A Nightmare A Day: Day 4 (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master)

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Directed by: Renny Harlin (other credits include Die Hard 2 and Deep Blue Sea)

Budget: $13million

US Box Office: $49.3million

  • The last film started with an Edgar Allen Poe quote, this one; the Bible “When deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake”. I prefer the Poe.
  • Odd song for opening credits.
  • Last film started with arts and crafts and paper mache, this one starts with chalk drawings. The Nightmare On Elm Street Films obviously have a “take your daughter to work” day on set every film.
  • Agin this film opens on daylight. Cannot say how much I love that.
  • Patricia Arquette’s character has magically transformed into Tuesday Knight. Notable as they look absolutely nothing a like besides being white and having blonde hair.
  • This series hates tricycles
  • And here comes the black guy from the third movie, obviously here to rectify not dying in the third one, as is horror tradition.
  • Oh, and the the guy Freddy kissed into a coma is here too. This is the most sequel sequel of the sequels so far.
  • “you’re going out dressed like that?” dude, she’s in a jacket and a full length dress, it would be difficult for her to be covering any more skin. Unless you want her to be more nude, in which case, dude, she’s your daughter.
  • Discount Christian Slater.
  • Discount Christian Slater is reading “Soviet Psychiatry”,  I’m not sure “killing your poor by implementing a poorly thought out five year plan which starves millions” is an effective psychiatric tool.
  • “Asthma is an inherited condition”. I learned something today.
  • “hey, you’re sucking on the wrong nozzle”. Hah, it’s funny because she’s got asthma and your response is to be a dickhole
  • “lighten up, no-one died”. Erm, yes they did.
  • 80’s karate montage!
  • The black guys dog pisses fire onto Freddy’s corpse which awakens him. No, seriously, that happened. I’m not pleased I had to type that sentence either.
  • The guy uses his super strength to push a car onto freddy. I guess this movie’s over now then, right?
  • Time of first death: 19 minutes. Freddy remembers he’s in a horror film, and as per tradition, has to kill the black guy first.
  • So, coma guy from last film is dreaming of a naked woman seducing him. Considering the last time this happened he got put in a coma you’d think he’d be somewhat cautious.
  • Time of second death: 21 minutes. Freddy pulls coma guy into a water bed and drowns him. But not before saying “how’s this for a wet dream?” Which, if I could kill people in their dreams, that’s exactly what I would say too. Oh, more boobs by the way. I’ve seen this guy dream of boobs twice, and both times he’s been harmed, there’s a moral behind this, but I can’t figure out what it is.
  • “how do you know about dreams?” “well when it’s all you have you kind of become an expert”. Don’t be silly you also have lovely long hair and a nice cardigan.
  • Not-Patricia Arquette freaks out when Roland and Joey aren’t in class. For all she knows they could just be late, or in prison, but nope, she assumes dead. She’d have felt mighty foolish if she was wrong.
  • Robert Englund in drag as a nurse. Yup, that happens.
  • So her mother has been slipping her sleeping pills. That’s all kinds of disturbing.
  • Also, what the hell kind of sleeping pills is she on that she is forced asleep within 5 minutes? One’s I’ve had has taken at least half hour and even then you had to put effort in.
  • “just dream of somewhere nice” is useless advice, pretty much the equivalent of “if you’re depressed, just cheer up” (if you’ve ever said that to someone, go impale yourself on a stick, not even joking).
  • As if to prove my point, Freddy “Jaws” his way onto a beach and pushes her under the sand. Instead of this killing her through suffocation etc, she goes to a boiler room.
  • “why don’t you reach out and touch someone?” I dunno, I got in trouble for doing that on the train one time.
  • Time of third death: 37 minutes. (couldn’t find a decent video for it, is pretty much the second fatality in that video). And in only two minutes more than it took to get to the first death in the second film, we’ve killed off the remaining cast from the previous film.
  • It’s so nice of the families that all the victims got buried next to each other. Is that how cemeteries in the US are organised, not by family or anything, but by cause of death?
  • Okay, so now all the previous cast are dead, this is like a new start. Which of the cast is next to die, Alice, the girl who can lucid dream? Discount Christian Slater? Debbie who hates bugs? Or Sheila, the black girl? I’ll give you a clue, it’s not the first three.
  • Time of fourth death: 44 minutes. Freddy kisses a school girl to death. I think he was originally written as a child molester but for some reason the studio wouldn’t allow it so he was just made a child killer (which is totally fine for some reason) but they still slipped in a few implications of molestation in there. Such as this scene. Anyway, as Freddie kisses her all the air goes from her lungs and she dies. Basic kissing mistake number one there: try not to kill the other person.
  • “i saw it, it was my dream”. Dude, phrasing, that makes it sound like you wanted it to happen.
  • Side note: the girl who plays Sheila, her real name is Toy Newkirk.
  • “how you going to fight me without your weapon Freddy?” Yeah, all he’s got now are his dream powers. You’re an idiot, discount Christian Slater.
  • Time of fifth death: 56 minutes. Rick tries to beat a serial killer who has magic powers with karate. This goes about as well as you’d expect.
  • “for Rick was in his prime, beloved by all” I dunno, I thought he was kind of a tool.
  • “Every day she changes”, yeah, for some reason she’s effected by her close friends and family dying, what a weirdo.
  • Karate montage! (set to the same song as earlier)
  • Okay, she seems to get her friends traits and abilities when they die. Luckily she only gets useful ones, she doesn’t like develop asthma or broken bones, that would suck.
  • Oddly brilliant scene here. Alice is at cinema and falls asleep. She gets dragged into the screen into a black and white movie. She looks through the screen to the audience and it’s her dead friends applauding the screen, and the body building-bug hating girl asleep.
  • They could have done more with the movie-allusion. They barely did anything with it, no references to old films or tropes. Colour me disappointed.
  • Alice dreams she works at the diner for the rest of her life. And oddly adult fear.
  • Freddy’s victims heads are now meatballs on pizza, he goes to eat the black guys head “I love soul food”. That’s racist!
  • Time of sixth death: 68 minutes. How crap this death, this death, holy crap. It’s almost Cronenberg-esque in execution and content. Pure body horror as she’s turned into a cockroach killed.
  • Alice and Dan get caught in a time loop so are unable to stop the cockroach death. When they finally get out of the loop they drive into a tree. Lesson one of driving: don’t drive into trees. Dan gets put in a coma, Alice goes home.
  • Alice tools up. Alice is badass. I like Alice.
  • “get away from him you son of a bitch” soooo close to an Alien reference.
  • Dan gets woken up and leaves Alice alone in the dream world. Oh no, however will a lucid dreamer who knows martial arts be able to survive without a football player helping her?
  • “welcome to wonderland, Alice” Did the writers call her Alice just for that? If so, well played.
  • “I am eternal”, yeah but only when dogs piss fire on you. And that surely only happens like once a week or so. What happens when we bury you at sea or behind a vacuum cleaner.
  • Alice stops Freddy with a mirror and a nursery rhyme. Richard III died the same way.
  • “I have more reasons to stay awake now” Oh, I’m sorry, was “not dying” enough of a reason?
  • We end with something truly terrifying: Sinead O Connor.

