Here we are less than a week away from the release of the latest part of my childhood to be repackaged and resold to me. Rest assured, I will be there to see Nightmare 2010 on opening day but let us forget about that for now as I cannot say I have high hopes for it. Instead, just like every other horror and/or movie related website, I will revisit the original films and see how they hold up … or don’t.

It is quite astonishing that Wes Craven was able to create such an iconic character with a budget reportedly of less than $2 million. Equally amazing is that through the various production and financial issues, the original Nightmare on Elm Street still remains as a highly regarded tentpole in the slasher subgenre twenty five years later along with the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises. I would argue the Nightmare series did not fair as well as the Myers and Voorhees based ones due to studio interference and rushing production to maximize revenues at the expense of the stories themselves.

Forgetting the rest of the series though, this movie stands up relatively well even to today’s horror standards. While the film is not without its flaws (more on those to come), it is still creepy as hell. I can safely say that the original has never come close to being “scary” to me personally, but that is more due to my pre-teen self seeing the thing a billion times and becoming desensitized. The overall concept of the killer coming after you in your dreams lends itself quite well to things that would normally be off-the-wall in more grounded entries. Sure, Michael Myers got shot six times and burned to a crisp and Jason can seemingly teleport anywhere, but overall those series were made up of events that could possibly happen.

Now, as you and I can attest almost anything can happen in a dream though. One moment you may be having brunch with the President, the next falling down an elevator shaft onto some bullets, and finish off with talking zombie gardeners. Craven uses the randomness and complexities of a typical dream to the advantage of the film as it cannot be damned for drastic location or tone shifts. Even the basic premise of being murdered in your sleep is horrifying enough as there is little that you could do to prevent that from happening. Everyone sleeps at some point and everyone has dreams. On the other hand, people could learn to stay the hell away from Crystal Lake and not be related to psychotic nutjobs (or at least do a better job of hiding that fact).

The general rule of “less is more” applies beautifully here as the minimal budget did not allow a great emphasis on showboating. In stark contrast to some of the later sequels featuring Freddy in a brightly lit place like … I don’t know, a beach or a television studio, Freddy is mostly relegated to the shadows with only a brief glimpse of his burned, disfigured face. Freddy is also more of an impending threat than a direct antagonist. His screen time is limited to the fairly infrequent nightmare world as opposed to being in every other scene. This is a much more effective manor of creating a menacing villain, scaring you with the unknown as opposed to putting it all out there, good or bad.

So with all of that acclaim being said, there were things here that irked the hell out of current me that previous me had never really picked up on. For starters, no one in this damn movie (save Johnny Depp, John Saxon, and possibly Robert Englund) can act. I sincerely like Heather Langenkamp and feel she really grew with this franchise but some of her scenes are downright awful, especially for a feature film like this. With the exception of a few scenes in the back half of the movie after everyone thinks she is crazy, Langenkamp awkwardly overacts and delivers her lines in a way that even Kristen Stewart would be embarrassed for her. Her cinematic mother, Ronee Blakley is even worse. I can forgive to a certain extent as the character is supposed to be a barely functioning alcoholic but that excuse even pushes the line frequently.

Craven also plays pretty loose with the rules of the dream world. While the infringements here are not as blatant as in some of the latter films, Freddy’s ability to transcend the dream world even when his victims are fully awake is a bit much without further explanation. With what we know, Nancy was wide awake when she received her unwanted makeout session with Freddy and Rod was more than likely aware as he was being pulled out of his cell and hung by the rafters. You can chalk these minor quibbles up to Freddy’s surging power as more fear is directed his way but again, these things are not really addressed here.

All of that is not really a problem though. Chances are if you are watching this you have seen it before. If you haven’t, you likely already know the basic premise where the most random shit can happen in a quick succession. As it stands, Nightmare ’84 is an excellent movie that is fully capable of elevating itself over its somewhat inconsequential flaws.

