|
Post by Jay on Oct 25, 2021 12:34:37 GMT -8
And now, a spook-tacular edition of "What I Watched This Week": A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Did you know there was a preposition at the start of this movie's title? I only found out about that this week, when watching the OG Freddy Kreuger film for the first time. It's an entertaining film for much of its run - formulaic even for its time, but has good fun with the dreams vs. reality scenes, and some horrific visuals from the director's Craven mind. (I believe this is the first movie in Wes' filmography I've seen outside the Scream series, and you can certainly see how films like ANoES gave his later work the fodder for their meta tinge.) Only real letdown to this film is the ending. I think it's supposed to set up the sequels, but it's kind of a lame finale on its own. Jer, that's an indefinite article, not a preposition. ANYWAY. I had to do that, I'm teaching a double load of comp this semester. I would say that the ending was sort of, a stock ending of the era, much like the ending to Carrie, where it's harder to appreciate now as something that's been so thoroughly referenced and parodied. I have a few movies to go through and summarize, but I will be taking a quick look at another Wes Craven movie the closest thing we had to a Twin Peaks revival for a while: THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Oct 25, 2021 19:43:07 GMT -8
"Jason in Space" sounds almost crazy enough to work, but I think it was just mostly really boring, with little in the way of cheap laughs. So I'm currently writing a piece about horror films (one franchise specifically) that will hopefully be posted later this week, and I'm now inspired to include a "Jason in Space" joke. Kudos. Jer, that's an indefinite article, not a preposition. Oops! You are correct. Slightly embarrassing, let's pretend that never happened. Also, it also seems I was wrong about declining audience interest. Freddy vs. Jason was apparently a box-office smash, proving yet again that sandwiching a little "v" between two recognizable cinematic properties in your movie title guarantees a moneymaker.
|
|
|
Post by guttersnipe on Oct 27, 2021 0:01:01 GMT -8
Halloween III: Season of the Witch I might revisit this on TV this week, because I'm amongst its fans - resurrecting Samhain via Raeganism? Yes please! As a critic of the McSlasher approach, I appreciate any attempt to switch up the formula, and I remember this one boasting some pretty neat cinematography (and the kids feel to me like a forerunner of Lock, Shock and Barrel from A Nightmare Before Christmas).
|
|
|
Post by guttersnipe on Oct 27, 2021 0:10:26 GMT -8
I appreciate how Craven was able to both indulge horror/thriller fans while poking fun at the genre. So I'll probably check out more of his work. As someone who unfathomably soldiered through most of Craven's output, I don't actually recommend any of his stuff except the first Elm Street, The Serpent and the Rainbow, and his touchingly aberrant section of Paris je t'aime. A few years ago I got some mileage out of Shocker, right up until his trademark penchant for cranking up the silly in the third act (which upends hitherto skin-crawling for a literal chase sequence through various TV shows). Thought the sex-doll ending of Elm Street was a daft touch that didn't do too much harm to the overall product? That's just an aperitif for this guy's MO.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 27, 2021 15:53:22 GMT -8
Yeah, Craven's certainly a mediocre filmmaker overall.
BTW, Jeremy, interesting fun fact: the guy who directed the third NoES film (which some consider to be better than the original) was Chuck Russell, who is otherwise probably best known for directing Jim Carrey in The Mask. And it was co-written by Frank Darabont. And I just remembered that a young Laurence Fishburne is in it as well. Yeah, I'm just going by distant memory, but I think this was the most visually inventive one.
And freakin' Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, etc.) directed the fourth one...heh.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Oct 27, 2021 19:26:48 GMT -8
For some reason, I considered watching the original Last House on the Left a little while ago (I think it caught my eye on Amazon Prime), but a quick glance at the IMDb page convinced me that I was better off spending my viewing time elsewhere. It's entirely possible that the much of Craven's output isn't for me; I've mostly just watched his more famous films, and I guess the cream of his output (like many other directors) rises to the top.
I usually watch film series in order of release, but I guess there's no harm in skipping the second Nightmare on Elm Street and checking out the third. It sounds promising, and certainly has some early talent in its cast and crew. (Though of course the original film was no slouch in that department - see Depp, Johnny.)
Is Renny Harlin perceived as a talented director? I like Die Hard 2 and all, but it seems like most of his films since the mid-90s have been critical/commercial failures. (Five Razzie nominations? Ouch.)