A Nightmare A Day: Day 3 (A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)

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Director: Chuck Russell. (Other credits include The Mask and The Scorpion King)

Budget: $4.5million

US Box Office: $44.7million

  • Ooooo, new New Line logo. This one looks less like the intro to a Commodore 64 game. Huge improvement.
  • Edgar Allen Poe quote “Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them”. This film gets points for reminding me that Eternal Darkness exists. Oh, and it’s a clever use of Poe.
  • Hey, Heather’s back.
  • This film’s so old they spell it Larry Fishburne.
  • The opening of this film seems to be a woman making pancakes. Yet through the use of music and clever angles it’s still creepier than Annabelle.
  • Oh wait, not pancakes, gluing newspaper pieces onto walls and doing other arts and crafts. Point still stands, f*ck Annabelle.
  • Mouthful of coffee grounds and swig of coke. Disgusting.
  • Wooo, heavy metal music. (Into the fire: dokken)
  • Has Patricia Arquette aged at all?
  • Dead bodies hung from the ceiling in an abandoned house. Well this film is just going to start off creepy isn’t it?
  • Wait, are they doing the first death this early?
  • Nope, she wakes up, just with slit wrists.
  • Hey kids, it’s Larry Fishburne, before he looked like a black Charlie Brooker, talking to someone who’s not entirely unlike Judge Reinhold.
  • Who’s the girl in the flannel? Looks like Kristen Stewart but 80’s.
  • Oh, guess she was just an extra.
  • Yay, Nancy/Heather’s back. I love recurring characters. Especially when they make sense. In the time between her last experience she’s actually done research into dreams etc, that makes a lot of sense and is good characterisation.
  • “kid last week sliced off his own eyelids so he could stay awake”. Holy hell that’s disturbing, I have to use that.
  • In a film, I should clarify.
  • A bike comes in, trailing three bits of blood along the floor then it kind of collapses into the floor. The real nightmare is shoddy workmanship at bike factories.
  • First death: 31 minutes. Seriously? I thought it was about 15. I suppose they’ve had to introduce a lot of new characters here so it doesn’t feel as long as it’s actually been. As big a fan as I am of the second film (especially since the rewatch yesterday), the opening act does drag a bit, although it’s worth it once it reaches it, like a two-legged dog playing fetch. This death always makes me wince and is definitely my favourite so far. Philip, who we’ve seen as being a puppet maker is being used by Freddy as some sort of marionette puppet, with his veins/arteries etc for strings. He’s then led up to the top of a tower and the strings are cut. Everyone who see’s him thinks he’s sleepwalking, which begs the question: if someone is sleepwalking through to an open window of a tall building, why would you not keep an eye on them? The security here is ridiculously bad. Yet another horror-movie death which could have been stopped by health and safety regulations.
  • Hey, flannel girl is more than an extra. Is odd as she was speaking in a previous scene and I didn’t recognise her not dressed like a lumberjack.
  • “then it was suicide, Philip quit, he gave up” Dude, not cool!
  • “he killed himself. Now, that’s a cowardly thing. That’s an empty thing” Dude, stop right there. I feel if you say anything else I’m going to wish harm upon you as a character.
  • “He let himself down. He let all of us down” I hope you get your penis caught in a combine harvester.
  • Time of second death: 38 minutes. Jennifer. Shame, I liked her, she seemed like a mix between Jennifer Tilly and Patricia Arquette. Probably the most famous death in this film due to Sassy Freddy. It’s the “welcome to prime time, bitch!” death.
  • “what faith do you follow?” “science”. How did I not remember that line is in this film? That’s brilliant.
  • Now we have the scene where everyone shows off their special dream powers, hence the “Dream Warriors” of the title. These films have been weird but every one has been unique and had it’s own purpose, they haven’t repeated themselves much. One can walk (and is a wizard), one is strong, and Taryn (the flannel girl) has knives and punk rock hotness.
  • And we have tits. Which is horror movie shorthand for “we don’t have much confidence in this, so we’re using nudity so that horny teenage boys will want to watch it”. I’m not against nudity in film, but in a lot of cases (sadly, it does have to be said, particularly in horror), it’s ridiculously exhibitionist and serves no purpose. I’m going to say this just the once: if you’ve ever watched a horror film just to see nudity, you’re an idiot. You know there are some films available online (and in certain shops) which contain nothing but nudity, right? And some even racier stuff, like kissing and hugging. If you want tits, buy tits, admit it, don’t watch a hour and a half film just for the 2 seconds of nudity, that’s idiotic, uneconomical, and just a little bit sad.
  • So Freddy pretended to be a woman, kissed this guy and then put him in a coma. There’s a myriad of different ways he could have put him in a coma. But for some reason he chose to use the method which required him kissing a teenage boy and tying him to a bed (with his tongue).
  • And here we have the origin story. Freddy’s mother was locked in an asylum and raped hundred of times, hence the nickname for Freddy “the bastard son of a hundred maniacs”. A few issues I have with this, 1) the age old myth of “all mental patients are dangerous maniacs” which was remarkably prevalent in horror before the 2000’s (seriously, count how many scary stories involve “an escaped mental patient”, not just films or books, but urban legends too). 2) “the bastard son of a hundred maniacs”. I guess we’re just ignoring the theory of mendelian genetics then? At most he’s the son of a singular maniac who’s sperm was strong enough to kill the sperm of the others.
  • Now we have another character from the first film return. It seems like they should have swapped this and the second one around.
  • So the bones must be buried in hallowed ground? Christian mythology is rife in horror films, so the next time someone says hollywood is scared of promoting Christianity, kick them in the temple.
  • Time of third death: 71 minutes. Lovely Taryn is injected with drugs as Freddy channels his inner Road Warrior. Why does everyone I love die? Oddly enough this scene is responsible for the film being banned in Australia as it was seen to promote drug use. Because obviously the first thing impressionable children think when they see someone die of a drug overdose is “drugs are awesome!”
  • Time of fourth death: 73 minutes. The guy in a wheelchair dies, because of course he does.
  • Harryhausen-esque skeleton now. Odd.
  • “I killed you once before you son of a bitch”, famous last words.
  • Time of fifth death: 82 minutes. The guy said the line in the previous note. Kind of a dull death for a returning character.
  • Time of sixth death: 86 minutes. And there goes Nancy. Normally when people return for horror film sequels they either survive or die in the opening scene. Here she’s the last death. Sad times. She had a semi-heroic death I guess but shame such an iconic character almost went out with a whimper.
  • The nun from earlier was Freddy’s mum? No, just no.
  • And the film ends with……a light turning on.

