For fans of either seminal eighties horror film franchise (Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm St.) and especially for fans of both, the meeting of the minds that is Freddy vs. Jason is as good as could possibly be hoped. From the opening company logo (New Line's) that's been converted to red to more closely resemble the company's original logo that opened the first Nightmare of Elm St. to the hint of Jason's theme that accompanies it, the filmmakers get all the small details exactly right. Maybe most impressively, they came up with a believable story that would bring both maniac killers together and allow them to fight on each others respective home turf (Freddy's being dreams, Jason's, of course, being Crystal Lake). I'm just astounded that they were able to squeeze so many seminal moments of eighties horror into one film without the film devolving into parody (like A Nightmare on Elm St. 5) or a complete bloodbath (like Friday the 13th, Part 5).
Of course, this comes from a fan of both series who has recently watched all the films that preceded this one. If a viewer came into this film with only the vague ideas of Freddy and Jason that they've gotten from Halloween masks and occasional references in other media, I'm not sure how successful the film would be for them. It's impossible to imagine myself as one of them but it's safe to assume that, when Jason enters the house to kill his first victim and the victim's girlfriend is in the shower, people not familiar with the series wouldn't get the joke and would, rather, think of this scene as clichéd and old hat. I, on the other hand, loved the reference to the classic Friday the 13th shower scenes of old. And the fact that the girl in question is never really imperiled in this shower is part of the joke.
Some of the picture's best moments, the ones that are most loaded with subtext, are the murders themselves. For instance, the murder that accompanies that shower scene is of a man in bed and is filmed in such a way as to unmistakably reference the sex act. But since it's Jason doing the killing (Jason kills most of the men in the picture. Freddy takes care of the women) and his killings of men are usually decapitations (read: castrations), indeed, his later killings of men in this film are decapitations, what to make of the fact that this first murder is by repeated penetration (read: rape)? And then, later in the film, a girl is trapped asleep in Freddy's nightmare world as a drunk guy is poised to rape her in the real world. The drunk guy is about to save her from death by raping her. But then Jason comes along and stabs both of them. So, while Freddy is metaphorically raping her mind, the drunk guy is literally raping her and Jason is symbolically raping them both with his knife. That's some pretty heady stuff from a slasher flick.
This brings up the question of what role exactly Jason is playing in the film. Is he the hero of the piece? The kids eventually unleash him against Freddy in the hopes that he will save them (since Jason on the loose would only really be a problem for Crystal Lake and hence not such a threat for them since they live in Springwood). Does this make him the hero or some sort of failed romance (since he kills the girl he's ostensibly saving)? Perhaps he's some kind of heroic ambition run amok and perverted to evil by the lack of a mother figure to direct that ambition in the proper direction. Ever fearful of the sex act, Jason's been unable to overcome his trepidation and partake in the act in the rightful way. Instead he has his rapes of steel as a substitute. In the same way, his heroism is slanted and skewed. It can be harnessed by others but never truly takes the right form.
There's an awful lot going on under the surface of this film, too much even to get to it all on the first viewing. There's the part where the girl wants a nose job and then later has her nose hacked off by Freddy. There's the valiant (for a change) geek character who is actually respected and listened to and even has a somewhat heroic death. (Is this a sop to the geek fan base of the picture or does it say something about what is most valued in today's society?) There's the father, used by Freddy to murder his own wife, who comes after his daughter in exactly the same way as he went after the mother. Basically there's a ton of stuff in this film. And it's been put there by people who, for once, treat this genre with the seriousness normally accorded ancient myth. This film shows that such treatment is not only warranted but also quite fruitful. This is the film that points out just how far from mere titillation the slasher flick can be. It's a great film and nothing could have done the two franchises prouder.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 8: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN - rob hedden - 2.9 / 10
Jason Voorhees is the star of these movies. That is an undisputed fact as he is the only character to remain consistent throughout the series and is the only one for which the audience has any real interest. However, up until this seventh sequel, Jason had never had anything like star treatment. Here, for the first time, the viewer can catch a glimpse of how Jason goes about stalking his victims and why he chooses one course of action over another. You can see how he behaves after a murder (never shown before) and you can almost see how his addled child's mind thinks.
