So now we come to the fork in the road. Nightmare 3 has ended. A sequel is greenlit. I would imagine the head honchos at New Line sitting in the conference room thinking about how to best continue the series. I would guess by this point Freddy had become fairly mainstream if I, a six-year-old at the time, had seen a fair amount of merchandise, television promos, and previews for the last films. So, instead of continuing on the path of relative excellence established by the previous film, Bob Shaye turns Freddy into a laughably bad stand-up comedian on a beach, presumably to click with more teens and more dollars. One might say this was a good choice as this film more or less launched Freddy into stardom, but it was at the expense of a good series to that point.

For some reason, I have historically really liked this film in spite of the about-face in technique. It was, and to a point still is, a pretty fun movie to watch but man did it piss me off this go around. I chalk that up to the fact that I cannot say I have actually watched all of the Nightmare movies in chronological order, instead skipping around to avoid Part 2, 5, and Freddy’s Dead. But watching the movie on the heels of its predecessors almost immediately sets it up for failure. In the first sixty seconds, you have many indications that this movie will be nothing like those before. This is not only the first in the series to give Robert Englund the main starring credit, but it also is the first to have the updated New Line logo and feature a typical 80s pop song over the credits as opposed to the score. Granted, these are relatively trivial things but these just forebode the rest to come.

I had remarked in my review for Part 3 that the final third of the movie seemed to start the train of flashy Freddy who was more direct and more entertained by his overly elaborate stunts. Well, this flick takes just that final twenty minutes or so, puts it on ritalin, and breeds it. The relative simplicity of Freddy has now been all but lost as his kills this go around range from the strategic repositioning of a junk yard, encasing Joey in a water bed, deflating Shelia’s lungs and I guess all of the oxygen molecules in her body at the same time. You get the picture.

While the sight of Brooke Theiss turning into a roach is cool and all, could Freddy not have slashed her in the stomach while doing upside-down crunches or smashed her head with a weight-set? Sure he could have but I suspect the producers, and likely the audience too, wanted less suspense and terror but more trailer and quote-worthy scenes instead. Regardless, you can keep the kills but get rid of stupid, wisecracking, beach-going Freddy and we would have a significantly better movie.

The concept itself is one I could get behind if it were done differently. After the survivors from the last film are slowly killed off (why even bother killing Kristen if she’s going to last almost half the movie), Freddy wants to continue but he needs a conduit. So, enter Kristen’s friend Alice who was pulled into Kristen’s final nightmare. As Freddy uses Alice to bring him new blood, Alice is stricken with the guilt that her involvement indirectly has resulted in the deaths of her friends and even her brother.

Alice is a pretty cool character after all. While I had thoughts to amend my plea for her return, she is still the best part of the movie from the development of her character as she progresses from the meek girl afraid of her drunken father to the chick who can take down Freddy with some fancy footwork. In fact, I don’t think even Kristen got as much development or progression of her character and certainly none of the other kids from the previous films, save Nancy of course.

The danger in bringing Freddy into full view was the makeup which I would say is remarkably terrible here. Again, he was fairly prominently featured in bright lights during portions of the third, but it almost seems like the makeup artists were dictated to tone down Freddy’s appearance to match the more audience-friendly nature of this and later sequels. He no longer looks scary or disgusting, he just looks like Robert Englund with a prosthetic nose and a bunch of makeup.

The final showdown was, like the rest of the film, over the top and unnecessarily convoluted but I would say that it worked as Freddy is now dead, the souls of his captured children have been released, and everything is hunky-dory. Until the next one that is.

I really do not want to be too hard on this movie as I liked it before, it still is nowhere near as craptacular as what is to come, and I am sure I will have a burning desire to see the ‘Dramarama-kickboxing’ or ‘Suiting Up’ scenes at some point in the future. The turn this series makes here is still disappointing all the same.

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.

Movie Scum takes on the upcoming hits of the summer box office … and Marmaduke.

I love DVDs. Right after high school, I was buying at least a half dozen a week if not more. Yet there are several things that just pluck my nerves. This list is not in any particular order and certainly not inclusive. I am quite sure there could be a revisit to this topic eventually.

9. “Large Screen” Releases
Essentially, these are films originally in a larger aspect ration, usually 2.40:1, that are cropped during a certain group of scenes. Not only do I despise not watching movies in their original ratios, the way this was handled for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was quite poor, and I’m not only referring to the movie itself. The jump back and forth between scenes (and even different shots within the same scene) is quite jarring. I know a normal movie-goer might not notice but it is rather annoying regardless.

