance. But not if Tommy has anything to say about it. He takes the machete and chops off Jason’s arm. Jason falls to his death, getting impaled on some farm equipment. That’s when we see he is one of the paramedics who wheeled away the fat kid.

See, it turns out that he was the fat kids father, and this sent him into a homicidal rage. Oh, sure, he could not be counted on to be a parent, but dammit, don’t hurt his flesh and blood. And he would totally have gotten away with it if not for those pesky kids.

The film is an attempt to restart the series, but it did not excite fans to find out Jason was not Jason. And beyond that twist (which it is hard to be a real twist when it could not be Jason) there is nothing fresh here. Unlike previous entries (where Jason’s look keeps changing…in two he has long stringy hair. In three? Completely bald) there is no real continuity to worry about, yet they do not take advantage of this. Instead everything is by the numbers. The film lacks any imagination.

The film ends, just as part four did, with the suggestion that Tommy is the new Jason. But don’t worry…

October 7, 2015 0

Lets Go Camping Part 4 (Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter, 1984)

Part four has my all time favorite sequel subtitle. The Final Chapter. You know how many Friday the 13th movies there are? Ten. Eleven if you count the Freddy/Jason movie. And number four is the final chapter. So everything after that is apparently an addendum. Sure, other movies have had a “final” movie that was not so final. Freddy’s Dead: the Final Nightmare. The Omen 3: the Final Conflict. Children of the Corn 2: the Final Sacrifice. But I believe the Friday the 13th Series has the distinction of doing this twice. And most of those films only got one or two sequels after the “Final” sequel (the exception is Children of the Corn 2. If you think I will sit through those you are sadly mistaken. I know my limits). So I love the title.

Plus, this movie has all the things people love to see in movies. A precocious kid (Corey Feldman!), hot twins and a dog. Oh, and Crispin Glover.

Our story picks up directly after Part 3. Jason still appears to be dead. Apparently, when the two squad cars left the body of Jason unattended, they called in SWAT, the army, the Guardian Angels and paramedics. So they bring Jason to the morgue. Apparently they don’t question the appearance of death on Crystal Lake. He’s not hacking at you with a machete. Must be dead. So of course he gets up and kills the morgue attendant and his girlfriend nurse. Apparently they assume he is dead without checking as well.

We then jump to the next morning. In spite of the death toll in Crystal Lake, it appears people still feel safe living there (this marks the second film to diverge from the camp counselor theme). A single mom, her teen daughter and pre-teen son (Corey Feldman!) all live by the lake. The son is a special effects genius, which is totally not that hard to buy. After all, it’s totally plausible that a ten year old kid is making elaborate latex masks and high tech special effects, right? What else is there to do when you live next to a lake? They meet a group of kids who are staying at the house next door. Mostly more realistic teens who talk about nothing but sex and have skinny dipping parties in front of the kid (Corey Feldman!). See, the kid (Corey Feldman!) is kind of a perv. We get the point when he is in bed and looks out the window to see one of the hot girls next door remove her shirt. He does not just watch. He starts slamming his face into a pillow and laughing excitedly. And jumping on the bed. He’s a little horndog, that kid (Corey Feldman!).

Then the kid’s (Corey Feldman!) older sister meets a bounty hunter, well, we don’t know that yet. But eventually we find out he is there to kill Jason. If you have seen the first three movies, you know where that is going. He is kind of the teenage girl’s romantic interest. He appears to be about thirty one. Nothing creepy about that. As soon as it gets dark, Jason gets his kill on. The director tries new things in horror. Well, one new thing. Instead o a nubile beauty being killed in the shower, it’s a pretty boy. A young Johnny Depp type (Before we knew what a Johnny Depp Type was). Of course, the girl he showered with still dies.

It’s all pretty routine. Although there are the attempts at humor. Crispin Glover yells out for a corkscrew to open a bottle of whine and Jason plunges it through his hand. Bwahahahahaha! The bounty hunter guy gets killed in the basement. Then we are down to the Sole Survivor and her kid brother (Corey Feldman!). She is alone in the house running into dead bodies. She opens one door and there is a body laying on the porch. Apparently that dead body is booby trapped, because the Sole Survivor does not dare walk around it, she instead slams the door and runs around the house looking for a way out-eventually using a window. She runs back home and shuts the door. That will show Jason. They are safe now in the house with lots of big…windows…aw crap. Jason jumps in and chases the youngins’ up the stairs. Remember, Jason ain’t dead yet, he can still run.