This film seems like it should have been swapped with the second. It’s a more direct sequel to the first film, seems to completely ignore the second film entirely. The series has to be commended for doing something different at least. All three films have been completely different stories. The second one was about possession, this one’s more about groups fighting back. This was the first Nightmare On Elm Street film I ever watched as my family had it on VHS back in the day. I don’t know where my family got it from, or why this was the only one they had. I guess some questions are just not meant to be answered, questions like “why are there so many songs about rainbows?”

A Nightmare A Day: Day 2 (A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge)

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Director: Jack Sholder (Other films include Generation X, a made for TV film based on an X-Men spinoff series and By Dawn’s Early Light)

Writer: David Chaskin

Budget: $3million

US Box Office: $29.9million

  • Opens on daylight. I like that for two reasons: 1) I think more horror should take place during the day. Daylight makes the audience feel comfortable, and horror should be about breaking people’s comforts. It’s easy to get a scare from darkness, because it’s not really you or any techniques you’re using that’s doing so, half the job is already done for you. If you make people scared in broad daylight, you’ve done a good job. Also people feel at home in daylight, so it becomes easier for them to empathise. 2) It connects to the end of the first film quite well.
  • “Special appearance by Clu Gulager”. I have literally no idea who that is, I don’t know whether it’s because of my Britishness or my age.
  • Fat kid at the back of the bus playing music loudly, thereby predicting my daily commute to work.
  • “He’s right behind us”. No he’s not, he’s in the aisle over from you and behind you. You suck at directions random bitchy high school girls.
  • Runaway bus gone for so long the natural light changes and then it stops perched on a rock tower as it collapses. Actually a really well thought out set-piece.
  • “jesse are you okay?” he wakes up screaming every morning, so I’m guessing not.
  • I don’t know who the girl is who’s playing Lisa but she looks adorable. Like a pre nosejob Jennifer Grey
  • He slapped his cheeks with a little too much affection there.
  • A guy pulls down another guys shorts, showing his ass off, then a really bad fight starts. Ended by their coach pulling them apart and saying “Assume the position” Nothing strange there.
  • Eleven minutes in we find the connection between the two films. The same house. Not the least tenuous connection I’ve seen between horror films but It kind of takes me out of the moment as it firmly establishes the house as somewhat “special”. Which it is to us, as it was the house of the main character in the first film. But it messes with the reality as there were 4 deaths in the first film, a lot of them took place in different places. So that house wouldn’t have more attention to it than the locations of the other deaths. So it kind of reminds me that this is definitely a film. It’s possible I overthink things.
  • Freddy goes into Jesse’s dream, holds him close and strokes his eyebrows whilst saying “I need you Jesse”
  • Completely pointless scene of Lisa swimming in her back garden.
  • So he just found Freddy’s glove in the basement. I suppose that now makes sense for why Freddy seems to be anchored to the house, but it raises more questions. Primarily: why the fuck did the woman in the first film keep it? I touched upon this in the previous blog but I need to go into more detail: if you were part of a vigilante group that burnt someone alive, would you go into the house of the deceased and then take something? No, because you’re not a psychopath, unlike the mother in the first film. Seriously, she’s crazy.
  • This film has yet more shirtless men. So at least the fan service is equal for both genders.
  • This film turns into The Birds as the family parrots goes crazy and claw people.
  • This film turns into Birdemic as the family parrot explodes.
  • “it’s that cheap seed you’ve been buying”. I love that that is somehow a logical conclusion to a bird exploding into flames. Imagine that with any other animal. Your family kitten explodes “Damnit Veronica, I said DON’T buy Tesco’s own brand cat food”
  • Wait, so his teacher sees him at an S&M bar and makes makes him run laps around the school gym to punish him (I’m guessing for underage drinking). Let’s look at this from a bystanders point of view: they just saw a teacher take a student home from a bar. Because that’s not dodgy.
  • This film is actually REALLY gay. Not in a “this is lame” way, more in a “there is so much homoerotic subtext.
  • It just got gayer. The gym teacher has been tied up in the showers, stripped, whipped then been hit by multiple balls. Which leads us to this:
  • Time of first death: 35 Minutes. That actually shows remarkable restraint (I would be ashamed of using that pun after the death of someone who was tie up, but the police officer in the next scene brought a naked Jesse home to his parents and told them to “put a short leash on him” so I’m not as ashamed as they should be). But yeah, the restraint: that’s over half an hour before the first death. Almost twenty minutes later than the first death in the first film. Usually horror sequels start killing people as soon as possible as that’s why the audience are there, I commend this film for waiting so long to do it.
  • Okay the mum from the first film did die. Considering she showcased the hallmarks of a serial killer, I’m glad.
  • Jesse can’t quite manage sex with Lisa and goes straight into Ron’s bedroom as he sleeps. I refuse to accept the undertones aren’t intentional.
