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

Every Town Has an Elm Street Part 3 (A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors, 1987)

Now let us take a look at the third Elm Street Film. The Dream Warriors is easily one of the best of the series and one of the best loved. Dream Warriors deftly handles horror, fantasy, action and comedy in one solid package. Not entirely surprising, the cooks include Wes Craven, Frank Darabont (writer of Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile) and Chuck Russell (who also directed, he is primarily known for directing the Jim Carrey film the Mask).

It’s a pretty effective story. The last remaining Elm Street kids have been institutionalized, suffering from horrific nightmares. No one seems to know what to do, because, again, in horror movies? Adults are dumb and do not listen to anyone. They presume the kids are really just, you know, suicidal. Because suicidal people always claim a guy is stalking them in thei9r dreams and trying to kill them. And they tend to do so en mass.

But these kids are lucky, you see, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) is back to save the franch-uh- I mean, the kids. She, with help from Dr. Neil (Craig Wasson, of Ghost Story, Body Double and most recently, Sasquatch Mountain), work against an uncaring world to save the kids. They do not of course, because frankly, that would be a boring horror movie. Instead, Freddy kills a few of the kids rather creatively. Nancy discovers that young Kristen (played by young Patricia Arquette) can pull people into her dreams. This manages to give the surviving kids an edge.

Nancy and the kids manage to fight back against Freddy, while Dr. Neil meets a mysterious nun who conveniently knows a lot about Fred Krueger. We also see the return of Nancy’s pop, Donald (John Saxon).

At Nancy’s funeral, a heartbroken Dr. Neil receives another visit from mysterious old nun woman. Dr. Neil follows her through the cemetary, where she disappears…but then Doctor Neil sees a headstone…the nun was the ghost of Amanda Krueger-FREDDY’S MOTHER!!!!

This film is notable for many reasons. For instance, this film introduced the concept of the “dream power”, in which kids have a unique power-usually based in their self image- which they can use to fight Freddy. The fourth and fifth films fail to put this to good use though. It also introduces the back story for Freddy that he was the “Bastard Son of 100 Maniacs”. His mother was a young nun who worked in an asylum and was locked up for a weekend with 100 depraved maniacs who raped her.

The film also introduced far more elaborate dream sequences. The first two films had dream sequences that challenged you to figure out whether the character was asleep or awake. In the Dream Warriors, the dreams are more fantasy adventures. This is easily one of the top three films of the franchise, and worth watching, it is not scary, but it is full of adventure, fun, solid effects ( a very nice stop motion fight is reminiscent of Harryhausen) and pretty nicely played.

However, the film is also guilty of starting the film down the path the series took that bothered so many fans, specifically, Freddy the Comedian. This is the film that gave us the line, “Welcome to Prime Time, Bitch!!!” And while it works in this film, it clearly took the character down a road of self mockery. So, in spite of the snark, I really do recommend this as a entertaining film to watch.

October 2, 2015 0

Every Town Has an Elm Street Part 2 (A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge, 1985)

Okay, from here on out, spoilers fly with no regards as to whether you have seen the movies or not. These will mostly be…well, not so much reviews, as observations. And probably more than a bit snarky.

So, Nightmare On Elm Street was a huge hit. Not all that surprisingly, New Line rushed out a sequel. A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2:Freddy’s Revenge. Revenge on who? Don’t really know. It is not Nancy, because she is not in this one. Luckily for the story, her diary is though. When young Jesse’s (Mark Patton) family moves into Nancy’s old house, he starts getting tormented by horrific dreams involving Freddy.

Turns out Freddy has a plan, and that plan includes using Mark to maybe kill people. Like his creepy leather loving gym teacher. But Mark, see, he is a good kid. Oh, a little wimpy. And his parakeet is prone to bursting into flames. But Mark doesn’t want to help Freddy. Instead he just wants to hang out with his friends and meet girls. He starts to hang out with Lisa (Kim Myers), and spends much of the film struggling with his teachers and parents (Clu Gulager and Hope Lang), because frankly, Parents (and teachers) just do not get what it is like to be a teenager haunted by the death of a child killer. By the way, in life Freddy killed little kids, why did he switch to teens after death? Anyways, Freddy is using Jesse to try and get back into the real world. His friend Grady laughs it all off, but thankfully; new girlfriend Lisa takes him seriously.

