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[Script To Scream]: Awkward Sex, Different Characters, Gargoyles, A Freddy Dog And More In ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’!

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Editor’s note: All script images have been removed from this article.

A film lives many lives before it ever hits the screen. A script is usually revised multiple times (sometimes dozens) before a single foot of film is exposed (or the digital equivalent thereof). I’m not just talking about smaller stuff like dialogue polishes and the addition or deletion of scenes. Many times the core story is reworked in profound ways. Sometimes it’s downright shocking how different the final film can be from the initial drafts.

In this new (semi-regular) feature for Bloody-Disgusting, I’m going to take a look at some early drafts of scripts for horror films that you may have already seen and discuss the differences, whether they took a turn for the worse, better or just different. There are also a handful of scripts for sequels and remakes that never happened that are worth checking out – just to see what might have been.

These aren’t script reviews, and only rarely will I be breaking the stories down on a beat-by-beat basis. I’m just going to point out some cool, interesting and/or disastrous choices that happened along the way. Each installment will be different, and each installment will be fun. I’ll also be including sample pages (when available)* so you don’t have to take my word for it!

*This applies only to older and previously released films that are already part of the culture. We’re not in the business of leaking or sabotaging projects in development.

My first installment was a look at Joe Dante’s Gremlins, written by Chris Columbus. Next, I took a crack at Zombieland written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Today – in the longest installment by far – we’re gonna dive into an early draft of A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

I’m wagering that almost all of you know Chuck Russel’s A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors like the back of your hand. For those who don’t, it follows the story of a group of troubled, institutionalized teens who, in addition to fighting their own demons while awake, are being terrorized and killed by Freddy in their sleep.

In addition, they all have special powers while in the dream world that allow them to take Krueger on. Kristen (Patricia Arquette) can pull other people into her dreams (as well as perform gymnastics). Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) has super strength. Recovering addict Taryn (Jennifer Rubin) is punk-rock beautiful and “bad” with her switchblades. Wheelchair bound Will (Ira Heiden) can walk and turn into the “wizard master”. Unfortunately, the expert puppeteer Phillip (Bradley Gregg) and aspiring actress Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow) don’t make it long enough to fully realize their powers. And poor mute Joey spends the 3rd act largely (and literally) tongue-tied – though he does pull it together for one big triumphant scream.

Rounding out the cast are Craig Wasson as their caring psychiatrist Neil, Heather Langenkamp reprising her roll as Nancy (who is now a dream expert) and John Saxon as Nancy’s dad John (who has sunk into alcoholism following the events of part 1).

But the script used to be very, very different. It’s widely known that Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell did their own pass on the script as it moved closer to production. I’m not sure which additions are theirs – I know they reordered a few things and took Phillip’s existing sleep-walking death and made it a billion times more awesome by adding the vein-marionette conceit. But the first few drafts were done by Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner. I have one dated late July 1986 that is more or less the film you see today (and by more or less I mean it has quite a bit of differences but most of the major story beats are intact). But – just six weeks earlier – in a draft dated 6/16/86 – it was an entirely different movie. Sure, the concept of the “Dream Warriors” was there, so was the hospital and most of the patients. Even a couple of the kills are the same.

So what’s different? Let’s take a look. For instance, this draft of Dream Warriors gives us a look at “Baby Freddy”. A concept we don’t see explored until Part 5: The Dream Child is the very first thing we see here. Also, oddly, the script often spells “Freddy” as “Freddie”.

As you can see from the above page, this original draft also concerned itself with a wave of missing teens from across the nation.

One of the main differences here is that Nancy is the protagonist right off that bat, rather than Kristen (who doesn’t pop up until much later). The film originally opened in a dream of Nancy’s – wherein she stops to pick up a red-headed hitchhiker who makes multiple appearances in the draft.

One thing this draft isn’t short on? Interesting concepts. It’s also not short on iffy dialogue that would have been positively mangled by Langenkamp. Of course – it still has the jumprope sing-songy kids.

Nancy and her father. (whose dialogue in the script is alternately attributed to both “Father” and “John” – remember, these were the days when fixing errors like this meant typing a whole new page, not just conducting a find and replace), who has suddenly appeared, investigate a ranch house.