And that's all well and good for people who care about such things, but it makes for one crappy movie that couldn't scare a small child who is new to the series. If the viewer knows exactly where Jason is all the time and what exactly he's planning on doing, there's just no way to be frightened by what's going on here. Somewhere along the line someone, and I'm thinking it was the editor, figured this out, so during the later killing scenes Jason just appears out of nowhere constantly (created, probably, by jettisoning minutes of footage that show how he got to these new spots). This tactic doesn't work either because it simply makes the audience wonder how in the hell Jason could have climbed thirty rungs of a ladder in two seconds (even with his newly acquired superpowers) or how he could know the exact layout of a New York City sewer having never been away for Crystal Lake before.
But this is all moot. The real dilemma here is the time problem. The Girl Who Lives in this film is eighteen years old. As a small child of eight or nine, she was pushed in the lake by her uncle who was attempting to teach her to swim. While struggling to stay afloat, she met Jason who had been submerged there by his campmates. So, nine or ten years ago Jason was a little boy. That makes him about the same age as the kids in this film (never mind the whole, sunk at the bottom of the lake and still living thing). However, he is an adult when Tommy Jarvis, as a boy of about eleven, "kills" him in Part 4. Then, later, Tommy Jarvis returns to Crystal Lake as adult (in Part 6) and has another run-in with Jason, putting Jason's age at least over thirty. And if you really want to do the math, Part 2, in which the adult Jason first appears, was made in 1981 and Part 8 was made in 1989, so Jason has to be at least six or seven years older than the Girl Who Lives.
I know all this is beside the point with this sort of film but I couldn't help being distracted by it. Here you have one of the most interesting film franchises around with one of the richest subtexts and apparently monkeys are at the controls. There's not much about this film that could have been conceived by an intelligent, creative person. Too bad we'll never get to see what a person like that would have done with the franchise. Instead were stuck with a vision of New York that posits the ridiculous notion that the sewers are pumped full of toxic sludge every night (how our beloved killer meets his ignominious end). A sad way for someone so interesting to go out. Oh well, I suppose I haven't seen that Jason in space movie yet so I might have greater disappointment in my future.
And that's all well and good for people who care about such things, but it makes for one crappy movie that couldn't scare a small child who is new to the series. If the viewer knows exactly where Jason is all the time and what exactly he's planning on doing, there's just no way to be frightened by what's going on here. Somewhere along the line someone, and I'm thinking it was the editor, figured this out, so during the later killing scenes Jason just appears out of nowhere constantly (created, probably, by jettisoning minutes of footage that show how he got to these new spots). This tactic doesn't work either because it simply makes the audience wonder how in the hell Jason could have climbed thirty rungs of a ladder in two seconds (even with his newly acquired superpowers) or how he could know the exact layout of a New York City sewer having never been away for Crystal Lake before.
But this is all moot. The real dilemma here is the time problem. The Girl Who Lives in this film is eighteen years old. As a small child of eight or nine, she was pushed in the lake by her uncle who was attempting to teach her to swim. While struggling to stay afloat, she met Jason who had been submerged there by his campmates. So, nine or ten years ago Jason was a little boy. That makes him about the same age as the kids in this film (never mind the whole, sunk at the bottom of the lake and still living thing). However, he is an adult when Tommy Jarvis, as a boy of about eleven, "kills" him in Part 4. Then, later, Tommy Jarvis returns to Crystal Lake as adult (in Part 6) and has another run-in with Jason, putting Jason's age at least over thirty. And if you really want to do the math, Part 2, in which the adult Jason first appears, was made in 1981 and Part 8 was made in 1989, so Jason has to be at least six or seven years older than the Girl Who Lives.
