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Reviews
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Not a great movie but a ton of fun
I have to admit -- I kinda love this movie. Granted, it was the first Freddy movie I saw (then I watched Part 1), so it has the nostalgia factor going for it. I remember seeing ads for it on the old Viewer's Choice pay-per-view previews and finally getting up the guts to check it out at the video store.
I think what makes it work for me is a few things: - You get a ton of back-story on Freddy that actually is quite effective and creepy, especially the scenes of his room with all the newspaper clippings and such. The whole idea of him killing his wife right in front of his daughter and then menacingly threatening her (as any child molesting killer might likely do) really bothered me as well.
- In general, most of the dream sequences with the exception of a few are pretty imaginative and surrealistic, even though most of them take a decidedly "bugs bunny" turn by the end (i.e. the creepy isolated bus depot and Robert Shaye cameo that ends up turning into a Road Runner cartoon, or Tracy laying a beat down on her Dad only for him to pop back up in the silliest of moments).
- The awesome video montage at the end, but that goes without saying.
- The time period. First off, I love the soundtrack. It captures the feeling of the emerging alternative rock music scene and the simultaneous rediscovering of classic late 60s-early 70s rock music. Plus, all of the characters carry themselves with that very Gen-X, early 1990s hipster "chip on their shoulder" attitude. They throw the sarcasm back and forth and seem generally unimpressed with each other and with Freddy. It's quite dated now, but it brings me back to that period and so I like that aspect of it a lot. The kids in Part 2-4 in particular just feel so stereotypically yuppie 80s and New Nightmare is about grown ups, so it's nice to get a look into how the so called "slacker" generation would interact with Freddy.
There IS a lot of lame stuff. The 3D, Freddy as the wicked witch of the west, the power glove etc... but I'd argue that at least they go ALL out here with the bad jokes. Part IV and V just don't work for me because he's trying too hard to be in both worlds and just comes off flat in both. Both of those movies sort of bore me, where this one is a lot of fun to let wash over you. It's not a good movie really -- not well realized or well made, but it is a fun one, which is more than I can say for 4 and 5.
Women of the Night IV (1995)
Great stand-up set
Tracy Ulman is tragically unfunny as the host, but everyone else is great -- the big standouts are Caroline Rhea and Wendy Liebman. The latter in particular will leave you dying on the floor -- easily one of the funniest sets I've ever seen.
It strikes me that a lot of these great stand up shows are going to be lost to time -- very few of them ever make it onto DVD (or commercial VHS for that matter). You have a few classics like Eddie Murphy - Delirious, but most of them were only aired late night on HBO and that's too bad. I think executives figure that the humor is too topical and that nobody will find the sets funny after a few years have passed, but funny is funny.
The whole Women of the Night Series and most of the HBO Comedy Half Hour specials remain unreleased -- come on HBO!
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Terribly disappointing movie, not scary, Blair Witch lite at best
I was very disappointed with this movie.
One of the big problems with this movie is that it fails to build tension. Part of the issue is that the camera is stationary for the majority of the movie -- part of what made Blair Witch so nerve wracking was the constant movement. You are constantly waiting for things to happen in Paranormal Activity instead of being assaulted by images, so by the time something actually happens it can in no way live up to the anticipation in your mind -- scene after scene the scares fell completely flat for me. I'm not one of Blair Witch projects biggest fans, but it was far scarier as a film then this film.
Furthermore, there are a lot of problems with the writing of the film. The acting is good, but the characterization is bad. The boyfriends' obsession with filming each and every event goes too far out of the realm of believability after some of the more severe events in the film occur. The movie also was annoying expository -- the characters never really engage as real people would in a situation like this and thus it seems as if they are performing all of this for the benefit of an audience. Blair Witch found a way to feel authentic but this seems terribly put on, a similar feeling I got from Cloverfied, which possess some of the same annoying traits.
The writing actually introduces a few ideas that would have made the film more interesting -- they allude to the idea that perhaps SHE is the demon right from the start and that instead of the ghost following her around from house to house (which is opposite of the standard rule in ghost films) that she is actually the demon and is in turn haunting him. This might explain how a picture of hers might end up in the crawlspace. This of course would have been an interesting twist, but the movie never develops it and instead suggests that it is more of standard possession, with her being taken over by an entity. It also fails to deliver on several other loose plot-lines, such as the story about the woman who experienced the same types of disturbances, along with the demonoligist, instead of fleshing these out they just abruptly cut back to more of the same shadows on the door, noises in the hall, footprints in the powder show. It gets very tedious after about 35 minutes.
