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strangertheories · 2 years

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There's a trance in the snow ball from season two in volume 2. Eleven was in it in the trailer but it seems like it's going to be Max's trance. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about that

I think that the characters are going to purposefully going to go into trances so Eleven can infiltrate their minds and attack Vecna from within. A lot of characters and Byler have been tagged and that's going to become relevant in a minute; this post is gonna be a long one! Let me explain...

Spoiler warning!

I'm a fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street series and spoke about how I believed that season 4 would be heavily nightmare inspired before I watched the series. But I was looking back at the film inspiration list, and it doesn't have the first Nightmare movie; it has the third, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. I didn't really think too much about why that is the case until this ask.

There are a few things of note about this movie. Firstly, the kids put themselves into trances to find powers and fight back against Freddie Krueger. But most importantly, the female lead (Kristen) has the ability to pull people into trances. As well as this, the kids have a shared trance in the movie and this is where my theory comes in.

I think you're right; Eleven is in Max's trance. And I think this is how they're going to take down Vecna. Before I continue, I'll quickly give some proof about what the anon said.

As you can see, Eleven is in the Snow Ball but we know that Max's trance takes place there. This made me start thinking about the character's risky plan. Eleven, like Kristen in Nightmare 3, has similar powers to the villain. This is because Vecna was 001. I believe that the characters will purposefully go into trances so Eleven can infiltrate their minds and try to take down Vecna with her powers from within. The loud bang described in this clip could be Vecna trying to scare her (Vecna is Pennywise inspired and the popping balloon could be an homage to that) but it could also be Eleven trying to confuse Vecna. They clearly fight in some capacity here as shown by Eleven flying backwards although if Eleven fights back by that point is yet to be seen.

This could be linked to Will as well. Noah Schnapp posted him in a harness despite the fact we've not seen any stunts that he'd need it for yet. Millie Bobby Brown posted a video of her and Noah skating together, however Will was wearing a different outfit to what he was originally wearing at the roller rink and instead was wearing the one with the harness. Perhaps their trances bleed together and Will starts experiencing some of Eleven's trance too? I'm not too sure on that but I thought it was worth putting out there. This could be something interesting to think about for the people who talk about Will Byers having powers. If he somehow managed to infiltrate Eleven's mind it could mean he had similar powers to them.

I was theorising earlier with @hawkinsschoolcounselor about Lucas going into a trance. This is because Caleb had censored eyes with contacts in for spoilers and the people who are Vecna'd wear contacts. Whilst this might not be the case, I'm now inclined to believe that a lot of the Hawkins Gang will be going into trances like in Nightmare 3. I doubt they'll develop dream superpowers (who knows though) but I do think they'll have shared trances.

If this is the case, I can only imagine how scary that is for the characters as it exposes all their secrets, trauma and guilt. I hope this isn't used for an outing of Will or Robin. I suppose it could maybe be handled alright but I much prefer more heartfelt coming out stories like Robin to Steve. Although if Robin did go in a trance, this would probably be what it's about considering that seems to be her major secret.

This could maybe even be the route they go down for Byler, with Eleven or Mike looking into Will's brain and seeing his queer thoughts. This could also happen to Mike. As I said, I hope they don't use this approach and I don't think they will because of the painting which in my opinion is almost certainly going to be used for a confession.

I also wonder if Steve, Robin and Nancy are using this distraction to try hunt down and physically kill Vecna. We see them with all of their kit walking somewhere in the Upside Down and shots of Robin attached to a wall with vines. I think the reason Eddie isn't with them is because he's using guitar to lure away the demobats.

Anyways, whilst Eleven and the kids use their minds to weaken and attack Vecna, it would make total sense for these characters to try and sneak attack Vecna with physical weapons. This makes me worried for the older group trying to hurt him as I feel like this would definitely go wrong. Eddie is also at risk because of the fact that he's all alone with his only defense being killer guitar skills and the show has a pattern of killing off loveable new characters as well. We shall have to wait and see.

According to interviews, there's going to be a 1 hour sequence in the final episode that just doesn't stop. Could this sequence be a one hour long trance with Eleven and possibly Will and the gang fighting back against Vecna in their minds?

I hope this answered your question and that this post made sense. Thanks for the ask (:

Edit: I realized after making this post that the final episode is called the Piggyback. This would make perfect sense with my theory. Anyways, have a good day.

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miniaturemoonheart · 1 year

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ELM STREET WIKI

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

1987 poster.png

INFORMATION

RELEASED

February 27, 1987

WRITER(S)

Wes Craven

Bruce Wagner

Frank Darabont

Chuck Russell

DIRECTOR(S)

Chuck Russell

PRODUCER(S)

Robert Shaye

STARRING

Robert Englund

Heather Langenkamp

Patricia Arquette

Ken Sagoes

Rodney Eastman

Jennifer Rubin

Ira Heiden

RUNTIME

96 minutes

BUDGET

$5,000,000

GROSS

USA $44,793,222

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

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This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2022)

THIS PAGE IS BEING CORRECTED, CLEANED UP, AND EXPANDED.

For other projects of the same name, see A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (disambiguation).

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is a 1987 horror-fantasy film, and the sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge.

It is the third film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series.

The film received mixed to positive reviews. It was directed by Chuck Russell, written by original creator Wes Craven and co-written by Bruce Wagner, and starred Craig Wasson, Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, and Patricia Arquette in her first role.

Plot

Kristen Parker is in her room.

First she tears open a bag of Gold Medal flour. Then she pours to flour into a bowl. She adds liquid and stirs the mixture with a wooden spoon. She then pours the mixture into another bowl.

She cuts out pieces of newspapers with a pair of scissors.

It is revealed that she is making a model of the Elm Street House.

Kristen nearly falls asleep, so she turns up the volume on her cassette player.

She eats a spoonfull of ground Maxwell House coffee and drinks a gulp of Diet Coke.

Elaine Parker walks into the room and pushes the stop button on Kristen's cassette player.

Elaine says the music could have woken up the entire neighborhood.

A guest asks Elaine where she keeps the Bourbon. She responds that she'll be right down.

Elaine leaves the room.

Kristen falls asleep.

In a dream, Kristen finds herself and her bed in front of the Elm Street House.

Also in front of the house are three children playing jump rope, two children throwing a ball to each other, and one child riding a tricycle.

Kristen gets out of the bed and walks toward the house.

She follows the child on the tricycle into the house.

She goes down to the basement.

The girl on the tricycle is down there.

The basement now seems to be mixed with the Boiler Room.

Kristen picks the girl off her tricycle and runs with her.

The girl appears to have turned into a large doll.

Kristen ends up in a room filled with teenagers hung from nooses.

Kristen appears to wake up in her bed, in her room.

She walks into her half bathroom.

In her half bathroom, she becomes restrained by Freddy and he slashes her wrists. She wakes up. Kristen's mother finds her awake with her wrist cut and a razor in her hands, which makes it appear like an attempted suicide. She passes out.

Kristen is taken to County General, though this part isn't actually shown.

Kristen is taken to the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital for observation. When the orderly tries to sedate her, she loses control and defends herself with a scalpel. While singing Freddy's jump rope rhyme, Nancy Thompson enters the room and completes the last verse. Kristen immediately feels a bond with Nancy and hugs her.

By this time, all the Elm Street Children have been killed by Freddy except for a few who are committed to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital. Aside from Kristen, the survivors are: Roland Kincaid, Phillip Anderson, Jennifer Caulfield, Will Stanton, Taryn White, and Joey Crusel. Nancy Thompson is a graduate student researching dreams and is assigned there for research purposes.

Neil Gordon, the psychiatrist assigned to the children, at first is apprehensive about Nancy's presence. He tells her that he believes the children are suffering from a group delusion and will g to any extremes not to sleep. In a talk with her, he discovers by accident that Nancy is taking a drug known as Hypnocil. Later research shows that it is an experimental drug that is not yet approved by the FDA and is used to suppress dreams.

Nancy goes to speak to Kristen's mom, only to discover the house that Kristen made a model of. She brings it to her own home.

That night, in the Dream World, the tricycle comes into Kristen's hospital room.

Freddy attacks Kristen, turning into a snake and trying to eat her, but Kristen pulls Nancy into her dream. Though startled, Nancy is able to repel Freddy long enough for Kristen to pull them out of the dream.

A series of events happens the following day. Nancy learns more about Kristen's ability to pull people into her dreams. Then, Nancy is introduced to the kids through a group session. Having dinner together, Nancy requests that Neil prescribe Hypnocil to the patients, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Freddy controls Phillip like a puppet using his tendons, and severs them with his claw, causing him to fall out the window, making it appear as a suicide.

At the group session the following day, Simms has decided that all patient rooms will be locked and that their will be a policy of evening sedation going forward. Kincaid protests and "earns" himself a night in the quiet room. Neil is so rattled by what happens that he convinces Simms to start prescribing Hypnocil, which they attempt to get the next day.

Later that evening, Jennifer convinces Max to let her stay awake and watch TV. She falls asleep and Freddy's arms and head come out of the TV. He grabs Jennifer and tells her "This is it, Jennifer- your big break in TV! Welcome to prime time, bitch!". He then pulls her into the TV screen, killing her.

While attending Jennifer's funeral, Neil notices a nun walking by the gravestones. Upon reaching her, she gives her name as Sister Mary Helena. Upon telling the sister that his faith is science, the nun tells him it is a sad choice. She tells him the only way to save the children is to put the unclean spirit to rest. Before he can ask her any questions, Nancy appears and the nun is gone.

Neil is confused by all the strange events going on, so Nancy decides to tell him about Freddy. Nancy, Neil, Kincaid, Taryn, Will, Joey, and Kristen do a group hypnosis, and all enter the dream world simultaneously in which Kincaid, Taryn, Will, and Kristen all have special powers. Joey sneaks off after a nurse whom he has a crush on, who turns out to be Freddy in disguise. He traps him above a flaming pit, leaving him in a coma unable to awake from his nightmare.

The cause of Joey's coma is believed by Simms and Dr. Carver, the dean of medicine of Westin Hills, to be the Hypnocil, and Nancy and Neil are subsequently relieved of duty. Although originally promising to listen to the children, Simms has an immediate falling out with Kristen and sedates her and isolates her in the quiet room.

Neil once again sees Sister Mary Helena going to the abandoned part of the hospital.

THIS SECTIONS NEEDS WORK.

The sister tells him the story of why the hospital wing was shut down. A nun was locked in with inmates in an insane asylum and raped hundreds of times by the inmates. She was eventually rescued and gave birth to Freddy, whom the sister refers to as "The bastard son of a hundred maniacs." She tells Neil to put Freddy's bones to rest on holy ground. Nancy's father, Donald Thompson, now an alcoholic, is the only one who knows where they are. Neil and Nancy go to Little Nemo's. Upon confronting him, Donald continues to not believe that Freddy Krueger survived his physical death and refuses to show Nancy and Neil where the bones are. Nancy receives a call from the Dream Warriors (Taryn, Will, and Kincaid) saying that Kristen is going to be sedated and placed into the quiet room. Neil tells Nancy to go protect the kids while he stays behind to speak to Donald.

Neil finally convinces Donald to show him where the bones are hidden by physically threatening him. He picks up some holy water and a crucifix at a church, and they go to Penny Bros. Auto Salvage where they find Freddy's bones and begin to dig a grave. Donald tries to escape several times, but Neil makes him stay for the funeral.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Max refuses to let Nancy see Kristen. However, Nancy does convince him to let her say goodbye to the other kids. Nancy takes them to another room and they have a second hypnosis session to begin the final fight. Kincaid, Taryn and Will enter the dream world with Nancy, but are immediately separated. Taryn, who uses switchblades in the dream world, attacks Freddy, but he turns his fingers into syringes and injects them into Taryn, killing her. He then sends a spiked wheelchair after Will, who in the real world is in a wheelchair, but can walk and use magic in the dream world. Will destroys the spiked chair with his magic and zaps Freddy, but he is unaffected and stabs Will dead. Nancy, Kristen, and Kincaid rescue Joey from the flaming pit. They attack Freddy, but he is stronger than before. He reveals that when he kills his victims, he takes their souls and holds them captive inside him, giving him strength. In the middle of the battle, Freddy vanishes.