I know all this is beside the point with this sort of film but I couldn't help being distracted by it. Here you have one of the most interesting film franchises around with one of the richest subtexts and apparently monkeys are at the controls. There's not much about this film that could have been conceived by an intelligent, creative person. Too bad we'll never get to see what a person like that would have done with the franchise. Instead were stuck with a vision of New York that posits the ridiculous notion that the sewers are pumped full of toxic sludge every night (how our beloved killer meets his ignominious end). A sad way for someone so interesting to go out. Oh well, I suppose I haven't seen that Jason in space movie yet so I might have greater disappointment in my future.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
FRIDAY THE 13TH PT. 7: THE NEW BLOOD – john carl beuchler – 4.5 / 10
So apparently nobody bothered to get Jason’s body out of the lake after Part 6. Great idea. I’m sure nothing bad could possibly happen from leaving the most vicious mass murderer of all time chained to a rock and floating a foot or two from the surface of Crystal Lake (oh and by the way, it’s called Crystal Lake again). And how is it that the filmmakers choose to have Jason brought back from the (half) dead? Telekinesis, of course.
Okay, so the setup is hokey and makes pretty much no sense, it is an interesting choice on a subtextual level. Telekinesis, a power that typically only manifests itself in young women (at least the young women of Brian DePalma films anyway) seems to have some connection to sexual awakening. And since Jason is a sexually stunted man who murders people in what basically amounts to rape (repeatedly penetrating women with pointed objects), it’s quite appropriate that he is brought back by a force that draws its power from burgeoning sexuality. Unfortunately, as depicted in this film, telekinesis is simultaneously pretty lame and pretty ineffectual.
But that’s not really the problem with the film. No, the real problem is the plot and the fact that there is an attempt at one. People come to Camp Crystal Lake to try and get laid and be cool, Jason kills them all except for one, the end. That’s the plot of a Friday the 13th. But no, this film has to add some mother-daughter issues and a sleazy psychiatrist who is trying to profit from his charge’s gift on top of the trying to get laid and look cool stuff. There’s just too much going on. And I don’t know if it’s fact that the filmmakers are trying to do too much that lead them to make the other characters (aside from the Girl Who Lives and her boyfriend) such tools, but man did I want to see some of these people die.
Although, come to think of it, wanting desperately to see people killed does put the viewer in a very strange place. While not exactly identifying with the killer, it makes the scary scenes far less so, if you don’t care about the survival of the victim. I don’t know, all this Friday the 13th has sort of inured me to the scary scenes in these films. Not because they are repetitive (although they are to some extent) but because no one ever survives (except, of course, the Girl Who Lives). If Jason comes after you, you die. It’s just a question of when and how horribly. So it seems a little silly to be concerned for someone’s safety if you know they ain’t gonna make it. Which, in terms of Part 7, means that when you see Jason going after one of these hateful people (they make fun of the telekinetic girl for going to a shrink, for chrissake) you can enjoy the entire sequence just as you did back in the beginning of the series. Yes, you enjoy the scene in an entirely different way, but it is enjoyment nonetheless. It’s injecting life back into the scary moments of the film and that’s something that seemed all but impossible after the last two sequels.
Okay, so the setup is hokey and makes pretty much no sense, it is an interesting choice on a subtextual level. Telekinesis, a power that typically only manifests itself in young women (at least the young women of Brian DePalma films anyway) seems to have some connection to sexual awakening. And since Jason is a sexually stunted man who murders people in what basically amounts to rape (repeatedly penetrating women with pointed objects), it’s quite appropriate that he is brought back by a force that draws its power from burgeoning sexuality. Unfortunately, as depicted in this film, telekinesis is simultaneously pretty lame and pretty ineffectual.
