A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

On Sunday, August 30th, Wes Craven passed away, having lost his battle with brain cancer. As the acclaimed director of so many horror films, and the creator of one of horror’s foremost icons in Freddy Krueger, Craven’s work was certainly loved by many. He was the kind of guy who brought horror to the forefront and made it palatable for the masses - while still putting out quality stuff. In remembrance of Craven's legacy, I’m doing a special review of his original 1984 classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Johnny Depp, John Saxon

IMDb

I remember seeing this when I was about 14 for the first time, and I thought it was like nothing else I’d seen. The flashy colors, the fast pace and the surreal horror of the nightmares – it was a spectacle and it grabbed me by the throat in a vicegrip. Looking back now, it really was so influential to what came later. It opened up the doors for horror to take on realms outside our own, to explore nightmares and multiple realities, and it gave us all that in such a vibrant and colorful package – taking ideas explored in other psychological films to new levels by visualizing them. We felt the terror.

We start off with our fake main character, Tina, who has been having bad dreams of a man with long fingers for knives and wakes up with her nightgown slashed to ribbons in the front. Her initial suspicion was that Wolverine from the X-Men had snuck into bed with her, but she will soon find out it’s something much worse. Her mom tells her she either has to “stop having those dreams or cut her fingernails,” and ah yes, the days when parents could be that callous about their children waking up with cut-up clothes…

The third option is stop sleeping with scissors in your bed.

She tells her friends, Nancy and Glen, about the dream the next morning, but they of course shrug it off as insanity, as something so insane as a man with knives for hands could never pose a threat to them.

Johnny Depp is looking that way because Wes Craven held up a picture of a two-headed baby off screen to see if the actors could keep their concentration. Depp failed, so he was selected to be killed off later in the movie in the most brutal way.

That’s Johnny Depp as Glen, there, in his first movie role ever, who you might have trouble recognizing in this because he isn’t wearing a shitload of makeup and his hair looks like a normal person’s.

They all have a sleepover that night because Tina is afraid of her nightmares. When they hear a noise outside, they go to check and find it’s Rod, their delinquent wannabe friend who fulfills the ‘80s leather jacket’ quota for the movie. Because every 80s movie needed one of those, ya know – just a product of the time. They get into some verbal banter outside, and Rod immediately responds by pulling out a switchblade. Uh...guys, I’m really not sure that’s the dude you want to bring to your sleepover party.

"I'M NOT OVERREACTING!!!"

Rod then has sex with Tina, which is fine until afterwards when she is brutally murdered by knives cutting her up and throwing her around in the air. Gee - that’s how you know you’ve really got to work on your fucking game. When your partner dies.

Fuck. Just, holy fuck. What a brutal scene.

But this is actually the introduction of one of horror’s most iconic characters, Freddy Krueger, who I’m pretty sure was modeling your grandma’s Christmas sweaters for a living before he got big in this film. The scene where he’s introduced is excellently done, especially because he stretches his arms out like Slinkies and scrapes the walls with those long, metal claws he has. Yes, that's the reason it's excellent. Shut up.

Goddamn, this was all so fucking whacked out and insane. In the best way possible.

But this is a great scene. The nightmareish atmosphere is furiously fast and fun, and the acting is spot on from Englund and Amanda Wyss, who played Tina. Afterward, the surviving characters even start to figure out that Freddy stalks them in their dreams. Good for them. It's good that they're smart.

As Tina has left the building, the movie convenes in an emergency session after that and elects Nancy the new main character. She’s understandably upset the next day as she is in school and falls asleep only to wake up and see this:

Ugh, SO violating the dress code.

Then she runs into the worst hall monitor in the world:

Sorry to go on a bit of tangent here, but really, what is the point of hall monitors anyway? Are you just promoting some fascistic system where kids can’t be trusted to do things by themselves? I mean, if Freddy Krueger can transform into an annoying hall monitor with a striped sweater and a bleeding nose, and nobody notices that that isn't a good hall monitor, maybe it’s worth it to get rid of the profession as a whole.

We also get scenes of her visiting Rod in jail after he is arrested. Rod tells her he didn’t kill Tina, it was an invisible man cutting her up while he was in the room. You might recognize THAT as the lame-ass defense everyone gives now when they're accused of murder, but it actually started with this movie.