As Neil and Donald are about to bury Freddy's bones, Freddy takes control of the bones and attacks Neil. Donald finally believes that Freddy came back after his physical death and tries to kill him again, but Freddy stabs him and throws him up against a piece of metal, impaling and killing him. Freddy then throws Neil into the grave but does not bother to finish him off and he re-enters the dream world.

Back in the dream world, Freddy creates a room full of mirror images of himself. The images begin to pull the remaining dream warriors in. Joey, however, discovers his voice and shatters the mirrors. Nancy believes this is the end of Freddy. Suddenly, Donald appears and apologizes to Nancy for not believing her and for causing all of this trouble. As Nancy hugs him, Donald reveals himself to be Freddy and finally kills Nancy, much to his happiness. Kristen, in a fit of rage fights Freddy but is overpowered. Meanwhile, although wounded, Neil manages to throw the bones into the grave, pours holy water on them and throws the crucifix onto the skull. Freddy is destroyed. Kristen mourns Nancy and says she will dream Nancy into a wonderful dream forever.

At Nancy's funeral, Neil discovers that Sister Mary Helena was really the spirit of Amanda Krueger, Freddy's mother.

Cast

Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson

Craig Wasson as Doctor Neil Gordon

Patricia Arquette as Kristen Parker

Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger

Ken Sagoes as Roland Kincaid

Rodney Eastman as Joey Crusel

Jennifer Rubin as Taryn White

Bradley Gregg as Phillip Anderson

Ira Heiden as Will Stanton

Laurence Fishburne as Max

Penelope Sudrow as Jennifer Caulfield

John Saxon as Donald Thompson

Priscilla Pointer as Doctor Elizabeth Simms

Clayton Landey as Lorenzo

Brooke Bundy as Elaine Parker

Kristen Clayton as Little Girl

Sally Piper as Nurse #1

Rozlyn Sorrell as Nurse #2

Nan Martin as Sister Mary Helena/Amanda Krueger

Stacey Alden as Nurse Marcie

Dick Cavett as Himself

Zsa Zsa Gabor as Herself

Michael Rougas as Priest in Church

Jack Shea as Priest in Cemetery

Paul Kent as Dr. Carver

Mary Brown as Neurosurgeon

Melanie Doctors as Girl in Cemetery

Donna Durham as Girl in Crowd

Box Office

The film released theatrically in the United States by New Line Cinema in February 1987. It opened in 1,343 theaters, grossing $8.9 million and debuting at number 1 during its opening weekend. It eventually made $44,793,222 at the domestic box office, making it both the highest grossing film for the studio that year and the 24th highest grossing film of 1987. It is the third highest grossing of the original Nightmare movies after Freddy vs. Jason and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, and the fourth highest grossing film of the series after the release of 2010 remake.

Critical Reception

The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences. It has garnered an average score of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 professional reviews. It is almost unanimously considered the best Nightmare film after the original, but still received some negative reviews from critics because of the comedic themes present in the film; director Chuck Russell said in an interview he felt it needed to be taken down a different path, making Freddy fun to keep the audience entertained instead of being dark and scary over and over again. Roger Ebert gave the film 1 and a half stars out of 4.

In Queensland, Australia, Dream Warriors was banned by the then Bjelke-Petersen government due to its drug references, particularly the scene where Freddy's glove becomes a number of syringes as he injects his victim with a heroin overdose. In 1990, the newly elected Goss government abolished the Queensland Film Board of Review. Consequently, Dream Warriors became available to Queenslanders through normal market channels rather than just through sympathetic video rental stores.

Film Awards

1988 Saturn Awards Best Horror Film (Nomination)

1988 Saturn Awards Best Make-up (Nomination)

1988 Saturn Awards Best Supporting Actor – Robert Englund (Nomination)

International Fantasy Film Award Best Film – Chuck Russell (Nomination)

Critics Awards: Special Mention – Chuck Russell (Won)

Soundtrack

The theme song of the movie, "Dream Warriors", was written and performed by the American heavy metal band Dokken. The success of the single led to the following sequels to include a heavy metal song in its soundtrack.

In the original VHS release of the film, during the opening sequence, a hard rock instrumental version of the song "Quiet Cool" is playing. The original version of that song, performed by Joe Lamont, was written for the movie with the same name in 1986. When Dream Warriors was released on DVD, the song that was on the original theatrical release, "Into the Fire" by Dokken, was reinserted.

Trivia

Kristen making the model of the house at 1428 Elm Street resembles The scene of Freddy making his glove in the first film.

Freddy's famous line was improvised, originally, when Freddy kills Jennifer, he was only going to say, "This is it Jennifer, your big break in TV." but Robert England came up with, "Welcome to Prime Time Bitch!"

Videos

MTV Freddy Krueger promo (laughing) (1987)

Media retail promo for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987)

Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in an unedited interview from the set of Nightmare 3 Dream Warriors

External links

Icon-wikipedia.jpg A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors at Wikipedia

IMDb.png A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors at the Internet Movie Database

◄ Freddy's Revenge

The Dream Master ►

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theharpermovieblog · 8 months

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#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2023

https://www.tumblr.com/theharpermovieblog?source=share

I watched A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

I've definitely seen this before. The reason I didn't view this as a re-watch is because I don't remember jack shit about it. Did I think a young Robert Downey Jr. Was in this movie? Yes I did. Is he in this? Nope.

Child Killer Freddy Krueger returns, once again, to get revenge on the surviving Dream Warriors of the last film, and to begin a new reign of terror.

Go look up Director Renny Harlin on Google and you'll immediately know what kind of director he is. I'm not a huge fan, because he mostly makes Action and Adventure films with more interest in the action and Adventure than substance. Which, I admit, isn't exactly a bad thing all the time. (Especially when you're making a movie that's all about the kill sequences.)

So, when I found out Renny Harlin directed one of the Nightmare films I figured it had to be, at the very least, entertaining. And, I'll give it this movie right off the bat, it features some great songs.

For all it's flaws, I like the third Nightmare on Elm Street, which this movie is a direct follow up to as far as story. It's not a masterpiece, but it has a fun concept in having kids have dream powers they can is to fight Freddy Krueger. It also has some classic Freddy lines and kills.

Nightmare 4 takes the survivors of the third film and makes them completely incapable of stopping Freddy. Killing off the two returning cast members very quickly, and then pretty immediately killing off Tuesday Knight, the actress replacing Patricia Arquette.

So much for the Dream Warriors. On to the new kids.

The whole plot of this movie is simply: Freddy is back and 2 dimensional characters will give us just enough information about themselves so that each kill can relate to each character. Which is fine, I wasn't expecting much. There is plenty of Freddy and plenty of interesting and weird dream kills.

In-between kills we mostly get vague exposition with bad lines like, "Maybe Freddy can't get to the new kids unless there's someone to bring em' to him." Yes, the dialogue isn't great and the characters aren't much of an anchor, but who cares? We're all here for Freddy.

Robert Englund hams it up as Freddy as usual. He is creepy enough in some of the segments, but overall just an enjoyable bad guy.

The special effects are good and there is some cool imagery.

If you're looking for a Nightmare movie that's basically just kills, this is the one for you. It's devoid of any real plot and is really easy to sit through while mindlessly waiting for someone to die.

I guess Renny Harlin knew what the audience wanted and he gave it to them.

I was gonna watch Nightmare 5 after this, but I really don't want to now. I didn't have a bad time with Freddy, but I've had enough.

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mostlymovieswithmax · 3 years

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Movies I watched in September

I skipped a month again. But not to worry. This is a wrap-up of all the movies I watched in the month of September (2021). I think I maintained a steady ratio throughout but perhaps there’s not as much on the list this time because I wanted to get on with other things, be that work-wise or just trying to get out to the beach as much as possible and make the most of the last dregs of summertime. I went swimming in the sea a lot! But I also got to catch the new James Wan movie, Malignant (twice!) as well as the new James Bond, No Time To Die. Not to mention a couple of classics! My hope again with this list is to introduce people to new movies that they may otherwise not have seen or perhaps have never have heard of. These short reviews are my own subjective opinions on each individual movie. I’m thinking maybe a more informal approach to movie criticism can help include others who are just passing through. So here is every film I watched from the 1st to the 30th of September.

Fanny and Alexander (1982) - 8/10

Coming from Ingmar Bergman, I was surprised to see just how warm this was. I’m a big fan of the Swedish director and while this isn’t my favourite from him (perhaps due to it needing a second watch, or the fact I watched it in three chunks because it’s about three hours long and I overestimated how much time I had in the day) it’s still an interesting departure from what I’ve come to expect from him. Fanny and Alexander is a dreamy Christmassy movie that presents an overarching theme of love, spending a large portion of its runtime just hanging out with this big family on Christmas and showing how close they are. I would love to watch this again at some point in December and see how my opinion shifts but for now, while it could meandre in places, I can’t deny how unique a movie it is.

Another Round (2021) - 10/10

I had seen Thomas Vinterberg’s latest film before this point but this was the first time I got to see it in a cinema. Luckily for me my local independent cinema was showing it one night and while they had a few technical hiccups with setting everything up, the movie itself was still fantastic. Following a handful of school teachers who experiment with whether they can maintain a certain level of blood alcohol throughout the day, Another Round demonstrates a sense of unease and sadness throughout an otherwise comedic tone. These emotions are balanced perfectly, boosting an already intriguing concept that examines our relationship with alcohol from every angle.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) - 4/10

Straight after Another Round, I made my way to the chain cinema to meet up with friends to see the new Marvel movie. At this point, having had my second dose of the Covid vaccine that morning, I was starting to feel the effects and I was not doing well. But I watched the movie anyway, all the while wanting to be in bed. Shang-Chi was massively underwhelming and I’d go as far as to say it was even incompetent. Truth be told, I like the Marvel Cinematic Universe but from the get-go I already wasn’t hyped for this movie and I was expecting it to be about mediocre but what I got was something a lot worse. I won’t rehash what I’ve already said on this film so if you want to hear me rant about it a bit then I would recommend checking out episode 47 of my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon.

Your Name. (2016) - 6/10

Ultimately this was a fun little romance movie but I can’t say I understand why people adore it, nor do I understand why it needed to be animated. For what it’s worth, I found it cute and entertaining but nothing much jumped out to me.

Phil Wang: Philly Philly Wang Wang (2021) - 7/10

I’m always stumped on what to say about stand-up shows. It was good! I enjoyed Phil Wang talking about different things in a funny way and it got some laughs out of me. Admittedly I’m writing this a couple of weeks after watching it but it’s certainly a decent way to spend an hour if you’re looking for something light and fun.

The Lego Batman Movie (2017) - 6/10

I remember seeing this in the cinema with two of my friends and the theatre wasn’t exactly packed but those that were there were either children or parents. But I like The Lego Batman Movie! Clearly this was made by fans of the character as it’s packed with a lot of details and references from old comic runs but as someone who has never read the comics or seen those older movies, it still managed to be entertaining and while I won’t say it’s quite as good as The Lego Movie, the animation is still top notch and the voice actors are certainly giving it their all, especially Will Arnett as the titular character. It’s just a bit of fun!

