Freddy vs. Jason Movie Review

Like with Jason X, this one shouldn't even be included in this October series but for a sense of completion with bothNightmare and Friday. How could I not include it? I have it noted that I saw this in the theater, but I have no memory of that whatsoever. It was released in theaters a week before I left on a three month backpacking trip. I find it hard to believe it was still in theaters when I returned. And I doubt I would have rushed out to see it while I was preparing for such a big trip.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

I wonder how long after acquiring the rights to Friday the 13^th it took New Line executives to start fantasizing a combination movie with A Nightmare on Elm Street. It took more than ten years to finally get Freddy vs. Jason into production and then released. Was it worth the wait? Does the end result provide those who were clamoring for the ultimate confrontation of 80s horror icons with a showdown worthy of the classic status of something like Godzilla vs. Mothra? I’m not so sure.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare Movie Review

This is one of the few films in this October series that I watched for the first time. This was kind of a big deal when it was released when I was in high school, but I just didn't have much interest in horror movies anymore. The premise was sort of interesting, but I just never got around to it. No, it had no direct effect on me as a kid, but it was part of the conversation, so I thought it important to include it. Also, it's the only one of the Nightmare series I hadn't seen.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

Artists often talk about their work as if it were a living, breathing thing. In the artist’s mind, an inanimate object takes on qualities that make it seem like it’s more than the material it’s made from. Once an audience gets a hold of a piece of art, the metaphor takes on a whole new life as meanings are ascribed, intentions discussed, and, in the case of pop culture, obsessions are created. The Nightmare on Elm Street series and, more specifically, Freddy became cult sensations through the 1980s. You might say they took on a life of their own outside their various creators, in particular the original creator Wes Craven, whose idea had morphed into something completely different by the last two or three films.

The idea for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare had been kicking around since A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. New Line had rejected the premise in favor of a more traditional slasher film. You can call New Nightmare the seventh film in the series, but it doesn’t fit within the series continuity. It takes place in the ostensible real world of Hollywood, where Heather Langenkamp (playing herself) lives with her husband Chase (David Newsom) and their young son Dylan (Miko Hughes). Chase is a special effects guy who’s been secretly working on a new Freddy glove for Wes Craven (who also plays himself, in addition to writing and directing the film). Craven the character has a new idea for a horror movie and he wants Heather to star. However, she’s being tormented by phone calls taunting her with the Freddy nursery rhyme and she has ambivalent feelings about her son being exposed to those kinds of films.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare Movie Review

This was released at a point when I was growing out of that childhood phase of being fascinated by the way horror films could make your spine tingle, scare the hell out of you, and make you peak around dark corners in your home and even check under your bed before going to sleep. The things I heard about it were so awful, I didn't have much interest in it, but at some point as an early teen or sometime in middle school I rented it. Watching it for this horror series nearly all of it was familiar and I knew what was going to happen.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

Time has truly not been kind to Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, the sixth and intended final chapter in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. It is remarkably dated, which is quite a feat considering the climax of the film was made in 3D, a format that has finally made a big splash in the film industry after several failed attempts over the decades. It also fails to find a settled tone, shifting clumsily from traditional horror conventions to slapstick comedy. The juxtaposition of comedy and horror is incongruous in this particular film and would be much better handled several years later by Wes Craven, the man who not so incidentally created the series and its antagonist Freddy Krueger. Do I need to even mention that Robert Englund returns to play Freddy, hopefully reaping a sizable paycheck for his efforts?

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child Movie Review

This was the first scary movie I saw in the movie theater. My older sister took me when I was eleven. This was not a very scary movie to me and never resonated as strongly as Nightmare 1 and Nightmare 3.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

“It’s a boy!” Freddy proudly proclaims after he is reborn from the womb of Amanda Krueger within one of Alice’s nightmares in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. Alice (Lisa Wilcox) is one of two survivors from the previous film, along with Dan, now her boyfriend. Oddly, Alice has begun having Freddy nightmares while she’s presumably awake. What she later discovers is that her unborn child inside her is capable of dreaming, providing Freddy his valuable invitation to kill again.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master Movie Review

I don't even remember how or when I watched this as a kid. Most likely my older sister (still into horror movies) rented it and I watched it before she returned it. I remember liking it, but not really finding it scary.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

You need only note that Robert Englund had top cast billing for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master to see the direction the series was heading. Freddy had become the driving force behind the series’ success. Without a mask to hide behind, he was given personality along with dialogue riddled with jokes and quips that grew hokier in this fourth installment. Directed by Renny Harlin, one of only a handful of horror film directors to actually go on to a sizable Hollywood career, Nightmare 4 begins the real downward trend of the series, though it is still reasonably fun if hardly ever frightening.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors Movie Review

This was always the Nightmare film I was most familiar with. It was probably on TV more often than the others when I was old enough to be watching TV on my own at night. So this one scare me the most.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

For the third A Nightmare on Elm Street film, New Line wisely brought Wes Craven back on as a producer. The result is that rare horror sequel that is better than the preceding film. Even if it doesn’t quite surpass the directorial skill of the original, it remains a creepy and occasionally fear-inducing effort. It is more disturbing than scary because Freddy Krueger, at a certain point, ceases to be a scary icon. He’s endowed with, dare I say, too much personality. His grotesque visage is all he has to summon visceral fear.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge Movie Review

Mostly I remembered this as being a kind of stupid sequel that didn't exactly fit in the series. I always had this innate sense that it was just a sub-par effort and it turns out I was always right. This one had much less effect on me as a kid than the next in the series.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

For A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, New Line Cinema didn’t manage to bring back anyone from the first film except Robert Englund as the burned and scarred dream tormenter Freddy Krueger. Without the creative mind of Wes Craven, who created the character and the first story, this sequel just goes straight to pot. It’s clear they wanted to try something slightly different without repeating the formula, but in a story that involves a teenage boy who is, by all evidence, possessed by Freddy and doing his killing, there is mostly chaos and confusion with scant narrative cohesion.

Horror Classic Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street

A seminal horror film that I probably didn't see in its entirety until sometime after I'd seen the next two or three in the series. It was a little before more time, but I must have seen bits and pieces on TV growing up. Yes, Freddy scared me as a kid and I wasn't so much afraid to go to sleep as I was afraid that I might already be sleeping and he could appear at any time.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

Wes Craven’s knack as a director has always been his ability to get under your skin. His Last House on the Left has faced accusations of being nihilistic and depraved, but there’s no denying that it awakens a primal visceral reaction in people. When A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984, he once again put himself out there as a filmmaker who could grab an audience in a stranglehold and not let go for 90 minutes. In the process he helped usher in a new era of horror filmmaking with the killer as surrogate protagonist. People could connect to Fred Krueger in ways not possible with Jason or Michael Myers or Leatherface. Freddy’s wisecracking and ironic wit was the precursor to films like Child’s Play and even Scream, Wes Craven’s own post-modern homage to slasher films.