Rod is then killed in his cell, which prompts Nancy's father, the sheriff, to start intervening. He's played by John Saxon, the only man in Hollywood at the time who could use such a stern voice all the time.

Suicide, or killed by nightmareish dream-demon for revenge for his parents' sins. Either way, this isn't cool.

His sternness is eternal. It will never die. It will live on even longer than he himself.

While taking a bath at home, Nancy drifts off to sleep, which allows Freddy's hand to try and attack her in the tub. An interesting note: In this scene, actor Heather Langenkamp was not acting. She was just taking a regular bath in the privacy of her own home. Craven just wanted the fear to be real, which, really, is the only way to do a horror film.

Nancy is admitted to this psychiatric clinic where they test her brain waves while she's asleep to get to the root of the problem. The reason you know they're professionals is because they have computers and are wearing white coats. Nancy begins screaming insanely and bloody scratches start appearing on her, so, job well done, scientists! She's good to go home now, and you guys can continue doing your scientist-y jobs.

The greatest scientists in the world.

At home, Nancy has a shouting match with her mother, who refuses to tell her anything meaningful about Krueger. Why? Nancy already knows about him and is saying he's the one killing everyone. Who else could be killing everyone? How would Nancy know about Krueger if he's dead and in the past like her mother tells her? Does her mother really think she's that crazy or susceptible after just hearing his name once or something? I have so many questions.

None of which her mother will answer.

We also find out the sordid backstory of how the parents in the neighborhood burned Krueger alive in his boiler room because he was a child murderer. Which is bad, don't get me wrong. But what neighborhood doesn't have a good story to tell over hamburgers and beers at a cookout? Come on.

Glen is hanging out in his room later on when his bed eats him and spews out a bloodshower enough to cover the entire room for several seconds straight. I think that's awesome.

Clearly he was healthy, considering how strong his blood is.

We then also get the greatest phone sex scene in the history of movies.

So it's really just up to Nancy, who engages in a battle with Freddy. She manages to get Freddy into the real world, which results in one of the better jump scares I've seen – she wakes up, thinking it might actually all be over, and then he pops up from behind the bed. That's kick ass. Nancy isn't impressed, though, so she just sets him on fire and calls it a day.

Her father, the master of all good timing, shows up just in time to see his wife get eaten by a bed with a Halloween smoke machine in the room. Boy, the beds in this movie sure are hungry tonight.

The awesome kind of horror special effects I wish we would see more these days.

So everything seems to be good finally. It's a sunny day and perfect weather for a sunroof and parent murder:

So that's the end – the nightmare is reality and you can't really ever tell when it's over. Craven originally wanted the film to end in a happy manner, with everything that happened in the film just being a nightmare. I have to admit that would have been interesting. But I guess I'm a dark soul, because I like the ending we got. It works because it further blurs the line between the real world and Freddy's nightmare realm, like the whole rest of the movie was doing.

However – I can still see where Craven was coming from. His ending could've been good too. That's because this is a great horror movie, and it doesn't live or die by circumstance like that. This is a story about being young, right on the edge of adulthood. It's about the feeling of your parents dismissing what you say because you're a kid – but in your mind, you're almost an adult; they should listen to you. The kids in this movie find out that a devil in their nightmares is killing them, and it's their parents' fault. The kids themselves are blameless, yet they are the ones who face the penalty for their parents' sins.

Then, not only that, but their parents foil them at every turn in this film – Glen certainly would still be alive if his dad hadn't hung up on Nancy during that scene when she tried to reach him. Nancy's mom could have told the truth halfway through this movie and saved a bunch of lives. In ANOES, the parents are the “villains” - though they have no ill intent, they don't listen to their kids, dismissing them just for being kids, which is an all-too-common thing amongst adults. There's a sense of helplessness about everything in this film, which you, the viewer, feel by proxy of the characters.

Oh, and I guess Freddy Krueger is pretty evil too. I mean c'mon. The guy is a child killer, for fuck's sake.