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - 10/10

A friend of mine told me to go to the screening of Terminator 2 at my local because they themselves weren’t able to attend. The first Terminator movie is a real gem and one of the most 80’s-type movies I’ve ever seen. I was excited to watch T2, remembering next to nothing about what I watched of it when I was a child. So it was just me in this screening, with one person in a row in front of me, and one other person behind me. If I had it my way, I would have been the only person there because this is honestly one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and it was very hard not to yell out every time something incredible happened, especially when it’s so action-packed and basically goes all out at every opportunity to deliver some of the most jaw-dropping effects or choreography. Truly there is never a dull moment and I was grinning like a lunatic the entire time. This film rocks!

Mirror (1975) - 7/10

Andrei Tarkovsky is one of my favourite directors and the new Criterion release of his film, Mirror, had been on my shelf for a while. My friend and fellow podcast co-host, Chris, was also interested in watching this movie so we decided we’d give it a watch and review it on the podcast. But this is such a weirdly structured film that the entire way through, neither of us knew what on earth was happening. What we got from the experience is reflected in the episode we made and I would love to watch this again at some point, hopefully with more context and a better understanding of what I’m in for. But in the meantime, you can hear the discussion on episode 46 of the podcast.

The Night House (2021) - 6/10

The Night House is David Bruckner’s follow-up to his previous movie, The Ritual and while I’ll say I prefer The Ritual, this is still a decent watch, just don’t go in expecting horror. More of my thoughts can be found in episode 46 of the podcast.

The Ritual (2017) - 7/10

After watching The Night House, I decided to go back to the director’s previous film, The Ritual and I got a lot more out of it this time around. Themes of guilt and grief permeate the movie and the result is this weird and unnerving film about a group of guys who go hiking in Sweden after the death of one of their friends and encounter dark forces beyond their comprehension. It can be drawn out at times and probably could have been boosted with a better script but there are so many interesting and strange ideas presented that culminate in a haunting third act that it’s worth watching just to see what on earth they’re being hunted by.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) - 10/10

Straight after recording an episode about our favourite movies on the podcast, I returned to one of my all-time favourites. Holy Grail is such a fantastically funny movie with so many memorable lines and moments that it’s become a staple in the comedy genre. Setting it in Arthurian England is a surefire way to make sure it stands the test of time, making use of the budget in a way that heightens the comedy, for example: not being able to get horses and so resorting to having a man banging two coconut halves together as they skip through the grassy terrain. It’s the writing that really takes centre stage here; the guys from Monty Python were/are geniuses. A couple more points were made on my podcast so please do listen to that to hear more: Episode 46 of The Sunday Movie Marathon

Malignant (2021) - 7/10

The new James Wan movie was bonkers! I saw this one twice in quick succession without hesitation. To find out why I love it so much, listen to episode 47 of the podcast.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 8/10

We got a marathon of the first three Nightmare on Elm Street movies on the podcast so we watched them in quick succession within a day. This first movie is a true masterpiece of its time. For more insight, listen to episode 47 of the podcast.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) - 2/10

Quite an embarrassing departure from the genius and fun of the original. Elm Street 2 is not only technically unfulfilling but a wholly unentertaining movie to boot. More thoughts in episode 47 of the podcast.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - 3/10

While only a few hairs better than its predecessor, Elm Street 3 is still a mere shadow of the original. All in all, these second and third instalments in the franchise have put me off watching any of the others. More thoughts in episode 47 of the podcast.

Her (2013) - 10/10

Her is at once a beautiful love story between a man and an AI, and a scarily accurate look at how technology is expanding and moving forward. It uses warm colours and smooth camera work to create something that feels homely and safe, juxtaposing the often cold and dark feeling of science-fiction films to tell an intrinsically human story. What would it be like to go through this and what are the hurdles that need to be overcome? Her is a masterpiece of filmmaking and it left me emotionally exhausted in all the right ways.

Alien (1979) - 10/10

First time I’ve seen Alien in the cinema (as I was too busy not being born yet to see it on an initial release) and it was amazing! This is cosmic horror at its best. With all the eerie sound design, slow and deliberate camera movement, and outstanding effects, there’s no wonder as to why this is considered one of the greats and seeing it on the big screen was enthralling.

Aliens (1986) - 8/10

I had never seen Aliens before so the opportunity to see it for the first time in a cinema was one I could not pass up, especially since I was able to see it straight after the first. This is more of an action movie than the first one and as that, it was really something to see. While I don’t think it quite measures up to the original, James Cameron does bring a style to it that makes it something completely different while still feeling in line with its predecessor. A problem I’ve found as time goes on is that I don’t find myself thinking much about Aliens whatsoever and that’s probably down to its characters who generally I found quite weak. I’m already not big on standard action flicks and this is a clear cut above those but it does still fall victim to the trappings. That being said, I would in no way call this bad or even mediocre because it was a lot fun and being able to see it in the cinema is an experience I’m very grateful for.

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) - 6/10

Gunpowder Milkshake is trying very hard to be John Wick and although it never really manages it, there is still fun to be had with its action (because really that’s all this movie has to offer). There’s a very creative scene in which Karen Gillan has to fight some goons in a hospital with a gun taped to one hand and a scalpel taped to the other, with the caveat being that her arms don’t work. Despite that and a good enough performance from Gillan, the rest is very goofy, with a villain about as intriguing as an advert for life insurance and a story that to say the least, leaves much to be desired.

I Lost My Body (2019) - 10/10

Another one for the podcast, I Lost My Body is a glorious cerebral animated piece that hits every nerve in my body. Listen to episode 48 for more.

Alice In Wonderland (1951) - 10/10

Perhaps the best early Disney movie in my humble opinion. Alice In Wonderland is complete insanity, doing things simply for the sake of it in a beguiling dreamlike take on Lewis Carroll’s classic book. Listen to episode 48 of The Sunday Movie Marathon for more.

WALL-E (2008) - 9/10

WALL-E is one of Pixar’s best. It is a cautionary tale of where the world is headed wrapped in a sweet story about going to the ends of the solar system in order to help those you love. I do however have one big problem with this movie and you can find out more in episode 48 of the podcast.

Killing Them Softly (2012) - 6/10

A lot about America’s economy at the time, Killing Them Softly goes about showing the lengths people will go to for money and yes it is generally solid with a fantastic speech by Brad Pitt to cap it off, but it cannot avoid meandering scenes of listless dialogue that neither engage me nor make me care about the characters it presents.

The Dirties (2013) - 6/10

Funny! The Dirties is a mockumentary about two guys making a movie about bullies in their school. While often it was generally chugging along and making me laugh, it tended to err on the side of plain as regards its presentation. A lot of scenes happen for the sake of it and in a movie that’s around an hour and twenty, it’s amazing I still managed to dip out in the latter half. More thoughts in episode 49 of the podcast.

Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (2009) - 3/10

Ah, I really hated this. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. Just listen to episode 49 of the podcast to hear what I had to say.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - 10/10

This is my favourite movie! I got to talk about it on my podcast! Listen to episode 49 of The Sunday Movie Marathon to hear what I have to say!

No Time To Die (2021) - 8/10

Best Bond movie? Perhaps. I’ve not seen every Bond movie but of the ones I have seen (which does include all of Daniel Craig’s run), this is as good as it gets. Despite a near three hour runtime, No Time To Die felt as though it wasted very little. I’ve always complained that I could never follow the plot to these movies because often I simply didn’t care about it; for me it’s more about the action and seeing Daniel Craig be James Bond. No Time To Die does not escape some of the general tropes that often don’t leave me thinking I’ve watched something masterful but what I will say in its favour is that it’s fucking fun! Don’t expect to love it if you already dislike these movies because generally it stays in the same vein as the others before it, but for Bond fans it’s something totally enjoyable. Captivating cinematography, biting fight choreography and action set-pieces, a core struggle for James who actually goes through relatable hardships his time round, coping with being part of a family and trying to keep them safe.

I was happy to see a bit more attention paid to female characters this go round; in a franchise that often glamorizes Bond’s sexual promiscuity and ability to woo any woman he likes, it was much more refreshing to see that he often did need help from a lot of badass, well written female characters.

No Time To Die has been waiting to be released for a long time now and now it’s actually out, I’m pleased it’s not hot garbage. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The final swan song for Craig’s fifteen-year tenure as one of cinema’s most recognisable heroes outdoes all that came before it. Bravo.

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gravecinema · 4 years

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Why New Nightmare is the Best Nightmare Movie - 7/27/2020

The Nightmare on Elm Street series, to me, is the finest in all of horror. It has quite possibly the most iconic villain in the horror genre in Freddy Krueger, as played by Robert Englund. Starting with the first film written and directed by Wes Craven in 1984, the series would spawn 7 sequels and one remake. Each film would become event viewing for any horror fan, and would offer something new for audiences with every installment. It goes without saying that such a franchise would ignite debate amongst fans about which film is the best. Well, I’m here to tell you that without a doubt Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is the absolute best in the series.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was released in 1994, ten years after the debut of the first film. By then, the Nightmare films had grown to become just a little bit stale at that point. They had supposedly killed Freddy off for good in the previous film, in an effort to end the story and the series in a definitive way. However, you can never keep a good villain dead for long, and the fans demanded that he come back. Since the prior film was not greatly received by fans and critics, the decision was made to bring Wes Craven back to write and direct a true definitive ending for the series. And boy, did he ever deliver.

Prior to New Nightmare, Wes Craven had only been involved with the first and third films of the franchise. Writing and directing the great first film, but only coming back for writing duties for the excellent third film, Dream Warriors. After the third film, Wes Craven would again go on to pursue other projects as new filmmakers such as Renny Harlin were given the opportunity to see what they could do with the franchise. During this time, the franchise would veer off into a more comedic tone than the more horrific one from what Wes Craven had initially started it off with. It wouldn’t be until Wes Craven came back with New Nightmare that Freddy would become scary again.

With Wes Craven writing and directing again, he would craft a story that would see Freddy becoming a dark force trying to escape the film world and coming into our own. The idea was that the Freddy character had become a host for a demonic entity while the films were being made and released, and after the character was killed off and the films stopped, that entity, having gotten used to being Freddy and liking it, would now make an attempt to cross over into the real world as a purer and more evil version of Freddy.

With the change in tone becoming more horror centric again, Wes would also change and update the look of Freddy to better represent the demonic entity that had taken the character over. This version of Freddy in Wes’ story would have the claws coming out of Freddy’s own hand, as opposed to just having him wear the iconic razored gloved. Freddy would also be wearing a trench coat as this image of Freddy was in Wes’ original nightmare that helped inspire the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Since this version of Freddy was meant to be more evil than before, he would also be given more demonic features on his face with the skin looking more ripped than burnt, as if the demon was trying to force its way out, and also having more prominent shoulders.

With Freddy coming into the real world, the film also features characters from the previous films coming back as the actors who played them. Heather Langenkamp gets to return getting to play both herself and Nancy. Robert Englund gets to play his fun self along with the new evil Freddy. John Saxton returns as both himself and Nancy’s father in a sizable role. We also get a few fun cameos of previous cast members at Heather’s husband’s funeral. Finally, along with producer Bob Shaye making an appearance, we get the man himself, Wes Craven, playing himself throughout the film.

Wes essentially plays the part of soothsayer and narrator, providing Heather with an explanation of what is happening, and with a warning about what is to come and what she must do. To defeat this new version of Freddy attacking her and her son in the real world, Heather is going to have to play Nancy one last time.

The story that Wes Craven crafted here is one of the most engaging and inspired of the series. The meta storytelling style of real people knowing that they are becoming a part of a horror film would further be explored by Wes Craven in the Scream series. He would even blend the story with fairytale elements such as Hanzel and Gretel shoving the mean old witch in the oven, and having Heather’s son Dylan leaving breadcrumbs for her to find him. This story would lead to one of the most satisfying climaxes in the whole series, and the best ending out of any of the movies.