The Sole Survivor keeps telling her kid brother (Corey…oh you get the point) to get out of the house. Other than that she screams a lot. It’s really weird, because it isn’t natural sounding at all. She looks left, and screams. Looks right and screams. Looks at Jason and screams. Looks at her agent and screams. Then she turns and run down the hall and leaps through a window. That’ll teach Jason. The kid is hiding in the bathroom shaving his head. That’s what kids did in those days. Jason went down stairs to check on the Sole Survivor who is, indeed, alive. But not for long, Jason starts pushing her around and is ready to kill her when the kid starts yelling for Jason. He turns around to see the kid, now really bald, looking at him on the stairs. This confuses Jason. In part two it was established that Jason can’t tell his dead mother apart from a blonde college girl if she wears mom’s sweater. Apparently, if Jason sees a bald kid, he might think it’s himself standing there. Yeah, Jason is kind of stupid.

The Sole Survivor grabs Jason’s machete and runs up from behind, swings and…knocks Jason’s hockey mask off. Yeah. Anti climactic, I know. Jason looks completely different from the third film, in spite of the fact that it is a lousy whole day and a half later. Jason reaches for her, which gives the kid the moment he needs. He grabs the machete and swings and unlike his sister actually has the ability to HIT his target. He plants the machete deep in Jason’s skull. Jason stumble and then falls face first to the ground. This allows the machete to go deeper. This insures that we see Jason is d-e-a-d. There is no way he is ever coming back. So the Sole Survivor is technically not the sole survivor. The movie ends with the two hugging in the hospital (we have a first, the last girl alive doesn’t flip out in this one, folks!). How sweet…well, until they cut to the close up of the kid with that homicidal gleam in his eye.

Oh, and whoever owns the rights to the Friday the 13th franchise, take note. Corey Feldman (!) makes it clear he wants to pull a Jamie Lee Curtis and return to the franchise for a battle to the death against Jason. Which is tough to do, since if you do the Halloween: H2O thing, you ignore the sequels that came after your film. Which means Jason is still dead. Oh, what is that you were saying, Mr. Franchise Owner? You had no interest in doing that? Glad to hear it.

October 6, 2015 0

Lets Go Camping Part 3D (Friday the 13th Part 3, 1982)

Part three is in 3-D and you know what that means… long drawn out scenes with people pushing things towards the camera. They dump the plot of camp counselors trying to reopen the camp this time around. Instead, it’s a group of friends going to Dana Kimmell’s cabin. Dana is unsure about returning to the cabin, because a crazy man attacked her there. You won’t be surprised to learn it was Jason, since they are at the infamous Crystal Lake So we get a bunch a college students hanging out in a cabin. Not much happens, as Jason holds out on killing the kids until late into the film. His first victims are a couple that run a general store and then some pissed off bikers who are angry at the college kids for running over their bikes in 3-D.

One by one they are knocked off and Jason gets a hold of his famous hockey Mask, which he steals from one of his victims. We are left with the Lone Survivor who fights Jason in a barn. She knocks him out and puts a noose around his neck., then kicks him over the edge hanging him. Thank God that’s over. So she climbs down the ladder and goes to open the barn door. She is shocked when Jason wakes up and proceeds to set himself free. So they fight, suddenly, one of the bikers we assumed dead leaps out of the shadows and-is quickly killed by Jason. But this gives our plucky Sole Survivor the moment she needs to grab an axe and plant it in Jason’s skull. He staggers and falls.

The Sole Survivor goes out in the dark and gets in a boat. She falls asleep, and then wakes up in the morning when the boat bumps into a submerged branch. Then she gets a scare when a duck flies by. Then her boat gets stuck on a bigger submerged branch. Then, she looks to the cabin by the shore…who is looking at her from a Window? An overly excited Jason! He comes bursting through the door and the Sole Survivor starts panicking and trying to get her boat free, then she looks back. The door is still on its hinges, Jason was not really there. Whew! Suddenly from behind, a decaying Pamela Voorhees leaps from the water (somehow managing to get her head back on her body between movies) to grab our Sole Survivor. But WAIT! She’s just gone crazy. The cops have her. Now, noone tried to call the police in the film, but being the Crystal Lake area, I guess they figure you can never be to careful, so they randomly check cabins for slaughtered counselors. They put the crazy Sole Survivor in the back seat as she babbles about a lady in the lake(are we seeing a trend here?). The cops never search the barn, since that is where they would actually find the body of Jason with axe still firmly implanted in his skull. The best part of the movie? The hilarious theme for the opening and closing credits.

The lone survivor girl being a bit crazy at the end of each film is starting to get tiring. The film has a cast of pretty people and the lone loser who they put up with. The character is to obnoxious to be sympathetic, which seems to be the opposite of what they were going for. It is clear he is supposed to be a love-able schlub.

The 3D is not effective at all, and the outdated 3D leaves us with a ton of boring footage that was supposed to startle the audience. The third film does not breath life into the franchise, just keeps it chugging along.

Oh yeah. In Part 2, Jason has long stringy hair and a beard. Part 3 takes place literally hours after the second film. In this film, he is clean shaven and bald. Stopped at the barber I guess.