  • Time Of second death: 57 Minutes. Ron killed, not shown explicitly really but we see Freddy’s claws come through the other side of the door so fairly obvious.
  • And now the sausages spontaneously combust just after someone complains about the heat in the pool. This film is really doing a lot with heat and temperature, kind of odd, I like it. Temperature is such a simple thing to manipulate for the purposes of death scenes and yet it’s rarely utilised in films.
  • Freddy just bit Lisa. Considering what he is supposed to have done to underage children whilst alive this is slightly weird.
  • The Lisa Vs. Jesse/Freddy scene is really creepy. Might be my favourite scene from the two films so far. Well scripted, well shot and well performed. Really effective at showcasing characters too.
  • After a quite dramatic scene we get almost complete silence in a scene where people are just standing around. It’s a shame more horror films don’t utilise calmness and silence in useful ways and can be effective.
  • Time of third death: 65 minutes. I don’t even know if this guy has a name. Just slashed across face once. Quite notable in that this is the first death that’s taken place in public (at a pool party, oh so THAT’S why they had the scene with Lisa in the pool earlier, I thought it was just to show the actress in swimwear) with everyone able to see Freddy. If this scene was done in a modern film you’d have to imagine people would film it on their phones, which would actually be a pretty interesting way to set up a sequel. Freddy lives on the fear of people, so that kind of multiple exposure across the internet could do wonders. It would be like The Ring mixed with Unfriended (only a lot lot better than Unfriended. Seriously, f*ck that film)
  • Time of (presumed) fourth and fifth deaths: 66 minutes. Not much detail is put on these and it can hard to miss the two deaths here: two unnamed characters fall into the swimming pool as it boils and are burned to death. Both of them occur within a second of each other and aren’t the focal point of the scene. Missed opportunity for some truly disturbing scenes there. Although it could be argued that the quickness of the deaths helps us feel part of the film as the characters aren’t paying much attention to what’s happening so why should we be able to? The shared panic of two. Folie A Arghhhhh.
  • Time of Sixth death: again, 66 minutes. This time it’s just someone falling into fire. Not likely to be on Freddy’s showreel.
  • Seventh death: 66 minutes 32 Seconds. Wow, after no deaths for a long time this film is really making up for it. My fondness for this death is far more than it deserves. It’s just someone being trampled by the other party guests in their panic to escape. I like when horror films do this, have the characters killed accidentally by the actions of others. It helps us feel the panic that’s taking place. Also there’s a lot of bravado in discussion of horror films, “yeah, I would easily escape”, but what if in doing so you cause the death of someone else? Then you’re not a hero, you’re a douchnozzle.
  • Eighth death: 66 minutes 36 seconds. Again, unnamed person, this time just stabbed in the gut. Good for showcasing the chaos, not much else.
  • Ninth death: 67 minutes (yay, we escaped the 66th). A Kerry Von Erich lookalike tries to calm Freddy down, this goes as well as you expect it to and he gets thrown into a BBQ grill. The first sign of Sassy Freddy as his response to “I’m here to help you” is to say “Help yourself, fucker” then kill them. Sassy!
  • Freddy dies from spontaneous combustion. They’re really pushing the fire/temperature element of this film. It’s working. Also should be pointed out that both time’s Freddy has been defeated it hasn’t involved someone directly fighting him. As such he’s the only villain who could be defeated by a pacifist time lord with a sonic screwdriver and a police box.
  • Tenth death: 79 minutes. Lisa’s friend who’s name I can’t recall right now has Freddy’s hand pop out from her chest, Alien style in a scene reminiscent of the opening.
  • Bing Crosby’s “Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?” plays over the end credits. Strange but oddly works.

Post film notes: done some research and the homosexual undertones were intentional. The theme of repressed homosexuality runs throughout the film. This has been confirmed by Robert Englund and the writer of the film, David Chaskin (which, considering this was his first film should be highly commended for the work he did here). Some people have argued this even effects the casting, with the lead of Jesse played by openly gay actor Mark Patton (described by some as the first male scream queen). In summary I actually really like this film. The scares are unique and there’s some fantastic scenes. Not sure if it works as a Freddy Krueger film, but if have this as a standalone film and it’s superb.

A Nightmare A Day: Day 1 (A Nightmare On Elm Street)

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So, halloween is approaching. The night of scares, the night of horror, the night of staying indoors with all the lights off and pretending you’re not in. To prepare for this we thought we’d do something special. On Halloween itself I’ll be posting a blog about my love for Eternal Darkness, and on Monday they’ll be a blog about Silent Hill. But we thought we’d go a bit further than that. So I’ve started “Nightmare A Day” Every day until halloween I’ll be watching a film from Nightmare On Elm Street series and basically writing up my thoughts as I watch them. If this goes well we’ll be doing this again for other releases. It just felt right to do it with this because the iconic images contained, and as a tribute to the recently departed Wes Craven. We start at the beginning (obviously), enjoy:

Nothing is as creepy as this though
Nothing is as creepy as this though

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  • Kind of masterful opening, you’d expect there to be a reveal of the gloves later on, but nope right there in the pre-credits sequence. Kind of cool. Add five awesome points. Although I have to deduct those points for the images being ridiculously small. I don’t know if it was a problem with the conversion to DVD or not (I doubt it, but let’s be kind), but it’s quite offputting, so it loses those points almost immediately.
  • “introducing Johnny Depp”. So you’re to blame for Mortdecai
  • And there’s a random goat. For a lewton bus. Or to put it another way: Wes Craven had a low budget and access to a goat for some reason.
  • Is that a f*cking synthesiser? You’ve lost more of those awesome points I gave you earlier. I suppose this is why when people talk about this film they don’t mention the soundtrack like they do when talking about Halloween etc.
  • That sounds like a laser blast sound used as a jump scare. I get it was the 80’s and the sound guys had cocaine blocking their ears, but still.
  • Who the hell brings a gardening tool to a party? This douche, (Rod) that’s who. I hope he dies.
  • Girl is so pleased Rod brought a gardening tool she let’s him put his Rod/tool inside her. What a hoe.
  • Freddy coming through roof is fantastic image it has to be said.
  • “Morality sucks”. Wow, this film’s so 80’s it even quotes the Conservative Party slogan from the Thatcher era.
  • Time of first death: 16 minutes. Details: actually really damn creepy. She’s being attacked in the dream world but we only see it from the real world. So instead of an intense fight we just see her writing about screaming as blood appears on her, then she kind of crawls backwards up the wall and across ceiling. Really creepily done and a brilliant set-piece.
  • Freddy cuts himself a lot in this film. I get why, is an effective way to scare someone, but it’s done so quickly it kind of loses it’s creepiness. It’s too quick and clean which robs of it of any impact.
  • Bathtub scene, with no nudity. If this film was shot today I’m fairly certain this scene would be mostly nipple shots, I hate hollywood sometimes.
  • So her friend died and she’s being hunted down, so she decides to watch a nice relaxing movie: The Evil Dead.
  • “what happened to your arm?” “i burned it in english class”. And he doesn’t make a joke about it, damn you Johnny Depp you suck.
  • “Oh god I look 20 years old”, as someone who’s nearly 30, f*ck you! Wait, wouldn’t it be good to look slightly older at that point as it means you might get served alcohol?
  • Time Of Second death: 43 Minutes. The “rod getting hanged” scene: the nike shoes were on screen a bit too long for my liking and makes it seem like product placement. Didn’t like this death that much mainly because it happened to a character we hadn’t seen in a long time, (in contrast, Tina was one of the first people we saw and it could be argued that she’s taking the role of the main character until her death).
  • Why is Rod the first guy to get a funeral scene when his characterisation literally begins and ends with “penis”?
  • “mommy killed him” mommy also hides alcohol around the house and decided to keep a souvenir of the person she killed twenty years ago, so something tells me she’s not a good person.
  • “you’re the jock, you have a baseball bat or something” that’s racist!
  • Johnny Depp’s character comes to his room and wakes him up in order to tell him to go to sleep.
  • Although his dad is only in it for about 2 scenes so far and already seems like a massive jerkass.
  • Time of the death of Depp: 70 minutes. This is probably the most iconic death in the series, he gets dragged into the bed and blood splatters everywhere, but personally it doesn’t do much for me.
  • She managed to do a lot of booby trapping in a house in only twenty minutes. And all just after reading a book about it. I’m fairly certain this section is a horror version of Home Alone, if the horrific version of Home Alone wasn’t Home Alone 3.
  • Wait, did she just shout the villain into non-existence? See, this is why English horror films are different. If shouting at a villain killed it all horror films set in Britain would last about 5 minutes. Yeah, they’ll be people apologising as you kill them “oh, I appear to have got my blood on your knives, ever so sorry old chap” “oh, you appear to have dropped your weapon, here you go” but all killers make a mistake, in American films it’s usually something like not taking opportunities to kill, in British ones it would be when the killer makes tea and puts the milk in first, then they’ll be shouted at so much they’ll die without a sequel. Actually someone should do that, a short horror film where the killer stalks someone and in the end they just shout out “OH F*CK OFF YOU F*CKING F*CK before I beat your head in, I’m hungover and got work in a few hours, I don’t need this shit”
  • So, that’s an ending. Bad body-double aside this is just weird. The only way it makes sense is if you take it not as the dream of the lead character, but as a dream of the mother. Which makes more sense as she is revealed to have died in a later film, but also makes less sense as she’s dreaming about her daughters friends waaaaay too much. Unless she’s dreaming of them all as she feels guilty for their deaths and that haunts her every waking moment. I might be giving this film too much credit.
  • Surprisingly low amount of deaths. If we include the mother’s death that’s only 4 in the entire film. Yet still chilling.

Quick summary: odd music choices but works in parts.

nightmare

Why we love Session 9 (and why you should see it)

On By troubledproductionsIn Why we loveLeave a comment

Well as my colleague continues to beat on with his more relatable posts about films and TV shows normal people actually watch. I’ll cover our indie quota (aka I might have a pretentious taste in movies) and talk about the, should be better known stuff.

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Now with that said, welcome to our belated horror special, to celebrate this month of horror we call October. On today’s menu the 2001 psychological horror, Session 9, and why I love it, and you should see it. I didn’t really need to repeat that, as the title already says it.

simpososn
They look pretty guilt ridden. This wasn’t just a pointless image to pad out he words….promise…

Like with mysteries, I’ve always had a fascination with psychological horror. Starting from when I was a young teenager and got into the Silent Hill games (listen out for the coming static), and it mutated from there. But really, psychological is my favorite brand of horror, topping everything from the creature feature to slasher flicks. As I believe the scariest things always come from ourselves, and that’s what the genre reflects. Because what really keeps you up at night? The thoughts of a zombie munching its way through your abdomen, or the guilt over the bad things you’ve done?

Sequence 02To put it in movies, Session 9 is The Shining with a dash of Repulsion, but not as visually out there as either. Set over a week (and yes it even has the obligatory names of the week title cards) it follows a group of five asbestos removers as they work at a condemned Insane Asylum. Which is filmed at the real condemned Danvers State Asylum, where the majority of the film takes place. The work is hard, the personalities clash, and the weight of the place is suffocating. As in a much slower burn (yet much shorter film) than The Shining, our characters begin to crack and question what they’re doing there.

Danvers_State_Hospital
Danvers State Asylum, classic.

Though still fairly obscure, what’s helped build Session 9’s cult film status (a status any fucking film can lay claim to now a days), is it retrospectively has a great cast. Helmed by Brad Anderson, who would go onto direct The Machinist (aka, HOLY SHIT Christian Bale is an insane method actor). And led by a pre-cheesy one liner spewing, shade darning David Caruso of CSI: Miami fame (or infamy depending on who you ask….infamy definitely infamy), and the genuinely amazing and underrated Peter Mullan.
They and their lesser known co-stars do a perfect job filling out their somewhat stock characters into a likeable bunch. From Mullan and Caruso’s hard-boiled boss and cool right hand dynamic, to the annoying young one, the fun sleazy one, and the smart one whose a bit too obsessed with the Asylum. No one you haven’t seen before, but no one you will forget.

cast
How is there no cast photo! This was the closest I could get. And it’s still missing the sleazy one!

The reason Session 9 wasn’t a hit is a simple one. It just doesn’t have much mass appeal (or at the time, even much niche appeal). It lacks the bloodiness for gore hounds, or the jump-a-minute scares for tweens. It even lacks the out-there bizarreness of other psycho -horrors like Jacob’s ladder, or the prestige of budding atmospheric driven horrors like The Others (released the same year). But what it lacks in prestige it makes up for in fledgling filmic style. The camera is always moving, and moving with a purpose, to show and to tell, and the editing is the same, carefully cutting with meaning to foreshadow the coming tragedy.

session-9-suit
Okay, it does have it’s speckles of bizarreness.

Walking the line between true film and a bit home movie-ey, it creates a vividly oppressive atmosphere, without losing its sense of realism. You can feel the dust in the air, the sprinkles of asbestos  , the crackle of old tape recordings, and the cold dark as it lurks round every corner. Though never hide-behind-your-hands scary, it’s a creepy film that rots in your stomach and leaves you infected. Even as the plot gets more ambiguous and the characters get crazier, it never loses the feeling of being just five guys doing this shitty job, just to scrape by and gets some cash. Unlike a lot of modern horror films, it never lacks or loses its human centre (cough cough Until Dawn, cough cough, I know it’s a game).

wheel chair

Even if it wasn’t seen by many people, it has left a long and well warn impression on those who did. Going on to inspire imagery in Silent Hill 3, specifically the hospital level, and though far from a ‘classic’ is now a well-regarded for its atmosphere, story, and themes amongst horror aficionados. And is a personal favorite of mine in the horror genre, if I hadn’t mentioned. It also features one of my most beloved ending lines in cinema, quoted in the picture below, but without the context of the film holds little weight. So SEE IT, if you want to know what it means, and afflict this haunting picture onto yourself.

wounded

It also left us with this; either a funny but completely out of place bit of over the top hilarity, or Brad Anderson can join the ranks of other great directors, like Tommy Wiseau, of unintentionally being funny when trying too hard. But I think it’s probably the former.

If you like Session 9, I also recommend.

recommended

Why We Love…Persepolis

On By troubledproductionsIn Why we love1 Comment

When we first thought of this blog we wanted to write about more than film, we wanted to write about everything we loved; television, video games, music, all forms of media. Whilst we haven’t done this yet we will be for halloween. So with that in mind bare in mind how highly I rate this film when I say it’s one of the best things I own, not just film. If I had to take five forms of media with me on a desert island, well, then I’d take five books etc on how to survive in the wilderness, I’m not an idiot, but I would darn well regret not taking this.

jackson

So, onto the actual story. This is hard-hitting, it’s the true story of a girl growing up in Iran against the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution, and it’s just as happy as it sounds. Although this is a really brutal story, one that encompasses all manner of horrible things: war, assassinations, rape, suicide, Austria. Yet it is genuinely laugh out loud funny too, because, whilst all these awful things are happening, she is still a teenager for a lot of it, so is still sarcastic and cynical.

persepolis

I could spend the rest of this review telling you how important this film (and the book, especially the book) are in understanding a lot of the problems that in the Middle East, I could tell you how this film important this film is, instead I’ll just tell you why this film is important to me on a personal level. I brought this film on a whim. I was walking around Woolworths (which really dates this story) one day between split shifts, I saw this DVD cover, the tagline: War. Revolution. Family. Punk Rock. All Part Of Growing Up. I was suitably intrigued and decided to buy it.

punk

It’s strange to think how close I came to not buying this, that I’m only aware of one of my favourite films, and one of my favourite graphic novels through impulse buying. There’s so much that could have stopped this happening, if I wasn’t in the right mix of bored and just-been-paid I wouldn’t have brought it. I sometimes wonder whether I would have got into this film any other way. Yes, the writer later directed a Ryan Reynolds film (which was amazing by the way) but despite how much of a fan I was of the film, I’m not sure whether I would have checked out the directors previous films. It does have a good cast, Sean Penn in particular is amazing, but I’m not sure whether that would have been enough to make me watch it. There’s always personal recommendation, but for some reason I’m not sure I would have reacted well to “animated Iranian film that’s really brutal and depressing”.

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I do love when stuff like that happens, when you take a chance and are rewarded. When you buy an album based purely on the album title and it turns out amazing.

LBD

When you buy a book based on the title and it turns out hilarious.

SNOW WHITE

When you see a film purely because you have a cineworld card and it turns out to be one of the best you’ve seen all year.

bogowie

Admittedly it doesn’t work out all the time.

F*ck this film. Seriously
F*ck this film. Seriously

But when it does you feel superb. You have got into something on your own, something you can recommend to others, which will hopefully become someone’s new favourite film/book/album etc.