With Freddy coming into the real world and attacking the people that Heather cares about, we even get to revisit one of the most iconic kills in the entire series, when Freddy kills babysitter Julie by dragging her up the Hospital walls and slashing her to death. We also get to revisit the moment of Nancy sinking into the steps from the first film. We even see the return of the original house on 1428 Elm Street when the movie world and the real world start to fully merge, and the actors become their movie characters once again. Heather even gets Nancy’s gray hair streak during the last act of the film, along with her pjs.

Speaking of, the last act of the film is the best in all of the films. With Heather fully becoming Nancy, she goes to Freddy’s realm to face off with him just like in the first film. It’s an intense and thrilling sequence that has you fully invested in Heather getting her child back and saving him from Freddy. Heather also gets to fully take charge here, and completely owns her role. Crafting this final climatic scene just like a fairytale has to be my favorite choice that this movie makes, and it gives this Nightmare the best final shot in the whole series.

If there’s one criticism that I have from the previous Nightmare films, it has to be how most of them ended and concluded. The first film had a great final confrontation, but that last shot is a little cringy and confusing with the story. The second film had different rules than the others and it wasn’t really made clear how Freddy was ultimately defeated. The third film was great for most of it, but it had some questionable character deaths in the last act that never sat right with me. The fourth film had a pretty decent ending and protagonist for Freddy to face, but this was the movie where Freddy started becoming more funny than scary. The fifth film has some odd tonal shifts throughout it, with Freddy’s final defeat being weirder than the rest. Most of the sixth film was pretty mediocre with Freddy’s supposed final demise not being nearly as flashy or satisfying as the others. This film though, it offered a great and satisfying conclusion: That of a mother saving her child while defeating the evil monster by burning him in an oven and blowing him up.

I can also understand while some people might not prefer this film over others. This film explores a new concept that the other films didn’t, and that can make it a letdown for people expecting more of the same that they got before. Dream Warriors gets a lot of praise from fans as being the best, and I can see why. It has some of the best kills of the series, great set pieces and designs, Nancy and her dad coming back, and Freddy is still the menacing slasher that we are familiar with. My only problem with it as I mentioned before was some of the story choices that they made with a few of the characters at the end that didn’t satisfy me as much as the story and the ending of New Nightmare. As any horror fan will tell you, killing off a character that you really want to live can leave you with a sour taste in your mouth.

There’s nothing sour about New Nightmare for me, though. Every decision and path the story takes is one that I can fully get behind. It doesn’t have any of the budget constraints that the first film had, it makes Freddy scary again, and the deaths more meaningful. While it’s true that it gets some criticism from straying from the familiar Nightmare formula like Freddy’s Revenge did, it does it in a way that makes sense, and it gives the series a satisfying conclusion. Freddy wouldn’t return again until the special one-off of Freddy vs. Jason was made in 2003, and it was strictly made for fans of both horror icons as a thank you.

If I had to pick the best thing about New Nightmare, it’s that it provides a proper and satisfying ending to a horror series, which can be rare in the genre. Many series can fade into direct-to-video obscurity with one bad cheap sequel after the next. However, the Nightmare on Elm Street films always made for appointment viewing at the box office, and you couldn’t have asked for a better way to end the series. It ensures that Freddy Kreuger will always have a great legacy as one of the premier villains in horror, and it will always leave us begging for more. With Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Freddy got to go out on top, and he will have us always go on loving him.

#wes craven's new nightmare #wes craven #new nightmare #nightmare on elm street #1994 #robert englund #heather langenkamp #john saxton #grave cinema #video essay #review #critique #horror #slasher #best

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noonmutter · 4 years

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Halloween Asks: 2, 5, and 10?

Favorite Halloween (not necessarily scary) movie

Oof, this is difficult since I have a deep and abiding love for horror movies but I also love movies that are just About Halloween, too. I’ma go with a tie between Nightmare Before Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and Trick ‘r’ Treat. The first because it’s a frickin’ classic of my childhood and I love singing the songs as much as every other child who grew up with it, the second because it’s the best of the Freddy Krueger series and I will fight you about it, and the third because it’s a good fun Halloween-centric horror flick with a cool conceit.

Honorable mention to Poltergeist because aside from the one scene where you can straight up see a floodlight behind an oscillating fan, it’s a fantastic movie that I watched when I was like eight and should not have been watching but loved anyway.

I heartily recommend watching all of them if you haven’t and can handle it.

My ultimate dream Halloween costume

These days? I’m still as much of an unapologetic furry as I ever was so I would absolutely go all-in on a dragon getup with wings that move and all that jazz, but I also have a longstanding dream to build a functional power loader cosplay and go full Ellen “Get away from her you bitch” Ripley.

Her, or heavy gunner Vasquez from the same film. Although I refuse to cut my hair in either instance, so it’d just be a variant on ‘em.

Best memory from a past Halloween

I mentioned the decoration game in another post today; I still think very fondly of the specific Halloween where my mom converted the entire front of the house and yard into a tour-able graveyard covered in spider webs, fog machines, wiggling corpses in bags, all that stuff. Shit was amazing. (Yes, her love of Halloween is why I have one too.) And I was the grim reaper wearing a faceless hood and carrying a rad dragon-skull-topped scythe and waiting for my cues, or for a good prospective target to walk too close to me.

I got really good at holding my breath when people were trying to figure me out, and I padded my costume with dead leaves so jabbing me didn’t give them enough info either. And then I’d walk along behind them every time they looked away, or pretend to have a set range of motion and go on loop for a while.

Good times, good times.

#prompty things #munday #desolatedangel

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dalekofchaos · 4 years

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Things I would change about the Elm Street Franchise

I absolutely love the Elm Street series, but if I could change anything about the series it would be this.

My other Horror changes

Halloween

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Texas Chainsaw 3D

Leatherface

Friday The 13th

Before we begin. I need to address the elephant in the room. One of the crucial things I would change is just cutting out the campy humor. There is a problem when trying to make Freddy Krueger funny? In the original film, there really aren’t that many jokes coming from Freddy, at least not ones that aren’t meant to have frightening double meanings. Otherwise it’s just mocking and cajoling the various victims as he picks them off one by one. Freddy Krueger is a violent psychopathic child rapist who returns from the dead to seek revenge against the children of the people who murdered him. What about that setup sounds remotely funny? Sure the concept is out there enough for humor to be found, but the sequels just keep getting goofier and goofier as they went on. Granted, this isn’t to say they weren’t fun to watch but they came at the cost of the genuine existential terror that Krueger instilled in the audience.

A Nightmare On Elm Street

The only thing I would change about the original is that I would keep in the deleted scene that had Nancy’s mother explains that Nancy, Glen, Rod and Tina all had siblings that Freddy killed during his Springwood Slasher days. “You weren’t always an only child,” This additional dialogue serves to better explain why Marge and Donald were directly involved in the killing of Fred Krueger, and it also adds an emotional new layer to the ongoing battle between Nancy and Freddy – she wasn’t just trying to survive, she was also trying to get revenge for the murder of the sibling Freddy took away from her.

A Nightmare On Elm Street 2:Freddy’s Revenge

Since this movie is considered an LGBT movie by fans and has been labeled a Gay Horror movie, fuck it go all in. Make Jesse and Grady boyfriends. Lisa and Grady help bring Jesse out of Freddy’s possession. It'd be a nice addition; that the straight girl is nothing but loving and supportive of Jesse and Grady, which would be a hell of a good message in a movie that came out right in the midst of the AIDs crisis.

A Nightmare On Elm Street 3:The Dream Warriors

Dream Warriors is perfect, so nothing would be changed.

A Nightmare On Elm Street 4:The Dream Master

Keep Patricia Arquette as Kristen

Cut out the campy humor. Keep the unique dream kills, but just make Freddy as dark and twisted as he was in the first movie

Do not kill off Kristen, Kincaid and Joey. The entire point of Dream Warriors is they are the final Elm Street Children. Freddy’s entire motive is he is killing the children of the people who killed him. Take that away and you pretty much have nothing. You made Freddy no different from Jason or any other slasher villains.

Have a romance between Kristen and Kincaid. I always thought there was something that could’ve been between Kristen and Kincaid in Part 3, so there would be a romance between the two

Everyone who is introduced in Dream Master is killed off. Alice is the last to die. Freddy forces Kristen to watch as they all die one by one.

Kristen and Kincaid are the final survivors. Pretty much the same way that Freddy died, but Kristen is the one to do it.

A Nightmare On Elm Street 5:The Dream Child

Cut out the campy humor. Keep the unique dream kills, but just make Freddy as dark and twisted as he was in the first movie

Kristen and Kincaid have a child and her name is Alice in memory of Alice Johnson.

The little girl Kristen has been seeing since the third movie IS Kristen’s daughter and the dream child in place of Jacob

Joey is the one to die in the motorcycle dream death

Both Kristen and Kincaid take this hard and mourn for their friend

Kincaid frees Amanda’s spirit

After Freddy fails to trick Alice to come to him, Kincaid enters the dream to beat the shit out of Freddy. Freddy gets the upperhand and before Freddy can kill Kincaid and Kristen, Amanda appears and puts an end to Freddy

Freddy’s Dead:The Final Nightmare

Cut out the campy humor. Keep the unique dream kills, but just make Freddy as dark and twisted as he was in the first movie

As time moves on, Kristen returns to Elm Street. She still feels Freddy is alive and she has to put an end to it. Kristen and Kincaid are still together, but facing Freddy alone is something she has to do so Alice will be safe from Freddy

I like the idea of Kristen being the final Elm Street child. It gives Freddy a cat and mouse chase and killing everyone around her and Kristen finally facing the nightmare to protect her family.

The plot of Freddy using Kristen to get closer to his daughter remains the same, but Kristen is able to live and tell Maggie

Kristen and Maggie work together to bring an end to Freddy

As both Kristen and Maggie work together to bring Freddy out in the real world, the spirit of Nancy comes to Kristen and tells her how to bring an end to Freddy once and for all. It would be similar to how the first movie ended Nancy’s idea of belief weakening him is one step, the thing in Part 2 about love is another big step (any kind of love, romantic or platonic). Part 3 had the “gotta fight back against him” thing. And altogether, that’s how they can defeat him for good. They take away every bit of power they gave to Freddy and stripping Freddy of belief and outright refusal to acknowledge Freddy’s existence is what ultimately ends him. Freddy’s daughter and his past victims ultimately ends him for good. This comes into play in FVJ when the town erases him and everyone forgets about Freddy

I honestly think it would be worth it to have the last of the Elm Street children to live and for Kristen and Kincaid to have a happy ending

Freddy vs Jason

Freddy uses Jason to spread fear so he can return to Elm Street

Instead of Lori, it’s Alice and Joey Parker, the children of Kristen and Kincaid.

Freddy gets more kills. One of my biggest problems with Freddy vs Jason is the fact that Freddy only gets one kill. So to fix this I would have Freddy and Jason be tied with the killings. At the rave Freddy possesses one of the teens and doses the drinks with sleeping pills. So Freddy and Jason are tied 20-20

Upon hearing about the Elm Street massacre, Kristen and Kincaid return one final time to face Freddy, they are not the only ones. Tommy Jarvis comes to Elm Street to warn them all about Jason and helps them

When Alice is put to sleep and can’t wake up, Kristen and Kincaid go to sleep to save their daughter. Kristen hits Freddy in the face and Kincaid loudly yells “HEY FREDDY, REMEMBER ME? TIME TO BEAT YOUR CRISPY ASS ALL OVER DREAMLAND ALL OVER AGAIN MOTHERFUCKER” and then proceeds to beat the unholy shit out of Freddy for even daring to come after his kids after all this time.

Kristen and Kincaid pull out Alice, while Freddy follows them. Freddy thinks he has them, when Jason appears, ready to kick Freddy’s ass

The fight scenes between Freddy and Jason remains the same.