When you get right down to it, this film is a real mess that makes almost no sense at all in the context of the other sequels. For example, the film establishes Freddy’s boiler room is in the factory he used to work at. This factory never comes up in later sequels. This is the only film where Freddy is trying to break out and live in the real world, a motive he lacks in other all other incarnations, which makes sense; he is more powerful in the dream world. It also does not help the film that, as a lead, Jesse is pretty unsympathetic. At best he is whiny and annoying, which is not good for your protagonist. I am not sure if the main problem lies with the actor or the script. Though, one wonders how different the film would have been if Jesse were played by Christian Slater or Brad Pitt (both auditioned). Craven avoided the sequel partly because he did not, actually, intend to create a Franchise with Elm Street and also because he felt they were going to far astray of his original concept, especially with having Freddy make Jesse kill people. And it shows. This film just feels entirely out of place in the series.

It is interesting that the least loved* of the films has a central lead that is male. The strongest films of the series feature female protagonists. As I noted, Jesse is not a sympathetic character, and honestly comes across as very weak and easy to manipulate.

But in the end, what makes it really stand out? Basically, this is the most homo-erotic horror film ever. In fact, comically so. I don’t mean this in a denigrating way towards the gay community, or even homo-eroticism in films. But in the Elm Street series, it just feels…well, out of place, mainly because the film plays everything straight. It is not like it is a wink and a nudge. I am not even sure that they realized at the time (Jack Sholder, the director states they did not, however, he sees it now). And it is this unintentional aspect just makes it oddly humorous. I mean you have lines like, “Something is trying to get inside of me” and “He’s inside me… and he wants to take me again!” You just cannot miss the subtext. And we all know unintended subtext is comedic gold, people.

When it comes down to it, this is a terrible film, not worth watching on your own. However, it is a hysterical comedy when watched with a group of friends.

*Oddly, for as much as it is derided, it is one of the highest grossing of the series.

October 1, 2015 0

Every Town Has an Elm Street Part 1 (A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984)

In 1972, college professor turned aspiring film maker Wes Craven produced the low budget horror film Last House on the Left to some small success, in 1977, he got more horror cred with the survival flick the Hills Have Eyes. After that it was a string of mostly forgettable TV movies and the like. But in 1983 or so, Craven hit paydirt.

He met with Bob Shaye of the indie studio New Line Cinema. There he pitched the idea that would put New Line on the map. Craven told Shaye about the idea of a killer who hunts kids in their dreams…and if you die in your dream, you die in real life. Based on a series of news stories Craven had read, in which people had told loved ones of terrifying nightmare they were having, and then died in their sleep (all involved young people, in at least one case, the kid secretly went days without sleep, hiding coffee in his room).

Shaye saw the potential there and green lit the project. What came about is one of the most memorable icons of 80’s horror. Named after a childhood bully, Craven created Fred Krueger, a child murderer who got freed on a technicality and then was killed by the parents of Elm Street.

Years later, high school student Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) and her friends find their dreams haunted by a creepy man in a green and red sweater, oblivious to the fact that their parents murdered Kruger years before. And, of course, the parents would prefer to keep it that way. Nancy’s mother (Ronee Blakely) is a fall down drunk, estranged from Nancy’s police lieutenant father (John Saxon) who is determined to keep the truth from coming out. But the sins of the parents are threatening the lives of the youth in this story. And the parents do not want to face the truth (hey, it is a horror film, parents never believe the kids).

As Nancy’s friends start dying, the police right them off as murders and suicides, but Nancy knows better. She starts trying to fight the need for sleep, and manages to avoid Freddy’s claws. But her mother is certain her daughter is just going crazy, while her father sticks to what he can see and is unwilling to accept his daughter’s claims.

In fact, truthfully, the greatest threat to Nancy is her parent’s unwillingness to listen to her. In that regard, the film becomes, at times, unbearably preachy. But ultimately, Nancy stands up to Freddy, apparently defeating him at his own game.

Overall, the original Nightmare On Elm Street holds up quite well. Freddy was not yet as campy, and Robert Englund plays him with a real grim vibe. Freddy’s voice is a guttural, throaty growl that is immensely threatening. The first reveal of Freddy walking down an alley with distended arms, scraping his claws along garages is hauntingly creepy. The practical effects and make up still are effective. The music is one of the few things that really does not hold up over the years. Those synthesizer based soundtracks rarely do. One exception is that the main theme is pretty creepy. The thing that truly risks ruining the movie though? The final scene is clearly tacked on for sequel possibilities and it really makes no sense. Wes Craven has disowned that ending that was forcd on his work. Producers should trust their directors.

But overall, this remains a solid effort, even if it is somewhat tainted by a slew of much lesser sequels (though there are a couple worth catching).