October 6, 2015 0

Let’s Go Camping Part 2 (Friday the 13th Part 2, 1981)

Part two shows us that Jason is still alive and stomping around Camp Crystal Lake, killing random people. Mainly folks no one would miss, you know, like the town sheriff and the Official Crazy Old Guy from the first film. Initially, Jason leaves Camp Crystal Lake to kill the Sole Survivor of the first film. After what she did to dear old ma-beheading her and all. Due to low property value, Camp Blood has remained closed in the five years since the first film. Luckily for fans of slasher films, there is another camp on the same lake. Again, a variety of attractive young counselors are killed in gruesome ways. Jason runs around with a potato sack over his head, which frankly is not all that scary, nor as iconic as the hockey mask. But the Sole Survivor of the film finds Jason’s shack where he keeps Ma’s severed head and her sweater. She puts on the sweater and convinces Jason she is his mother. Because, you know, they look so much alike. She almost is done in by Jason but is saved by her boyfriend. She returns the favor by putting an axe or a machete (I forgot which already) into the back of Jason’s knap-sacked skull. The two lovebirds go back to the camp. They go into the main cabin and suddenly there is a scratch at the door. They get ready for a fight and open the door and it’s “the cutest dog in the world” that went missing earlier in the film! While people can stomach its short shorts wearing owner being butchered, killing the puppy, that would make Jason some kind of sicko.

Suddenly, in slow motion a deformed Jason leaps through a big glass window and grabs the Sole Survivor. And she wakes of screaming on a stretcher asking where her boyfriend is. Which no one answers. Inexplicably, he is just gone. But hey, what kind of Jason movie would end without a Sole Surviving Girl babbling incoherently?

The film follows its prescribed formula that will set the story for the series. People show up, Jason kills them…cause why not? Amy Steel is a strong protagonist, but the overall story is not very compelling.

One thing that makes no sense. Jason did not drown. But it is clear in the first film Pamela Voorhees clearly believes Jason is dead. So, if Jason survived the drowning…in all those years he never tracked her down? And yet he loves her enough to keep her head on a table in a run down shack?

*Updated to correct a factual error regarding the film’s timeline.

October 5, 2015 0

Lets Go Camping Part 1 (Friday the 13th, 1980)

After the success of Halloween, filmmakers everywhere wanted to cash in with a holiday themed horror film. Sean Cunningham and his friends had made a kids movie previous, but thought they could make a cheap horror movie and rake in the cash.

Sean Cunningham is a bright guy. They chose Friday the 13th…which had little to do with the plot. They came up with an idea for a tale and started work.

So, the film begins with what has become standard in horror, two counselors sneak off to have some sex. While they are doing that, someone walks into the room and startles them. We don’t see the killer, because it is supposed to be a mystery, see. With a twist no less. Now, unlike it’s predecessor Halloween, which had it’s twist in the first five minutes, Friday the 13th draws it out. We jump ahead to modern times (well, 1980). And Camp Crystal Lake is getting re-opened. One of the counselors has apparently hitch-hiked her way there (oh, the carefree days of the late seventies and early eighties). She walks into a small town diner with, like, six locals. She asks which way to Camp Crystal Lake. The room goes, predictably, silent. And then the locals call it Camp Blood. Scary, huh? Finally a trucker offers to drive her there, since he is going that way anyhow. As the are getting in the truck they are stopped by the small town’s official Crazy Old Guy. He warns the girl that she is going to die. Her and all the other counselors. The trucker brushes him off as the Crazy Old Guy. Which is funny, because after a few miles; the trucker suddenly switches gears and becomes the Official Crazy Trucker. He starts going on about how bad of an idea it is to re-open Camp Blood and that she could be in danger. She gets out of the truck and starts to walk.

As it turns out, the two crazy guys were not so crazy. She gets picked up by a person in a jeep. We don’t see this person, and I am guessing they are not wearing a hockey mask, since the girl gets in the jeep. But finally, the girl gets freaked out by the fact that the camera keeps looking at her. So she leaps from the jeep and starts to run. The jeep stops and the camera gets out and follows her. Then the camera catches up and slits her throat. The real bummer here is that she is the camp cook.

The rest of the counselors get there without getting impaled with sharp objects. And then you have hijinks. It’s not terribly interesting for awhile. College kids chat, flirt and go off into the woods by themselves to get killed. We get more of the back story of Camp Blood in this portion of the film. The guy re-opening the camp-apparently the son of the original owners-explains a bit as do other characters in the know. Some kid (Jason) drowned a few years back and shortly after two counselors were found dead. Apparently, parents were a bit squeamish about sending their kids to such a camp.

Then a storm hits and that allows the killer to go crazy. Finally, it’s down to the Lone Survivor and the killer…and that’s when we discover, the killer is the crazy old lady whose son drowned years ago! Jason’s mother Pamela went a little loopy and started to kill people to get the camp closed all those years ago and now she is at it again! So they duke it out, all the while, Mrs. Voorhees talking to her dead son-kind of Norman Bates style.