Through the insane visuals, the groundbreaking story blending reality with dreams, the horrific visual nightmares and the iconic Freddy Krueger, who makes the most of his seven minutes of screentime here, Wes Craven and company created a classic. This is one of horror’s greats. If you haven't seen it, I really recommend it. And if you have, well, then you know what I'm talking about.

RIP Wes Craven. You are gone, but your work on this great film will live forever.

Images copyright of their original owners; we own none of them.

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2014)

The first Woman in Black movie with Daniel Radcliffe was an excellent real estate ad for those looking to buy old English country homes. The movie itself was a contest by the filmmakers to see how long they could stay awake during endless scenes of Radcliffe walking around in the dark with nothing happening. I guess that description sounded good to somebody, because now we have the sequel, Angel of Death.

Director: Tom Harper

Starring: Phoebe Fox, Jeremy Irvine

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This one is set in World War II, and sure, there was a war going on, kids were in the trenches fighting for their lives and there were unspeakable horrors going on at the concentration camps, but hey, we NEED to focus on this silly haunted house ghost story right now! That's amazing to me. You could do anything – it's a fucking period piece – but instead, we just get the same stuff we're used to from movies set in the plain old modern day. "But they set THIS one in the 40s!" Well, okay. It must be better then.

I mean, surely there were no better story ideas? How about a bunch of soldiers come across a house and stay there for shelter during a storm? Maybe a wounded or discharged officer trying to cope with the war AND the ghost? Nah. We really need another bullied loner kid story and a cliché romantic subplot! That's really original, guys!

On the plus side, it does work as a sleep aid – Michelle actually told me it worked for her that way after the movie ended.

The movie begins with a bombing in London during World War II. Gee, I have never actually seen a movie start off with such an accurate description of how it did at the box office.

Then we get our main character, a woman named Eve Parkins taking a bunch of kids to this house on an island to keep them safe. She is introduced to Edward, whose parents died in the bombings, and who now wears the permanent expression of sorrow more fitting for a kid who's just realized his acting career won't be helped by starring in this.

His loss of his parents could be a positive thing, if he spins it and becomes English WWII Batman. That would actually be awesome. Much more awesome than this movie.

They go to this old house, which gives us more of the movie's favorite thing ever – showing us the house as if we have the option to come to the open house next Tuesday. It's not a very good real estate agent though, as rather than warm and inviting, we just get a broken down house with everything ruined. Thanks for nothing, guys!

"Ugh, the LIGHTS aren't even on?! Worst open house ever."

It turns out the movie did find one use for the World War II setting – pseudo-intellectual dialogue that doesn't really reveal anything insightful about the characters or story or even, really, the times. But what would we do without characters talking about how strong they need to be to survive, which is something that could be from literally any time and any situation? Aren't there better ways to develop characters? Nah. Just throw bullshit hollow platitudes in and call it a day. Back to our bland supernatural lobotomy-fuel horror!

Most of the first hour is just boring as fuck. It's all played out scenes of Edward, who is silent, withdrawn and likes drawing pictures, being bullied by the other kids. Sure, like one girl is sort of nice to him, but even she's just doing the bare minimum any character does in these sorts of movies – every once in a while she'll call out for them to stop being so mean. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

"Teacher, can't we get one decent line or some kind of identifiable character trait?"
"NO!!! As punishment for asking that, you must write I have been a bad child 100 times on the blackboard!"

I mean, I guess we could have had actually well written dialogue for the kids that made you like them, and actually treated them like human beings. Whoa there, bucko, don't get TOO progressive on us there!

There's nothing overly annoying about most of this stuff, but they just do so little with their story. It's like having the ingredients to make a really great five-star cuisine, but then just settling for McDonalds for dinner instead, out of laziness and convenience.

But hey, at least we have a bunch of jump scares! Shitty ones! Ones where you see a glimpse of some Grudge-style white-faced ghost and then the character turns around and sees nothing! Give me a hip, hip, hooray for that!

….Guys? GUYS?!

Oh well. The film trudges on as we see Eve has a tragic past that can easily be explained in a short flashback complete with cliché orangey colors and slow music. Apparently she had a baby and since she wasn't married, the hospital took it away from her – that's really all we get.

This is almost a scary scene. You're closer to hot than to cold. But this is the closest you'll get, I'm afraid. Sad...