October 1, 2015 0

October Is Gonna Be a Bloody Mess

I will be publishing reviews of horror movies all month. Hope we all survive!

October 1, 2015 0

Hillbilly Mountain Madness (Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil, 2012)

You know when the opening moments of a film pay homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wrong Turn, it will either be good fun or go terribly awry. As we are introduced to the college kids driving into the Appalachian hills for a weekend of debauchery, it is a little uncertain. These are very cartoonish and seemingly vapid characters.

As they are driving, they almost collide with a beat up old pickup truck. As the truck passes them, the occupants stare at the college kids ominously. foreshadowing of the cruel plans they have for these kids? It turns out… not really. Tucker (played by Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are on their way to Tucker’s newly purchased vacation home for some relaxing and fishing. The kids run into the duo at a gas station, where we discover that Dale is painfully shy. Tucker tries to give him a pep talk (“You are a good looking man, in a way”) to go over and talk to the pretty college girl Ali (30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden). Unfortunately, in his attempts to appear confident (including walking over with a scythe) he comes off scary.

At the vacation home, Tucker and Dale discover all sorts of signs of an ominous past-but look right past them. Tucker assumes the bones dangling from the ceiling show the previous owner to have been an archeologist. Newpaper clippings on the wall about a massacre of college students is met with the assumption that the previous occupant was a news buff.

But it is when Tucker and Dale decide to go doing some night fishing it all goes wrong. When they save Ali from drowning, her friends assume they attacked her and flee. Tucker and Dale decide the best thing to do is tend her wounds and return her to her friends the next morning.

But one of the college kids, Chad, becomes obsessed with the idea that they must fight the evil hillbillies and rescue Ali. While the other kids suggest getting the cops, he is certain that is a terrible idea. Chad sees himself as special and unique-better than everyone else. This mentality has him certain that he and the attractive Ali should be hooking up (in spite of her resistance). He also has a history with Hillbillies that drives his relentless desire to destroy Tucker and Dale.

This all leads to a series of events where the kids attack the two-and die in the process. This leads them to conclude the kids are part of a suicide cult. And from the there the misunderstandings continue. Ali attempts to resolve the conflict, but through a comedy of errors, the now formed trio cannot convince her friends that Tucker and Dale are quite kind guys.

The film sends up the idea of the final dual with a solid twist. The film has a lot of fun with it’s reversal of the Mutant Cannibal Hillbilly premise. There are plenty of clever jokes and visual references to other films (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Fargo, Deliverance, etc). As the leads, Tudyk and Labine are well cast, and tremendously likable characters. Bowden does a nice job as the only sympathetic member of the college entourage. Director Eli Craig shows promise, as this is a pretty strong debut (so far, Craig has directed a short and an episode of the TV show Brothers & Sisters).

I found the film to be enjoyable, with many laughs. It understands the weaknesses and absurdities of the genre and has fun with them. And again, there is no understating how important the casting of Tudyk and Labine were to the film, as they are the ones who bring the heart of the film. In a world with films like Epic Movie and Vampires Suck, it is nice to discover a film that understands the need for characters-even in parody.

September 17, 2015 0

Keep an Eye Out In Your Nightmares

Since my earliest childhood, I loved monsters. Whether horror or sci-fi or fantasy…stories with monsters were exciting to me. This resulted in my not finding horror movies so much as scary…but exciting. My parents did not let me watch horror movies in general, mainly to avoid me having nightmares I suppose.

In high school, I started to get more access to horror movies I saw a Nightmare on Elm Street. I did not find it super scary, but I loved the imagination behind it. Teacher turned filmmaker Wes Craven made a real impression on me.

Not every film he made was a classic, but he gave some truly visionary offerings. He started the Elm Street Franchise and then, with New Nightmare, turned it on it’s head, before “challenging the rules of the genre” was the thing to do.

Honestly, there is an extra cruel irony when a storyteller faces something like brain cancer. It is like a monster directly attacking the heart of a storyteller. My condolences to his friends and family in their loss.

Craven understood the power of story, and I am glad he shared his experience with us.

Thanks for the Nightmares, Wes Craven. You’re gonna be missed.

September 1, 2015 2

Look Back (It Follows, 2015)

Truthfully, anytime I see hype for a horror movie as the greatest in years, I get a bit hesitant. Because there tends to be a bunch every year. Last year the praise was heaped on the Babadook. Which was a decent horror film. But hardly the best in years.

It Follows has received a lot of high praise. So, I went in with a bit of concern.