Even though actress Betsy Palmer thought the script was a steaming pile of crap and took the job because she figured the movie would quickly be forgotten, she does a solid job as Mrs. Voorhees. Outside of a final jump scare, Jason was a cautionary tale for counsellors to be responsible in this first film. He is not a living character.

It is a decently made low budget film, and the effects are quite good. The script is the weakest link. The film is a bit slow and clunky at points, but can be effective at times as a thriller.

October 5, 2015 0

Every Town Has an Elm Street Part 8 (A Nightmare On Elm Street, 2010)

The best two things about the reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street? Jackie Earl Haley and the opening credits.

Otherwise, as with other recent franchise rebooting remakes it is pretty by the numbers. It jumps in quick, and a bit disjointedly. Kids apparently hang out late night en mass at the diner where Nancy works. A kid falls asleep and then appears to kill himself. The kids go to the funeral and it’s off to the next death. This is inspired by the highly effective sequence in the original where Tina dies in bed with her boyfriend. But where that was gritty and uncomfortable and painful…this sequence feels safely faked.

While the police are quick to arrest the boyfriend of the dead girl, he gets a chance to warn Nancy. Unlike the original, the kids figure out instantly that if you die in your dream you for realz! The first movie had Nancy and Glenn (Johnny Depp) trying to determine the truth of the situation, but not sure they could trust Tina’s boyfriend. Here it’s no challenge and they are on their way to figuring out the truth about Freddy.

Kids die, but it is hard to care, because they lack distinctive identities. Though, in one well written moment, after destroying a kids heart, Freddy gently explains that a brain can function for seven minutes after the heart stops. Freddy notes, with relish, that they still have six minutes to play. End scene. And had the entire film played out like this? It would have been one of the most unnerving films of the year.

After all, Jackie Earl Haley makes Freddy menacing. At no point is he campy-even when delivering a typical Freddy-esque line. Haley was perfect casting, and yet, he is working with a cast that is Twilight-lite. Sure, you have good character actors in the adult roles (always nice to see Clancy Brown in a movie). But much like another remake of a Wes Craven Film (The Last House On the Left) the improved effects and technology results in a glossy and less effective film.

One thing that stood out was the trailer suggested Freddy was possibly an innocent victim, and while the film briefly flirts with this, it quickly makes it clear that Freddy was a child molester. Not a child killer, mind you.

Frankly, I think I would have given the film more credit had Freddy been an innocent. If Freddy had been a kind and gentle man who loved kids, only to be killed by a mob of angry folks whose righteous anger was fueled by a falsehood that led to the cruel death of a decent man… and that action created a monster worse than what they thought they were ridding the world of? That would have been a rather daring take on the character.

But instead, the filmmakers go for gloss and a safe veneer. Unlike the Friday the 13th remake (I’ll discuss that one later), the film is more conservative in things like gore and nudity. This of course is not really a bad thing, they tried a less exploitation fueled approach, and I would have applauded them for it had they made a more effective film. But instead, it just makes it clear what a bland approach was taken here.

I mentioned the opening credits, and they are downright beautiful and artistic. We see shadows of children playing, hands stretched to mimic Freddy’s infamous claws. It’s highly effective imagery and a real shame that the new film could not match up to it’s opening credits.

October 4, 2015 0

Every Town Has an Elm Street part 7 (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, 1994)

So…Freddy’s Dead ended the franchise on a disappointing and sour note. Three years later, Freddy was back.

Sort of. As far as Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is concerned? It is outside the continuity of the six films that came before it. Wes Craven crafted a clever horror film with thrills and also a philosophically challenging work of Meta fiction. What does horror do to the people who create it? How does it impact the people who watch it? What separates the real from the fantasy? Wes Craven returned to make a horror film to make you think.

I must admit that I just cannot take the snarky tone I did for the other sequels. I really want to avoid spoilers as well, because of the entire series, this is the most clever and really worth giving a watch.

When New Line brought Wes back as writer and director, they did not stand in his way, and with clear reason. What Craven delivered was intelligent, scary, chilling and exciting. The film opens to reveal there is a new Nightmare film being made. Heather Langenkamp (as herself) is not initially aware of it, because her special effects man husband has kept it hush-hush. Heather is invited on a talk show where she meets up with Bob Shaye (former head of New Line, again playing himself) who tries to sell her on coming back to the role of Nancy. She declines, but starts to find her world seemingly encroached upon by Freddy. And it seems to be impacting her young son.

Craven explains that the original series tapped into an ancient evil. It’s an evil that is kept at bay by being the inspiration in stories. Apparently, it became very attached to Freddy, and the only way to cage the beast is for Craven to tell a new story. He explains it much better in the film. Heather finds herself going head to head with the Freddy monster (who is more beefed up and ominous than in pervious films-his claw is a boney extension-resembling the movie posters of earlier Elm Street films- and he wears a flowing trench coat) in several confrontations that culminate with a final battle in Freddy’s lair (which is a fantastic looking set).