But that’s not really the problem with the film. No, the real problem is the plot and the fact that there is an attempt at one. People come to Camp Crystal Lake to try and get laid and be cool, Jason kills them all except for one, the end. That’s the plot of a Friday the 13th. But no, this film has to add some mother-daughter issues and a sleazy psychiatrist who is trying to profit from his charge’s gift on top of the trying to get laid and look cool stuff. There’s just too much going on. And I don’t know if it’s fact that the filmmakers are trying to do too much that lead them to make the other characters (aside from the Girl Who Lives and her boyfriend) such tools, but man did I want to see some of these people die.
Although, come to think of it, wanting desperately to see people killed does put the viewer in a very strange place. While not exactly identifying with the killer, it makes the scary scenes far less so, if you don’t care about the survival of the victim. I don’t know, all this Friday the 13th has sort of inured me to the scary scenes in these films. Not because they are repetitive (although they are to some extent) but because no one ever survives (except, of course, the Girl Who Lives). If Jason comes after you, you die. It’s just a question of when and how horribly. So it seems a little silly to be concerned for someone’s safety if you know they ain’t gonna make it. Which, in terms of Part 7, means that when you see Jason going after one of these hateful people (they make fun of the telekinetic girl for going to a shrink, for chrissake) you can enjoy the entire sequence just as you did back in the beginning of the series. Yes, you enjoy the scene in an entirely different way, but it is enjoyment nonetheless. It’s injecting life back into the scary moments of the film and that’s something that seemed all but impossible after the last two sequels.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
FRIDAY THE 13TH PT. 4: THE FINAL CHAPTER – joseph zito – 7.0 / 10
Aside from Halloween, this film may be the quintessential eighties horror flick. It has all the elements: great sex scenes, tension filled murders that are sometimes unexpected and sometimes horrifying, it’s loaded with subtext and, since the kid who ends up killing Jason in the end, seems to be headed for a career as a special effects maestro, it’s even a little bit meta. The only thing that grates about the film is the terrible music that for some reason continues to be used. Nothing about Part 1 has been carried over to the sequels (the killer’s different, the people being killed are different, etc.) except for the terrible theme. Harry Manfredini, the creator of that terrible theme, is also the only crew-member that has remained throughout the series. Whether this is because they are just recycling the music from the first film for all of the sequels I do not know. Whatever the reason, I just can’t understand why anyone would choose to keep using this terrible music
Also, a minor concern I suppose, but when did Jason get superpowers? In the previous two films (he wasn’t in the first one), he’s just a regular fucked up psycho but here he suddenly has the power to throw people through walls and bust down doors with this hands. Although his previous incarnations were a little stronger than your average human, his exploits were still more believable than the shotgun blast to the chest induced flight across the room of most action films. Now, however, and without explanation, he has powers. I suppose he needed to have superpowers to survive the axe to the head that ended the third film, however, I think an explanation as to the origin of these powers is needed or, barring that, it would be nice for someone to at least comment on the fact that he seems to have superpowers.
Still and all, this is a very good, maybe the best, entry in the series. It’s got a lot to chew on after the killings are done. The one that’s still working its way around in my brain is what’s going on the final scene where Tommy, after crippling Jason, sees his hand twitch and so proceeds to beat his head until it’s turned to liquid. On seeing the next film, I suppose one might think that it was meant to leave the door open for Tommy to become the new Jason. But from the production values and the subtitle, I really think this was intended to be the last Friday the 13th. So would they really plant the seed for a sequel in what was supposed to be the last film in the series? I doubt it. So what’s going on there? Why does Tommy only really beat on Jason after the heat of the moment has passed? I guess it says something about the nature and power of violence and the addictive rush it can give the person committing it. I think it also might say something about the nature of people in these movies in general. Nobody seems to be in this film for any other purpose than to kill or be killed. And since Tommy isn’t going to be the latter he must embrace the former, there’s no middle ground in Friday the 13th.