The story is focused on a young woman named Jay. After sleeping with a young man, her life takes a horrifying turn. He warns her that he has passed something on to her, and she must pass it on, or it will kill her and go back down the line. What he shows her is a person in the distance…eerily, a naked woman is walking up towards them. As she gets closer, the young man warns that while it is slow, you should never let it touch you.

Slowly, Jay is able to convince her friends something is after her, even if they cannot see it. And this is what the film does so well. You find yourself scanning the screen for shapes, to see where it might come from.The creature never looks the same, but it is always a person shambling towards Jay, and the person is usually naked or in a stage of undress. This is something the film uses to strong effect. It is rather unnerving to see the naked person walking in public. It seems out of place and makes it all the more freaky.The music in the film is haunting and increases the intensity. Where is the creature? Where will it appear? The film handles this so effective you are drawn into the film. The real tragedy within the film is the realization that passing it on never fully ends the terror, Jay knows it is there, and you always have to wonder if someone is going to fail to pass it on.

This is only David Robert Mitchell’s second full feature film, yet he shows himself to be very adept within the genre, making a highly effective thriller. Maika Monroe is compelling and sympathetic as Jay. The whole cast works, and unlike many smaller budget horror films, you do not find yourself having to put up with mediocre acting.

It Follows is a powerful and disturbing horror film which rarely gets gory, instead relying on atmosphere and performance to sell the shocks and scares. Any fan of the genre should check it out.

August 31, 2015 0

He’s Gonna Be So Mad(Sinister 2, 2015)

A couple things.

Firstly, I really liked Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s 2012 Sinister. It was eerie and ended strongly (with real tragedy). It was a challenge to the pursuit of selfish glory and especially at the expense of the needs of your loved ones.

Secondly, I have been spelling Bughuul wrong for the past three years. I am so embarrassed.

Sinister 2 appears to pick up a couple years after the original film. Deputy So & So (James Ransone) is now Ex-Deputy So & So (EDS&S from here on out). He is actively working to stop the spread of Bughuul’s evil, though he clearly is missing some of the information that Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) and Professor Jonas (Vincent D’Onofrio) discovered in the first film. Conveniently for the story, Jonas is now missing.

EDS&S has tracked the last Bughuul styled murder (all cases feature a horribly murdered family, a missing child and mysterious painted symbols) to a remote farmhouse with an old church. He goes to burn it down before anyone else can move in and continue the cycle. But he arrives to late and discovers there is a mother (Shannyn Sossamon) hiding with her two young sons Dylan and Zach. She is trying to keep her sons from the hands of her abusive husband, Unfortunately, Bughuul has reached out to her quiet and youngest (Dylan, played with gentleness by Robert Daniel Sloan).

The film has amped up the presence of the ghost children. In the first film, they quietly haunted Ellison, but we did not see them speaking much. Here they are very talkative, mostly appearing only to the young boys until the end when they become active poltergeists.

It also has changed the film projector from the first film a bit, inexplicably adding a turntable to play creepy music as the boys watch the films. The creepy snuff films are back. While the audience knows Bughuul’s goals and the way he works, EDS&S has to figure it out all over again, which includes a ham radio. I appreciate the attempt to show how Bughuul has used various forms of media (both films show an idea that art and mediums used for art allow him to move through the world)…but the first film suggested that Bughuul now was released into the internet. It is a bit of a shame that this was not really followed up on.

Honestly, the focus on EDS&S trying to figure out how Bughuul does it slows things down. The film does have some well done moments. EDS&S has a good connection with Dylan. And the idea that Dylan has a history of abuse becomes interesting as you see Bughuul’s ghost children try and use that to fire up a desire for cruelty. When one of the children mention his mother, Dylan snaps back that his mother did not do anything. The Ghost child coldly replies, “Exactly.”

There is a nice twist. And the film tries a very different ending, but it does not work on multiple levels. Parts convenience (getting certain characters out of the way) and parts troubling (making the central villain to take out a young boy is fairly problematic). It is hard to root for EDS&S to aggressively stop a child with physical violence (especially when you have involved themes of child and spousal abuse into the story). The creators kind of wrote themselves in a corner and are left finding another way to end the villainous kid while avoid having EDS&S be a killer of children.

The film has a final “horror movie” moment that felt like the creators were at a loss of how to end it and wanted a scare. So they repeat the same gag from the first film.

I feel Sinister 2 is better than some critics have said, but it still fails to deliver on what we got from it’s predecessor.

August 30, 2015 0