Part of what works so well is that most of the cast is playing themselves (Langenkamp’s husband and son are fictional and portrayed by David Newsom and Miko Hughes-you might recognize him as the creepy little kid in Pet Cemetary). Some are even duel roles (Robert Englund plays himself and Krueger, John Saxon plays himself and Don Thompson from the first and third films). The effects are really nicely done, as is the set design. Well worth renting. Heck, Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars.

October 4, 2015 0

Every Town Has an Elm Street Part 6 (Freddy’s Dead: the Final Nightmare, 1991)

You know…the movie poster claims they saved the best for last. I am not sure in what weird coked up world this would qualify as the best. You see apparently, the sixth and final movie in the seven movie (eight if you count Freddy Vs Jason) series originally carried on from the fifth film. It would focus on Alice’s son Jacob (now sixteen) and would have seen the return of Kincaid, Joey and Taryn (from the Dream Warriors) as Dream Police. According to director Rachel Talalay, this was not a good script and the new script that gave us the final product “saved the day.” Seriously, that original script had to be incredibly bad for this movie to have “saved the day.”

Oh, I’m sorry; I may have tainted your view of the film a bit unfairly. The film we got begins with the Last Kid in Springwood, called (rather creatively) John Doe (Shon Greenblatt) trying to outwit Freddy Krueger in a series of nightmares. In the end, Freddy hits him with a bus, which does not kill the kid, it just shoots him out of Springwood. This leaves him an amnesiac that ends up in a youth shelter run by Dr. Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane) and Doc (Yaphet Kotto).

Maggie discovers some clippings referring to Springwood, and thinks it might help John if they visit. On their way, they discover three stowaways trying to ditch the youth shelter. Spencer (Breckin Meyer) who would rather sit around smoking weed and playing video games than live up to his dad’s yuppie lifestyle, Tracy (Lezlie Deane) who was molested by her father and Carlos (Rickie Dean Logan) whose parents beat him severely enough that he was left deaf. Yeah, which one of the three is not like the others?

Once they get to Springwood, they run into its scary citizenry…such as Tom & Roseanne Arnold. There are no children, just adults in a Freddy obsessed psychosis. Little known fact, in 1492, Freddy Krueger discovered America. Anyways, unable to leave Springwood, the kids enter an abandoned house. Guess whose?

Once in the house (yes, Freddy and Nancy Thompson’s old home), the kids start falling asleep. The dreams are so over the top in this one, they kind of make the previous films look like they lacked imagination. You have Spencer killed in an old school video game (almost like a lame version of Donkey Kong) and Carlos killed via blades scraping a chalkboard. While this is happening, John and Maggie have been doing some research. Apparently, Freddy had a kid who was taken away from him. John suddenly realizes he is Freddy’s. I mean, Freddy has not actually killed him, it must be true. Freddy would not have any other motive to let John live…right?

Oh, you are so wrong…as John finds out when he tries to save Spencer. John finds out he was merely a pawn to get Freddy’s real kid back to Springwood…his daughter. Guess who his daughter is…go on…guess! Yup! It’s Doc! Okay, just kidding. It’s Maggie (since she is the only woman in the movie long enough to qualify as a central character who is remotely close to being of age to be Freddy’s kid)! And as she and Tracy drive home, they shatter the barrier and set Freddy free.

Freddy, it turns out, is almost as powerful as God. When Maggie and Tracy return, no one can remember Spencer, Carlos or John Doe. Freddy has wiped all memory of them from existence. Except for one other person; that other person would be Doc. See, Doc is in touch with his dreams, see, and he can, like, totally control them. This will come in handy, and makes it much easier to convince him that there is mad man killing persons in their dreams.

Freddy comes to Maggie in a dream and reveals he is her father. Freddy then thanks her for helping him get out of the boundaries of Springwood. Yeah, total thanks, Maggie…thanks for loosing the crazed dream killer on the world!

In the meantime, Doc has done some research into mythology. Apparently that did not work, so he makes up mythology about Dream Demons who keep helping bring Freddy back. They devise a plan that includes Maggie pulling Freddy from the dream world into the real world (that again?!). But first she has to find Freddy-which involved entering his mind. Yeah, it makes as much sense while you are watching it. This sequence occurred in 3-D, which just never worked when I watched the DVD with the 3-D glasses at home. I should try it with the hi-def TV. But I digress, this was a good nine to ten years after the 3-D fad had died out. I mean, Jaws 3-D, Friday the 13th 3-D and Amityville 3-D were all between 1982 and 1983. I thought New Line was a bit more forward thinking.

So, we get to see Freddy’s sad pathetic life. Like when the kids teased him as the son of a hundred maniacs. It’s not like he did anything wrong, well, other than bludgeoning the class pet to death. And then there is Alice Cooper. I am a fan, so I will give the abusive step father memory a pass. Then Maggie has all sorts of happy family memories flood back to her, for instance, that one time? When her dad Freddy totally killed her mom because she found out Fred was killing little kids? I mean, look at it from Freddy’s side, folks. She totally was being nosy and not letting him have his guy time!