I wasn't kidding about it being brutal
I wasn’t kidding about it being brutal

As much as I hate to, I will have to end this on a downer note. The book is very important, it teaches so much about life and freedom that if I ran an educational programme I would make it compulsory. So what was the American reaction to a book that showcases the struggles of everyday Muslims, that details the western intervention that led to the modern troubles, and that portrays non-Christians in a sympathetic light? It became the second most challenged book in American schools in 2014. Congratulations American schools, you’re now on an equal footing with other bastions of freedom like Iran and Lebanon. I hope you’re f*cking proud of all your freedoms.

Watch if you like:

  • Grave Of The Fireflies. Also brutal, also brilliant.
  • The Voices

Why I love Zodiac

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This isn’t a review; it is a spiel about our love of films and what not. So expect spoilers, biased opinions and general rants.

zodiac
Easily the best poster, and of course its the one you can’t get.

I’m not sure where my love of mysteries started, probably from a childhood (and teenhood, and adulthood) of watching Scooby Doo, nothing major, but a place to start. Now, from LA Confidential, to Memories of Murder, it’s hard to think of a mystery film I haven’t seen, (but please don’t try, I hate having to face my lies) but Zodiac is one of, if not, the best.

Scooby_Doo zodiax

Right out the gate I’ve gotta say, it’s my favorite Fincher film, followed closely by The Social Network and Gone Girl (yes you read that right, neither Se7en nor Fight Club do I consider his best). And Zodiac is a near three hour, investigative murder mystery journalism film, where they never catch the killer. And damn it’s riveting. It’s that last bit, about the Zodiac never being caught, being one reason to why I love and find this film so re-watchable (I watch it almost Bi-monthly). As unlike almost every other serial killer flick, when you know who did it, you can never not know, no matter how enjoyable of a film it is, the first watch is usually the best. That’s part of what makes Zodiac special, though it hazards a guess at who the Zodiac was, and follows it through with compelling, even satisfying evidence, you never know 100%, so with every watch your still looking, thinking, trying to see if there was anything you missed that could lead you to the Zodiac.

fincher filmns
I really don’t have any deep problems with any of Fincher’s films, I just thought this made a good image….Expect maybe Se7en!

It also features one of my favorite scenes in cinema, it happens in the last fifteen minutes of the film (I love it when the best part of the film is near the end, it’s something to look forward to during it), and it doesn’t feature a gun fight, it doesn’t move me to tears, it’s not shot in partially amazing fashion; it’s just two guys (Gyllenhaal’s cartoonist and Ruffalo’s detective respectively), sitting in a café, as Gyllenhaal lays out the entire case, the entire film in front of us. Every complex facet of evidence, every casual event, all the major characters, it’s all led to this, and it’s explained in a perfectly written scene, with an enthrallingly intense turn from Gyllenhaal, till it climaxes with this films closes thing to a big reveal. And god it’s satisfying.

cafe
Never has the choice over salt or pepper been so intense.

This scene also sums up why it’s my favorite serial killer film, and the tagline summaries it perfectly too. “There’s more than one way to lose your life to a killer”. It’s a film about obsession, and how it can eat you alive. Unlike films where you’re worried about the characters  dying, there’s rarely a moment where you think someone’s going to be killed (outside the victims obviously),  but as it unfolds and the characters (mainly Gyllenhaal) fall deeper and deeper and deeper, even when its all said and done, you can’t help but wonder. Can they live again?

Jake

Now I know it’s not cool to care about Academy Awards, and I get it, overall they’re pretty cheap with whom and what they consider worthy (no love for Jake Gyllenhaal unless he’s macking on a cowboy it seems). But at the same time, they do tend to choose pretty good films, and Zodiac easily should have been a major awards contender in 2008, for directing, writing, acting (Robert Downy Jr especially), cinematography (the usual Fincher staples), and the reason it wasn’t I completely put on the studio. They released it at the wrong time, and advertised it the wrong way. Selling it as a fun, messed-up, thrills per-minute serial killer film (Se7en cough, cough) and releasing it in spring; instead of in Oscar season (October-December) and as the investigative drama it is (All The President’s Men meets Citizen X), what the makers always intended it to be. But though I blame them for this, I can see why they did it. Coming off the big hit of the very enjoyable thriller Panic Room, and Fincher’s last serial killer film being a massive hit, I see why the studio treated it like they did. They wanted another Se7en, even though Fincher gave them something much more.

seven 2

It’s films like Zodiac that made me pretty happy when I heard Fincher’s series with HBO had fallen through, because despite how much I like House of Cards, and have heard that Utopia is a great show, I didn’t want Fincher’s spending all his time on a TV series when he could be making more films like this, or Gone Girl, or The Social Network. TV’s amazing right now (check out last weeks post on Breaking Bad, wink, wink), with a lot of hugely talented people creating epic feats of fiction, so we need to make sure Film stays great, and Fincher’s pretty good at that.
(Yes I’m aware he’s still producing the TV Show Shakedown and Video Synchronicity (both which sound really good), but who the hell knows at this point, and at least he’s not directing the entire series.)

How we (I) made (wrote) Projector.

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So as my Troubled Production’s colleague so subtly hinted I should, I’m gonna talk about my influences on writing Projector and how it came to be. There’s not much else I can add about the production, but this is where the story came from, before that.

Projector neon version jpg
The original concept poster. And don’t worry, the tagline is explained.

Well if you’ve seen the film, there’s a flashback during the lengthy Film Noir section where two characters discuss a film idea as they throw a ball, called ‘The Great Party’. In short, its a Great Gatsby  themed film about a guy looking for his girlfriend at a surreal party, where every room uses the same actors to play different characters. That’s the idea Projector stemmed from. But it became something so different; we could still make that film without any crossover of story or events.

The real foundation of Projector started when I decided I needed to tell a story that really meant something to me, something personal, for my final film at university. And not just the typical murder mystery, rom-com, with suicide probably in there, party films, that a lot of film students tend to crap out. So of course I made a film about a struggling filmmaker in the middle of a quarter life crises (I pride myself on originality).

