TR reviews horror franchises: "Nightmare"

[erisi236]

The comic book part was pretty cool, but yeah, part 5 was pretty weak.

[Lick Ness Monster]

brainofj said:

I actually liked 5. I found it darker then 2, 3 or 4, almost a return to the Freddy of the original. And I liked the baby storyline.

But the supporting cast was a bunch of throwaway victims. You could see the deaths coming a mile away. Asthma girl, the model, the comic geek ... they all screamed their deaths in advance.

Jed Shaffer
~I believe you're using comeuppance in the wrong context, by the way. It means "get what you deserve". I doubt the innocent victims of Freddy deserved to die.

Asthma girl was in part 4 (and yes, I know her name, but now I refuse to call her anything else. ;D)

[Deleted]

"Faster than a bastard maniac. More powerful than a loco madman, it's... SUPER FREDDY"

Dream Child may not be one of my favorites, but I love that line.

[Jiren]

The death scenes were great (FUEL INJECTION!!!!!) but the film as a whole is just "meh"

[JMA]

Can't wait for the Freddy's Dead review. Aside from the flashbacks, the movie was terrible.

[erisi236]

heh, Freddy's Dead is actually one of my favourites ;D

"You forgot the Power Glove!"

[plushtar]

I admit to falling asleep to part five. At least all other sequels had their redeeming values.

[rra]

I don't get the hate at NEW NIGHTMARE. Fans seemed to hate it, or simply didn't bother to go to the theatres to see it.

But I dig it. Its like Craven's own memoirs, for better or for worse, of his bastard creation, from a moralist.*

*=Considering some of his work, thats ironic.

[Deleted]

rra said:

I don't get the hate at NEW NIGHTMARE. Fans seemed to hate it, or simply didn't bother to go to the theatres to see it.

But I dig it. Its like Craven's own memoirs, for better or for worse, of his bastard creation, from a moralist.*

*=Considering some of his work, thats ironic.

Honestly, I didn't really care for it the first time I saw it, but it kinda grew on me after a few viewings.

[Lick Ness Monster]

conspiracyvictim said:

rra said:

I don't get the hate at NEW NIGHTMARE. Fans seemed to hate it, or simply didn't bother to go to the theatres to see it.

But I dig it. Its like Craven's own memoirs, for better or for worse, of his bastard creation, from a moralist.*

*=Considering some of his work, thats ironic.

Honestly, I didn't really care for it the first time I saw it, but it kinda grew on me after a few viewings.

Same here. I'll be saying as much when I get around to reviewing it, but I thought it was dull and boring the first time I saw it - but after three or four tries I saw the love and labor put into it.

[Maidpool w/ Cleaning Action]

New Nightmare?

I personally loved it. It was the second best in the series to me. Mainly because I like mean as hell Freddy the best.

[Ken Ivory]

Few things:

1. I'd rate part 2 higher than part 5 any day of the week, I like part 2 a good deal. It's dark and witty to great effect plus freddy's look in it is probable his scariest/best.

2. My favourite line from Freddy's Dead was the Johnny Depp cameo ("Looks like a frying pan and some eggs to me!")

3. New Nightmare: It took me a while to warm to it but I have to say I like it. Craven kinda reclaims his creation in this and makes Freddy scary again.

[Brain Of F'n J]

thomasrigby said:

brainofj said:

I actually liked 5. I found it darker then 2, 3 or 4, almost a return to the Freddy of the original. And I liked the baby storyline.

But the supporting cast was a bunch of throwaway victims. You could see the deaths coming a mile away. Asthma girl, the model, the comic geek ... they all screamed their deaths in advance.

Jed Shaffer
~I believe you're using comeuppance in the wrong context, by the way. It means "get what you deserve". I doubt the innocent victims of Freddy deserved to die.

Asthma girl was in part 4 (and yes, I know her name, but now I refuse to call her anything else. ;D)

I stand corrected.

However, I still think Pt. 5 is criminally underrated.

Jed Shaffer
~I always end up liking the forgotten chapters of movie series.

[Lick Ness Monster]

FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE
1991
Director: Rachel Talalay