Freddy tries to win Maggie over, which can’t be that hard for a murdering sociopath, but she stays strong and pulls Freddy into the real world. Fred dukes it out with Maggie, Tracy and Doc. Maggie manages to stab Freddy in the gut with his own claw, which I guess is supposed to be poetic. Then she jams a lit pipe bomb in Freddy’s chest. She gives him a kiss and runs away. Freddy’s last words? “Kids…” Okay, that is really just a “last word”.

OK, I will grant that this is a nice inversion of the franchise rules. If Freddy dies in the waking world, he is dead in the dream world. So, the film has a brief moment of clever success. And it has one of my favorite lines of the series. After Freddy gets free from Springwood, he says to Maggie, “Every town has an Elm Street.” The film might-and I repeat- might make for good “get together with friends and mock without mercy” movie night… but that may also be overly generous.

October 3, 2015 0

Every Town Has an Elm Street Part 5 (A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: the Dream Child,1989)

That old soul whore Freddy is back. This time under the direction of Stephen Hopkins (Director of the theatrical Lost In Space, Predator 2 and the Reaping) and written by Leslie Bohem (Screenwriter on the Alamo and Dantes Peak), Freddy gets back to business. The Dream Child is the least successful of the franchise, and has its detractors, but it does have some devoted fans.

Alice (Lisa Wilcox, reprising the role) is now much stronger and self confident. Maybe it is because she kicked Freddy’s ass. Maybe it’s because she gets to have sex with the hottest guy in school (Dan-again played by Danny Hassel). Maybe it’s because she does not realize she is in a sequel, and that usually means the people who survived the previous film are killed in the first fifteen minutes (hey! It happened in the fourth film). Luckily for Alice, the entire plot hinges on Alice lasting through the film. Dan, on the other hand…he is expendable.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The film opens with an artsy sex scene. You know what I am talking about, close up shots of backs, thighs, hands…all in a deep blue light. When Alice wakes up, Dan is already gone, and she goes to take a shower. Showers are, of course, very dangerous places in the horror movie world. Alice’s shower fills up with water, before the floor gives out and she finds herself in a nun’s uniform, and a nametag that says Amanda Krueger. She appears to be in a creepy old institution of some sort. Suddenly she is in a crowded room full of “maniacs”. She sees a couple guards doing a head count and starts to make her way towards them. These guys are clearly the best money can buy, since they give up, turn around and lock the nun inside. The maniacs close in and…Alice wakes up and goes to school.

You would think the Krueger name would worry her, but hey, whatever. Its graduation day, Alice’s dad is twelve stepping it, her replacement friends have enough credits to graduate with her. She has totally upgraded her friends…now she hangs out with aspiring Model Greta (Erika Anderson), athletic diver Yvonne (Kelly Joe Minter) and comic geek Mark (Joe Seely) who is in love with Greta. Alice decides to cut through the park on her way to the diner where she works when she finds herself on a stretcher dressed as a nun being wheeled down the same dingy asylum from earlier. Then she finds herself in the crowd of doctors, and sees Amanda Krueger on the table giving birth.

As if taking a cue from It’s Alive, little Freddy bursts free of the doctor’s grip and scrambles out of the room. Alice follows ugly Freddy baby as it scoots through the maze of hallways. She finds herself following him to the same room from the fourth movie where she fought Freddy (a church rectory). The baby finds Freddy’s empty clothes, as apparently, in dreamland? There are no janitors. Baby Freddy (how did they not cash in on Baby Freddy as a Saturday morning kid show?!) crawls into the musty old Christmas sweater we viewers know so well. And just like when a little boy puts on mom’s dresses, Freddy becomes a real man.

Alice runs and finds herself four hours late to work. She calls Dan and tells him Freddy is back and that she entered the dream world while awake. Dan leaves the party and hops into his truck. While driving, Dan finds he has a passenger…can you guess who it is? If you said the first President Bush, you clearly have not been paying attention. Of course it is Freddy, who for no reason that makes sense proceeds to pour champagne on his shoulder. Apparently, champagne is horrifically acidic, as Freddy’s arm melts off. Then he smashes the stump into the back of the trucks cab and creates a makeshift seatbelt…instead of simply using the one in the truck. Freddy probably failed drivers ed. The truck crashes and throws Dan out-uh…into the empty pool area of the school that was full of students when he left it a minute ago. Now, instead of trying to wake of, Dan runs out to his truck to try and drive to Alice. Because, nothing about the current situation apparently screams “YOU ARE ASLEEP!” But he no longer has his key, and the truck is locked…

Conveniently, there is a snazzy red motorcycle with the keys in it. Yeah, that should not have been a warning sign. As Dan races to Alice, the motorcycle starts to attack him. It basically attaches itself to Dan, which makes for a pretty gruesome scene, as his flesh is ripped off by wires and engine parts. Suddenly, a metal Freddy face appears and says, *ahem* (and I quote) “Hey Dan-don’t dream and drive!” and Dan opens his eyes and sees a big truck. Not to mince words, but his little truck is no match for the semi. Dan is splattered over the street in front of Alice’s diner.

