Hey everyone, I'm back! After Friday the 13th, I moved onto watching A Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time. Here's my thoughts on each one, and a comparison to F13 too!
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
This movie is legitimately tense. It's hard to tell what’s real and what’s not, with an ambiguous ending that had my friend and I discussing for a while afterwards. Really great performance as Nancy by Heather Langenkamp, who had a serious thousand-yard stare towards the end. Some of the effects didn’t really hold up, like the mom sinking into the bed, but some of the effects are still incredible, including flipping the set upside down to drag poor Tina along the ceiling. (As far as the ending, I originally thought Nancy was just dead and that’s why she was seeing everyone, but I’m now on the side of “the whole thing was a dream, but it still is, and she just can’t tell anymore).
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE
Interesting movie. Little heavy handed with the sexuality themes. Seemed like they weren’t sure where they wanted to go with how Freddy’s powers worked though, because he did an awful lot of affecting the real world. Solid effects again, and Freddy himself seemed a lot scarier (especially when he's bursting out of Jesse. Yipes!). Little confusing toward the end... had questions like "Were people seeing Jesse or Freddy?". All in all, not quite as coherent, but still good.
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS
I liked it, and its a little more straightforward than the previous two. There is some legitimately creepy imagery, like the puppet kill and the track marks becoming mouths. Intense for sure. Also glad to see Heather Langenkamp back. Patricia Arquette was great too.
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER
Didn't like how there was zero effort put into explaining how Freddy came back. The dude's dog peed on his grave in a dream so now he’s back and the consecration in Dream Warriors did nothing? Plus, this Kristen is also not nearly as good as Patricia Arquette. My biggest complaint is that part of the joy of the first one was it being hard to tell when someone was dreaming and awake. In this, it is SO obvious. None of the nuance.
the effects were the best part of this movie... the waterbed kill, the workout/broken arms/bug transformation, the resurrection... it all LOOKED cool at the very least.
I can't believe Freddy rapped over the end credits.
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD
This was my least favorite by a lot. Why was Freddy born deformed and then looked normal when we see him as an adult? HOW DOES FREDDY KEEP COMING BACK? Can't they at least make SOME kind of attempt at explaining? I also have to be honest, I missed some of the movie because I rolled my eyes so hard they got stuck in the back of my head at the line “You’re just a little pregnant.”
This movie relied too heavily on some pretty obvious tropes. “If anyone is trying to get to you, supernatural or not, they’re going to have to get through us first” -this person just signed their own death warrant.
I also realize to a point, this has to be in it, but I'm already kind of tired of “it was an accident”, as the 29th teenager dies under mysterious circumstances. “You’re crazy” they say, as Freddy comes inexplicably comes back for the 5th time.
They also insist on “I want you to stay awake and watch me” she says, despite it not working in 5 separate movies. “No problem” he says, despite the fact that he hasn’t slept in a week.
I didn't really care for the weird MC Escher room at the end, but at least respected it as an attempt at something interesting, and they did get a chuckle at “Time to die, you scar-faced limp-dick”.
Best part of this movie was realizing that the “dream child” was the same kid who got scared by Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park.
FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE
Maybe it has something to do with watching them all in a row, but the mass delusion is actually a cool concept for Springwood. Finally they’re all accepting that he’s real! Had some creepy scenes, like The q-tip with Carlos and the molestation scene, and there was a lot of small things I enjoyed that added up. Specifically, the Johnny Deep cameo, the Nintendo quips, and even though it was dumb, I kind of enjoyed Spencer's death scene. I also thought it was a neat twist to have us thinking Freddy had a son, when I ended up being a daughter.
Freddy himself isn’t particularly frightening in this one, but it’s kind of representative of the times… Freddy was everywhere, and so he became less frightening the more mainstream and acknowledged he was.
Finally, WHY IS CHILD FREDDY BACK TO LOOKING NOR- you know what I’m just going to ignore the last movie.
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE
There are some pacing problems in this, but the tension is definitely there... also, the new claw is spooky as heck. There's a lot of fun callbacks, like “Screw your pass”, Heather going grey, and Julie's death being basically the same as Tina's in the first movie (Also, RIP Julie. Good job punching out that nurse).
I like the idea of Freddy fighting a T-Rex in dreamland, and was honestly a little bummed when they found him completely shredded. Would have liked to have seen this.
I knew they wouldn’t kill the kid, but the scene on the freeway was still really tense.
The demon looked really dumb at the end, but there were some pretty cool effects in this. Might have been a liiiiiitle too meta for my taste.
FREDDY VS. JASON
I really liked the intro, but there's some hard to sit through stuff at the beginning. For example:
HELLO MY NAME IS KELLY ROWLAND AND I AM HERE FOR SASSY BLACK GIRL EXPOSITION.
HELLO MY NAME IS BEN AND I AM HERE TO BE THE DOUCHEBAG THAT GETS KILLED.
Now, to be fair, he definitely DID get killed real good… Jason stabs him a bunch and then folds him backwards via the bed. One of many cool kills.
This movie also does a pretty bad job of "Show don't tell". At one point, the scene is literally
“I’m ok! I’m alright!” “hmm, not strong enough yet”
yeah, we could have gotten that without you spelling it out.
Then we get more annoying tropes like:
HELLO I AM HERE TO BE THE ANTAGONISTIC HEALTHCARE GUY.
“well about 4 years ago…” “HELLO I AM KELLY ROWLAND. I CAN TELL YOU’RE ABOUT TO DO SOME EXPOSITION, SO I WILL DISTRACT THE MAIN CHARACTER BECAUSE EXPOSITION IS MY JOB.
HELLO I AM HERE TO BE A LAZY STONER STEREOTYPE.
It's frustrating because even though there's really nothing subtle about this movie (looking at you, obvious Freddy reflection in the mirror) there's a lot of cool stuff in it too. The Burning Jason fight, the fight scene in the boiler room, the final fight... I honestly wish the whole movie was just them fighting, because it is consistently the best part.
Finally, “Welcome to my world, bitch” is a pretty solid sass line before beheading Freddy.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)
Like the F13 reboot, this was ALSO produced by Michael Bay double eye roll
It's immediately worse because these don’t look like high schoolers, they look like beautiful actors trying to be high schoolers. Jackie Earl Haley also doesn't look as good as Robert Englund… the more “realistic” approach robs his face of a lot of its expressiveness. Even the stuff that’s blatantly stolen from the original is done way worse… notably, the Tina (now Kris) kill. The dream sequences are also now hamfisted, with none of subtlety of the original and the “scares” in are everything I hate about modern horror. If it’s just a loud noise and someone jumping into frame, I’m not scared, I’m just surprised.
Finally, the whole “maybe he didn’t do it” thing doesn’t even pay off, he DID do it which makes the whole angle awful. Might have been a cool way to differentiate itself if they'd actually committed to it, but they didn't, so it's not.
FINAL RANKING
1, 3, 2, FvJ, 6, 7, 4, reboot, 5
I think that I enjoyed the Friday the 13th series more as a whole. There was only really one that I hated (Jason goes to Hell) and I think A Nightmare on Elm Street was consistently weaker, even if Freddy himself can be more frightening. NoES also got to the weaker entries much quicker than F13, with 4 and 5 being dreadful here, and not really having a weak entry in F13 until 8. I'd love to hear what you all think about these two series and how they compare though!
BONUS: Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
Pretty solid, lots of good interviews, but seemed like everyone was passing the buck/not acknowledging how bad the bad ones are. Also, I think they reused some footage from Crystal Lake Memories?
Submitted September 19, 2017 at 02:02PM by Georgehef http://ift.tt/2xdtOC9
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