Kristen decapitates Freddy and Tommy stabs Jason in the heart. The movie ends with Jason rises from the grave and takes Freddy’s head to his shack and Freddy winks at the end

#A Nightmare On Elm Street #Freddy Krueger #Nancy Thompson #Kristen Parker #Roland Kincaid #Joey Crusel #Maggie Burroughs #Jesse Walsh #Ron Grady #My Changes

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brokehorrorfan · 5 years

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Blu-ray Review: The Blob

Horror fans have been known to dismiss remakes outright - an understandable, if misguided, reaction to the trend that dominated cinemas in the mid-2000s - but we cannot forget that three of the strongest genre offerings of the 1980s are remakes. The Thing, The Fly, and The Blob all offered fresh takes on 1950s sci-fi/horror mashups, elevated by strong characters and innovative special effects. While The Blob isn't held in quite as high regard as The Thing or The Fly, it's worthy of praise not only as a remake that improves on the original but also as a thoroughly entertaining movie that can stand on its own.

The 1988 remake of the 1958 cult classic is directed by Chuck Russell (The Mask, The Scorpion King) from a script he co-wrote with Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile), fresh off their successful collaboration on A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. They handle the material masterfully, delivering a roller coaster ride of a film that includes a particularly inspired homage to the original picture's iconic movie theater sequence.

When a meteorite crash-lands in the rural town of Arborville, it unleashes an amorphous mass of pink slime that continuously grows as it consumes the townspeople. After witnessing the carnage of the predatory life-form firsthand, three high school students - preppy cheerleader Meg (Shawnee Smith, Saw), her football player date, Paul (Donovan Leitch, Cutting Class), and the local bad boy with a heart of gold, Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon, Entourage) - unwittingly become responsible for saving the town.

The Blob is a blend of science fiction and horror, like its predecessor, but this incarnation ramps up the action and add some welcome levity. Well aware of the cheesy, B-movie reputation of the original film, Russell and Darabont embrace the outlandish premise, but they smartly never poke fun at the threat. Instead, the well-paced humor stems from the characters and their situations. ("Ribbed!" remains a laugh-out-loud line.) Russell's clever direction extends to the editing, like a hard cut from the blob's first attack to a closeup on jello being slurped up.

Shrewdly eschewing the obvious Steve McQueen-type leading man of the original film, this version of The Blob features an ensemble cast populated by character actors, including Jeffrey DeMunn (The Walking Dead), Candy Clark (American Graffiti), Art La Fleur (Cobra), Beau Billingslea (Halloween H20), Paul McCrane (RoboCop), Robert Axelrod (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), Bill Moseley (The Devil's Rejects), Billy Beck (House), Douglas Emerson (Beverly Hills, 90210), Jamison Newlander (The Lost Boys), Jack Nance (Eraserhead), and Second City comedian Del Close.

But the true star of the movie is its namesake. The ambitious, practical special effects - a mix of miniature and full-scale effects - remain convincing three decades later, even under the scrutiny of high definition. They were painstakingly created by Tony Gardner (Seed of Chucky, The Addams Family), with the creature designed by Lyle Conway (Little Shop of Horrors, The Dark Crystal), and visual effects supervised by Hoyt Yeatman (The Abyss, The Fly), expertly captured by cinematographer Mark Irwin (Scream, The Fly).

The special effects become even more impressive after watching the hours of supplemental features on Scream Factory's The Blob Collector's Edition Blu-ray. Various artists who worked on the creature detail the trouble it took to bring it to life, including second unit shoots that occured as late as three months prior to the film's release. The picture's existing high-definition transfer is crisp and clear, and the release features reversible artwork with a new design by Joel Robinson (who nails Dillon's signature mullet) on one side and the original poster on the other.

Three audio commentaries are included. Filmmaker Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2, Mayhem) moderates a new track with Russell, Irwin, and Gardner. Lynch emphatically cites The Blob as the movie that made him want to be a filmmaker, which he proves with his encyclopedic knowledge as he leads an enthusiastic, friendly conversation. Another new commentary finds Smith watching the film for the first time since the '80s alongside moderator Justin Beahm (who produced the disc's extras). Comparatively laid back following the excitable Lynch, it's fun to hear the actress' memories come flooding back. The third commentary, ported over from Twilight Time's long-sold-out 2014 Blu-ray, features Russell sharing a plethora of anecdotes with moderator Ryan Turek (then a journalist, now a producer at Blumhouse).

There's also a whopping eleven new interviews, beginning with a two-parter with Russell totalling over 45 minutes. The first segment traces his early career, from a theater kid in Chicago to his big break directing A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, while the second half focuses on The Blob. Actors Leitch, DeMunn (whose video features minor focus and color issues), Clark, and Moseley (whose first exposure to the horror genre was the original The Blob) each relish the opportunity to discuss their early creative work before fondly reminiscing about The Blob.

There's also interviews with Irwin, who compares and contrasts The Blob with his work on The Fly; Gardner, who elaborates on the effects team's challenges; special effects supervisor Christopher Gilman; mechanical designer Mark Setrakian; blob mechanic Peter Abrahamson; and production designer Craig Stearns, who also talks about working on Halloween. Finally, the disc includes 28 minutes of previously unreleased behind-the-scenes footage of Tony Gardner and his special effects team working on The Blob, plus theatrical trailers, a TV spot, and a still gallery.

The Blob is available on Collector’s Edition Blu-ray now via Scream Factory.

#the blob #scream factory #shawnee smith #kevin dillon #chuck russell #frank darabont #dvd #gift #article #review #joel robinson #donovan leitch #bill moseley #jeffrey demunn #candy clark #paul mccrane #robert axelrod

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willpatmac · 2 years

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Following a German tour, Dokken signed with Elektra Records and added bassist Jeff Pilson. Tooth and Nail (1984) spawned the hits "Into the Fire," "Just Got Lucky" and "Alone Again." Heavy rotation of these tracks on MTV and radio made Dokken a big hit in America, where their second album went platinum. Tooth and Nail was also a smash in many European countries. Dokken then toured with metal band the Scorpions.

Under Lock and Key (1985) was just as successful and included the hits "In My Dreams" and "It's Not Love." In 1987, Dokken issued Back for the Attack, including a cut, "Dream Warriors," that was featured in the third installment of the film "Nightmare on Elm Street." The song's video was a massive hit.

#florida #youtube #broward #fort lauderdale #music #rock music #mtv

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brendancorris · 7 years

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My Top 5 Pop Songs Made for Horror Films

I already covered my top 10 horror movie themes, but this time I’ll be covering my top 5 pop songs made for horror movies. This includes a radio-intended song made by an established band that was made specifically for a horror film. Just before I start, I’ll just say an honorable mention is “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” by Alice Cooper for Friday the 13th Part VI.

#5...

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Fright Night – J. Geils Band from Fright Night

Fright Night is one of the best vampire films of the 80s, and definitely one of the funnest vampire films ever created. This song oozes cheesiness, which only makes the movie even more enjoyable. I love that there’s no shying away from making these lyrics too corny. It’s just trying to be a fun song for a fun film, and both deliver perfectly.

#4...

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Howling – Stephen Parsons and Babel from The Howling II

This song takes cheesy fun to a whole new level, as the movie does. It’s trying so hard to be hip and so hard to be sexy. The film team even thought this song was so cool they added a music video for it at the end of the film. The video is even more shamelessly tacky, with the hot chick ripping her shirt off every time they say “howling” in the main verse. It’s hilarious, but awesome all the same. And this song is great. The movie is nowhere near as good as the first Howling, and is kind of a werewolf porn film, but great silly fun, just like this totally rad tune.

#3...

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Pet Sematary – The Ramones from Pet Sematary

You know your film’s badass when you can get The Ramones to perform your theme song. It’s not even the only song by them we hear in the film. A band famous for punk/surf rock may seem like a really odd choice, especially for the film’s tragic plot, but somehow it just works. Great, dark lyrics mixed with that 80s synth keyboard that dominated the best horror soundtracks of the decade make it a perfect fit.

#2...

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Dream Warriors – Dokken from A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors

An awesome movie deserves an awesome theme, and this time it sure got one. Dokken blessed Freddy’s third attack on audiences by allowing it to reach new levels of awesome with an extremely epic 80s hair metal powerhouse of a song for the film. The video was ridiculous yet awesome. Dokken literally defeats Freddy with their radical, triumphant music, followed by silly twist ending that needs to be seen to fully appreciate. I don’t think any song on this list can out-80s this one. And that’s one of the reasons I love it so much.

and #1...

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Cry, Little Sister – Gerard McMann from The Lost Boys

Shamefully, I didn’t know the correct artist of this song until about a month ago, when a Tumblr user corrected me on my mistaken artist credit. But, regardless, I LOVE this track, and this movie. Since I was little The Lost Boys has been a Halloween tradition. I can’t let the season pass without watching this one. It’s cool, hip, (intentionally) hilarious, and sexy. And this hypnotic song really helps tie the film together as one awesome bundle. The sound of impending doom, like a heartbeat, with the drums, the gothic organ solo reminiscent of classic horror, the chanting of the ten commandments, being utterly ignored by the vampires in the film, and the echoing shouts of McMann just create a dark and ambient, yet funky and hip, theme to perfectly set the mood of the film. The film also features a ton of other great music, like “Lost in the Shadows”, and the tubular “I Still Believe”, performed in film by the swollen as hell Tim Capello dry-humping his sax... maybe not the best description, but trust me, the song’s awesome.

Sorry these were literally all 80s songs, but, hey, I’m an 80s baby. It’s what I love most.

#Brendan Corris #BrendanCorris #horror #top 5 #the lost boys #fright night #a nightmare on elm street #the howling 2 #pet sematary #theme songs

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frontproofmedia · 3 years

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DOLO FLICKS: Friday The 13th Franchise Ranking From Worst to Best (#4-1)

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Published: November 05, 2020

In this final installment of my ranking of the Friday The 13th franchise, we take a look at what I consider to be the top movies in the series.

Two of the films on the list below do hold a level of nostalgia as they are the only movies I was able to see in theatres. The films that are in the top two don't stray far from common opinions.

Watching all 12 films in the franchise has given me a new appreciation for Friday The 13th and certainly solidified for me Jason's standing as a horror icon.

4. FREDDY VS. JASON

RELEASED: AUGUST 15, 2003

DIRECTOR: RONNY YU

APPROXIMATELY 22 KILLS

The long-awaited battle between Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees spent a decade in development hell before finally being released in 2003.

Freddy vs. Jason was one of the most anticipated films in horror history. It had a fantastic marketing campaign that led to the film becoming the highest-grossing film in both the Friday The 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.

Admittedly, Freddy vs. Jason is a personal preference of mine since it was the first Friday The 13th/A Nightmare on Elm Street film I was able to see in theaters.

The movie premiere that I attended was filled with horror fanatics dawning all of their favorite Jason and Freddy memorabilia and clothes, leading to a fun movie-going experience where the audience loudly celebrated certain parts of the film.

The plot of the movie finds the people of Springwood, Ohio, unfamiliar with Freddy Krueger due to a pill that suppresses people’s dreams. Krueger manipulates Jason to kill people in Springwood to spread fear back in the community to regain his powers.

Jason, who is played by Ken Kerzinger, does the majority of the killing in the film. One of the kills at the beginning of the movie to a character named Trent sticks out as Jason folds him in half using a mattress.

Krueger isn’t the over-the-top, almost cartoonish character he portrayed in the latter A Nightmare on Elm Street films, specifically in the fifth and sixth entries in the franchise.

Robert Englund plays Krueger, similar to the franchise’s third installment Dream Warriors, a blend of comedic one-liners infused in terrifying nightmare scenarios.