Also, a minor concern I suppose, but when did Jason get superpowers? In the previous two films (he wasn’t in the first one), he’s just a regular fucked up psycho but here he suddenly has the power to throw people through walls and bust down doors with this hands. Although his previous incarnations were a little stronger than your average human, his exploits were still more believable than the shotgun blast to the chest induced flight across the room of most action films. Now, however, and without explanation, he has powers. I suppose he needed to have superpowers to survive the axe to the head that ended the third film, however, I think an explanation as to the origin of these powers is needed or, barring that, it would be nice for someone to at least comment on the fact that he seems to have superpowers.
Still and all, this is a very good, maybe the best, entry in the series. It’s got a lot to chew on after the killings are done. The one that’s still working its way around in my brain is what’s going on the final scene where Tommy, after crippling Jason, sees his hand twitch and so proceeds to beat his head until it’s turned to liquid. On seeing the next film, I suppose one might think that it was meant to leave the door open for Tommy to become the new Jason. But from the production values and the subtitle, I really think this was intended to be the last Friday the 13th. So would they really plant the seed for a sequel in what was supposed to be the last film in the series? I doubt it. So what’s going on there? Why does Tommy only really beat on Jason after the heat of the moment has passed? I guess it says something about the nature and power of violence and the addictive rush it can give the person committing it. I think it also might say something about the nature of people in these movies in general. Nobody seems to be in this film for any other purpose than to kill or be killed. And since Tommy isn’t going to be the latter he must embrace the former, there’s no middle ground in Friday the 13th.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME – j. lee thompson – 6.7 / 10
This cheapie Canadian tax shelter flick is pretty much a perfect example of an 80’s slasher flick. It’s not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it has a lot more going for it than most of the cheapie horror films that piggybacked on the success of Friday the 13th.
Viewed at this late date (the film was made in 1981), Happy Birthday to Me looks like an instruction manual for the many slasher films that would follow in the next two decades. The film is set at a prestigious boarding school (as later films like Urban Legend and Cry Wolf would be). It centers around the most popular kids in school as they drink and carouse and get picked off one by one (as in I Know What You Did Last Summer or Graduation Day). Its protagonist has a horrible event in her past that she’s trying to outrun but that has implications for the murders currently being committed (just like Scream and The Fog and Boogeyman and Jeeper Creepers). And finally, the end is one twist after another as more and more information is revealed (just like any self-respecting horror flick ever made).
Since the slasher genre doesn’t get much attention in film history textbooks and in college classrooms, I don’t have quite as good a handle on the history of the genre as I do on, say, the detective film or the western. So I don’t know if Happy Birthday to Me was a big deal when it came out and therefore can’t say for certain that this film was hugely influential. But judging by the films of its ilk that have come after it, either Happy Birthday to Me was the prototype for a great many films or else it just happened to touch on all the things the genre would eventually embrace. Either way, it’s a remarkable achievement for a film whose only real reason for being made was to give some doctor or lawyer a tax write off.
Viewed at this late date (the film was made in 1981), Happy Birthday to Me looks like an instruction manual for the many slasher films that would follow in the next two decades. The film is set at a prestigious boarding school (as later films like Urban Legend and Cry Wolf would be). It centers around the most popular kids in school as they drink and carouse and get picked off one by one (as in I Know What You Did Last Summer or Graduation Day). Its protagonist has a horrible event in her past that she’s trying to outrun but that has implications for the murders currently being committed (just like Scream and The Fog and Boogeyman and Jeeper Creepers). And finally, the end is one twist after another as more and more information is revealed (just like any self-respecting horror flick ever made).