It's a story, I'll give them that – but that doesn't mean they did much with it. They didn't really do anything. It's the equivalent of a guy winning the lottery and spending the money incrementally on the same stuff he bought at CVS every day before he won. Complete waste of time.

But at least we have another backstory scene as Mr. Pilot Man, whose name I suppose is actually Harry, stops the car with Eve just to tell her his sob story about how he was a coward in the war and left his buddies to die. This character constantly has a deer-in-headlights look, like he has been locked in a room his whole life waiting for a Pantene commercial that he's been specially bred to star in. So I can believe he's a World War II pilot if I stretch my disbelief far enough!

They find one of the bully kids dead in the thorns outside in the morning, which I guess is really the point when they start to ask questions.

...Or it would be in a movie that had any logical sense. But in this movie, it's just another thing that happens – nobody really questions it or has a big reaction. I guess you could argue they figured that kid just wandered outside and died accidentally – but even then, nobody really seems to care. That child's death is just glossed over like nothing. I realize these kids have all the personality of a pack of playing cards left out in the rain, but that's not THEIR fault – that's the writers' fault at Satan's Movie Studio.

The movie rolls slothfully along, with some more random jump scares and some scenes with scary toys that should have probably been removed by now. But we needed some dismally small attempt to scare the audience, so it's pandering time on a level usually reserved for four year olds watching Barney the Dinosaur. If you think this is scary, you probably shouldn't go Trick or Treating this year; you'll probably have a heart attack.

It's scary because that stuff was found in an abandoned toy factory and ominous lighting was put on it. OoooOOoooohhh...

Eve, meanwhile, gets locked underground with a zombie version of this one doctor character from earlier. He blabbers on about some prophetic sounding nonsense, and once she gets out, she realizes she has to take the kids away from the house, putting together the clues from the nonsense that ghost was mumbling about. Because she is the type of teacher who lets supernatural ghosts and ghouls guide her decisions. Today, they would probably call her crazy and fire her for this, but in the 1940s, she was just being a good teacher.

"You look like a credible person that I should listen to!"

So they recruit Mr. Pilot Coward Man Harry to take them off the island, which he does – he takes them to the greatest place possible, a decoy airfield used to make the enemy bomb them during the war. That sounds like an amazing place to hide a bunch of scared children, doesn't it? Take them on a field trip there, pop open a bottle of wine. Why not?

I also love the contrived romantic scene we get here - Harry reveals that he had been making up a lot of his stories about being a pilot, and that he never made it out of training. Eve's response to this is to kiss him right there. Which just goes to show you - cowardice and lying gets you chicks.

Harry shows off his true nature when the place gets bombed like, a few hours after they arrive (great place to take kids, remember?!), and Edward tries to run back to the island. Harry tries to save him, but pusses out at the last second and instead goes back to the bunker like the weak-ass bitch he is. It would be one thing if we saw the conflict of his character doing this. But this is his face when he's telling Eve about how Edward was lost:

Amazing. The heartbreak is achingly obvious. I feel for this man in a way I've never felt for a movie character.

Truly heart-rending.

Anyway, Eve decides Edward is still alive, and so she goes back to the island and the old house. This results in an extra endurance round of 'boring scenes of searching the house while sad music plays,' where nothing is accomplished except for padding this movie out some more. It's only an hour and forty minutes, but goddamn, does it drag like a deflated wet balloon across a hot blacktop.

The movie also seems to think that rocking chairs are scary. A lot of these kinds of movies do this - see also Paranormal Activity, The Conjuring - they all do this scare. Why? Did a rocking chair traumatize the writers when they were young?

While looking out a window, she sees Edward walking on the frozen marsh toward this giant cross thing sticking out. She somehow makes it out of there super fast, and runs to him, but they both sink into the water. Fortunately, Harry the Pilot Man comes to save them, jumping into the water and helping to pull them out of a pile of corpses. He sacrifices himself in doing this, and they bid him farewell as he slowly dies underwater.

"Bbbrbrrgggbbb.... I knew I should have just gone back to the mainland and started telling women that I saved these two instead of actually doing it! That would have been in line with my character and also kept me alive!"