The weakest portions of the film come when the movie focuses on its protagonist characters. Some of these characters are the worst in the franchise, such as Kelly Rowland’s Kia and Jason Ritter’s Will. There is even one character that is a blatant rip off of Jay from the Jay and Silent Bob movies.

There are some plot developments that make little sense, such as Jason being afraid of water as throughout the series Jason is shown going in and out of bodies of water.

The film’s ranking rests primarily with its third act, where Jason and Freddy battle at Crystal Lake. The action scene’s between the two delivers in big fashion, with both characters having their moments.

Surprisingly, there has not been a sequel with the amount of money the movie made. Despite the film's lower-tier characters, Freddy vs. Jason is a fun time for fans of both franchises and delivered in its most crucial act.

3. FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

RELEASED: FEBRUARY 13, 2009

DIRECTOR: MARCUS NISPEL

APPROXIMATELY 14 KILLS

The 2009 reboot of Friday The 13th may be the most divisive film in the franchise. Like Freddy vs. Jason, the film suffers from a subpar cast and, for many, one of the worst characters in horror movie history in Trent, played by Travis Van Winkle.

The film followed a reboot renaissance from studio Platinum Dunes that included The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that brought a more modern touch to the horror classics.

The film's best asset falls on its portrayal of Jason, played by Derek Mears. Jason is a hybrid of the zombie Jason that was introduced in Friday The 13th VI: Jason Lives and a survivalist that sets traps and can kill in a variety of ways.

Arguably, Jason is at his most frightening in the 2009 reboot.

The highlight of the film is in the first 25 minutes as it shows a group of friends camping as they look for a field of marijuana. Jason takes out each one brutally, including a sleeping bag kill leaving a victim hung in the bag over a fire for a brutal slow death.

Also, the fan-favorite bag head version of Jason makes an appearance in the film before finding his infamous hockey mask.

The plot of the film is somewhat by the numbers as Jason kidnaps one of the campers from the beginning of the movie, who resembles his mother. The girl’s brother comes looking for his sister and runs into a group of friends staying at a friends’ family cabin.

They run into Jason, and the killing commences.

While for many the characters in Friday The 13th (2009) may make the film hard to digest, Jason and the kills in the movie make it the most accessible Friday The 13th film. This film is the Friday The 13th that you would show to someone who has never seen any of the movies and is unfamiliar with the franchise.

2. FRIDAY THE 13TH IV: THE FINAL CHAPTER

RELEASED: APRIL 13, 1984

DIRECTOR: JOSEPH ZITO

APPROXIMATELY 13 KILLS

The fourth installment in the Friday The 13th franchise is an amalgamation of the previous three films that combines a majority of their best elements.

The Final Chapter is the quintessential Friday The 13th movie.

With the return of Tom Savini as a special makeup effects artist, the kills throughout the film are stellar.

Similar to the Friday The 13th Part 3, The Final Chapter begins immediately after the previous film's events.

Jason is taken to a hospital where he is presumed to be dead. He then awakens and brutally kills his way out of the hospital to head back to his stomping grounds at Crystal Lake.

The Final Chapter follows two groups of people.

The first is a group of friends staying at a friend’s home for the weekend. The second group that is being followed is the Jarvis family, who live next door.

There is also a slight storyline that follows the character Rob played by Erich Anderson, who is seeking revenge for his sister, who died in Friday The 13th Part 2.

The movie is best known for introducing Tommy Jarvis to the franchise who is played by Corey Feldman. Jarvis is a unique character that could be based on Tom Savini, as he is shown to have made horror movie quality masks.

In the age of social media, the standout star in the movie is Crispin Glover, who plays Jimmy. Glover has a scene in the film that would make Elaine from Seinfeld cringe as he shows off his dance moves in one of the most memorable and mocked scenes in the entire franchise.

Ted White, who chose not to be credited, portrays one of the best Jason’s in the franchise. One of the best kills in the film includes a twin character that is thrown out a window in dramatic fashion.

The movie’s final act features Trish Jarvis, played by Kimberly Beck, who runs the final girl circuit of discovering dead bodies one after the other. Trish does put up a fight against Jason, but it is ultimately Tommy Jarvis who puts Jason down for good.

Tommy shaves a majority of his head bald to resemble what Jason looked like as a kid, which puts the killer on hold, allowing for him to be whacked in the head by Trish with a machete.

Tommy follows up with a hit of his own with a machete that kills Jason dramatically.

Jason’s death is arguably the best kill in the film, with his head slowly going down the machete after getting hit.

The Final Chapter, for many, is the best Friday The 13th film. It features a serviceable yet memorable cast, fantastic kills, and one of the most satisfying endings in the franchise.

This film could have easily been at the top of my list, and over the years, it could end up at the number one spot.

1. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES

RELEASED: AUGUST 1, 1986

DIRECTOR: TOM McLOUGHLIN

APPROXIMATELY 18 KILLS

Written and Directed by Tom McLoughlin, Friday The 13th: Jason Lives is one of the most unique and fun horror movies of the 1980s. The film brings forth the zombie version of Jason that is most well known in pop culture.

The film brings back Tommy Jarvis, who wants to make sure that Jason is dead. He heads to the deceased killer’s grave and digs up the body only to impale it with a metal rod. The metal rod is struck by lightning, and Jason is reborn.

The movie brilliantly inputs Meta elements throughout the film blending a mix of comedy and action that make it stand out to this day.

Jason Lives is the only Friday The 13th film with no nudity and even shows kids at the camp setting. Don’t worry; Jason does not kill any children in the movie.

The kills throughout the movie are well made despite the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) editing them down to reduce the gore amount. Even the kills that are done off-screen are well made as the film does a brilliant job of showing the aftermath of the kill.

The chemistry between the Sheriff’s daughter Megan played by Jennifer Cook and Tommy Jarvis, allows the audience to care more about the antagonists instead of viewing them as mere fodder for Jason.

The Friday The 13th franchise is a series that doesn’t have an absolute classic film that transcends the horror genre such as 1978’s Halloween or 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Jason Lives and even The Final Chapter are the closest the series comes to having a transcendent horror film. At the very least, these films are about as good as any of the sequels in the Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.

Jason Lives is the film that I think of when I think of Friday The 13th. Undoubtedly, it is the movie in the franchise that has the most replay value and the film that I would choose to show to anyone who hasn’t seen Friday The 13th.

Let me know what you think of my rankings and put your rankings down below.

(Featured Photo: New Line Cinema/Platinum Dunes)

#HF #Friday The 13th #Horror #Film

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thestorybehindthetale · 6 years

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The Story Behind ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’

Wes Craven’s

A Nightmare on Elm Street

will celebrate its 30th anniversary on November 9… the day the original opened up in theaters and introduced sleepy teens to the terror that is, was and forever shall be Freddy Krueger.

In preparation for the milestone, Craven has been sharing a ton of information about the creation – and impact – of his incredibly influential horror franchise, including how he came up with the idea in the first place.When he wasn’t busy sharing vital Nightmare on Elm Street information on Twitter, Wes Craven was taking part in a comprehensive oral history of Elm Street for Vulture.

The primary players behind the film open up in great detail about what went in to the hiring of the cast, the creation of Freddy, and the landscape of horror in the early 1980s. With Craven coming off of Swamp Thing and The Hills Have Eyes Part II at the time, he needed to find something that was truly terrifying. And he found it in real life, so to speak.

The way Wes Craven describes it, he came up with the idea for A Nightmare on Elm Street after reading an L.A. Times article about a family that had survived the Killing Fields in Cambodia. They made it to the United States, but a young boy in the family still found himself haunted by terrible nightmares while he slept. Craven says:

He told his parents he was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time. When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis was over. Then they heard screams in the middle of the night. By the time they got to him, he was dead. He died in the middle of a nightmare. Here was a youngster having a vision of a horror that everyone older was denying. That became the central line of Nightmare on Elm Street."

The origin of Freddy Krueger? That’s awesome. And far more psychologically chilling than the parental vendetta that led to the birth of the on-screen Krueger – which also is explained in greater detail in the Vulture oral history. Burning the neighborhood child murderer in the boiler room of the local school? Vicious. The 1980s were a different time, man.

People forget how terrifying the original Nightmare on Elm Street actually was. Because over the years, Freddy became more of a huckster, or a punchline, and the Elm Street sequels went for laughs as much as they went for scares. Now’s a good time to go back and revisit Wes Craven’s film, to remember why it became a classic in the first place.

In the late 1970s to the mid 80s, more than 110 men died in their sleep. Until their quiet final moments, they were young and healthy. Their families were stunned. Investigators were bewildered. With the victims all being Asian, medical authorities named the sleep scourge “Asian Death Syndrome.” Witnesses and families called it the night terror.

The first case was reported in California’s Orange County in 1977. By the summer of 1981, 20 people had fallen victim to the night terror. Authorities and medical responders were powerless as men across the country went to sleep and never woke up.

The exotic morbidity of the night terror caught the media’s attention, with the Los Angeles Times running a string of stories on the “medical mystery” in 1981. The New York Times and newspapers in Connecticut, Florida and elsewhere devoted column inches to the sleep deaths.

Freddy Krueger’s real-life victims weren't white, middle-class teens, as played by Heather Langenkamp and Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street. They didn’t talk in mall slang, excessively blow dry their hair or dress in early 80s-style pastels. They were mostly male and were uniformly Asian. They were refugees with poor English skills who had fled their homeland to escape a nearly genocidal conflict.

They were the Hmong, a largely pre-literate or non-literate nomadic people from the mountains of Southeast Asia. Originally from southern China, they fled what had been their homeland for thousands of years in the mid-19th century, when the Manchu dynasty labeled them barbarians. They escaped to neighboring countries, notably Vietnam and Laos.

For the Hmong who relocated to Laos, their struggle continued first under French Colonial rule before settling down for the decades of Laotian royal power. When the Vietnam War spread to Laos and Cambodia, the American supported Royal Lao government recruited the Hmong to fight the Communist Pathet Lao troops.

The Hmong gained a reputation as fierce fighters, but the war devastated their people. An estimated one-third of the Hmong population in Laos was wiped out in the conflict. Following the 1975 Communist takeover, about 100,000 Hmong fled Laos to seek asylum in Thailand. Of the Hmongs who remained in Laos, thousands were detained in reeducation camps.

Away from their home, the Hmong struggled to adapt. They were mountain farmers and warriors with a unique religion centered on animals and spirits. They farmed by growing opium and cleared fields with fire. Their written language only came into being in the 20th century; many couldn’t read it anyway.

Then they came to America and began dying in their sleep.

The first modern recorded victim of the so-called “Asian Death Syndrome" was Ly Houa, of Orange County. Before his sudden 1977 death, he had acclimated to American life and worked as a medic. An Orange County social worker who knew him told the L.A. Times said she was shocked to hear of his passing. Houa was in robust physical condition, she said, and health-conscious through his professional expertise.

By the summer of 1981, the L.A. Times reported, 20 Hmong men living in America died under the same circumstances. All were young and showed no signs of ill health until death took them in their sleep. Their families said most didn’t smoke or drink. Some witnesses said they heard troubled breathings and groans right before the death.

Only about 35,000 Hmong lived in America at the time. For the communities scattered throughout the states, the deaths were more than morbid curiosities. They were a seeming existential threat to their people. The ratio of victims to total Hmongs in the country equalled all five leading causes of death for other American men in their age group. Orange County Medical Examiner Tom Prendergast told a reporter that the mysterious incidents accounted for half of all deaths among the Hmong in America during that period.

The deaths prompted an inquiry by the Federal Center for Disease Control. They tried to contain the unexplained horror of the sleep death in the dry wording of “Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome,” or SUNDS.