Alice wakes up in the hospital with Yvonne (who works there) a doctor and her dad. Turns out, and if you haven’t figured it out from the poster, the less than misleading ads and Freddy asking Alice if she want’s to make babies a couple moments ago? Alice is pregnant. No, Freddy is not the father. That would be Dan. That night, Alice is visited by a little boy named Jacob (Whitby Hertford-you would also recognize him as the chubby little boy Sam Neil freaks out towards the beginning of Jurassic Park). Jacob is your standard mystery kid, a little creepy and totally cryptic. But not cryptic enough for me to figure out that Jacob is the soul of Alice’s unborn baby. He pleads with Alice to love him, because his friend with the “funny hand” says she does not like him. Alice is not as quick as me… it is only when Yvonne notes there is no Jacob in the children’s ward-in fact, there is no children’s ward(!!!) in this big hospital in Springwood. And that is when Alice figures out what Freddy is doing. She learns that he is feeding her baby the souls of her friends. Um…yeah. Gross.

As the friends drop off-all of them disbelieving in Freddy until practically the last second- Alice is determined to save her baby from the man with the knives for fingers (wholly crap-in the wrong hands, instead of just a crappy horror film, this could have been a crappy pro-life screed!!!! Dodged that bullet) and starts trying to figure out how to stop him. Along with Yvonne, who Freddy fails to kill (in quite a stunning Hollywood reversal, the non-white kid makes it through the film alive) Alice realizes she must locate the body of Amanda Krueger. That should be easy, as the third film showed she was buried in a cemetery. But that is less dramatic…it turns out for no reason that makes any real sense, Amanda Krueger was sealed in a tower all Cask of Amontillado-style*. Why did someone seal her body in a tower in the asylum you ask? Did I not just explain that there is no real reason that makes sense? I mean, I am sure that the film makers thought it would be cool and scary. So, anyways, Yvonne gets the thankless task of corpse hunting. Alice gets to use her super powers to fight Freddy and try and save her baby. In a stylish sequence Alice finds herself in an M.C. Escher drawing(Freddy is totally hip to art). Freddy has almost fully corrupted little Jacob and is nearly able to turn him against Alice. Alice finds out Freddy has been hiding inside of her throughout the film. Ewwww. She expels Freddy (again with the “ewwww”) and is left weakened, near death. But Yvonne, scrappy teen she is has just freed Amanda’s soul! Amanda shows up just as Freddy appears to be victorious and tells Jacob how to fight back against Freddy. Freddy gets age reversed back to an infant and Amanda picks him up and stuffs him into her tummy. Freddy keeps trying to get out, but is not successful. Then the movie jumps ahead to Alice with her baby Jacob and everyone is happy. Until, you know…the next sequel.

I will say, while I am not all that fond of this film, it has one really cool dream sequence…Mark the comic geek is sucked into a comic book all like the Ah-Ha video. The use of colors is really nicely handled in the sequence. It’s all in black and white-except Mark who is in total vibrant colors. If the rest of the movie had this much creative care put into it? It would have been a great movie.
In fact, here…(no worries, it’s not very gory-though, still probably not work appropriate)

October 3, 2015 0

Every Town Has an Elm Street Part 4 (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, 1988)

Renny Harlin has not made many great films, oh sure, he is no Uwe Boll*, and he can at least lay claim to directing Die Hard 2: Die Harder (until a Good Day to Die Hard, the least of the Die Hards, yet still quite entertaining). But with NoES 4: the Dream Master, he helped push the Nightmare Franchise farther down the goofy tracks it was put on by the third film. At this point, Freddy is more a prankster whose punchlines always end in a cruel death for the audience. Kind of like Larry the Cable guy, but all crispy.

Kristen (Patricia Arquette unwisely did not return…look what that choice did to her career. But Tuesday Knight-not kidding- stepped in to take over the role. Blondes are pretty interchangeable, right?) and the other survivors of the last film have been skating along okay and are in school, making friends. Kristen even has a boyfriend, martial arts enthusiast Rick (Andras Jones). The film wastes no time, because the audience sure isn’t going to care about the new characters, they want to see Freddy get all stabby.