Then, she’s awoken from her dream by Neil – a stranger in this version. Her tire really is flat so he takes her to his place, the idea being that they’ll get her car in the morning. After the events of the first film you would think Nancy would be somewhat guarded about this kind of situation… but no.

Hypnocyl, the drug used in the final film, is also prevalent in this draft. Here, Neil researches it after taking an interest in Nancy – who is sleeping in the other room.

We dive into Nancy’s dream – where we meet our hitcher again. Here, the snake concept is used in a different manner. Neil via Freddy and Nancy instead of Kristen.

A big difference in this draft is that Neil invites Nancy to come check out the hospital. If you remember the finished film you’ll know that she was kind of foisted on him by the staff. Also – the idea of “an Elm Street in every town” is introduced. In the existing series it wouldn’t pop up until Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.

Turns out the dream hitchhiker was very real. A girl who “committed suicide”. Her hair is used as a recurring visual motif that haunts Nancy, a device that provides sufficient enough guilt to provide further motivation for her helping the kids.

Neil and Nancy head back to go get her car and stumble upon the crime scene. This road is, again, near the ranch house that keeps making a appearance…

… and Nancy’s car has actually been recovered from a nearby grain elevator, all slashed up by Freddy. A weird image.

Neil provides some exposition regarding the current “suicide storm”. I’m not sure if he means to say “county” or “country” since the opening images in the script are of large cities – which one would presume are from across the nation. He also makes mention of Kristen*, who was introduced earlier when admitted to the hospital (I didn’t include an image of this page – the scene plays out similarly to her admittance scene in the film, without the added benefit of being introduced to her dreams, her home life, or her mother yet).

*In this draft she’s “Kirsten”. I’m going to be calling her “Kristen” because that’s how we all know her from the film (and it’s how she was introduced in this piece).

Baby Freddy again. Here he swells into full form for the first time in the draft.

Neil tells Nancy about a “schizophrenic” who has tried to burn down the ranch house. We cut to the house – which clearly contains Freddy’s spirit (or whatever), subbing in thematically for the homemade replica Kristen made in the film.

The “schizophrenic” actually turns out to be Nancy’s father, John. He’s badly burned and hospitalized. In a huge change from the film, here he’s much more proactive. He hasn’t been hiding in a bottle, rather he’s been trying to hunt Freddy down all along. He actually kind of serves as an authority and expert on Freddy to Nancy throughout the script. It’s a far more organic role for his character when contrasted with his introduction in Act 3 of the finished film.

He explains the significance of the ranch house.

Phillip’s sleepwalking scene – minus the cool vein-marionette gag. Freddy’s physically walking him down the hall, with Phillip’s feet on top of his shoes.

In another big change – Kristen is actually discharged from the institution and heads back to high school, where she’s tormented by uber b*tch Sally…

… but it’s all good. Kristen gets some inadvertent revenge when she slips into a dream during class and wakes up, having ripped Sally’s clothes off in her nightmare.

John (here listed as both “Father” and “John” in the same scene) suggests to Nancy that Kristen and the other kids might be more powerful than she is, and that she’ll need their help taking down Freddy.

It should be noted that in this draft Kristen still has the power to pull people into her dreams, which will come in handy later.

Yay! Freddy Dog hunts Kincaid and Kristen in their dreams! I kind of wish we’d seen this.

A strange sex scene between Neil and Nancy. I’m pretty glad I didn’t have to watch this, it’s kind of awkward. And that line… just take a minute to imagine how goofy the below scene would have been on film. Wasson and Langenkamp getting it on would have been the most disturbing nightmare sequence in the entire series.

Nancy’s dad urging her to storm the ranch house with the Dream Warriors. While it’s cool that he’s more proactive in this draft, his scenes are repetitive and laden with exposition. I have a hunch they would have become seriously annoying in the film.

The Dream Warriors – including Laredo, a character omitted from the film – gather to storm the ranch house. Naturally this is all in a dream, and they’re all brought there by Kristen. I like the imagery of them gathered on the hilltop, preparing for battle.

