Continuing from last time...
5. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) - This had a great concept. Wes Craven returned to write and direct a meta film about the stars of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" being menaced by Freddy Krueger in the real world as they prepare for yet another "Elm Street" sequel. Unfortunately, Heather Lagenkamp really isn't all that good of an actress, and the first hour of the film is seriously bogged down by a lot of stale, manufactured family drama. It's great to see Englund and John Saxon and other familiar faces in a different context, and Freddy gets a good makeover, but I had a hard time taking anything here at face value. I've seen meta films done so much better by so many others over the years - including by Craven himself - that there wasn't much novelty in this one.
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) - The one Renny Harlin directed. I appreciate that this installment has some of the most memorable kills in the series, and some of the better effects, but the writing and performances are pretty awful. I'm surprised at the sad state of the script, considering Brian Helgeland and William Kotzwinkle contributed to it. Making this a direct sequel to "Dream Warriors" wasn't a bad idea, but the elements carried over from the last film are handled poorly, and the characters are totally flat. Individual sequences are very watchable, and kudos to Harlin for pulling off some of the wilder concepts - the repeated scene got me - but a lot of the film is also pretty forgettable. And compared to the movies that came before and after it, it's aged poorly.
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) - I have a tremendous amount of affection for this sequel, even though it frequently wanders into so-bad-it's-good territory. There are glaring holes in the plotting, some of the dream logic is absurd, and then there's the whole business with the homoerotic subtext that has lead to "Freddy's Revenge" becoming a cult favorite with the LGBT crowd. I'm also a fan of some of the effects sequences and the more ambitious dream imagery, especially all the stuff with the schoolbus bookends. However, there's no getting away from the fact that there's an exploding bird, the gym teacher is apparently into S&M, and Freddy seems to be awfully upset with lawn chairs for some reason. The "Scream, Queen!" documentary about the film's behind-the-scenes drama, is also worth a look.
8. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) - The last of the original "Nightmare" films is also probably the worst. The new mythology for Freddy - his childhood, his family, and his demon friends - are all shallow and uninteresting. The new batch of victims and heroes are similarly dull - except Yaphet Kotto, who does a lot with very limited screen time. Between the silly cameos and the wooden actors, it's hard to stay invested in anything going on. Still, I do really like some of the dream sequences, especially the opening with the flying houses and the fake outs. The idea that Springwood is now this kid-free town where all the adults are going crazy is also promising, but not developed enough. I can't help wondering what a proper seventh "Nightmare" film would have looked like.
9. Freddy vs. Jason (2003) - Oh, right. The "Friday the 13th" series does that whole R-rated teen skin-flick thing. It's a little jarring to see so much of that sensibility in this crossover, since "Nightmare" never had much interest in sex. I was never a Jason fan, so I didn't get much out of the more splatterific kills, and the epic clash between the two horror icons is disappointingly quick. What really sank the film is that it's such a product of its time. Gone are all the practical effects that made the "Nightmare" franchise such a great source of visceral thrills and chills, replaced with CGI that looks horribly dated and cheap. It saddens me that Robert Englund's last film outing as Freddy is likely going to be this one.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment