Tag: nightmare on elm street

Candyman (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: An artist delves into the Candyman mythos and it starts to slowly take over his life.

I will freely admit, I haven’t seen any of the original Candyman films, so I am going into this mostly blind. Pretty much all I know is the basic plot, and that Tony Todd is in it (or to give him his full name: Tony Freaking Todd). That might have made it harder for me to enjoy this film as there are quite a few returning characters who I just didn’t get. On the other hand, if I did know, then it might have ruined one of the “twists” as it would have been obvious what had really happened, so it would have been only an internal reveal, the audience already aware.

I’m not really sure who this was aimed at, the lengths they go to to include all those references to the original make me think it’s aimed at seasoned fans of the franchise. But the fact it was advertised based on creating something new, that it didn’t talk about a “return” made it seem new, even the name made it seem like a new start and a reboot. Compare this to Halloween. Which firmly established itself as a sequel that ignored all but the first film. I also hadn’t seen any Halloween films before I saw that one, but that did a much better job of establishing who the character is, and what he does. This doesn’t really do a good job of establishing what it is the character can actually do. It focuses a lot on “say his name and he’ll appear”, but it doesn’t establish whether he feels physical pain, whether he can be reasoned with, or even deal that much with the mirrors. The character mostly exists in mirrors, unable to be seen in the real world. This means that the film is missing that core aspect of a horror film: the fightback. At no point does any character even begin to look like they can fight back, there’s no “will they survive” to any of the deaths as you know they won’t. So there’s no tension, every death is the equivalent of a train approaching somebody tied to a railway track, you know they’re going to die so the slow nature of it just draws out the inevitable.

It’s not as though the film itself is slow and drawn out, there are moments where it’s painfully rushed. 90 minutes is not long enough to tell a story like this. The film has to do A LOT. It has to introduce the main character in his normal life, then introduce the lore, have the character be uncertain then be presented with evidence, then research it more etc. You need to do a lot for a film like this, and that requires time, and this film just doesn’t have it.

The third act in particular really suffers from the rushed nature. The third act reveal could really work, and the concept itself is exciting and could lead to a great sequel. But the way it’s handled in this is shockingly bad, with REALLY important details rushed over in a sentence or two, so the true implications of the reveal don’t have time to breathe. I’m not asking for a five hour horror film, just another 15 minutes or so would have really helped this.

Now onto the good, it looks amazing. Nia DaCosta is lined up to do The Marvels film, and I’m really excited about what she could bring visually to it. There’s some very cool concepts in this, the idea of the shadow puppets being used to tell some of the stories is interesting, bringing to mind the works of Lotte Reiniger. Her use of angles too are interesting, making even standard scenes have a sense of dread. It’s also suitably gory, and the score is pretty damn intense too. Would I recommend this? It’s hard to say, I feel if you go see a few films a year, maybe skip it. If you want to just sit and be scared, go see it. Also, if you’re interested in film-making I’d go to see it purely so you can study the techniques they use. I’d say it’s more important than it is good.

It did give me one of the stupidest comments I’ve seen on film twitter though:

Yeah, stupid woke Hollywood, taking a story about a former slaves son who was lynched and tortured for falling in love with a white woman, and somehow making it about race. What’s next? Making a film where we actually are supposed to sympathise with the creature in Frankenstein? Or a Nightmare On Elm Street film where it turns out Freddy Krueger is actually the villain just because he kills people? Snowflakes!

Come True (2020)

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Usually when I see a film like this, I do the usual review and mention about how I love it, but never want to see it again. The best examples of this are Hereditary, The VVitch, and Vivarium. All three films I love, but I’m not sure I could get through again. This had a similar effect with how it made me feel, but weirdly I want to see it again. In fact, I need to see it again. It has one of those endings which I know will make me appreciate the film more on a second watch. It feels low budget, but in a good way. In a way where it feels like everybody who worked on it was pushed to their limit to create the best thing possible, a film made possible by true dedication to the art of film-making.

I apologise for those of you who personally know me, and who like horror and sci-fi movies, because I will tell you to watch this film, and I will tell you it until you watch it. It’s one of those films that I feel you really need to experience. Turn the lights off, sit in the dark, and truly let it take you into it’s world. I’ve said this about a lot of films but it’s especially true with this, the fact I didn’t get to see this in the cinema is a great disappointment to me as I feel that would have been the optimum way to watch this.

I suppose if i had to describe this in a word I’d say “retro”. The music and visuals all combine to make it seem like something from the 80s, but in a good way. Not in a way that seems dated, but in a “this is a classic film from that time that you are now watching”. It’s hard to compare it to anything else but if I had to? Dunno, maybe a smattering of Nightmare On Elm Street, Alien (not with the plot, but in terms of the visual aesthetics), along with a side of….I’m not really sure, but there’s definitely a third element which I’m familiar with but can’t quite place. In terms of modern films, the closest I can find to this in terms of tone would be It Follows. A weird throwback but keeping a modern sensibility to it.

It’s hard to talk about the plot to this film, without spoiling it. So watch the trailer first, then decide if you want to watch it. The plot isn’t technically important, in terms of, if this was a book I wouldn’t advise reading it. But the way the plot and the technical nature merge together makes a lot of sense.

Almost all of the greatness of this film is down to two people: Anthony Scott Burns, and Julia Sarah Stone. Sure, the supporting cast are great, but it’s those two that anchor the movie. Stone gives a performance that if this film was better known, would be considered starmaking. She portrays so much in this movie, the fear, the exhaustion she faces is all written in her performance. She genuinely has some of the best non-verbal nuances I’ve seen in a long time. On that topic, there’s a few moments where I’m uncertain if the acting from some of the supporting performers were really good, or really bad. A few incredibly subtle facial tics where you can tell someone is actually happy when they’re supposed to be putting on a front of being sad/horrified. Either it’s really bad acting, and the performers can’t hide their actual emotions, or it’s REALLY good acting and all those incredibly subtle facial movements are just great character work. I’m leaning more towards the second one, as I don’t think Burns would allow anything less.

Right, Anthony Scott Burns, time to mention him. I mentioned how much of this movies greatness is down to him. He wrote it, and directed it. Which is not too unusual, but still good to see. But he also did the music, and that is SUCH a big part of why this film works. The music sounds blue (if that makes sense) and suits the colour scheme. He’s insanely talented and not gonna lie it makes me a little jealous. Although I know a few people who are looking to do similar roles, and it’s nice to see that it is possible, and how it can help create an artists true vision.

So in summary, if you get a chance you have to see this. It really deserves to be on Shudder, but until then, find other ways to watch it, you pretty much have to see it.

Let’s See You Do Better: Update 3

On By troubledproductionsIn LSYDBLeave a comment

Okay now I’m getting to the fun parts. The best parts of these movies are the deaths. Because they take place in a dream world you really have no limits so you can get as creative as you want. You need them to be creepy and disturbing. Not sure if it’s just me but I like when the deaths link into the persons character. I feel that makes sense as people dream about things that affect them, so it only makes sense that their dream deaths would be linked to them. That’s what I’m attempting to do in this. I’m about to enter the “adding new characters” stage and I know who some of them are already based solely on how I want them to die. That’s probably a backwards way of doing it but it works for me.  Anyway, here’s what the deaths will be like

deaths

A little bit of background on these two characters:

Alex is a wannabe bodybuilder, who in the scene before this we found out has a real complex about his strength, he has the need to always be the toughest guy in the room, that’s why I had his death take place on one of those “test your strength” fairground machines. Originally I was going to have it take place in a gym but realised that had already been done (I think in the fourth one) in a REALLY creepy piece of body horror where a set of weights were pushed down and used to break a characters arms. I wouldn’t be able to top that so I decided to go in a different direction. Plus I figured it wouldn’t be bad enough for him to be outmuscled, the worst thing would be for him to be outmuscled in public so everybody sees. The little girl being the one to do it came about because it’s a good opportunity to use the creepy Freddy girls in this movie. You know, the ones in the blue dress who sing the rhyme? If I dressed the little girl in it similarly it would be a nice way for me to give a shout out to the original series without being distracting. Originally I had the final blow be done by a random bodybuilder, to show him that no matter how hard he works out, there will always be someone better. I then mentioned in passing to someone that I was considering having the small girl do it instead, and that was received much more favourably so I changed it to that. Someone else mentioned having the head hit the bell at the top. Didn’t do that as I wanted the skull to be shattered, but I did like the concept so I modified it slightly and instead had a small segment of the head hit the bell. This had the double advantage of leading to the next scene. The next scene takes place in a class, so I could easily match up the piece of skull hitting the bell, and the bell ringing in the class.

Now, the second one takes place in a swimming pool. I will freely admit this one was inspired heavily by a graphic novel I found called Clean Room by Gail Simone. If you get a chance I highly suggest you read it as it’s incredibly creepy and inspired some imagery which I will use in this. What was most useful to me from it was these two scenes:

I saw that and thought “I could definitely use that”. I named the child Terry in homage to this scene. The challenge with this was making it different enough so that it wasn’t just “me stealing shit from women writers and claiming it as my own”. I wanted to use it as a jumping-off point for something else, and I like to think I did that. It’s why his death ends the way it does; with him being swallowed by the water (and it’s why I had him responsible for his death again in the dream). I might need to change it more but I’m happy with what I did and think I made it different enough from the original to claim it as my own.

So yeah, those are the deaths, let me know what you think of them, whether they worked etc. And then go read Clean Room as it’s f*cking superb.

Let’s See You Do Better: Update 2

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Note: if you’re unsure what this is about, visit here

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated this, been busy on other projects. I thought I’d offer a quick update as to how the story is going. I have an idea of where it’s going and should probably do an outline to establish it. I’ve been reading some of the Nightmare On Elm Street comics too, they’re mostly terrible but there are a few really disturbing parts in them. The trouble with doing a script like this is that theoretically anything is possible, and when you’ve got no limits then it can be boring to do standard things. Like I was going to have a scene where someone dies by having their face held against a hotplate until the skin melts. Very gruesome and could be horrific if done right, but it’s also possible, so would be best used for another film (could work in a Halloween film I think). I’m posting my progress now because after this is when the actual horror starts. I’ve put some creepy moments in there but all of it is setting up the rest of the film. So, here’s the opening:

nightmare

I’m quite proud of what I’ve got here, but I know some of it will HAVE to change. I have to set up his PTSD nightmares more (I’ve got a great idea but at the moment it’s a bit too similar to a scene from Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark), so I’m going to need to think of a better way of doing it before putting it on paper. I need to set up the background characters more, specifically the ones in his class. This should be easily done, it’s a classroom so lots of chance for debate which I could use to showcase character traits. Overall I think I’ll have a better idea of how I want the beginning to go when I get to the end as I know what I’ll have to set up. I’m very wary of timing, I’ve seen A LOT of horror films which seem to take two-thirds of the script before the actual story starts. I hate when it happens and I don’t want to do it. At the moment it’s about 20 minutes, which I think gives me a good basis to start, especially since it is still relatively scare-heavy. I think if I keep that level of intensity up I could extend the beginning by about another ten minutes and keep the momentum going.

Contemplations On Chucky: Day 4 (Bride Of Chucky)

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Director: Ronny Yu (The Bride With White Hair, Chasing Dragon)

Budget: $25million

Box Office: $50.7million

  • Yay, actually looking forward to this. This was the first Chucky film I ever saw, the second one I saw was the third one, the third one I saw was the first one, then the fourth one I saw was the second one. It makes complete sense if you just pretend “this is the prequel to the one I saw earlier”. Hoping it still holds up.
  • Very cinematic opening. This is no longer a horror movie, this is a horror MOVIE. Always good, plus you have to remember this was a lot of people’s first introduction to the character, their hadn’t been a film made for almost a decade
  • Jason and Michael Myers masks (as well as Leatherface’s Chainsaw) in the police lock up. I like that as it means they share a universe, which means this film series also shares a universe with Freddy Krueger, the Evil Dead, and Hellraiser. Also in this locker room, references to Creepshow, and there’s a reference to Pinhead later on in the film. Why is that horror is really the only genre that can get away with referencing other films so openly? You don’t have characters from Goodfellas suddenly turn up in Scarface etc. I think it’s because of the way we view horror now, as I’ve said multiple times before horror is best as communal viewing, you watch it with others and you feel part of a community. As such you need things there that kind of exclude people who aren’t a part of that community, and these little in-jokes are great for that. They feel like little rewards for knowing the genre. It would be like if in the middle of Avatar they referenced the Titanic movie and if you understood the reference you got a lollypop.
  • So far both scares have been Lewton Buses. If they do it a third time that’s a bad sign.
  • Nope, someone appeared behind the cop and slit his throat. Nicely done. The two previous Lewton Buses meant you expected another one so you were surprised when it played it straight.
  • John Wayne entrance (start at the feet and move up the body) of Jennifer Tilly’s character of Tiffany. I love how the first kill in this movie isn’t done by Chucky, it sets the tone well of “anything can happen”
  • Our first sighting of Chucky, well, parts of him anyway, his face is still chopped up as a result of the last film. I like that, continuity which adds to the character and changes them. It also gives the character a new defining look which is pretty good from a marketing perspective too as more merchandise and cosplay opportunities.
  • Instead of using an original score for this they use a Rob Zombie track, works perfectly for this montage of rebuilding Chucky.
  • Oh my God I forgot John Ritter was in this.
  • Oooo so’s Katherine Heigl.
  • Gordon Michael Woolvett playing David, the sterotypically gay character here. He does it well enough to suggest he could have had a future as the sidekick in a romantic comedy.
  • Tiffany attempts to bring Chucky back to life from a book called “Voodoo for Dummies”. That’s pretty funny.
  • A random goth (played by the recently deceased Alexis Arquette) turns up and pretends to have killed someone to get into Tiffany’s good books. If a friend needs you to kill someone then they’re not really you’re friend at all.
  • “you know what the French call an orgasm? The little death” Basic rule for seduction: don’t mention the French. Oh, or death I suppose.
  • Wait, that character is called Damian Baylock? Fantastic subtle reference to The Omen there.
  • Tiffany performs a striptease, (well, takes off a glove) whilst Damian is handcuffed to a bed, whilst talking about Chucky. Very weird that she’s basically talking about an ex during foreplay, I can’t imagine that’s an effective technique.
  • Finally Chucky lives, kills Damian by ripping out his lip piercing and smothering him with a pillow, that’s the third most common cause of death in Shoreditch.
  • “You know me, I’ll kill anybody but I’ll only sleep with someone I love”, see I’m the complete opposite.
  • “you fuck” “but you won’t, not Jade anyway” damn I miss John Ritter.
  • “You keep your orchid dry now”, is that some kind of homosexual slang for something? Like a weird way of reminding you to wear a condom?
  • Tiffany decides to tickle Chucky then throw him in a playpen. She’s forgetting the basic rule of life; don’t tickle a serial killer. I got tickled last week by someone and I elbowed them in the chest, and I’m barely a killer.
  • Kidneythieves cover of Crazy, so THAT’S how I first heard this song.
  • Tiffany shoves Damien’s body in a box and gets Nick to move it. He mentions it’s heavy but doesn’t do the obvious “what you got in here, a body?” joke.
  • “a woman spends all day slaving over a hot stove for a man, the least he can do is do the dishes”, or buy her one of Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meal cookbooks. That way she still has time to wash, clean, and do all the other stuff women do; knitting, giving birth, putting cats in blenders.
  • Why do people in horror movies watch so many horror films? Horror is as self referential as I am.
  • “I promise to love, honour and cherish till death do us part”. Why would someone manufacture a doll that says that? That’s hugely sexist and a terrible example to set to women; “be a bride and your main duty is looking after your husband”.
  • Chucky kills Tiffany by pushing a TV in the bath, this death was supposed to be in the first movie but got changed to a hammer to the head. Probably for the best as advances in CGI mean it’s easier to do it now and it looks brilliant.
  • Chucky puts Tiffany’s soul into the other doll, because, reasons.
  • “I wouldn’t marry you if you had the body of GI Joe”, but then he wouldn’t have a penis.
  • “turn to Chapter 6, page 217”, so she turns to chapter 11. I’m starting to see why he killed her.
  • So now he needs an amulet to transfer his soul into a human body, why didn’t he need it in the previous three films?
  • Oh, this character is openly gay. That’s actually pretty progressive.
  • Where did Chucky get that knife from?
  • Funny that Tiffany idolises Martha Stewart, who later on went to jail.
  • Definitely the most imaginative death in this series so far, Tiffany and Chucky load up a bunch of nails into the car airbag and launch them into John Ritter’s face, making him resemble Pinhead. “fun” fact: Chucky’s line of “why does that look so familiar?” was ad-libbed by Brad Dourif.
  • “Rude fucking doll”, i think of all the ways to describe Chucky, “Rude” isn’t the word I’d use.
  • “at least you haven’t forgotten how to show a girl a good time”, I tried that on my last date, blew up a cop car. I’m single now so that tells you successful that tactic was.
  • Interesting duel narrative here. Not just are Chucky and Tiffany making their way across the country and killing people, but the two human characters are beginning to suspect each other of being murderers. More films should do that, place doubt in the characters heads, paranoia that eats away at the relationship.
  • “Multiple murderers, mass murders happen all at once, multiple murders are serial killings” useful information to know.
  • Okay so the lighter that Chucky used to blow up a cop car came from the guy that got his throat cut in the opening scene, nice bit of continuity there.
  • Discount Matthew Lilliard playing a swinger here, who steals the main characters wallets.
  • “Chucky, he’s a Good Guy doll, they were programmed to say all kinds of shit”, no, they only had three sentences.
  • “That thieving slut” dude, you kill people.
  • Okay I love this kill, Tiffany kills the swingers by throwing a champagne bottle at the mirrored ceiling above them. The look on her face was just terrifying, and it’s a really inventive way to do it. Visually it’s brilliant too as the characters were on a water bed so the glass shattered into the bed, causing a mix of blood and water to gush into the air.
  • Chucky spots a wedding ring on the guys disembodied finger and tries to take it off but can’t, so he turns his back to Tiffany and tries to bite it off. Weird display of manners there.
  • Maid walks into the swingers bedroom, see’s broken glass and blood on the floor and says “lol, newlyweds”. Is there something about weddings I don’t know about? Is it traditional for newlyweds to break glass and bleed? If so I don’t think I want to get married.
  • A superb jump scare there where David knocks on the van window in the middle of a heated discussion. Probably the best jump scare in the film, incredibly effective.
  • “something really stinks in here”, how is he the only person to notice that?
  • David finds John Ritter’s body and predictably freaks. He then points a gun at the main characters, confusion abounds, before Chucky and Tiffany reveal themselves, guns in hand. A truck then runs over David, most literal gay bashing i’ve ever seen.
  • Actually just realised it’s a bit weird that David called the police over, all they would have seen is him pointing a gun at two people, would have been hard to explain.
  • Wait, why are the police chasing them? They don’t know the dead body’s in the van, all they saw was a guy pointing a gun at them, then that guy got hit by a truck. Yet the police don’t seem to be interested in the truck that hit someone.
  •  “How did you end up like this?” “it’s complicated. If it was a movie it would take 3 or 4 sequels just to do it justice”. God damn that’s self-referential. I love it.
  • Why is Tiffany doing Katherine Heigl’s make up before transforming her soul into her? Surely it would be easier afterwards?
  • So the two characters are tied up, completely helpless. They get out of it by depending on Chucky’s misogyny, which leads to an argument where Tiffany says “plastic is no substitute for a good chunk of wood”, then Chucky getting kicked out of a window, and Tiffany being kicked into an oven. If Chucky was a feminist serial killer he’d have gotten away with it.
  • Chucky and Tiffany basically kill each other. Nice poetic way to end it, they’re in an obviously toxic relationship that is responsible for their own deaths. Nicely done.
  • So that’s it, it’s over. You’d never guess that Katherine Heigl would become such a massive star, or that Nick Stabile wouldn’t.

Contemplations On Chucky: Day 3 (Child’s Play 3)

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Director: Jack Bender (Game Of Thrones, The Sopranos, Lost)

Budget: $13million

Box Office: $20million

  • This film is weird, was definitely seen as the weakest at the time. It was released only nine months after the second one yet the in-universe time difference between the two is about 9 years. It’s actually lucky this film was badly received as it meant that there wouldn’t be a sequel to this for almost a decade, by which time real time had caught up with the movie’s timeline. Stupid of Universal to demand a sequel that quickly really. They asked the writer to start it before the second film was even released. As such the writer (Don Mancini) was out of ideas as he used a lot of them in the second one, and because it wasn’t released yet he had no idea about what people thought worked in it and what didn’t, so he was basically going into the third one without knowing how the second one was going to be received.
  • Okay that is one hell of an opening credits sequence. It shows the Chucky doll being remade, there’s something about melted plastic forming into shapes that is quite unsettling and it’s used wonderfully here, especially when combined with the music.
  • Oooooo a presentation, I hope it ends with a duck on a boat.
  • “the notorious lakeshore strangler” not so notorious of course that when people say his name people don’t go “who?”
  • “Why put the Good Guy doll back on the market?” Guy there asking a very sensible question.
  • “Before this it was our biggest seller”, well, yeah but that was eight years ago, eight years ago from today Alexandra Burke had a UK number one, doesn’t mean she’s due for a comeback any day now.
  • “I really don’t think this is a good idea” I like this guy, he’s really sympathetic, shame he never appears after this and is probably going to be fired.
  • “Doesn’t matter what we’re selling whether it’s cars, nuclear weapons, or toys” As a toy manufacturer I’d suggest you stick to toys. There’s not much room on the Fisher Price “My First Nuclear Bomb” playset.
  • “The Good Guy of the 90’s” Looks exactly the same as the 80’s one. And why do they keep insisting on using the model that was accused of murder and has been burnt and chopped up? Try fixing one that hasn’t been almost completely destroyed.
  • I always felt these films have missed out on a really creepy shot of a line of Good Guy dolls in a toy store, all perfectly still except for the eyes are all moving at the same time, seemingly following someone walking through the aisle, then the eyes on one of them dart quickly the other way.
  • Businessman doing business things, like playing golf and watching  business news, good work Vincent Adultman.
  • Random fact: Peter Jackson was asked to direct this. First there was Nightmare On Elm Street, now this. Can Peter Jackson just make a god-damn horror movie now so we can stop wondering?
  • Chucky uses a bunch of toys to create horror movie scares. See, this annoys me as if they had more time in the scripting process this would have been a highlight of the series. As it is it’s good, but not quite great. Although the scene at the end with the two dolls “conversing” whilst sitting in chairs is unsettling enough to justify it.
  • Actually where did those two dolls come from? They said this was the first one in eight years, did he keep two dolls around in his office for almost a decade? Weird guy.
  • “Nothing like a strangulation to get the circulation going” obvious sex joke is obvious.
  • Psychological profile of Andy describes him as a “juvinile” The real crime is illiteracy. And murder. And making tea by putting in the milk first.
  • “these fantasies of killer dolls” weirdest fetish ever.
  • “Who are you?” “I’m a Good Guy”. This advert reminds me of the biggest problem I have with this re-release of the toys, the children who brought them eight years ago will all be grown up now. Children now won’t have any idea who they are, so why on earth would they want a toy they don’t know when there’s so many better ones available?
  • Guy is found tied up in the cupboard, yup, definitely nothing homoerotic about that.
  • “Do you know who I am?” Has a character, actually no, scratch that, a person, ever said that who hasn’t been a complete arsehole?
  • “You are without a doubt the most pathetic thing I have ever seen”, I take it he hasn’t seen his own penis then.
  • “asshole” “what did you say” “I said you asshole” “you think you’re pretty funny don’t you?” “yes”. That woman is basically me if I was older, and a woman, and in the military, and looked better, and was in shape.
  • Person knocks the toy out of a child’s hand, and then immediately disappears. The person who knocked it out of his hands was walking down the stairs, and the toy got knocked down them too. So in the next shot they should have been there, but nope, just disappeared yet.
  • “who the fuck are you?” “I thought you guys only said three sentences”, yeah the other two are “Go fuck yourself” and “I’m your friend to the end”
  • “What am I doing wrong?” Well when you’re shooting you miss the target, that’s your biggest problem.
  • It’s weird that they didn’t actually teach him proper gun use and instead are depending on one of the other cadets to do it.
  • “It’s not a baton Barclay”, well to be fair how would you know as you’ve never fucking taught him how to shoot.
  • “This is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun”. To clarify the gun is his penis. And there’s a shot of him grabbing his own dick, a close up.
  • “A soldier’s rifle is his best friend”, well that’s just sad.
  • Chucky crushes the garbage collector because….reasons. That’s the trouble with constant sequelization of horror films, the characters lose their motivations. In the first film Chucky didn’t kill many people, and only really did it for personal vengeance from when he was alive, or when people discovered him. Was similar in the second one, only he seemed to have a connection with Andy so he also moved onto those who were mistreating Andy, so he was almost going against those who wrong his potential vessel. In this one he’s so far killed two people, none of which were necessary, and the second one actively helped blow his cover. If he didn’t kill the garbageman after escaping the truck then Andy wouldn’t have suspected he was there so it would have been easier for him to go about his nefarious ways.
  • Chucky slices the back of Andy’s foot. I very rarely say this but I definitely wrote a better version of that. If he got the achilles tendon that would have severely disabled Andy for the rest of the film. The actual slicing should have been a lot more visceral too, it should have made people wince, as it is it just looks like nothing.
  • “Chucky’s gonna be a bro” that’s racist. And stupid, why on earth did he reveal himself to Andy then? He’s just making things difficult for himself.
  • “I got myself another slave” I’ll take “lines that would have sounded a lot worse if the main character was black” for $1,000 please.
  • “I’m trying to weed out a thief”, but you stole it first.
  • Chucky kills someone via heart attack, even he seems disappointed by that. Funny thought, about time that happened.
  • “Do yourself a favour and get the hell out of Kent”, people have been saying the same thing to me for nigh on 30 years.
  • You may remember this character said earlier that the reason soldiers need short hair is so that someone can’t grab it and slit your throat. Predictably he dies by someone slitting his throat.
  • The idea of switching out paintball bullets for normal bullets is a good idea on paper (I actually used it in a short story for GCSE English) but it’s stupid and ridiculous in execution for two reasons: 1) Guns which fire paint rounds are usually specially modified to allow it and can’t fire normal rounds. 2) It’s standard military practice to check your ammunition before firing. So a nice idea but one that defies logic.
  • “Now we can play hide the soul” is that similar to hide the sausage? If so I don’t want to play it.
  • Surely they’d notice they’re not firing paint rounds when they change the ammunition or when their shots hit a tree or something and there’s no paint.
  • Obvious fake snow is obvious.
  • So out of all these trained cadets, not one of them noticed a live grenade being thrown towards them.
  • We now go to a nearby fairground, which to me is way too close to the military exercises to be considered safe.
  • So now we’ve moved away from the army base, which is a shame as there were a lot of opportunities for interesting set pieces that weren’t really used. Okay the fairground also has a lot of interesting things that could be used but they only have like 12 minutes left in this film in which to do so, and that’s including credits.
  • Wait, the fairground ride has paper masquerading as fire, yet has a real f*cking scythe?  More to the point, nothing of interest happened in the ghost house, massive disappointment.
  • See, now there it makes sense to have blades, in a fan, but they should still be covered by something.
  • Andy ducks to avoid being hit by a rollercoaster train. Wait, the train is still going? And nobody can see or hear the attempted murder that’s going on?
  • Chucky gets his hand cut off, again, I think that’s happened in ever film so far. You’d think he’d be used to it.
  • Chucky falls into the fan and gets cut, and seems to explode. Quick question; how on earth is this going to be covered up? How are they going to explain the gun?
  • Wait, I know that cop. That’s the manager from Chuck. Cool.
  • So now the end credits. Overall somewhat enjoyable, definitely the weakest so far though and way too many missed opportunities.

A Nightmare A Day: Day 9 (A Nightmare On Elm Street: 2010)

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Director: Samuel Beyer

Budget: $35million

US Box Office: $115.6million

  • Ok, it’s the end of the road, I’ve got my DVD, I’ve got my laptop to type on, I’ve got my cous cous. Let’s do this!
  • Sudden thought: what if it’s worse than Freddy Vs. Jason?
  • OMG what if it’s worse than Final Nightmare?
  • Creepy opening credits, already feeling unsettled. The cast names appear on screen as normal, then appear written in the background in chalk in children’s handwriting.
  • Okay the first person we see is male. Kind of strange as I liked that Nightmare was female focused and yet never really made them seem like victims. Was a nice change. But still, I suppose 2015 isn’t as progressive as the 1980’s.
  • Or I’m wrong and I can just quit whining. Yeah, let’s go with that.
  • “i look like I haven’t slept in three days?” To be fair, to prepare for his scene, the actor didn’t sleep for three days to look suitably exhausted. Impressive, yes, but you know what’s more impressive? Acting.
  • First look at Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy. Looks more like an actual burn victim. Impressive.
  • This girl falls asleep at a funeral and is scared by Freddy-based images. Yeah, it’s scary, but you know what else is scary? Being very rude and sleeping at a friends funeral. Pfft, young people today, no respect, no manners.
  • “Oh my god, a picture of me when I was young with this person, but I don’t remember knowing him until high school”. You were just standing somewhere in the vicinity of him, doesn’t exactly prove you were best buds, you could have been photobombing him.
  • “open your books to page 84”, LOL, as if these people can read.
  • Kris falls asleep in class and there’s a pretty cool visual where the colour of the scene changes and her classmates disappear. Very cool looking. That alone makes it better than Final Nightmare.
  • Big scare for the character there is that her hair fell out. It might not mean Freddy is real, you might just have alopecia.
  • “are you gonna let me in?” Yeah, because who wouldn’t let someone into their room who climbs up to their bedroom window?
  • Next time she’s asleep she dreams of a school, lots of schoolchildren being all creepy and whatnot.
  • Oh, she’s dead. She’s definitely going to die. She’s being thrown around the room (possible homage to the first film) then cuts appear in her chest and she falls back onto the bed. I like this, there was blood, but not too much. The trouble with a lot of horror films is they think “blood” equals “scary”, so the more blood the scarier the death, so a single cut automatically gushes blood, I prefer it when it seems to almost ooze out.
  • Oh, Rooney Mara is Nancy. I dunno, I like Rooney, but she’s not quite in same league as Heather CougerMellacampaLampaKappaDappalIie (I can’t remember her actual second name)
  • Guy appears in someone elses house, covered in blood, and seems surprised when he’s accused of murder.
  • Random question: when a murderer comes in covered in blood, who pays to clean it? Is it the prison/taxpayer? Don’t let The Daily Mail find this out, they’ll have a fit.
  • “Why are you screaming? I haven’t even cut you yet” That’s a damn good line.
  • Random fact: Jackie Earle Haley was asked how he got into character for this film. His response: “sitting in a make-up chair for hours. After that you fell like you could kill someone”.
  • Ok, so this guy just died.
  • “Did you know that once the heart stops beating the brain can keep functioning for seven minutes? we’ve got six more minutes to play”. Holy hell that’s good writing. The idea that even dying doesn’t stop Freddy torturing you, you’re just left being made to fight an unwinnable fight with a time limit. Just the concept of that is truly terrifying.
  • “I keep dreaming about children”, careful now
  • Freddy just licked Nancy’s face, then holds her hand and says “you smell different”. Because that’s not disturbing.
  • “he died in his sleep” yeah, of blood loss, that’s not normal.
  • The guy from (I think) Jennifer’s Body dreams (during a swim lesson, totally safe) and see the death of Freddy. He’s being chased and hunted by angry parents as he shouts he didn’t do it. Now, Jackie Earle Haley seems to be playing it as an innocent person. What if he is?
  • “what’s the right way? Our kids go on a stand and tell a room of people what happened?” Yeah, I mean, a fair trial, where’s the justice in that?
  • What if he was innocent? Adds a completely different spin to the story. Freddy is no longer a perverted serial killer, he’s just really pissed off, and who can blame him. He’s angry at the parents for killing him, and he’s angry at the kids (who he’s now killing) for lying to their parents and causing his death. Means the line “you think you can turn back time? You think you can bring the dead back to life? I didn’t fucking think so” has a LOT more to it. It would also explain why keeps bringing them to the pre-school. He’s not taunting them, he’s trying to get them to face their own bullshits.
  • “We were five, we would have said anything. The things we said he did, the cave, did you ever find it?” They didn’t. Now the film itself is raising the possibility itself. Oh, this is good. This is very very good. Please don’t fuck this up.
  • Apparently Jackie Earle Haley would improvise a lot on set, just to make the other actors panic. That’s actually pretty brilliant and method. As long as he didn’t stab someone during filming, that would be weird.
  • Random fact: Jackie Earle Haley stabbed someone during filming. Ok it was an accident and only a small one but still.
  • Okay, I’ve just figured out this kid is called Quentin. Please Freddy, please kill him, to teach his parents a lesson about suitable childrens names.
  • “what if I say no?” “why don’t you sleep in it?” Dude, in this type of context that’s super rapey
  • Oh, it turns out the kids were telling the truth, Freddy was abusing them. Kind of disappointed, they had a chance to do something chilling then pulled out at the last moment. Probably to stop whiney fans bitching about the changes. Oh, and if you’re sitting there thinking “but fans of films won’t complain about stupid things that don’t effect the previous films, fans are smart”, then remake a franchise and make a character black, then wait for the online reaction from “fans”.
  • Kind of a dull death for Quentin. Shame as had some cool set pieces which would have really suited a death. The swimming pool scene, for example, if you’re a writer and can’t think of a good-looking way to kill someone in that environment you should just give up now.
  • Oh, Quentin didn’t die, just nearly died. He manages to stab Nancy with adrenaline, Pulp Fiction style to wake her up, she holds onto Freddy and drags him into the real world. I get the feeling this isn’t going to end with Nancy just shouting at Freddy.
  • Holy crap that’s a great ending! Nancy goes home and is thought to be safe, but Freddy appears behind her mother in the mirror, sticks his claws through her mothers eyes then pulls her into the mirror, the mirror sealing up behind her. Amazing end to the film, brutal, and looked brilliant. But the best part of it? It cuts very quickly to the credits, and the song All I Have To Do Is Dream

So, that’s it. It’s over. All I have to say about this film is: f*ck you I liked it. Haley is a fantastic Freddy, like a yapping tenacious dog. The story makes sense, had good inventive set pieces etc. Of course I’m majorly disappointed that for a moment they briefly teased a much better film, but it’s still pretty impressive.

A Nightmare A Day: Day 8 (Freddy Vs. Jason)

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Director: Ronny Yu (Bride Of Chucky, Bride With White Hair, The 51st State

Budget: $30million

US Box Office: $114.9million

  • Unskippable adverts on the DVD. This company REALLY wants me to hate their films don’t they?
  • I now refuse to watch Underworld on principle. On the principle that it looks awful.
  • As does Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the Michael Bay version, which is odd as I didn’t think chainsaws could explode)
  • Random fact: at one point Peter Jackson was on board to direct this. Nothing against Ronny Yu but that’s the second time a studio has turned down a chance to let Peter Jackson do a Nightmare On Elm Street film. Idiots.
  • Should point out: I won’t be counting the deaths in this one for two reasons
    1. There’s too many
    2. Not all of them are Freddy’s so would be wrong to compare body counts
  • Opening scenes show Freddy pre-death.
  • In a really disturbing scene, Freddy kills a small girl, then licks a photo of her.
  • Freddy origin story. I usually abhor this kind of thing, but it makes sense here as it was a while since the last Freddy film, and plus the Friday The 13th crowd might not know much.
  • Really good shot of Freddy’s eyes.
  • Yay, flashbacks to the earlier films. First death shown: the human puppet death. Evidently it’s not just my favourite one.
  • Also explains why there haven’t been any new films in a while.
  • “being dead is okay, but being forgotten, now that’s a bitch” Oddly poignant line there.
  • Montage of Freddy being bitch slapped by everyone.
  • Boobs! *sigh* Not needed. Could have been achieved through just shooting from the neck up and leaving it to imagination.
  • She puts a jacket on, but evidently the power of fanservice means one of the breasts attempts to escape and just hangs there outside her jacket as she runs. So disappointing. Horror films do know there’s a difference between “scared stiff” and “scared whilst stiff” right?
  • “you know what your gift is? No matter what they do to you, you cannot die” erm thanks, I got you a gift voucher, I feel our gifts are slightly uneven.
  • “make them remember what fear tastes like!” Chocolate covered gherkins?
  • Main character is called Lori, and her boyfriend disappeared, I bet that won’t come up later.
  • Hey it’s the member of Destiny’s Child who isn’t Beyonce or the other one.
  • “i only smoke when i drink” “but you always drink” “well that’s what I’ll work on next” Will admit, that made me chuckle.
  • “don’t be a total cocksmith” is that like a blacksmith, but with penis’s?
  • “i like the flow of your place, got good feng shui”, I hope this guy dies, slowly and painfully.
  • “babe, don’t make me ask you twice” All of you just die.
  • FFS more pointless boobs. This one’s even more annoying as the actress had a no-nudity clause in her contract so they had to hire a body double. See, the fact that no-nudity clauses exist are why their needs to be a greater representation of female film-makers. And the fact that directors pressure women into breaking that clause is why there these women need crossbows .
  • Hey, the guy died. Good.
  • So just saying “freddy” is enough to somehow make people who aren’t aware of Freddy Krueger scared of him. It could have been any Freddy: Mercury, Adu etc. That would be a much weirder film, people being haunted and killed by an American soccer player.
  • Lori dreams of walking past a set of posters of missing children, who turn to face her as she walks past. Proper video-game style scare. On that note: I was going to blog about Eternal Darkness today, and why that film is fantastic. I won’t now though as we’ll be having a special blog written by a guest contributor that will be very cool and we hope you enjoy. Oh, also in the dream there’s a girl with gouged out eyeballs who tells her more about Freddy and his love for little girls. I love gouged out eyes in horror, such a visceral image.
  • And now the feng shui guy is dead (I think, all white frat boys look the same to me). Hacked by a machete after waking up and seeing his dad’s head fall off. I hate when that happens.
  • Hey, there’s a mental institution with a guy in it with same name as Lori’s ex who disappeared randomly. What a crazy coincidence.
  • Hey, it’s young not-John Cusack (no, not Miles Teller, the other one).
  • “you had to sleep at a police station, I’d have had nightmares too” of course you would, you’re black, you’d get knocked the f*ck out.
  • Hey, the institution guy is her ex. Who saw that happening?
  • And luckily the guy not-Beyonce tried to hook her up with is now dead, so no moral questions of whether they’re still in a relationship or not. Lucky!
  • Oh, side note: Lori’s ex is called Will and is played by John Ritter’s son. So close to awesome.
  • “this fucker’s going to spread like the plague, kid’s are going to be falling asleep” Fairly certain that’s normal.
  • Jason appears at a rave and doesn’t dance. If this were CinemaSins they’d be a ding right there. Of course, if this was CinemaSins we’d have a bigger audience so….
  • He grabs a weird metal pipe, kind of like I do when I play Condemned. If he spends the next hour picking up dead birds this film is gonna suuuuuuuck.
  • Not John Cusack delivers a “Reason You Suck” speech to not-Beyonce. She deserved it.
  • “let’s go shake our ass on the dance floor”, says the only black character, yay stereotypes.
  • A raver basically rapes one of the characters. Some people would disagree but for me, she’s passed out, he tries to fuck her, that’s rape.
  • He dies. Good.
  • So does she, not so good. But she was kind of annoying, that’s bad too.
  • Jason steals Freddy’s kills. Come-on man, don’t be a shock-blocker (lame I know, but not many synonyms for kill rhyme with block, if he killed him with a kitchen appliance I could have said wok-block).
  • That reminds me: if a serial killer kills another serial killer does it work like conkers so he gains all his kills?
  • Jason appears in a cornfield and is heckled by two stoners. Because obviously if you see a serial killer (and in this universe Jason is real so you’d have to assume they know him) carrying a machete, you mock him.
  • Jason kills someone with a neck massage. Then goes to kill the fat stoner who attempts to run away.
  • Fat guy dies, this is why cardio is important, kids.
  • The guy spits blood at the screen when he dies. Fantastic shot.
  • Random fact: there was originally going to be a scene which showed that Freddy had raped Jason’s mother, thereby giving Jason motivation to go after Freddy. This was then changed to Freddy molesting Jason when he was a kid. This was then dropped for being “too dark”. I’d have dropped it for being kinda stupid and contrived, “too dark” is a stupid reason considering the amount of deaths in this.
  • Hey, it’s Titus’s brother. In a photo, and yet is one of the only actors I recognise in this film without having to look them up.
  • Freddy sets someone on fire, telepathically, then throws them across the room and writes a message in his back using burn marks. Personally, when I want to get a message across, I use e-mail, but I suppose he’s stuck in his ways.
  • A stoner, who’s totally not based on Jason Mewes
  • “freddy died by fire, jason by water, how can we use that?” I dunno, find someone died from air?
  • “not a virgin, even if you pay for it it still counts”
  • I think I’ve figured out the problems with these films. Too many dream fake outs. Moments where you think it’s reality but it turns out to be a dream. It pulls that trick far far too often.
  • Crushed to death by door. There must be a joke there but I’m simply not seeing it.
  • Not-jay follows a bong-smoking giant worm.
  • Jason accidentally sticks his machete in a computer console, electrocuting himself and a cop who’s name I can’t remember but he looks like he’s called “Jesse”.
  • Side note: how often do you think Jason has to sharpen his machete? Just a random deleted scene where we saw him hunched over a knife sharpner. And what does he do if it breaks? Can’t imagine there’s many places that would fix it. “Oh that, it’s just cranberry sauce, I was chopping up cranberries, why didn’t I use a normal knife? Erm, *hacks to death*”
  • Stoner gets hacked to death at the waist in a scene reminiscent of using the bastard sword from ED.
  • Jason chops of Freddy’s arms, I would make an “don’t worry about him, he’s ‘armless” joke but Freddy’s arms grow back and he makes the “wanker” hand gesture. And my room for jokes is “never be less funny than the thing you’re making jokes about”. That’s why I don’t make jokes about [insert public figure that you, dear reader, do not personally like]
  • Change of colour scheme there from red to green. Is weird as always associated red with Freddy, so it’s odd that the power struggle shift where Jason becomes weak is signified by the colour no longer being red. I’d have thought it would be the other way around.
  • I haven’t seen any Friday the 13th films so I may be wrong: but Jason isn’t afraid of water is he? So why is he here? The villain in the first film wasn’t Jason, he didn’t appear until the very end where he came out the water and killed someone. So if he was scared of water his first appearance wouldn’t work. Freddy works in dreams and has infinite powers there, you didn’t need to give Jason a weakness to make it an even fight.
  • Finally, over an hour in and we get the Jason origin story. Basically, he was bald and kids bullied him, put a bag over his head and throw in the river. Kids are awful people. Surely that goes beyond a prank is more, erm, what’s the word, homicide?
  • “what do you want me to, give him mouth to mouth?” dude, it’s not gay if it saves a life.
  • “Kia, he has asthma!” Worst dramatic line ever.
  • Beautifully lit scene where Freddy jumps out the water. One downside is the lighting makes him look like Darth Maul, or that weird thing from Insidious.
  • “always had a thing for the whores in this house” Dude, I know you’re a psychopathic child killer/rapist, but is there any need the misogyny? Freddy’s not a gentleman, he has a hat yet he never doths it.
  • Freddy says “bitch” far too often. It’s making me uncomfortable.
  • Generic rock music, track 4.
  • “it’s just a scratch” says a dying person. Sadly, not a monty python reference
  • Slow pan down to blood pouring from him to make it clear he’s dead, as if we didn’t know already.
  • Again with the calling women bitch?
  • “how sweet, dark meat” That’s racist!
  • “what kind of faggot runs around in a christmas sweater?” Kelly Rowland there being massively homophobic. Important note: it’s not the script being homophobic, she improvised that, it’s all on her. The writers detested it, because they’re halfway decent people. I bet if the writers were in Destiny’s Child then Beyonce wouldn’t have left. Basically what I’m saying is, Kelly Rowland is directly responsible for me having to google Beyonce songs to try to think of a joke to end this bit on, thereby making my google search history that little bit more embarrassing, and I couldn’t even think of one. F*ck you Kelly Rowland.
  • Kelly Roland gets hit with a machete and somehow defies the laws of physics by not being cut, but by flying into a tree. If she survives I’m going to kill her.
  • Several close ups as something heavy hits a wall. Not so much “chekovs gun” as “check out this really obvious thing that’s going to happen”.
  • Freddy has lost his hat, now he looks more like a pizza than ever.
  • Lori there carrying flames like the olympic torch. Oddly apt considering how many deaths and evictions the olympics have caused.
  • Stuff happens, massive fight scene that goes on far too long and doesn’t feature any creative set pieces.
  • Jason comes out the water carrying Freddy’s head. I guess that’s that settled then.
  • Oh wait, Freddy winks at the audience. He’s still alive. I guess this whole endeavour was as pointless as the anatomy of a Ken doll.

Overall: not bad, but really weird when compared to the rest. From the increased death count, the language and the nudity, the whole thing makes it seem like it’s aimed at teenage males to go “wooo” at. It tries so hard to be mature that it ends up coming off as downright childish. It is very well directed though, has some truly beautiful shots, it’s just a shame the script is lacking.

The issue with these “vs” films is you can’t end them. You can’t show one defeating the other fully as it says the other franchise is weaker, so kills it right there. So you have to go with the fake out ending like they do here. It might have worked better as a video game, where you control one of the two and need to outlast/outkill the other. They’re DLC in Mortal Kombat, so we’ve got that I suppose

A Nightmare A Day: Day 7 (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare)

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Director: Wes Craven (Scream, and of course all of the sequels, Music Of The Heart (seriously)

Budget: $8million

US Box Office: $19.7million

  • So this is it. Super excited for this. If I remember correctly this is one of the most meta horror films until Scream practically made it essential.
  • Starts on a movie set. Always fun.
  • Heather Langenkamp is back, she was Nancy in the first and third films. Side note, her and her husband now have a special effects/Make-up business and have worked on Cabin In The Woods, Dawn Of The Dead and Angels and Demons. And here she is, having her on-screen husband show her on screen son special effects and make-up.
  • “it must have been picked up by an AD’s walkie talkie”. If that’s the case then you really need to work on your safety precautions.
  • Possible two deaths here, but not counting them as we’re not sure if they actually die. We see some of the effects from the nightmare, but not on the two supposed dead, so I’m not counting it. Basically: the previous scene was a dream, the claw came to life and killed two tech guys. Tech guys always die on set, we had four set guys crushed to death by a giant clock during Projector. But how else were we supposed to get a clear shot of a clock? Do a close up? Pfft, amateur hour.
  • “you were probably half awake and saw I got my finger cut, dreams are like that”.  He’s true, dreams are strange.
  • Someone phones her home phone and quote Freddy at her. Come on, man, if you’re going to be an abusive dickweasel and abuse people over the phone at least be original.
  • “you played that girl in that movie with the guy with the pfft” wow, it’s like you’ve known her all your life.
  • “I’m hardly a star” Come on, you’re in the back of a limo, you’re clearly either a star or 10 teenage girls.
  • “that movie’s the best, when all that blood comes out of your boyfriends bed” Creepy limo driver is creepy.
  • “we’re approaching the 10th anniversary of the original nightmare on elm street, five very popular sequels” yeah but only four of those sequels were any good.
  • “is there going to be another sequel?” How would she know she was just the actress, you know she didn’t write any of that shit right?
  • “would you trust your co-worker with your son?” What the f*ck is this dude implying? He does know there’s a difference between reality and fiction right? That’s like saying you wouldn’t trust Anthony Hopkins to make you dinner.
  • Ewww, he just touched her legs.
  • It’s odd seeing the hero worship of Freddy, I don’t just mean in this film, I mean in real life. There were actually children’s halloween costumes of Freddy. I mean, really think about that. There were children dressing up as a child molester. That would be like forcing immigrants to wear a UKIP badge (whereas we all know UKIP would much prefer if they wore yellow stars. Yeah, that’s right mother f*ckers, I’m making a holocaust reference)
  • Really cool shot of Robert Englund as Freddy standing in front of spotlights, the lights making his claws look like they stretch out into the infinite abyss. Seriously cool shot that I would love to emulate one day.
  • “just because it’s a love story doesn’t mean you can’t have a decapitation or two”. Considering our first film was a love story set during a school shooting, we wholeheartedly agree with that motto.
  • Oh, those deaths did happen. Time of first and second deaths: 5 minutes I guess? No video available online though.
  • Heather seems really confused by the concept of someone wanting to talk to her.
  • The kid was scared shitless today, and now you’re reading him Hansel and Gretel.
  • Oh, she’s aware of this, but the kid likes the story. Thereby backing up my theory that kids are stupid.
  • “And then their father covered them with kisses and they were safe” I dunno, didn’t Freddy used to do that to people too? (minus the safe part)
  • The kid is guarded by a dinosaur. Well done, kid, guarded by a species known for being dead. Smart move. Kids are stupid.
  • Time of third death: 30 minutes. Heather’s husband falls asleep whilst driving and Freddy kills him. Little sympathy for this death, he fell asleep whilst driving, he deserves to die, I’m just grateful he didn’t kill anyone else. The death isn’t available online.
  • Heather falls asleep at the funeral. I swear, half the near deaths in these films wouldn’t occur if people had some god damn common courtesy.
  • Heather gets scared when her son Dylan climbs something very high in a park and falls off whilst she’s talking to someone. That’s not Freddy, that’s just bad parenting.
  • Robert Englund makes a creepy painting of Freddy. But for some reason he doesn’t seem to realise it until he’s finished painting. This would be like me writing a story, getting to the very end then reading it and going “holy shit, this is a story about a girl called Sybil. How did that happen?” it’s like, “bitch you were creating it so could have guessed what it was like 10% of the way through.
  • Only just realised. This film didn’t have any opening credits.
  • In a nod to the original, Heather gets tongued by the phone.
  • “you haven’t shown him any of your films have you, the horror stuff? She’s done other films you know!
  • “sometimes what a child says will give a clue to what ails him” You mean, speak to someone to find out what’s wrong with them? Genius!
  • So Wes Craven is writing about a genuine ancient demon who has attached himself to the series. I dunno, even ancient demons wouldn’t want to be seen with the franchise after the abomination that was The Final Nightmare
  • “I think the only way to stop him is to make another movie” That’s how I deal with problems too.
  • They literally just showed the conversation they just had as being part of the script Craven is writing. Nice. The middle-est of high fives.
  • Okay, those special effects death were definitely genuine. Either that or they were coincidentally slashed to death.
  • “Dylan’s in an oxygen tent right now” and you didn’t think to tell the mother? The medical staff in these films are the worst.
  • “Freddy, the man from your films?” Bitch she was only in two of them, and her appearances weren’t consecutive. If you want to be annoyed at anyone be annoyed at Lisa Wilcox, she was in both 4 and 5 (before she started a footwear jewellery retailers called ToeBrights with her fellow Nightmare On Elm Street 4 cast member Tuesday Knight, true story).
  • “every kid knows who Freddy is, he’s like Santa or King Kong”. Yeah but now everything thinks of King Kong as something Peter Jackson did, and f*ck that (apparently, I haven’t seen it, but haven’t heard good things).
  • The babysitter Julie attempts to stab a nurse with a syringe “i don’t know what’s in this one, do you?” I like her. She’s fun, adorable and strange
  • She’s going to die isn’t she?
  • Time of death: 80 minutes. Julie dies in a kind of cool homage to a death in the original, being made to crawl along the ceiling and walls. It’s pretty cooler here though through a much better use of angles.
  • A nurse seems surprised by the concept of sleepwalking.
  • Only just figured out that when Heather phoned Robert Englund, the button tones created the original theme song. Nice
  • “hey man, is she okay” Yeah, that’s right everyone, worry about the adult in the middle of the road, not the child that’s also in the middle of the road. I mean, I get it, kids are dispensable, but still, rude!
  • One of the actors (playing himself) slips into his character from the first film. This would have been more effective if they did it earlier I think. This is the main event that causes Freddy to come into reality, and it occurs almost an hour and a half into the film. That’s longer than some of the original films. I get you want a slow build etc, but if you kill two people in the opening scene you can’t then switch to a slow burn. You have to chose between the two, either immediate deaths or slow burn. Can’t have both. This is why the second and third ones worked out so well for me, they were really slow burners but they didn’t feel the need to attempt to “make up” for it by killing off loads of people in the second half, they maintained the pace throughout and were all the better for it. Although I don’t think this film had opening credits so it’s possible this is all just a massive pre-credits sequence.
  • Heather slides down a concrete water path. That was either super fun or super painful to film.
  • Heather is literally reading from the script, incorrectly. “There was only….her….life” she doesn’t pause between the her and life. I don’t think she should either, but that’s how it was written.
  • Freddy looks more tendon-ey and less burn-ey in this one.
  • Freddy, destroyer of dreams, haunter of nightmares, stopped by a small gap.
  • Damnit Freddy stop tonguing children.
  • Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?
  • Freddy wraps his tongue around Heather in a scene that’s actually ridiculous and renders all comments that this film is a dark and serious one moot.
  • Dylan stabs Freddy in the tongue. That’s not the cool part, the cool part is the psycho music playing in the background.
  • More awful special effects.
  • They all go home and find a script which details pretty much exactly what happened.
  • Music comes in far too loudly after quietness. Not in a “jump scare” way, more in a “that was awkward” kind of way.

Actually disappointed with this film. It’s quite meta but isn’t really meta enough. And the whole notion of it being a script brings up interesting ideas about the concept of free will which the film doesn’t seem to pick up on (second time that’s happened in this series). It’s definitely better than the last one, but I don’t like it quite as much as the first few. Luckily Craven would perfect the meta analysis of horror with Scream (which is what I’m thinking of doing for this blog series next halloween). It just seems tonally uneven, uncertain if it wants to go for suspense or gore. It either needed ramp up the deaths (otherwise the opening half hour is basically a woman being scared by two people not turning up to work) or go the other way and make us doubt whether it’s happening or whether she’s just having hallucinations. The characters in the film think she’s just gone crazy, but what if we, the audience did to? It would tell us a lot about the pressures put on scream queens, people who are known for being the scared victim. Overall I think it’s a very good idea that just needed slight tweaking. A part of this is probably the potential, and the advertising campaign. It promises something a lot darker, a lot grittier, but in truth a lot of it is just more of the same. It promises darkness and then just hits the dimmer switch slightly.

A Nightmare A Day: Day 6 (Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare)

On By troubledproductionsIn A Nightmare A DayLeave a comment

Director: Rachel Talalay (hey, female director, nice. Well played studioheads. Oh, also directed Tank Girl, and two episodes of Doctor Who, with another two later on in the year).