Officials suspected cardiac failure, but were otherwise baffled. Many blamed the stress of culture shock for refugees moving to the U.S. Minnesota Medical Examiner Dr. Michael McGee told the New York Times he thought Hmong victims in St. Paul may have been frightened to death. Hang Pao, a former Laotian general and a political leader for the Hmong, publically attributed the deaths to wartime gassing attacks. Pao, eager to turn public opinion against the Hmong’s old communists foes, said the nighttime seizures were delayed reactions to the chemical toxins the Pathet Lao used to poison villages.

No definite cause emerged. The mystery deaths peaked in 1981, when 26 men, mostly Hmong refugees from Laos, died in their sleep. A few victims of the seizures who were immediately treated by CPR survived.

While the sudden sleep death hit the American Hmong refugees the hardest, the mystery illness wasn’t limited to their people alone. The sleeping death was striking Asian men across the globe.

The disease had a long history in Asia, even in countries with no Hmong population. In 1983, the Associate Press reported that Japanese and Filipinos were dying from similar unexplained deaths. Researchers estimated that between 500 and 1,000 Japanese men, described in their 20s and 30s and healthy, died in their sleep of the condition known in Japan as “Pokkuri,” wordplay slang for death that occurs in a “snap.”

Recently uncovered research indicated it wasn’t new. CDC official Roy Baron and forensic pathologist Robert Kirscher published a report saying the attacks predated the Hmong arrival in America.

As researchers dug into the cultures with histories of SUNDS, they found something surprising. Freddy Krueger wasn’t the only killer stalking its victims through their dreams. According to Asian folklore, monsters had been preying on sleepers for years.

Hmong traditional beliefs revolve around nature spirits and ancestor worship. Among the most feared spirits is a nightmare monster known as the Dab Tsog. When Hmong fail to perform religious rituals properly, their ancestor and village spirits stop guarding them, leaving them vulnerable to the Tsog Tsuam, the crushing attack the Dab Tsog uses to press the life out of its victims.

Shelley Adler, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, conducted dozens of field interviews among the Hmong population while researching her 2011 book Sleep Paralysis. She found people who survived SUNDS, who related tales of dream visitations from dark creatures. One interviewee said a large, hairy monster, which he likened to an American stuffed animal, accosted him in his dream. As the oversized creature set on him with claws and teeth, the dreamer was paralyzed but still able to hear voices in his home.

The Dab Tsog doesn’t haunt the dreams of Asian men alone. In the Philippines, where 43 people out of 100,000 die from SUNDS per year, the death was known as Bangungut, a Tagalog word meaning “to rise and moan during sleep.”

Filipino folklore holds that malevolent spirits called Batibat are behind Bangungut. The Batibat have the appearance of ugly, obese women and live in trees. They infest houses when the trees they live in are used to build a home. Enraged by their displacement, they wait until the homeowners are asleep they kill them in the style of the Tsog Tsaum, sitting on their victim’s chest and face to force out their life force like air from a balloon.

By the time A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984, the Hmong SUNDS was slowing to a halt after its 1981 peak. It hadn’t been cured, but after taking the lives of 116 healthy young men, the night terror shuffled back into whatever dark dream it came from.

As Freddy Krueger grew increasingly cartoonish and prone to one-liners in his follow-up films, the real-life sleep deaths became less deadly. Officials like Kirschner took an optimistic assessment, postulating that stress from American culture shock caused the previous attacks. With the Hmong more used to life in the states, Kirschner said, the stress was reduced and the danger was over.

The same year, SUNDS researchers made a breakthrough. After studying the medical histories of three survivors of the attacks, medical examiners were able to identify ventricular arrhythmias as the cause of the fatal cardiac arrests. The cause of the arrhythmias wasn’t yet known, but medical authorities now knew what happened to the heart before the SUNDS deaths. In 1988, CDC pathologist Roy Gibson Parrish published a study proposing that SUNDS victims were likely carriers of hereditary defects that affected tissues that conduct electric signals. While in most cases the defects wouldn’t be a problem, they could become fatal in a body undergoing stress.

And while the Hmong were moving past their twin traumas of warfare and displacement, the night terror was attacking displaced Asian elsewhere in the globe. In 1990, two Thai men working construction in Singapore died in their sleep on the same night.

The coincidence of two SUNDS death in a single night was shocking. But they weren’t alone. About 200 Thai people living in Singapore are believed to have died in their sleep since 1983. In Sleep Paralysis, Adler quoted heart specialist Michael Brodsky attributing the deaths to stress, saying that the men were working 13-plus hour days while enduring slavery-like conditions.

#thestorybehindthetale #talesofterror

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kob131 · 4 years

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rank the Universal/ Hammer horror films you’ve seen from 1 to 5

Never seen them. Anyone got any suggestion s aside from the monster movies like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy ect.

However, I will talk about my favorite horror movie: Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. (As a consolation and because I feel like it.)

Dream Warriors was the last original series Nightmare On Elm Street movie made by Wes Craven. While he would work on New Nightmare, that movie is rather removed from the original six.

While the first movie is the most iconic for it’s scenes, introduction to Freddy and it’s deaths: I think the third movie is the better film by far. It really builds upon the first movie’s ideas and concepts and started a lot of the iconic elements to the series, making it not only the better movie but the best representation of the franchise.

The casting was pretty well done. All the teen actors, aside from maybe the actor for Will Stanton when he goes over the top, were well done. I really loved Kincaid’s actor. He was able to seamlessly go from being a cool strong guy to a frightened and yet still entertain teen to even a chillingly scared prey and brought a real energy to the role that made him great to watch. Kristian’s actress was also well done, able to capture the essence of the original survivor Nacy’s character (as a typical girl faced with a frightening situation) and yet she’s still distinct from Nacy due to her more emotional side (as opposed to Nacy’s subtle badass moments.) Speaking of Nacy, her switch from a teenager to an adult in series brought with it a subtle maturity that her actress Heather was able to get across incredibly well.

But of course, the best is as always Robert Englund as Freddy. This is actually a good place to switch to talking about Freddy and his character. In the beginning, Freddy had a...basis for a character in a few scenes (like his chase after Jennifer and his hanging of Rod.) But really, he was just a lanky version of Jason in practice: a monster with barely any personality. What elevated him at the time was his concept of dream killing but Jason had more of a tragic past to him that made him more interesting in hindsight while Freddy...he��s a fucking child killer/possible child molester.

It’s here in THIS movie that Freddy’s true defining feature came to be: his personality. It was this movie that established Freddy as an actual character, with interactions with others and noteable lines. “Welcome to Prime Time Bitch” is just one of the many displays his quippy yet deeply unsettling nature. And that is in no small part thanks to Robery Englund’s performance. He stradles the line between human and monster, jokester and sadist so perfectly that even if his lines are technically funny, they’re delievered with such malice underneath you just feel disturbed. And apparently Robert was pretty instrumental to that process, since the line I used wasn’t even suppose to be IN the movie. His original one liner in that scene was the previous ‘You’re big break in TV’ but Robert just made up the new one. ... Yeah, when he dies, Freddy is gonna get retired for good.

Then we have the second iconic aspect of the Nightmare on Elm Street series: the ongoing plot. The original movie ended pretty neatly and the second movie was pretty seperated from the first aside from a diary, a house and a town. Here, Nacy is reintroduced and things pick up from her to Kristain and then Kristian passes it on to another and so on. This helps us care for the movies more and keeps the investment beyond just Freddy. While other horror movies did do this: Nightmare I think did it really well.

Then we have the finale aspect that defines Elm Street: the more creative deaths. Let’s be real, aside from the blood geyser in the original, the deaths were pretty mundane for being based around something as surreal as dreams. Here, we have Freddy turning into various people, becoming objects, using decapitated heads to taunt his foes, changing his body to reflect their fears, becoming more monstrous and so on. So many iconic killings, like the puppet veins, the giant worm Freddy, the clawed facet hand, Kristian’s decapacitated mother, the implied drug overdose through his needle hands- It’s all so satsifying and scary in a way only Freddy could deliver.

There’s just so much to love about this movie. It started and made so much of the series’ identity here and did it the best. The later movies tried to replicate this to...decreasing levels of success (fucking Final Nightmare...) and so Dream Warriors stand as the best Elm Street movie and my favorite horror movie.

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 7 years

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Thricebreaker: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Few series are as impressive, influential, and famous as A Nightmare on Elm Street. It is such a terrifying concept; a killer you can’t escape from, because he kills you in your dreams. The original film cemented Freddy Krueger as a horror icon, launched Wes Craven’s career higher than ever, and even introduced a young Johnny Depp to the big screen. It’s undoubtedly a horror classic, a truly great slasher film… but is it the best in the series? Well, let’s find out by taking a look at the first three films of the series.

The plot of the movies is usually similar, as is often the case with slasher franchises; there are a group of kids, and Freddy wants to kill them. In the 2nd movie, things are a bit… different. Freddy is instead trying to use a young man as a vessel to return to life; this film is the most disconnected from the rest of the series, with only a little bit of continuity. The third film has Freddy harassing the last of the Elm Street kids in a psyche ward, and finally being killed… except in the fourth film he comes back to kill again. Over the films, Freddy evolves from a nightmarish demonic zombie into an at once hilarious and yet still terrifying cackling madman, who will spout quips and one-liners as he shreds you to pieces. It’s good stuff.

Let’s take a look at the most divisive of the sequels, the very first one in fact: Freddy’s Revenge. Like I mentioned, this one shares very little continuity with the first film; the only ties are the fact that main character Jesse and his family have recently moved into Nancy’s house, and Jesse even finds her diary. Aside from that… well, it really is the black sheep of the franchise. Freddy possess Jesse in an attempt tp break into the real world… and he does! He kills a bunch of people at a real-life pool party, he even has demon dogs guarding him at one point, and weirdly enough, he doesn’t kill anyone in dreams in the whole movie. Kinda… beats the whole purpose, don’t it? But see, we can only say it’s weird in hindsight; this was the second film, before the huge series, and to be perfectly fair important rules were not wholly set in stone, though this did deviate a bit from the original and what would become the series norm.

All that being said, is this film bad? Hell no. It’s a very unique experience, especially due to the homoerotic subtext and the possibility of interpreting the story as Jesse coming to terms with his homosexuality or something like that. And this isn’t totally bullshit, there’s a lot there, and it’s not exactly hidden; hell, even Robert Englund has gone on record as saying Freddy in the film is representative of Jesse’s homosexual desires, Jesse’s actor, who was in the closet at the time and came out shortly after the film did, used his self-doubt in his performance, and the writer themselves intentionally added all the homoerotic subtext. This movie dabbles quite a bit in psychological aspects, symbolism, coming-of-age, and even body horror. Yes, it’s weird and quirky - there’s a scene where a lovebird attacks Jesse and his family and then EXPLODES for crying out loud – but in all honesty, it helps make it a cool, unique experience all on its own. It’s solid as a standalone entry in the series, and still pretty decent as an entry in the franchise overall, though it’s not hard to see why the film has never really risen above cult classic status.

The third film, Dream Warriors, is the moment where the Elm Street formula was absolutely perfected. Here is where Freddy became the perfect blend of horror and comedy, killing a girl by smashing her head into a TV while saying “This is it! Your big break in TV! Welcome to Prime Time, bitch!” in one darkly humorous scene and using a young boy’s veins as puppet strings to lead him up to the roof, where he then slashes them to send him falling to the ground in another, far more unnerving sequence. Englund apparently improvised a lot of Freddy’s one-liner’s in this film (most famously the aforementioned TV one), and all things considered this is likely for the best. Englund really owns the role of Freddy, and he knows how to play him. It’s only naturally a guy with such a handle on the character should be able to give him his best lines.