So, wait a second. Pause the movie. This represents him finally having the balls to do something brave – all movie long and even in his backstory, he's been a coward who survives only by running away when things get tough. Now, he finally does something brave – and HE DIES INSTANTLY the second he does so! What kind of message is that? Clearly, he should have stuck to being a coward, as that was the best way to stay alive.

I guess that ends the whole thing, as we then see that Eve and Edward now live together and Edward is on his way to becoming a normal kid. I mean okay, there IS that one moment where a picture is shattered on his desk, which might allude to the ghost still being around:

But I think that's just proof that picture frames were in short supply during the war, and this one was just poorly made craftsmanship. I turn up my nose at your shoddy handiwork!

Overall, this was lame. No good character, a story that's been done a thousand times over, and no good scares. The settings, like the first one, are nice – but they rarely use them to their full potential. You can tell they're trying to go for atmosphere, but the movie just shoves your face in these long, dull scenes of the characters walking around in the house – atmosphere can only take you so far. You need something else aside from a creepy setting – I know this might be an unrealistic expectation for a modern horror flick, but how about an actual scary scene? How about trying that?

No? Oh well. I can't wait for the third movie set in the 2000s with a bunch of partying college frat bros staying at the house on a dare. Come on, you know that's what they'll do.

Images copyright of their original owners; we own none of them.

Piranha (1995)

Well, it's the end of summer. So, let's celebrate by doing another summer horror movie! I originally planned to review the 1978 Piranha this week – the original movie that people sort of remember. But unfortunately, I didn't do my research, and ended up watching something else entirely – the 1995 Piranha remake, to be exact; a movie I didn't know existed. Because apparently, I am going senile after six years of doing this site and can't be bothered to watch the right movies.

Director: Scott P. Levy

Starring: William Katt, Alexandra Paul

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

This movie is good, if by 'good' you really just mean 'ripping off every creature flick in existence and doing a bland job of it without actually offending.' Which is what I always mean when I say good. So I guess it's cool.

The film begins with two kids going out onto the water, and yes, it's totally OK for the girl to get naked and the guy to be completely clothed – that's what feminism has brought us.

They blather on about how it's totally cool to be there, and no, nerdy guy, nothing bad will happen. Which is a surefire guarantee, really. It should be an insurance premium – if a hot chick in a horror movie tells you everything will be fine, it totally will be.

The nakedness apparently has all the answers.

They start swimming for a bit until one thing slightly inconveniences them – a swarm of hungry piranhas that devours them alive. I guess the insurance policy was a bit of a fraud. Oh well. At least we have Obamacare now, so this kind of thing never happens in horror movies anymore.

The main story starts when a writer guy named Paul living out in the woods is confronted by a scientist named Maggie, who is searching for the two kids who got killed in the opening scene – even though we will never remember their names, and even the movie sort of forgets them as we go along. We get a few bland scenes of them introducing one another, which of course ends with Paul joining her for a wacky buddy cop scenario like all bad movies have.

"Let's exchange pointless banter and then grow to love one another at the end!"
"Okay!"

They go and find some laboratory where some scientists were experimenting on piranhas, or some shit like that. They don't get very far, though, before a crazy woman attacks them with an ax. It's random and out of nowhere, but hey, the movie needed someone to spout exposition lazily later on, so they just threw this lady in. I've seen worse excuses for exposition... wait, no. No I haven't. This is the worst.

Put the ax down, Annie Wilkes. You're better off just getting out of this while you can.

They tie her up and bring her back to Paul's place, and the next day while they're searching for the source of the piranha attacks, the lady gives them some exposition about how the piranhas were created by the government so they could put them in the water of enemy countries and kill everyone off. That's so stupid, even most Internet conspiracy theorists would call it insane – but I guess in this movie it's a reality.

I also love how there had to be this whole big explanation of this plot. Isn't it just the same shit all these movies have? If the government wasn't behind this, it would have been aliens or something. Those are the only two options. After that, you just copy and paste all the other tropes and wallah, you have a bland and formulaic creature horror flick.

They do save a kid from the piranhas, but the crazy lady dies, because her purpose in the movie was just to tell the extremely bland backstory. Boy, these movies sure do have a weird, Darwinian view of purposes in life, huh? Once you give the exposition, you have no reason to live and can thus be ripped apart immediately. Heavy stuff for a movie made by people who I'm not sure could count past 12.