Another difference is the presence of Joey. By this point in the final film he’s already tongue-tied to the bed. Here, he’s seduced and abducted during the 3rd act siege (instead of his “ransom” providing the catalyst for the 3rd act as it does in the film). In the 1986 draft, the tongues on the bed literally pull him apart, like four horses, killing him,

As in the final film, Nancy’s dad is brought into the 3rd act dream battle, but the mechanics of it are different. Also note – there’s no junkyard in this script. There’s also no Sister Mary Helena/Amanda Krueger. There’s no mention of her being locked away and there’s no mention of Freddy being the bastard son of a 100 maniacs.

Here, John seemingly dies.

Taryn is significantly different in this draft. For starters, she’s black. Her powers are different and so is her demise. Her grandmother (Freddy, naturally) opens up her stomach and eats her alive. Wes Craven’s handling of “urban dialogue” makes me uncomfortable sometimes.

Laredo, the Dream Warrior we never got to meet, turns into a gargoyle. This happens right after Freddy appeared to him as Toby, the little brother who drowned on Laredo’s watch (and whose memory still haunts him). Laredo’s wise to this though and kicks the little boy in the nuts, turning him into Freddy. After that happens the gargoyle bit comes into play. This sequence would have looked awesome. It makes little to no sense for someone to have gargoyle power though. In the finished film the kids’ dream abilities were to escape their real world damage, inadequacies and physical constraints. “Not being a gargoyle” isn’t exactly a real-life problem. Still, it’s a cool sequence (that was likely too expensive to film anyway).

Laredo is taken down by Freddy’s canny use of power tools. We can really see his penchant for one-liners taking shape in this draft. It’s an element that worked in this film, but pretty much destroyed the subsequent entries. The “screw you” here is something straight out of The Dream Master.

In another big change, Kincaid dies a fairly inventive, nasty death. Maddelena, by the way, is sort of this draft’s version of Priscilla Pointer’s Dr. Simms, only not as b*tchy.

John, Nancy and Kristen are transferred from the ranch house into the boiler room from the original film. Nancy instructs Kristen that the only way to take down Freddy is to turn your back on him and take away his power. Of course this is how things played out in the first film, and it’s an odd choice by Wagner and Craven because they spend a lot of time earlier in the script setting up the idea that the kids have a better way of destroying Freddy than Nancy does. It kind of comes out of nowhere.

Then, as it is in the final film, it turns out that Freddy is actually posing as John and he stabs Nancy in the stomach with his claw. The big change is that as she’s dying she plunges a steel blade into his chest – severely weakening him and making him melt/dissolve. Eventually he turns to ashes and blows away.

But he’s not dead yet… Kristen “wakes up” back at the ranch house. And, in the basement, we revisit the film’s opening scene depicting Freddy’s gruesome birth. Again, while Amanda Krueger (and her rape and pregnancy) are never mentioned – I suppose her uterus makes a cameo.

Here, Kristen kills Baby Freddy straight out of the womb.

Neil and Kristen are the only survivors. They awake together in a field covered by the ashes of the ranch house. Months later they’re having dinner together, and Neil reveals that Nancy still visits him in his dreams. It’s a sweet touch.

There you have it. All in all, Dream Warriors is probably my favorite of the Elm Street movies. However, I can’t help but wonder if I would have liked it better if this draft had been filmed. Both this script and the final film have their share of weaknesses, so it’s kind of a toss-up – with the final film winning by a hair I guess. Probably because it’s infinitely more focussed, as later drafts always are.

What do you think?

Editorials

‘The Fog’ 19 Years Later: There’s a Reason You Don’t Remember This John Carpenter Remake

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The Fog remake
Pictured: 'The Fog' (2005)

John Carpenter’s illustrious catalog of horror and non-horror classics has already seen three remakes (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, and this column’s focus), with at least one more kinda-sorta confirmed on the way (Escape from New York). If you consider 2011’s The Thing enough of a remake, notch another on the bedpost. It makes sense; Carpenter turned his no-bullshit attitude into a masterful filmmaking style, and those listed titles harbor nostalgic admiration. We’re probably closer than we think to seeing Bryan Fuller’s Christine remake for Blumhouse or a contemporary They Live, while Dwayne Johnson’s Big Trouble in Little China sequel project fades away. Imagine Julia Ducournau’s Christine should Fuller exit, or what about if James Gunn booked a brief horror vacation away from the DCEU for his take on They Live?