Since the slasher genre doesn’t get much attention in film history textbooks and in college classrooms, I don’t have quite as good a handle on the history of the genre as I do on, say, the detective film or the western. So I don’t know if Happy Birthday to Me was a big deal when it came out and therefore can’t say for certain that this film was hugely influential. But judging by the films of its ilk that have come after it, either Happy Birthday to Me was the prototype for a great many films or else it just happened to touch on all the things the genre would eventually embrace. Either way, it’s a remarkable achievement for a film whose only real reason for being made was to give some doctor or lawyer a tax write off.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
HOSTEL - eli roth - 4.1 / 10
As far as I can tell, the point of this film is to see how much you, the viewer, can stomach. There's nothing in its artfully disturbed head besides a desire to maim and torture. So much so that during the film's climactic escape from the house of horrors there are numerous scenes of horrible violence for no apparent reason (two men get their heads bashed in by hungry looking children, a Japanese woman throws herself in front of a train). These moments do not advance the plot and are not necessary from any sort of story perspective. (Notice that I've left out the final murder in a Prague bathroom which is somewhat justifiable.) They are bloodletting for the sake of bloodletting.
So the question becomes, what the hell is the point of this sadism and why are people interested in watching it? These days the vogue in horror / thrillers is to set the action in medieval looking dungeons with years of blood and grim soaked into the artfully photographed cracks in the floor. Various tools of torture (all artfully rusted and squeaking of course) are strewn about the room. And there's always some sort of half human hunchback waiting in the wings to clean up the mess when the sadist torturers have completed their work. I guess the thinking is that we are no longer scared of death itself, that what we really fear is a gruesome and prolonged death. And so these films (Saw, Wolf Creek, etc.) give us the bloody torture before the eventual murder. There's nothing wrong with that approach in and of itself (except perhaps for what it says about a society hungry to eat up this sort of uber violence) but what is often lost, as it is in this film, is any pretense of scaring the audience. There's no build-up of tension and no question of what's going to happen. It's just a waiting game for scenes of torture.
There's also the issue of the gross misuse of music in Hostel. Throughout the beginning of the film, in which there's nothing much horrible happening, the music is used to give a sense of foreboding when none would otherwise exist. I suppose that's somewhat necessary because of the complete lack of anything interesting happening but the way in which it's overused is just grating. There's no need to have a huge build with violins screeching away as the train pulls into the station. It's distracting and annoying and completely unjustified.
So the question becomes, what the hell is the point of this sadism and why are people interested in watching it? These days the vogue in horror / thrillers is to set the action in medieval looking dungeons with years of blood and grim soaked into the artfully photographed cracks in the floor. Various tools of torture (all artfully rusted and squeaking of course) are strewn about the room. And there's always some sort of half human hunchback waiting in the wings to clean up the mess when the sadist torturers have completed their work. I guess the thinking is that we are no longer scared of death itself, that what we really fear is a gruesome and prolonged death. And so these films (Saw, Wolf Creek, etc.) give us the bloody torture before the eventual murder. There's nothing wrong with that approach in and of itself (except perhaps for what it says about a society hungry to eat up this sort of uber violence) but what is often lost, as it is in this film, is any pretense of scaring the audience. There's no build-up of tension and no question of what's going to happen. It's just a waiting game for scenes of torture.
There's also the issue of the gross misuse of music in Hostel. Throughout the beginning of the film, in which there's nothing much horrible happening, the music is used to give a sense of foreboding when none would otherwise exist. I suppose that's somewhat necessary because of the complete lack of anything interesting happening but the way in which it's overused is just grating. There's no need to have a huge build with violins screeching away as the train pulls into the station. It's distracting and annoying and completely unjustified.
Friday, January 6, 2006
SUPERMAN - richard donner - 3.0 / 10
The special effects are lame and the story's completely lacking in any sort of logic or believability (turning the Earth backwards to reverse time? Really?) so I can't for the life of me understand why this film is so revered. Let's start with the opening scenes set on Krypton concerning Jor-El (Superman's father) and his run-ins with the Council. He first sentences some bad guys (the sequel's villains) to some sort of alternate dimension as punishment for some non-specific crimes. Why this is in the film is never made clear as it plays no part in the rest of the plot and does nothing to define the character of the people later involved in the film proper. Then Jor-El tells the Council that the planet is doomed. They don't believe him, of course, and instruct him not to leave the planet. Why he listens to them is never adequately explained and really what could they have done to him if he decided to leave when the planet was exploding? Then, of course, there's the fact that both Jor-El and his wife know what kind of life Kal-El (Superman) would have on Earth (i.e. that he would be a god among men). How do they know this? And more importantly, how does their knowing this impact the story in the least? In short, why bother having them know this?