"Farewell, sweet princess. You have served your purpose and may now go to the Great Exposition Dump in the Sky, where Odin awaits you."

Also, while I'm on the subject, the piranhas make noises more like raptors from Jurassic Park or something, and it is annoying as shit. It's also always the exact same noise, with no variation. It's kind of like if they were puppets with the laziest sound-box in the world. Really? Couldn't even vary up the scary noises they make? Ah well – it's still better than the noise the mosquito made in Mosquito.

This apparently makes noises like a fucking dinosaur or bird of prey. Oh well. I'll go with it.

They then find out Paul's daughter who he never talks to is at a summer camp where all the piranhas are plotting to kill everyone. The movie doesn't say they're plotting to do that, but I think it's funnier to imagine a bunch of mutant piranhas sitting around with a map plotting out points on where to attack.

Of course, because this is a dumb movie from the '90s, the authority figures don't believe Paul and Maggie when they say piranhas are going to attack. Because Mr. Bigwig Businessman wants money! So that trumps any and all warnings of danger, even from legit scientists who have no reason to lie about it. This is basically how the whole conversation goes:

PAUL AND MAGGIE: We need to evacuate that park, because piranhas are going to kill everyone!

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: No, we need money! You're just a bunch of liberal feminist hippies!

(Yes, that's an actual line in the fucking movie.)

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Wouldn't it make sense to at least check and make sure a bunch of child deaths aren't going to be on your conscience?

BIGWIG BUSINESSMAN: *plugs ears with fingers* LALALALALALA!

SHERIFF: I'm gonna arrest you now on no legitimate charges because I am in the businessman's pocket! That's how reality works!

PAUL AND MAGGIE: Damn!

So, yeah, really – they get thrown in jail for no reason and can't even make a phone call because “they're not arrested, they're just being held.” Which is so illegal that I'm positive the entire sheriff's department would be immediately overhauled in real life and Paul and Maggie would be able to sue them for millions. But this movie is more of a cartoon than anything, so we need a scene where they knock out a guard to escape and steal his pants because the key to the jail is chained to them, and we get to see this:

Amazing. I can die in peace now after seeing this.

Then we get the climax, full of kids dying and their parents dying while trying to save them. That's great because their lives are ruined forever now.

Aw. What a heartwarming summer image.

Paul and Maggie go out to the ocean and try to lure the piranha into this old barge thing, or something like that – Paul is underwater for much longer than any of the other characters who died, but he doesn't get attacked at all. Hmmm. Maybe that's incredibly poor writing based on lazy convenience and anyone who does it should be ashamed.

Nah – the fish were probably just hungover that day of shooting.

And plus, it's cool – later, the piranhas DO attack him mercilessly, which is what I wanted to see from the first time I heard that weenie talk. But he demonstrates that being the main character means piranhas devouring you just means you have blood paint on you afterwards and are mostly fine.

"No! That guy I knew for one day is DEAD! I loved him!!!"

"Arrrgggrrrrrhhhh! Even I don't know how I survived this!"

So they get rid of all the piranhas and then the businessman guy shoots himself. Yes, really – that's the end of his story. It's totally dark, and is the best suicide I have ever seen.

Best ending ever!

Then the movie ends with kids on a beach presumably going to get eaten by more piranhas, with a voiceover from the mayor or somebody telling them it's totally safe!

Which is totally original and not at all a lame Jaws rip off. Not at all.

This was pretty bad, but not offensive or anything – it was pretty harmless. The worst thing about it had to be that noise the piranhas made. Just for that, I give it zero stars. If it didn't have that noise in it, it could have been a solid three-star movie. But the noise the piranha made killed it, just killed it dead.

And what? There were plenty of boob shots and fanservice scenes I could have very easily put into the review and made it better? Damn. Just damn. Between getting the movie wrong AND not putting in those pandering fanservice shots, I'm really not at the top of my game. I could have edited this further and fixed everything in addition to watching the correct movie instead, but I'm just leaving all of this rambling at the end of this mediocre review. Oh well. I'll try again next week.

Images copyright of their original owner. I own none of them.