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 27, 2021 21:18:39 GMT -8
Oh, I wasn't suggesting that Harlin was a great director or anything, but merely acknowledging that he dabbled in a horror franchise before making the big-budget action films.
The thing about Nightmare On Elm Street 2 is that it almost feels like a side film, in that I don't even think it sticks to the death-via-surreal-dreams format. It's really just a heavy-handed body possession movie by way of repressed-homosexuality metaphors, and it's kind of a bummer. There's very little continuity from the second-to-third films, too, aside from it taking place in the same house five years later.
Anyways, it's been a long time since I've seen any of these films, and I'm sure some of the acting in virtually all of them is pretty dodgy, but the third one definitely works well as a companion to the first one, and has some pretty inventive visuals, and visual effects, for its time. Maybe you'll watch it and think it's terrible, and I'm crazy, but I suspect you'll get something out of it. It's also only 96 minutes long.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Oct 29, 2021 8:03:24 GMT -8
So, I watched Nightmare on Elm Street 3 last night. It's pretty good. Possibly a notch better than the first film, though it's rather close. This one does suffer from some weak acting in the supporting roles, but the visuals are creepy and inventive, and the rules regarding the dream world seem to make a little more sense than they did in Craven's film. (Though there are still lingering questions - how is it that the Elm Street kids all wound up in the same hospital? If they can dream themselves as superheroes, what is limiting them in the dream world apart from their own imagination?)
And overall, Freddy Kreuger makes for a more interesting villain than a silent killing machine like Michael Meyers or a whodunit mystery man like Ghostface - Robert Englund is allowed to be more expressive than the average horror film antagonist, and the dream world allows for lots of creative visual effects (dates as some of them may be). So I expect I'll check out some other entries in the series.
I also watched The Exorcist this week. It's well-done but not quite the immersive frightfest I was led to believe. The story takes too long to get going and needlessly meanders during much of the second act. (Presumably it wanted to be faithful to the book, which I've never read.) Great visual effects - with a high ick factor - and the excellent performance from young Linda Blair, but not engaging enough to justify the two-hour length. (Who knows, maybe I've just gotten used to horror films being under 100 minutes.)
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 29, 2021 13:19:03 GMT -8
So, I watched Nightmare on Elm Street 3 last night... Did the marionette bit with one of the kills gross you out? And BTW, the bit with the sexy nurse was originally gonna involve the actress with Freddy makeup on, but the producers were a bit too weirded-out by the visual of Freddy with boobs. I think they made the correct decision. Heh. Anyways, #4 is structurally similar to #3, but is generally considered weaker (and the way they resurrect Freddy is beyond laughable, though probably meant to be funny), and #5 continues the downward trajectory (though it has a potent premise). Some folks consider the last installment in the original run, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" a step up in some regards, and it features some Wizard of Oz references, Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold in guest roles, and Alice Cooper as Freddy's dad. So, very late-80s. The explanation of his dream powers is, of course, utterly ridiculous. 1994's Wes Craven's New Nightmare has a more serious tone, but a fairy-tale-like story, and obviously it's very metatextual. Freddy Vs. Jason, from many years later, is obviously very fan-servicey and stupid, but it has its moments, and some of the kills are hilarious. ETA: Yeah, I just skimmed over a YouTube video summary of the kills in NoES 3. As expected, the acting is pretty weak, and it's got the usual 80s synth score. Still many of the kills and overall visuals were very creative for any time period. That said, the acting in horror films in recent years is vastly superior to those in earlier decades. I mean, the acting in, say, Happy Death Day is actually very nuanced overall. I suspect the overall pool of actors today is much better trained before they get work in any modestly-budgeted film, regardless of genre.