Orginal thought]

A lot of the idea developed from a scheme to make a film where typical film mistakes, audio glitches, double shadows, crew reflections ect, where actually part of the film, with the whole film within a film concept. An idea I thought of mainly as a bit of a middle finger to the people who (rightfully so) complained about the lack of quality in Schism.

get to wrok
Saying its just about a play within a play is actually overly simplifying it a lot.

The films I stole most of my ideas from where mainly Charlie Kaufman’s (a personal favorite writer), Synecdoche, New York and Adaptation. The former, a film about a play writer who’s lines of reality and fiction start to blur as he puts on a play within a play within- you get the idea, and the other about a fictional version of Kaufman writing the film he’s in. Synecdoche ended up having a more lasting impact overall, because in early drafts Projector was about me, I mean of course it’s about me, I mean literally, it was about fictional versions of me and people I know, in a uber-meta self-indulgent kinda way. Luckily the rest of my group had the sense to talk me down from that ledge.

allen

So instead I went the Woody Allen root and just made the main character so blatantly me, everyone wondered where I got an actor who resembles me so much. Woody’s Star Dust Memories (the first of his films to make me understand why he’s a big deal) was also a key inspiration for me, dealing with a filmmaker in creative crises whose reality blurs into his own films (though oddly enough I wasn’t the one who added his name drop in the script, twice). Now I’m sure for those of you who know a bit about cinema are wondering, “how can you talk thus far about your surreal meta film about film making, without bringing up Fellini’s 81/2?” Well, that’s because I didn’t see it till after I’d written the script. I knew about it, and its influences on the other films that did influences me, but it was only inspiration by association.

scrooged
But Scrooged was clearly my one true inspiration.

The idea to make parallels with A Christmas Carol came a bit late in the writing, after the first draft I believe. I’d just seen Wild at Heart and loved the way it paralleled The Wizard of Oz, so I thought adding an underline theme of classic literature would be good, but what I thought? What? And I had no idea, till I picked up the mail one day and there was a flyer for a local production of A Christmas Carol, and like Diana on prom night, it hit me; the perfect story to wrap Projector around, three films, three ghosts, and a lead character with a barrel of regrets.

What’s next?

projector

As it was said, the plan is to adapt Projector into a feature, the idea being to add a whole new parallel narrative on top of the already existing one, as well as to develop the original out. The new narrative would follow the same aspiring filmmakers Christopher and Phillip on an odyssey of a night out, going from parties to dives to who knows where, as Christopher talks through Projector with Phillip. Cutting back to that story as he goes, as the night-out starts to parallel with the film and the two- in a complete breakdown of the meta-verse – coincide. But when we’ll write that still waits to be seen.

Why We Love….Breaking Bad

On By troubledproductionsIn Why we loveLeave a comment

Well where do you start? There’s just so much about this show that works. It didn’t outstay it’s welcome is an important one. I don’t think there’s many fans of the show who think “well it started good, but it went a bit downhill in the later seasons”. This might be because it only had 5 seasons, but American dramas have gone downhill in less.

Just leaving this picture here with no comment
Just leaving this picture here with no comment

In fact it could be said that the final season was one it’s best. It certainly contained one of the best episodes in Ozymandias. Usually the best episode in a final season is the final episode as that’s the culmination of everything, but in this case the third from final episode is one of the greatest, not just of the season, not just of the show, but of any series. People say the calm before the storm is the best narrative place to be, but in this case it’s the storm before the calm. The moment where the entire episode is basically soundtracked by someone next to you going “oh shit, holy shit! Holy mother of!” until you send them off to make tea.

Then they come back and you try to explain this
Then they come back and you try to explain this

The narrative for the show made sense. There weren’t any (that I recall) moments where you felt someone acted out of character or inconsistent with earlier characterisation. Everything people did made sense, ok, maybe it didn’t make logical sense because a lot of the decisions were stupid, but they made narrative sense, you can see why everyone did everything they did.

This is actually more creepy in the show
This is actually more creepy in the show

There’s something else about this show that I love, Walter White Jr. He’s a character with cerebral palsy, but it’s never really mentioned. It would have been so easy to make it a big deal, to discuss it and make it a big part of the father’s motivation. Or even to make him holier than thou, the kind of weirdly condescending attitude a lot of television has towards disabled people, where it makes them oddly overnice and friendly. Here, he’s occasionally a dick, because he’s a teenager, and teenagers are usually dicks.

breakfast
Dicks who eat a lot of breakfast

Finally: the performances, it’s been said before that Bryan Cranston gave the performance of a lifetime, but it deserves to be said again: he’s damn good in this. He gave one of the best performances I’ve seen in a drama. He’s matched by the supporting cast too, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Giancarlo Esposito (thank you google) et all create a fantastic ensemble cast, great performances and great chemistry, there’s barely a weak link between them. I think I have to bring up the performance of Cranston again though, before this he was mostly known for the role of the dad in Malcolm In The Middle. For British audiences, this would be like Jay from The Inbetweeners next role being the lead in Threads.

Or this guy being the lead in an intense medical drama
Or this guy being the lead in an intense medical drama

I think that might be a small part of why people love this, it’s a genuine surprise. Nobody saw this coming. The brilliance of it kind of sneaked up and surprised everyone, so if you caught on early enough you felt like you were in some kind of secret club. By the time it caught on it became so well known that anybody starting to watch it would have surely felt the slight bit of doubt that it could be overrated. So yes, that’s why we love Breaking Bad, and you should at least give it a try, you owe it that much, and I doubt you’ll regret it.

Oh, and watch Threads, but have something comforting to watch after
Oh, and watch Threads, but have something comforting to watch after

Like it if you like:

  • The Wire
  • House Of Cards
  • Hannibal

About

On By troubledproductionsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Troubled Productions is an independent film production company based in Kent. We are made up of group of young and talented filmmakers, specializing in short fiction films and experimental forms of film-making, with a host of experience in other areas, from music videos, to documentaries, and commercials. Our mission statement is simple: To make as many genuinely good films as possible that enrich the live of others, and express ourselves. 

Troubled Productions: Making you feel guilty for laughing.

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or E-mail us at troubledproductionsuk@gmail.com