Okay, so dissecting the specific illogicalities of the film is sort of a zero sum game as you're left with really no film whatsoever if you take away everything that doesn't make sense. But seriously, turning the Earth backwards, what the fuck? I guess the concept of trying to make superhero films set in the recognizably real world is something of a recent development but this is really pushing it. Especially when you take into account all the ways in which Metropolis is shown to be New York (multiple Twin Towers shots, the Statue of Liberty, etc.). It just isn't very consistent, is what I'm trying to say and even if the film is planning on being cheesy and silly it still needs some consistency. The fact that the sequels only got worse really says something about how far down the bottom is for these superhero flicks.
Okay, so dissecting the specific illogicalities of the film is sort of a zero sum game as you're left with really no film whatsoever if you take away everything that doesn't make sense. But seriously, turning the Earth backwards, what the fuck? I guess the concept of trying to make superhero films set in the recognizably real world is something of a recent development but this is really pushing it. Especially when you take into account all the ways in which Metropolis is shown to be New York (multiple Twin Towers shots, the Statue of Liberty, etc.). It just isn't very consistent, is what I'm trying to say and even if the film is planning on being cheesy and silly it still needs some consistency. The fact that the sequels only got worse really says something about how far down the bottom is for these superhero flicks.
Thursday, January 5, 2006
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE - wes craven - 7.8 / 10
New Nightmare is certainly the best film in the Nightmare on Elm St. cycle. It is also one of the most inventive horror films around and provides the series with a fittingly conclusive ending. The film is set in our (i.e. the real) world where the actors Robert Englund (who played Freddy) and Heather Langenkamp (who played the original Girl Who Lives in the first film) play themselves regrouping to create one final Nightmare on Elm St. But Freddy Krueger invades the real world and starts wreaking havoc.
It seems that, since he's been driven out of his various nightmare realms, he's left with only ours to torment. It's a brilliant idea and the execution is almost as intoxicating as the concept. There's some stuff about Wes's nightmares spawning the films; that he creates them from his dreams; that he is simply a conduit for them rather than the creator of a story. Thus Freddy becomes a sort of spectral ghost relying on the tales in which he is the star to sustain him. Now that the series of films is drawing to a close, he needs to invade our world in order to stay relevant and to continue to exist. He's a story that's fighting to continue being told so that he does not slip into irrelevance and the realm of forgotten bogeymen and childhood nightmares. It's a wonderful concept for a horror film and more importantly it's a fitting conclusion to a cycle of films that, despite the terribleness of most of them, has become ingrained in the consciousness of the American public. Rather than allowing the series to peter out and fade into obsolescence (as these things so often do) Craven revitalized it at the moment of its conclusion. Fitting and wonderful.
It seems that, since he's been driven out of his various nightmare realms, he's left with only ours to torment. It's a brilliant idea and the execution is almost as intoxicating as the concept. There's some stuff about Wes's nightmares spawning the films; that he creates them from his dreams; that he is simply a conduit for them rather than the creator of a story. Thus Freddy becomes a sort of spectral ghost relying on the tales in which he is the star to sustain him. Now that the series of films is drawing to a close, he needs to invade our world in order to stay relevant and to continue to exist. He's a story that's fighting to continue being told so that he does not slip into irrelevance and the realm of forgotten bogeymen and childhood nightmares. It's a wonderful concept for a horror film and more importantly it's a fitting conclusion to a cycle of films that, despite the terribleness of most of them, has become ingrained in the consciousness of the American public. Rather than allowing the series to peter out and fade into obsolescence (as these things so often do) Craven revitalized it at the moment of its conclusion. Fitting and wonderful.
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