|
|
|
Post by guttersnipe on Oct 30, 2021 15:03:45 GMT -8
So Nightmare 3 was my second film of the month, and I seem to be a lot cooler on it than you guys (and indeed IRL friends) largely because it's the centrifugal moment in which Freddy truly becomes a figure of fun. Indeed, his one-liners alone practically generate the spot-on Rick and Morty parody, because that character becomes pinioned on the 'chat-show "bitch" Krueger' created at this stage. Which isn't to say there wasn't already silliness, but it wasn't typically aimed at the villain, so the (ridiculously entertaining) second part that I watched this time last year works because as his appearances still hinge on the protagonist's refusal to wrestle with the closet door rather than a step-by-step process of: guy is afraid of driving? Impale him with a traffic cone. It isn't aided by the fact that I would argue that the design of the slasher franchise invariably dilutes its monsters' effectiveness by the necessity of repetition (Halloween III is at least an ideas picture) or that Bad Dreams was released circa the same era and played the conceit absolutely straight. I like Chuck Russell (The Mask was a childhood fave and he remade The Blob to superior results), but I felt he couldn't do anything here to combat the longeurs between setpieces.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 30, 2021 17:36:12 GMT -8
Like I said, I think it's fairly enjoyable and creative relative to the slasher-movie formula, but that formula (and the level of acting of the era in these films) is what it is. That said, I think he's at the tipping-point of the stand-up comedy routine presentation, but doesn't really fall into it completely until the next one ("The Dream Master"). To the best of my recollection, of course.
Oh and Jeremy, re: your recent article, I should note that I haven't seen a single film in the Paranormal Activity series. I've never really been into found-footage/faux-documentary-type horror films, even the more well-regarded ones.
|
|
|
Post by guttersnipe on Oct 30, 2021 23:30:28 GMT -8
The [•REC] films aside, you're not missing much; in fact I've long argued that found-footage exists to hide a multitude of aesthetic sins. But I try to be a silver linings type of guy, and I at least thank The Blair Witch Project for teaching me a valuable lesson about hype, because I still remember that the scariest thing about that film was the theatre featured an unusual surfeit of bald people, like we'd walked into a THX cast reunion. Not even horror veteran Bernard Rose could make anything but an atrocity of the format with his film sxtape (he very recently made a full-on jidaigeki. He has a strange career).
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 31, 2021 2:13:05 GMT -8
Though I don' t know that it applies, per se, to the PA films (clips I've seen suggest stationary cameras), I also dislike how faux-documentary horror films often come part-and-parcel with gratuitous levels of shaky cam. And that applies to other subgenres as well. For instance, I've enjoyed most of director Matt Reeves' work, and look forward to his upcoming Batman film, but would never revisit Cloverfield, which is nausea-inducing to me.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Oct 31, 2021 10:48:20 GMT -8
Did the marionette bit with one of the kills gross you out? The marionette scene was was one of the most nauseating things I've seen in a film all year. Like I've indicated in the past, I notice that a lot of these horror franchises tend to get more violent as they go on, as a way of topping the original films, and I'm not the greatest fan of that. At least this one managed to be... creative about it. Re. the Chuck Russell connection, it's been a long while since I watched The Mask, but I remember it being more violent than it probably needed to be. Of course, the original comic books got very graphic and bloody at times, so I can't fault Russell as the movie is pretty tame by comparison. Horror movie acting does tend to be better in modern films than in older ones. It helps that the better modern horror movies try to juggle varying genres, so films like Happy Death Day or Freaky need actors who can do comedy as well as drama. Blumhouse invests time in finding talented young actors, and it shows. Yeah, found-footage movies tend to be polarizing, particularly the shaky-cam variety. (I remember reports of people getting nauseated watching Cloverfield on the big screen.) The first Paranormal Activity film tends not to lean heavily on shakiness (most of the effective scares come during the steady-cam nighttime scenes), so it's probably a bit less divisive than most. I just have a special respect for it because the ending* scared the bejeebus out of me the first time I watched it. *The original ending, not the lame alternate finale made for wide theatrical release. I think the DVD and streaming versions retain the original ending, as they should.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 31, 2021 13:02:49 GMT -8
I notice that the original PA is on Netflix. Maybe I'll give that one a look, at least.
Lately, I've been indulging a few post-modern slasher flicks. Watched the first two Fear Street Netflix movies (1994 and 1978), which are fairly well-acted and at least interesting in terms of how they jump time periods to tell their overarching story. I also watched Final Girls this morning, which is another meta entry that has a good heart at its core (daughter inadvertently "reuniting" with her late mother in a role the latter played in an old cult film). Alia Shawkat is good in it, in a supporting role, and the lead is Vera Farmiga's younger sister (who very much resembles her). It's light, and brisk, and you'd probably enjoy it, Jeremy, as it's a comedy-horror, mostly leaning towards the former genre.
|
|