For no discernible reason, Freddy does get back. First he kills Roland Kinkaid (Ken Sagoes), whose tough guy exterior fades real fast when he wets his pants. Then Freddy pays a visit to Joey (Rodney Eastman)…now if you saw the last Elm Street, you know Joey cannot refuse a attractive topless blonde. He is also delusional enough to think these women want him-rather than he is in a dream. Here, he looks at a pin-up on his wall, and the water bed starts to shake, and when he looks up, the poster is blank. Yeah, Joey, that is not a good sign. He pulls back the sheets to see the hot blonde in the water waving to him. Yeah, not a good sign either-especially when she swims away. Joey’s last incident with a hot almost naked blonde went badly…this one goes worse, because Freddy pops through the mattress and cuts little Joey to ribbons. Now, usually, the movies try and make the death “appear” natural…not this one…mom walks into the room pulls back the sheets and Joey is trapped under the plastic-drowned. Huh? Is this a danger of water beds I was previously not aware of?!

Anyways, Kristen freaks out, she starts telling her friends about Freddy. This time around, it is not the adults, but the kids who laugh Freddy off. Kristen’s gone nuts! Just because her two friends died overnight is nothing to be weirded out by. But Rick’s shy sister Alice (Lisa Wilcox) tells Kristen about a poem that speaks of the Dream Master-but she can’t remember how it ends, and that sucks for Kristen, because she might have been able to defeat Freddy…and the audience would have benefited, as the movie would have been shorter. Alice recommends that Kristen just go to her happy place if she finds herself in a nightmare. Ah, yes, that will do the trick. In the meantime, Alice daydreams about boldly hitting on her brother’s football buddy Dan (Danny Hassel). Alice is teased by her buff, weightlifting friend Debbie (Brooke Theiss) who also has the hots for Dan. Hen there is the bookish friend Shelia (Toy Newkirk).

Kristen has an argument with her mother after work and discovers that her mother has drugged her (a very popular move by parents in the Elm Street films). After yelling at her mother “You just murdered me, mom!” (Heh, kids can be sooooo melodramatic) she stumble into her bedroom and finds herself at Freddy’s dream house. Crap. She remembers Alice’s recommendation and goes to her happy place-the beach! Of course, if you see a little blonde girl you do not know building a sand castle? It is not a good sign. Apparently Freddy can find Kristen’s happy place. Freddy is not actually ready to kill Kristen, as it turns out, if he does so now? He can’t keep killing. Kristen is the last Elm Street Kid. Lucky for Freddy, Kristen has a dream power to pull other people into her dreams, allowing Freddy a loophole.

And that means poor, shy Alice is pulled into Kristen’s dream, Kristen passes her power on to Alice, making her the new dream conduit Freddy needs. And Alice is not empowered enough to stand up to Freddy…at least, not before a bunch of her friends are dead. Freddy works his way through her friends and brother, and each time a friend dies? She gets their dream power. No wonder she does not try to hard to save them! Anyways, after Shelia and Rick get killed by Freddy, Alice Dan and Debbie decide to fight back. Alice picked up her brother’s martial arts abilities, so she isn’t any wimp.

Unfortunately for Debbie; Freddy traps Alice and Dan in a repeating dream loop so they cannot get to her. This, of course, lets Freddy enact another gruesome kill. It turns out the dream loop was happening in a vehicle and Dan ends up in the hospital (you can see where this is going, right?). Alice is in full bad ass mode and flies into Dan’s dream to save him from being diced. The doctors, being somewhat more efficient than in other Elm Street films, save Dan-leaving Alice to fight on her own. It takes the whole movie-but she remembers the end to the poem-evil is going to see its reflection and will die. Yes, she shows Freddy his face in the mirror and that is how she defeats him. Seriously, all the souls he collected over the years from Elm Street (apparently it is a really, really, really long street) crawl out of Freddy just leaving his clothes on the ground. Then Alice and Dan start to date and forget about their dead friends.

Unlike three, the Dream Master has a somewhat less pedigree behind the camera. The writers include William Kotzwinkle (this was his first movie), Brian Helgeland (okay, he did go on to write L.A. Confidential) and Jim & Ken Wheat (who wrote the Ewok Adventure: Battle for Endor and wrote Elm Street Four under a single pseudonym) and the previously mentioned Renny Harlin. This is certainly a slick and imaginative film, with extravagant dream sequences where girls turn into cockroaches, a girl gets the life sucked out of her and a kid gets sucked into a water bed. But it is just not good. The story is very on the nose. Alice has a mirror crowded with photos, as her friends die, she removes them and sees more and more of herself in the looking glass (get it?!). The special effects are the strongest part of the film, and in the end the dream sequences overwhelm any story and character development possible.

Oh, and by the way, if you are going to create a poem? Show some freaking originality, people. Seriously, this is the poem that Alice has trouble remembering:

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
the Master of Dreams my soul to keep,
in the reflection of my mind’s eye,
evil will see itself…and it shall die!”

I remember that one from:

“Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And If I should die, before I wake
I pray all my toys break so none of the other kids can play with them.”

This addition of the reflection theme just does not work…and it never returns to the franchise…because previous films had Freddy able to look at his reflection and…well, not die.

October 2, 2015 0