False advertising is a big deal when it comes to businesses and consumer products. The laws on the books act to protect consumers against being misled about the product or service they are buying from inflated claims, inaccurate results, or overall deception. The United States even has the FTC, a government agency whose primary purpose is to protect buyers from all kinds of shenanigans. Why am I talking about this? Well, I am angry that there is no entertainment based equivalent to the FTC which would prevent unsuspecting movie goers from shelling out money on crap films.

When I saw The Crazies this weekend, attached to the print was a new trailer for the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake. As I previously worried based on the test screening reviews, this remake could very well suck balls and destroy my own personal, nostalgic 80s universe by further bastardizing the franchise already undone by the likes of Freddy’s Dead and Freddy vs. Jason. But, as I sat in the darkened movie theater and realized what movie was being previewed, my concerns started to dwindle. This new Nightmare trailer was chock full of jump scares, creepy images, and effective call-backs to the original. For just a moment, I had completely forgot about the nervous article I had written just three days before. As the trailer ended and the feature began, I did not have the time or opportunity to really dwell on it. Now, more than 24 hours after seeing that, I realize the new Nightmare will probably suck and I’ll likely hate it even more just because of that trailer.

Now, I certainly understand that the entire purpose of trailers is for marketing purposes only and not necessarily to give you an accurate idea or feel for the film at hand. In fact, it would be quite difficult to create a two and a half minute preview which addressed and covered all the relevant information for the upcoming movie. For the good or even decent movies though, the trailer gives you a good sense of what to expect for the full ninety minutes or more of the movie. For the bad movies, the trailer is the little white lie which spirals out of the control of its creators and takes on a life of its own, destroying lives in the process. Okay, maybe that was a bit dramatic but trailers for bad movies are especially evil as the best editors seem to work on those exclusively, trying to shrink two hours of fail into a minute and a half of passably decent scenes to sucker in viewers across the country. If you need an example, look at the trailer for the Friday the 13th remake and compare that to the final product.

Therefore, I propose we enact legislation to ensure that promotional materials for an upcoming release match the quality of the film itself. Just like it is illegal to sell a cream that claims it will turn you into Cyndi Lauper, it should be illegal to pass a movie off as hip and edgy and featuring music from Stabbing Westward if it does not (I’m looking in your direction Mod Squad)! So how do we quantify and equate the quality of the preview to the movie itself? Just put a bunch of movie fans and let them watch the feature followed by the preview. Is your movie not as funny as it tries to be? Let’s put one of those failed jokes right smack at the start. Is your top-billed star only in approximately thirteen minutes of the two hour movie? We can just go ahead and trim out every other frame of that actor to create a jarring effect that would eventually be rather common to film goers. It’s as simple as that. It would not cost the studios any additional advertising dollars and maybe then can we rid the world of actors who need to go away for good.

Now all of that having been said, check out the new Nightmare trailer.

Fresh on the heels of our upcoming remake/reboot/bootmagining episode comes a spate of news, photos, and information for the latest revisit to a horror franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street. As I have previously said, I hold the entire Nightmare series very highly regarded, weak parts and all from my nostalgic recollection of them.

My fear though was and still remains to be that the re-whatever will end up being underwhelming like Friday the 13th, also remade by the same production company Platinum Dunes. It now appears that my fears are founded in reality. Ain’t It Cool News has a spoiler-filled review that pretty much eviscerates the film. In fact, in looking at the released production photos, it seems that the overall concept of the film has remained intact, with scenes looking almost identical to the original. Now, there is more of an origin story for Freddy which I am happy about but if the movie ends up destroying any hopes I had of a new and goodNightmare movie in my lifetime, I could have just stuck with the episode of Freddy’s Nightmares instead.

So, it might be a little too late as it is set to premiere April 30 but I hope that any flaws of the movie can be addressed and corrected. Regardless though, I will be seeing the movie on opening day despite any negative reviews I read in hopes that everyone else is just wrong. God, I hope everyone is wrong.