The kids in this movie are all interesting and quirky, and with the help of returning lead Nancy, they become the titular Dream Warriors, and get super cheesy 80s powers in their dreams. Of course, most of them also end up getting very creative deaths courtesy of Freddy, but the cheesiness lingers. That’s really the only criticism I can level at the film, some moments are most definitely the product of the 80s, and the special effects on Freddy’s skeleton at the end are rather… lacking. Still, overall, this film is easily the best film in the series, and at the very least is the best sequel, for cementing exactly what a great Elm Street film should be.

And now, we come to the fourth film in the franchise… The Dream Master. I gotta be straight-up honest here; the film feels more like an excuse to show off all sorts of cool and creative ways for Freddy to kill people than to actually be compelling. It would explain how Freddy is resurrected by having a dog piss fire on his grave and why he murders the survivors of the previous film. It would also explain why the deaths are so awesomely, gratuitously over-the-top. We’ve got a girl turned in to a roach in a roach motel and crushed, we have a girl have all the air sucked out of her, a girl is thrown into a boiler… we’ve got some cool, creative deaths and special effects. And while the film does seem more about showing off all the cool shit Freddy can do, it does have a somewhat decent story and lead character; it’s definitely not a boring film or an unenjoyable one. Still, out of the first few sequels, it’s easily the weakest, and this is made all the more apparent due to the fact that this film is where Freddy started slipping from the perfect blend of horror and comedy into a goofy, killing jokester. At least here he’s still a bit scary as he does his crazy kills, but there’s no denying this set the gorundwork for things to come.

So, what do I think overall? There’s really no doubt in my mind that the third film is the best sequel, and hell, I even think it’s a bit better than the original; it’s a fully-realized continuation that really cements what a great Elm Street film should be. The second movie is an underappreciated, weird experiment that definitely is not for everyone, but certainly deserves the cult fandom it has gained, and the fourth movie, while easily being the weakest of the first few sequels, is still pretty enjoyable in its own right, and hey, it’s got some damn cool kills!

A Nightmare on Elm Street as a franchise just seems like one of those series that, even at its worst, still manages to entertain. Hell, even if it’s bad, it’s always in that ridiculous, campy, so bad it’s good way! I mean, can you imagine if they tried to just...rehash one of the films, except with different actors, no Robert Englund, and they just reuse shots with crappy CGI? Man, that would just be dumb! Who would ever…

Oh.

Oh no.

I’m going to have to review this, aren’t I?

#Thricebreaker #Review #Reviews #Movie #Movie reviews #A Nightmare on Elm Street #Freddy Krueger #Wes Craven #Robert Englund #horror #Freddy's Revenge #The Dream Warriors #The Dream Master

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brokehorrorfan · 6 years

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Best New Horror Movies on Netflix: Winter 2018

There's an overwhelming amount of horror movies to sift through on Netflix, so I've decided to take out some of the legwork by compiling a list of the season’s best new genre titles available on Netflix’s instant streaming service.

Please feel free to leave a comment with any I may have missed and share your thoughts on any of the films you watch. You can also peruse past installments of Best New Horror Moves on Netflix for more suggestions.

1. Gerald's Game

IT was undoubtedly the most entertaining Stephen King adaptation in recent memory, but Gerald's Game may be the most tense. The novel - which revolves around a middle-aged married couple's attempt to spice up their love life - was seemingly un-filmable, but director Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil) takes a creative yet logical approach to successfully translate the story from the page to the screen. The direction is stylish, despite largely involving only two actors in a single bedroom. Carla Gugino (Watchmen) and Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek) star, both delivering brilliant performances, with Henry Thomas (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) and Carel Struycken (The Addams Family) in chilling supporting roles. Its left-field epilogue won't work for some, but the film remains a suspenseful, dead-filled experience that includes perhaps the most cringe-inducing sequence of the year.

2. 1922

1922 is an adaptation of a little-known Stephen King novella, published in his 2010 collection, Full Dark, No Stars. Like much of King's work, it doesn't shy away from the supernatural, yet it's firmly grounded in reality. The always-reliable Thomas Jane delivers a transformative performance in his third King film (following Dreamcatcher and The Mist). He stars as Wilfred James, a conflicted man who confesses to murdering his wife (Molly Parker. Deadwood) with the aid of his son (Dylan Schmid, Once Upon a Time) in 1922. Akin to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," Wilfred's unbearable guilt manifests itself. Cinematographer Ben Richardson (The Fault in Our Stars) utilizes a lot of natural light, while Faith No More's Mike Patton composes an atonal score. Writer-director Zak Hilditch (whose previous film, These Final Hours, is also worth seeking out) delivers a brooding, character-driven slow burner.

3. Raw

Raw made waves on the festival circuit when it caused multiple viewers to faint. It is indeed a uniquely repulsive film in more ways than one might expect - depicting everything from animal dissecting to bikini waxing to eye licking in graphic detail - but it's much more than a mindless gorefest. The French film is a compelling, darkly humorous coming-of-age story... with cannibalism. The plot revolves around Justine (Garance Marillier), a young vegetarian, as she enters her first semester at veterinary school. She receives the full college experience: hazing, coed living, experimentation, partying, flesh eating. Marillier's fearless performance is matched by a strong vision from writer-director Julia Ducournau.

4. Super Dark Times

From the first act of Super Dark Times, you might expect it to be a coming-of-age genre tale in the vein of Stranger Things and IT, but by the end you will find a film that shares more in common with River's Edge and Stand By Me. It's set in the '90s, complete with scrambled "adult" channels, but it doesn't beat the viewer over the head with nostalgia. Owen Campbell (The Americans) and Charlie Tahan (Ozark) star as best friends with a secret that drives a wedge between them. Co-writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (Siren) capture the adolescent banter better than most films, while director Kevin Phillips makes an impressive feature debut. Living up to its title, Super Dark Times is a dark, tense experience.

5. Cult of Chucky

Child’s Play is a rare horror franchise that has maintained its original continuity, thanks to having Don Mancini - who has written every installment and directed the latter three - as the driving creative force. Cult of Chucky, the seventh entry in the series, brings together the franchise’s three distinct story lines - Nica (Fiona Dourif) from Curse of Chucky, Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) from Child’s Play 1-3, and Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) from Bride/Seed of Chucky. Taking cues from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warrior, the film takes place in a mental institution, where Nica bonds with the members of her therapy group. When they start dying one by one, Nica struggles to convince anyone that a possessed doll named Chucky (voiced, as always, by Brad Dourif) is responsible. Mancini’s well-paced script is fearless in its exploration of delightfully weird ideas, in addition to balancing the more serious tone with lighthearted fun. The result is as close as you can get to pleasing fans of all eras of Chucky. Read my full review of the film here.

6. The Bar

The Bar is the latest effort from reliable Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia (The Oxford Murders). It finds a group of strangers trapped in a seedy bar in downtown Madrid. Anyone that tries to leave is killed by an unseen assailant, with their bodies disappearing - blood and all - when no one is looking. Reminiscent of an episode of The Twilight Zone, suspicion grows and intrigue builds as the group must come together to solve the mystery. Iglesia does a fine job establishing an ensemble of quirky characters in a short time and then maintaining that momentum throughout the duration. He also injects his signature dark humor into the plot, helping to further set it apart from other contained thrillers.

7. Creep 2

2014's Creep (which is also streaming on Netflix and should be viewed first) was perhaps the last good, original found footage movie, made on a shoestring budget with copious improvisation. Star/co-writer Mark Duplass (Safety Not Guaranteed), whose eerie performance as an idiosyncratic murderer anchored Creep, and director/co-writer Patrick Brice return for Creep 2, which slightly expands the mythology without sacrificing the intimacy that made the first film so effective. Duplass' character now goes by Aaron, assuming not only the name of Brice's character from the first Creep but also his interest in filmmaking. Sara (Desiree Akhavan) responds to Aaron's Craigslist ad looking for a videographer, and it’s not long after their meeting that he admits to being a serial killer. But Aaron is going through a bit of a midlife crisis, so he employs Sara to film a documentary about him. Much like the first Creep, not a whole lot happens before the climax, but Duplass' eccentric character and vulnerable performance keep you watching with bated breath.

8. Killing Ground

Killing Ground is an unapologetic Australian thriller in the vein of Eden Lake, Wolf Creek, Deliverance, and The Hills Have Eyes. In other words, it's an intense punch in the gut. In the film, a couple's romantic camping trip is interrupted by unhinged locals against whom they must fight for survival. The familiar set-up is elevated by intriguing flashbacks to events a few days prior to the main story, the context of which adds even more weight to the harrowing situation. Although not the most original story ever told, Killing Ground is an effective, realistic debut for writer-director Damien Power.

9. Veronica

Verónica is a Spanish-language psychological thriller from Mexico. Co-directors Carlos Algara and Alejandro Martinez-Beltran opted to shoot the film in black and white with gorgeous, precise cinematography, bringing to mind the recent The Eyes of My Mother. A psychologist (Arcelia Ramírez) is offered a substantial sum of money to take on the evasive yet intelligent Veronica de la Serna (Olga Segura) as a patient. It's a simple set-up, consisting of little more than dialogue between the two characters, but the intriguing therapy sessions slowly reveal Veronica's deep-seated issues. The plot takes an unexpected, exciting turn for the final act, but it ultimately leads to a twist that is trite and, frankly, unnecessary. But don't let that deter you; the rest of the film is positively riveting.

10. Red Christmas

Red Christmas is a holiday horror film that - despite hailing from Australia - captures the typical Christmas season quite well, complete with the family drama it often entails. It also addresses the topical subject of reproductive rights, employs both a genre legend (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial's Dee Wallace, in one of her strongest performances in years) and an actor with Down syndrome (Gerard O'dwyer), and tells a decent horror story in the process. Similar to You're Next, the film features a killer interrupting a strained family gathering, blending home invasion and slasher influences. It won’t replace any of the classics, but Red Christmas is a fine addition to the Christmas horror pantheon. Read my full review of the film here.

11. Don't Kill It

Don't Kill It is a fun amalgam of horror, action, comedy, and western from director Mike Mendez (Big Ass Spider). A rash of homicides - in which each killer murders the previous killer - lead FBI agent Evelyn Pierce (Kristina Klebe, Halloween) back to the podunk Mississippi town she once called home in order to investigate the case. She reluctantly teams with Jebediah Woodley (Dolph Lundgren, Rocky IV), a self-described demon hunter, to stop the body-hopping demon on the loose. There are a couple of big, bloody set pieces that make the abundance of exposition worthwhile. Clocking in at a lean 83 minutes, the film plays like a more charming and entertaining version of a Syfy original movie.

Bonus: Dark

Comparisons between Dark and Stranger Things are inevitable - both Netflix original series concern a mystery of a missing child in a small town in which supernatural elements are at play - but Dark approaches the material in am much more subtle, subversive manner. In addition to Stranger Things' coming-of-age through a genre lens, the German show has the mind-bending rhetoric of Donnie Darko and the mystique of Twin Peaks, with a touch of Back to the Future for good measure. There may be a few too many characters for its own good, but the story - in which a disappearance in the present is somehow tied to similar events that occurred in 1986 - is undeniably well told and well shot. I'm already eager to binge a second season.

Bonus: Mindhunter

Mindhunter is an original series from executive producer David Fincher (Gone Girl, Seven), who also directs several episodes, with Joe Penhall (The Road) serving as showrunner. Based on the true crime book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, it follows FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff. Glee) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany, Alien 3) as they conduct interviews with convicted murderers in the late '70s for their groundbreaking work in behavioral science. After an attention-grabbing opening scene, the show takes a couple of episodes to gain momentum, but it's virtually impossible to look away after that. There's an abundance of heady dialogue, in typical Fincher fashion, though it's never short of enthralling.

#netflix #gerald's game #creep 2 #super dark times #cult of chucky #mindhunter #1922 #best of netflix #article #list

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