The ending bugged me a lot as well. In a movie that resisted using any kind of obvious CGI, they clearly jazz up the ending with some computer assistance and cheapen the whole film in the process. The ending of the film is especially reminiscent of Blair Witch, with almost the same sequence of events (woman screams, man screams, silence, camera gets knocked over into a from-the-floor askew shot). Blair Witch was at least brave enough to never reveal the woman at the end of the film, where this film throws in the demon face and reduces itself to a standard run of the mill zombie flick.
I just found the whole thing to be a huge waste of time and not scary at all. It probably didn't help that nobody in the theater aside from a couple of 17 year old girls shrieking occasionally in the back row seemed very involved with it either. I'm impressed with the movie they made for $40,000 or whatever this movie cost, but the rave reviews seem completely unjustified in light of the rather paint-by-the-numbers film-making.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A superior film in the genre
I think that the massive exposure the public has had to Freddy, along with the numerous (and mostly terrible) sequels have destroyed the credibility of the first film.
It's easy to say "it's a slasher film" because teenagers die, and teenagers always die in Freddy and Jason movies, but I don't think this movie was ever intended to be viewed in the same way as those other films and other Freddy sequels have since been viewed -- by a bloodthirsty audience that "rated" the kills for their "awesomeness". This is of course, is the exact vein upon which the remake is being built in this, our era of horror-porn. The problem I have with this is that you're not really supposed to be in "awe of the coolness" when Tina is dragged across the ceiling -- you're supposed to be terrified of the enormous power wielded by an unknown figure through dreams and you are supposed to relate with the utter hopelessness that these characters face. Wes Craven went to great lengths to personify this in the first film obviously, through his writing and character development.
Unlike the other films, this movie is completely somber and practically joyless. In the sequels, the writers are constantly hinting at the possibility of beating Freddy while gearing them up for the next "spectacular!" kill scene, and always comforting the audience that there will be a happy resolution (until they screw you over with the last second reveal that will guarantee another sequel).
There is all this long and supportive dialog between the characters in the sequels "We can fight him! We can beat him!", where in the first film, all of these characters (and especially Nancy) are pretty much on their own. Glenn will help comfort Tina, but only up to the point that it interferes with his lustful feelings for Nancy or his patience. Glenn supports Nancy, but abandons her by falling asleep on her the first time (dismissing her sincerity, not with his words but with his actions) and then falling asleep and dying before he was to come to her rescue as they'd planned. Nancy distrusts Rod and abandons him mid-conversation in the jail and is unsure of his motivations until just before the moment he dies. Rod and Tina are connected mostly by physical attraction and show little else (though they briefly show a somewhat deeper connection in there post-coital moments). Lt. Thompson just wants his "baby girl to get some sleep" and get out of his hair while he does his police work. Marge maintains appearances, but is more dedicated to a bottle of Vodka then her family, in addition to hiding ugly details about her past. Even Tina's mother is short with her in the first scene, annoyed that she was awakened or interrupted and then summoned by something as silly as a nightmare.
There is such a feeling of distrust and disconnectedness between these characters even before the killing starts -- they are already doomed by their vague sadness and broken connections. They are all adrift and without a friend in a cruel world of which there is no hope of escaping or possibility of someone reaching out to them.
In my mind, this is what makes it far superior to any of the other films. New Nightmare is a good film, but in a completely different way then the first film, and it certainly does not compare as a piece of surrealist horror. The third sequel possess some of the qualities of the first film (making attempts at emulating the tone of the first film) but it unravels due to them breaking rules set by the first film in order to cheat the audience and also by imbibing Freddy with this jokester-smarminess that would get out of control in the subsequent sequels.
I always preferred the term "fantasy terror" to slasher film for this picture. It certainly has elements of a slasher, but it has SO much more and putting it on level with Friday the 13th or even Halloween (which IS a slasher movie, but it's one of the first and the most well-done one) is doing it a disservice in my opinion.
Beware: Children at Play (1989)
Yikes!
I've seen a lot of trashy horror films, but this film is maybe the worst picture I've ever seen. The movie makes absolutely no sense at all and has the production values of a home movie. The worst part is when the main characters daughter participates in the killing of a woman freely, but is apprehensive about consuming her flesh. One of the other children remarks "but it's good try it" and she's like "okay" and dives right in. That sentence makes it sound almost comical, and maybe in the right disgusting, deplorable film it might be, but there is no entertainment value to be found in this picture. The movie manages to cram many adult deaths, a rape scene, and the slaughter of all of the children into the movie into 90 minutes, with not even one moment of it actually being scary or terrifying. For those that walked out the theater, I'm sure it was because of boredom and a general disgust at the subject matter over feeling truly disturbed at any of the hokey stuff that goes on in this garbage movie.