I should start off and say that I think this is a very underrated film. Many of the hardcore "Nightmare" fans seem to absolutely hate it, but I have never seen the point of all the negative vitriol - while at times this movie does drag (at least in the opening passages), it's certainly a very creative piece as well as a good stand-alone movie in its own right.
I'm a huge fan of what Rachel Talalay did with this film. Talalay, a staffer on the first film who eventually worked her way up to line producer on part four before being given the reins on this film, clearly loves and is a fan of the series. Cowriting the movie as well as directing it, she was able to hatch upon two excellent plot developments that I found very cool upon first seeing the film - the concept of Freddy having a child (yes, an ACTUAL child, and not the weird "Freddy baby" of part five), and the setting of this film approximately ten years after the events of "Nightmare 5" - and it's then where this movie introduces its single best aspect. Just what would an entire town be like if a psychotic dream stalker like Freddy had actually taken ALL the kids from the town? We actually get to see that, and as "Twin Peaks" was big at this time, it's not that far off from David Lynch's fictional town.
While Lisa Zane is excellent as the psychologist (who eventually takes the crown for the entire series as the person who finally takes Freddy down for good) and Yaphet Kotto (a severely underrated actor) is riveting, the supporting cast (unfortunately) aren't as well fleshed out in this one, and suffer very predictable deaths. You've got the abused kid, the teenage girl who lived under incestuous conditions, and the token stoner (played by a young Breckin Meyer, of all people). And it's not surprising to see who lives and who dies in this one.
And as for the main star himself, Robert Englund (who I just realized I've barely mentioned since the reviews of the first two films - shame on me) is again exemplary in this film. Talalay smartly scaled Freddy's humor down a tad from the last film, striking a good balance of funny and scary in this film, as Freddy is once again a very evil SOB in this film with his plans of essentially killing all the kids in the world. And Englund is absolutely amazing in the scenes where he is unmasked; the Freddy backstory and dream demon sequences aren't just enlightening, they are sensationally well-acted.
The one thing that drags this movie down is the plot device involving the "John Doe" character - an embarassing macguffin that unfortunately doesn't fool us at all. Once we see Lisa Zane, we know who the true kin of Freddy is, and this character does nothing but annoy and bore us. Seriously, what was up with the "walking up the invisible stairs" sequence dragging painfully on and on, as well as the approximately 18,678 nightmare sequences we have to suffer through of this kid?
Other than that one caveat, "Freddy's Dead" is very underrated in the annals of the "Nightmare" movies, having its funny moments (Johnny Depp's cameo and Freddy's sudden reaction is priceless) and scary ones as well. Highly recommended.

*** 1/2 / ****

p.s. - The Iggy Pop song at the closing credits, along with the montage of Freddy moments from the series, is almost worth the price of the DVD itself

[Deleted]

Here's something that always bothered me about Freddy's Dead... I remember seeing "1, 2" on the field, "3,4" at the school, "5,6" in the classroom, and I think "9, 10" was on a newspaper, but I seriously don't remember seeing "7,8". Maybe I just keep missing it, or perhaps it was a deleted scene. And I did like the song and montage at the end, that was pretty cool.

[plushtar]

Okay film and it makes up for part five. Although, Freddy was a complete joke by this time. His make-up looked like old bubble gum.

["Magic" Mark Hurr]

thomasrigby said:

p.s. - The Iggy Pop song at the closing credits, along with the montage of Freddy moments from the series, is almost worth the price of the DVD itself

Whenever this comes on TV, it's a must that I watch the end credits even if i don't watch the movie. Wish I would have seen this in the theater.

[Ken Ivory]

Freddy's Dead has it's moments, the film had a great concept but it could have been done SO much better.

The second I saw Freddy on a broomstick, I knew it was gonna be a crap-fest. This is another film I'd rate part 2 over.

[Ken Ivory]

Lets not forget that Alice Cooper plays Freddy's abusive step dad.

He's uncredited for some reason.

[Lick Ness Monster]

Alright, time to finish this bitch off...



WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE
1994
Director: Wes Craven

This is one of the most wildly inventive horror movies of all time. The premise of it - fantasy invading reality, and movie characters that actually KNOW all of the cliches of the very film that they reside in - would be a virtual staple of horror culture over the next five years, reaching the apex of quality with Craven's own "Scream."
And Wes Craven had indeed hatched upon a very good, original idea (of which the "Nightmare" series keeps coming up with, making it, I believe, the best horror series of all time) - what if there were some evil entity that were actually USING his own bastard creation as a means into our own world?
Heather Langenkamp perhaps turns in the best performance of her career in this movie playing, oddly enough, herself - along with Robert Englund, Robert Shaye, Craven, and a whole host of other regulars of the original "Nightmare on Elm Street". This movie is great fun to watch for the first hour, as we, the voyeurs, watch the stars and makers of the original movie that we grew up watching and loved so much.
After the requisite first act, the middle passages are absolutely stirring. The sudden death of Langenkamp's husband (a movie special effects guru), her own terrifying "Freddy nightmares," and her own child who seems to have some sort of evil link to the character that she once confronted in what she thought was only fiction.
For the first hour and a half of this film, it is absolutely flawless. The buildup to the eventual payoff is unbelievable, tense, and scary - the opening phone calls from a man who sounds like Freddy, Robert Englund's eerie painting of a Freddy-like figure, the claw marks on Langenkamp's son's dinosaur, and the bizarre suicide attempt of said son - all leading up to the scene in the hospital, as "Reel Freddy" (as he came to be known for this movie), not unlike Spielberg's Jaws, finally shows his face for the first time in the movie, and kills the babysitter in exactly the same manner as the first onscreen death in all of "Nightmare on Elm Street."
Perfect. Absolutely perfect stuff, and excellent writing done all throughout the first three-fourths of Craven's script.
However, I'd be lying if I said I was totally satisfied with this movie. While some of it is indeed thrilling, a lot of what happens (for me) in the film's final act just feels like a letdown. I don't even have some extremely nerdy, fan fictioney solution for what I would have done if I were Craven handling this film - but for whatever reason, the "Freddy hell" sequence and the final battle with the entity known as Mr. Krueger himself just doesn't feel like the rousing conclusion that I wanted. Hey, it's just me - maybe I'm just a moron.
In summary: Craven exorcises his demons, showing why he is one of the best horror minds in the history of cinema, crafting an absolute masterpiece of a buildup for the first 75% of this movie. Englund, Langenkamp, and John Saxon turn in memorable performances playing themselves. We get to see the "horror culture" in full swing, especially in the talk show scenes. But the last thirty minutes fall up short.

*** 1/2 / ****