Budget: $11million

US Box Office: $34.8million

  • Hey, it starts with a quote. I’ve missed these. “Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep? To the very toes he is terrified, because the ground gives way under him, and the dream begins” – Friedrich Nietzsche. And to answer the question, no, I do not know the terror of he who falls asleep. But allow me to ask a question to you, mr dead German nihilist: do you know the muffin man?
  • Oh, another quote. “Welcome to Prime Time, bitch” – Freddy Krueger. I prefer that one.
  • Odd choice for opening soundtrack: The Goo Goo Dolls
  • “Springwood, Ohio, ten years from now”. 1) so in 2025? I hate when films do this, just put the actual year you mean. Unless you’re going for a “in a distant future when technology is changed” then you automatically date the film. 2) This looks like an Atari game, and not a good one.
  • So somehow Freddy has killed a lot of teenagers and adults since the last film, we don’t get told how or shown them, because of course we don’t.
  • Damn kids are creepy.
  • “I really need to change seats” If the plane crashes you’re going to die anyway.
  • “Don’t be a pussy”. Rude.
  • This music reminds me of the Wizard Of Oz.
  • His house is somehow flying and crashing to the ground. If it lands on a witch I’m tapping out.
  • Freddy appears outside the window on a broomstick saying “I’ll get you, my pretty, and you’re little soul too”. 1) #MovieReference 2) Oh so it’s okay when Freddy says it, but when I say that to people I get told to leave Asda?
  • Wait, Brian May did the music for this? THE Brian May? Poodle-haired Queen guitarist Brian May? No way. Oh, turns out, no way, it’s a different musician called Brian May. Well that’s disappointing.
  • This guy falls down a hill. For 40 seconds. Seriously, I timed it. 40 seconds.
  • He’s a bus station and the guy selling tickets is sat behind a bloodstained window, still nicer than Wycombe station.
  • He gets hit by a bus, and is kind of stuck to the front of it. The bus stops and he goes through some kind of portal (I think) and ends up in daylight. I’m guessing he got run over into reality, as often happens.
  • He hit his head, so he now has amnesia. Because that’s totally how that works. Honestly, when will films stop using amnesia as a plot device? What kind of idiotic person would write something so cliche?
  • Hey, it’s Spencer, played by “whatshisface” from Road Trip, and absolutely nothing else.
  • “all he wants me to do is grow up and be him” and maybe stop setting cars on fire?
  • “I don’t feel like playing football and date-raping co-eds.” Well, then don’t go to school in America then.
  • This kid had a pipebomb in his room. Apparently it’s not the first one. Are we supposed to think this is typical teenage rebellion? Because it’s not, it’s terrorism. Oh wait, he’s white, it’s just “youthful hijinks”
  • “you’ll be boxing champion on the world” not with all those kicks. Silly Tracy.
  • So got a deaf guy (Carlos). And in a kind of cool scene he just removes his hearing aid and we just get silence for a few seconds. I like it.
  • Turns out he’s deaf through some kind of physical abuse from father. You know, the kind of thing people say “if we could this kids would be better behaved”. Find it strange when people say “I was hit as a child and I turned out fine” Really, dude? Because you have a strange pre-occupation with punching babies, that’s not normal.
  • Amnesia guy wakes up in a seemingly abandoned house. Good use of shadow in this scene, award yourself +5 Directing points Mrs Talalay.
  • Ok, you lost all those points through woeful CGI of him climbing invisible stairs.
  • “I’ve dealt with amnesiacs before”. Is that the word? It seems clunky.
  • A sign saying “welcome to Springwood” and the exact population of the town. How often do they have to change those things? Or is it a “throw a baby out the town as soon as it’s born” kind of deal? If I had a town I’d put a sign up saying “Full of lots of lovely people, and Dave”
  • Pretty much the entire cast (I haven’t quite figured out who the main character is supposed to be) pull into the worst looking carnival I’ve ever seen. It’s so bad you wouldn’t feel annoyed at being there, just super depressed and lonely. Or as I call it: a typical Thursday.
  • No kids, apparently this is creepy and not some kind of wonderful dream world.
  • Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr make a cameo just before a Twin Peaks reference. Placing this film exactly in the early 90’s.
  • “I can relax you with these two fingers” oh? “I’ll puncture your heart” oh 😦
  • Carlos tries to unfold a map and all he says is “the map says we’re fucked”. Which it did, literally, someone had scrawled “you’re fucked” on it in blood. They showed this before he made the comment though, which kind of messes up the humour somewhat.
  • A teacher is teaching the history of Freddy in an abandoned classroom. Not a bad scene but it could have been so much better. The character is kind of a joke at this point so going more meta wouldn’t have harmed it.
  • “I will get some sleep then I’ll get us out of here in the morning”. He’s going to die.
  • Almost on cue: Freddy appears in his dream and cleans out his deaf ear. He then cuts it off, leading to another scene of silence. This is the last time they can pull this trick off really.
  • Slight audio now but it’s very muted, like watching the film whilst you’ve got your head in a bucket of water.
  • It may have seemed like I was insulting it earlier, but the use of silence and near-silence is REALLY effective in this. Great showcase of how less can be more. We’re so used to audio cues to tell us how to feel that genuine silence unsettles us as an audience.
  • Freddy throws his ear back to him, he puts it on and all audio is magnified to him, to the point where a dripping tap causes pain.
  • Freddy drops a pin from above but Carlos managed to catch it before it hits the ground. Freddy then threatens to drop a handful of them, Carlos shouts out “you wouldn’t do this would you?”, appealing to a child killers sense of kindness. Which I can’t imagine not working. Pretty genius, this kids going to live forever.
  • Time of death: 36 minutes. Well I’m shocked that plan didn’t work. Instead he’s killed via nails down chalkboard, which is the same way….ah, I can’t be bothered to finish that joke, it’s like the third time I’ve done it in this blog, just finish that sentence with whatever celebrity you feel would die like that (I recommend 1947 Academy Award winner Loretta Young)
  • Hey it’s Johnny Depp cracking eggs on tv in one of my favourite scenes so far. He’s doing one of those “this is your brain on drugs” PSA that were popular in the 90’s. Freddy reacts in the only way someone would, and hits him with a frying pan before saying “what are you on? Looks like a frying pan and some eggs to me”. Classic Krueger.
  • We then get the classical hymn, In The Garden Of Eden by I.Ron Butterfly
  • Time of death: 45 minutes. Spencer gets sucked into a video game and killed there. Mr.Forgetful and Tracy attempt to get into the dreams to stop it. Tracy through meditation, Mr. Forgetful through being hit in the head. Disappointing lack of video game references here. At least to specific games, there is a logical reference to the ill-fated power glove which I’d have been disappointed if they didn’t make. They don’t even seem to be doing much about the loss of control. Okay, there’s a few moments where he’s obviously being controlled by Freddy, but we don’t see them from his point of view so we don’t get to feel his helplessness. I mean, the idea of being controlled by someone else and being led to your death is genuinely terrifying but this film doesn’t really do much. The scene where the tv fills with blood is quite good though.
  • Time of death: 50 Minutes The amnesiac asshole dies. Basically dropped from a great height onto spikes after finding out he’s not Freddy’s son, and is somehow disappointed with that news. The death isn’t on youtube so instead enjoy dancing from the second film that I forgot to put in the blog.
  • So one of the characters from this is Freddy’s daughter. In one of the most asinine explanations ever he’s able to kill people on any street named Elm Street.
  • A really creepy father/daughter sexual assault scene. Ends the way that things like that should end, with her beating him with a kettle.
  • The secret weapon they’re going to use to defeat Freddy: 3D glasses. Seriously, the old green and red ones. 3D Glasses, the enemy of dream demons and fashion.
  • That’s the trouble with 3D films. No matter how impressive they’d look in 3D, you have to account for the fact that a lot of people will be watching them in 2D. That’s why Coraline works so well I think, and everything Pixar does. 3D works best when it makes the film better when you watch it, not by making it worse in 2D. Too many 3D films now just feature people falling down things going “wooaaaaaaah”.
  • Freddy is being taunted by his school peers in flashback of his life. Ordinarily this is where the film is like “see, the true evils of bullying”, but he just killed a classroom pet with a hammer, so the lesson seems to be “don’t bully sociopaths, kill them instead”.
  • We see Freddy again, this time being beaten by his stepdad. Again, horrible, but….he did kill something with a hammer. His stepdad is Alice Cooper by the way.
  • Freddy strangles his wife. Just to reiterate: actual body count: 3. Flashback body count: 2, and a pet.
  • Freddy gets offered the chance to be, well, Freddy, by some kind of weird floating tadpole things which you know were made entirely to look impressive in 3D.
  • Freddy dies again. His daughter stabs him with his own glove (the only glove based death in the film) then shoves a pibebomb in his chest. Thus we get the worst bit of 3D in the film as he explodes but his head flies towards the screen, then his head comes out of his mouth and flies towards the screen again.
  • We get a montage of the much better films that predated this.

Definitely the worst one so far. Some wonderfully directed bits so can’t really fault that, I feel part of it is down to the nonsensical 3D. It’s a shame as there were at least four ways it came close to being a lot better:

  1. The original script by Peter Jackson (in retrospect not using his must have cost them loads) involved Freddy being severely weakened and the kids of elm street beating the shit out of him every night. I feel that’s a unique start and could have revitalised the franchise.
  2. The carnival. Nobody died at the carnival. All that creepiness for nothing.
  3. The idea of Freddy having a kid who’s worried about taking on his legacy could have been really interesting and said a lot about whether evil is genetic or not.
  4. The idea that the town has no children in and all the parents desperately want kids but can’t in case Freddy comes back. FANTASTIC idea for a film. Terrible idea for a nightmare on elm street film, but fantastic idea.