8. Delayed Releases
Now that Netflix and Redbox have caved to several studios’ demands to withhold new releases for almost a month after they hit DVD, the only way to see The Blind Side, Sherlock Holmes, and now Avatar on DVD is to either buy them outright or go to Blockbuster (and who really wants to do that) only to get a stripped down version lacking any extras. Not only does that make things more difficult for us at Movie Scum, Inc. to keep up with the newest films, regular consumers who might be looking for the latest generic rom-com from these studios in their normal venues might get discouraged and give up. Or if they are tech savvy enough, they will just download it illegally.

7. Cheaper DVD Cases
Back in the day, I could not stand those Warner cardboard cases but at least they fell relatively sturdy even if they just fell apart ten years later. Now, the latest trend is to take a regular case with a nice, happy recycle sign where the insert (remember those?) used to go. Allegedly, these are better for the environment as they use less plastic but every time I go to remove a disc, I feel like the whole case will either break in half or break the disc in the process of getting it out. Give me that extra three slivers of plastic back and go plant a tree or something to feel better.

6. Unskippable Previews
When I sat down to watch Sherlock Holmes, I was treated to at least eight to ten previews of some sort. They were mostly movie trailers with a few video game previews and even a non-smoking ad. The problem was the next chapter option was disabled and the only way to skip through was to fast forward. As every other preview started a new chapter which you had to then hit fast forward again, this was quite an arduous task that took about five minutes to get to the actual menu itself. So, for all the trailers and the mind-boggling thought involved, the menu did not even have a scene selection option. What the hell?

5. Stupid Floating Heads vs. Original Poster Art
There has been much written on this in other venues but it is still irritating when a perfectly good (and appropriate to the film) theatrical poster is jettisoned for the DVD release because it is not as flashy. I quite enjoy most all of the Nightmare on Elm Street series poster art (even for the crap ones) but for the single DVD releases, these awesome posters were replaced by the always popular floating heads and bad photoshop backgrounds. The same thing happened to the James Bond re-re-releases some time ago. I shudder to think of what an awesome, minimalist poster like The Thing would look like if released today.

4. Lackluster Collections
To mention the Sherlock Holmes DVD yet again, there was in one of the aforementioned trailers a collection of all of Clint Eastwood’s Warner Brothers films which actually looked quite good and thorough. However, most DVD collections leave much to be desired. This could be for a number of different reasons — lack of competing studio cooperation, lack of behind-the-scenes involvement, etc. — but most give you the same movies you can buy separately but with an additional disc for extras not available otherwise. So, you can buy all the films (including the ones you don’t want or already have) just for the bonus or miss out. And even worse, they are not “complete” collections which leave out the good stuff. I have yet to see any deleted scenes from the original Nightmare on Elm Street other than an Anchor Bay VHS from about fifteen years ago even after two collection releases and a standalone special edition. Not to mention that it took Paramount three tries (one single disc, one collection, subsequent “special-er” editions) to get decent releases of the Friday the 13th series.

3. Stupid “Special Edition” Names
I guess when you release the same movie countless times, there has to be a way to differentiate between each. Most of these DVD nomenclatures attempt to tie into the movie but, seriously? Pretty in Pink: Everything’s Duckie Edition; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (Those Aren’t Pillows Edition); 13 Going on 30: Fun & Flirty Edition. Whatever happened to just plain old Special or Ultimate Edition? Check here for some special edition names that may or may not come to fruition.

2. Rerelease Hell
You know that little movie Avatar that is being released on DVD this week? Can’t wait to see the quadrillion dollar grossing picture in lackluster at home 3D? Ah, you’re going to have to wait as that is being withheld for another version down the line. At least (some) consumers had the knowledge going in that a better version was coming out but what about the other films that are released almost bare with the intention to release a better version down the line. Studios are all about cashing in on popular franchises so it makes sense from their end to release whatever they can as fast as they can but for those fans who want, I dunno, promised special director’s cuts or more in-depth special features, they have to either be patient and wait for the in-the-pipeline better release or buy two versions of the same movie.

1. Same Movie, Three Different DVDs
The trend used to be different version for full-screen n00bs and widescreen which made it hell to receive a DVD as a gift from someone who does not know different. While that still happens, there are now separate releases for theatrical version, bare-bones uncut version with digital version, uncut version with special features, theatrical version full screen with a commentary only available on that disc. If you want to have everything available, you have to buy at minimum two discs, if not more! Whatever happened to that awesome seemless branching thing that DVDs were advertised with back in the day to allow different versions on the same disc? Is it really that much easier to have eight different SKUs for the same movie? Damn all that.

Post-publish addendum:
Dear Disney,
Remember all of those DVDs you released in your first year or two that are non-anamorphic, bare bones releases? If you can’t at least go back and add in a commentary or something, at least clean it up so a VHS bootleg copy doesn’t look better than your product.
Sincerely,
Puck