Carpenter’s brand of down-and-dirty storytelling mixed with societal commentaries make his works perfect for generational updates, but they can’t all be winners.

Take 2005’s woefully tragic The Fog, for example.

Rupert Wainwright’s disastrously shallow remake lacks the finesse of even a crusty barnacle attached to the underbelly of Carpenter’s original. During a period of horror cinema inundated by remakes, The Fog asserts itself as one of the worst. The 2000s had a very “show, don’t tell” approach to horror filmmaking and leaned on grisly violence popularized by Saw, all exploited in their lowest forms throughout The Fog. Bless both Carpenter and the late Debra Hill for serving as producers, but Wainwright and writer Cooper Layne do their salty source shanty zero justice.


The Approach

‘The Fog’ (1980)

Carpenter’s The Fog is successful because of the auteur’s influence. Between his stronger emphasis on churchly greed, eerie musical score, and abilities as a simplistic yet impactful visionary, viewers get plenty of “bang for their buck” in 90 minutes. Wainwright doesn’t possess those qualities and relies on archaic horror templates without any investment. In an era where computer graphics were still advancing, and some producers only valued horror as gory inserts within a lax narrative, Wainwright’s direction equates to background noise. There’s nothing spectacular or signature about the filmmaker’s approach, as recyclable as the plethora of 2000s horror films plagued by the same churned-out doldrums.

Smallville heartthrob Tom Welling follows in the footsteps of fellow WB/CW stars like Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki to shepherd his own horror remake, playing Tom Atkins’ role of fisherman Nick Castle. He’s a descendant of Norman Castle, one of the founding fathers of Antonio Island, which is located off the Oregon coast. It’s been over 100 years since the island’s bustling Antonio Bay community was established, and to celebrate an upcoming anniversary, a statue is commissioned that displays its founders as a dedication to their contributions. Mayor Tom Malone (Kenneth Welsh) wants everything to be perfect, but little does he know Antonio Bay is about to have an undead problem to confront when a mysterious fog rolls in thick as sauna steam.

The bones of The Fog are all there, but both needlessly overcomplicated and disparagingly unkempt. Carpenter introduces his film with an eerie ghost story told around a campfire that becomes a grave truth for Antonio Bay — Layne’s remake screenplay does backflips to try and explain the unexplainable. Nick’s charter fishing vessel unleashes the curse when second-mate Spooner (DeRay Davis) rips open a burlap bag concealing curse items with the boat’s anchor because the film doesn’t trust audience comprehension past any viewer’s eyesight. One of the biggest scourges upon 2000s horror cinema was creators believing their audiences were as dumb as algae-covered rocks, causing them to spell the obvious out in even more blatant and less captivating methods.


Does It Work?

The Fog remake carpenter

‘The Fog’ (2005)

The adjustments Wainwright oversees in 2005’s remix are a bungle of what out-of-touch producers presumed horror fans wanted to see at the time. Carpenter’s quaint coastal atmosphere is eradicated by Spooner’s Girls Gone Wild behavior or the need to belabor flashbacks that lay out every grim detail about Captain Blake (Rade Šerbedžija) and his lepers. Antonio Island’s tainted history is still prevalent as a driving force behind the weather-based haunting, but where Carpenter leaves us to imagine the atrocities founding fathers committed, Wainwright and Layne lean on time jumps that detract from overall moods for cheap betrayal thrills. The remake retains less reflection, whereas Carpenter’s original better depicts a town reckoning with its horrifying heritage — an example of hollow vengeance versus frightening introspection.

Maggie Grace co-stars in Jamie Lee Curtis’ hitchhiker role, except she’s no longer affable nomad Elizabeth Solley; she’s Kathy Williams’ (Sara Botsford) daughter, Elizabeth Williams. Her ties to Antonio Bay are supposed to represent how we can’t escape our fates, fair enough. What’s unfortunate is Layne’s need to shoehorn relationship drama because she’s (apparently) the love of Nick’s life despite his handful of hookups with KAB radio DJ Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair) while Elizabeth fled her hometown for six months — a love triangle situation that adds no special sauce and is practically forgotten. Carpenter is fantastic when letting his characters exist without bogging their arcs with fifty reasons why they’re exactly where they are in any given scene. Wainwright is no mimic, nor does his film’s desire to tangle characters together as friends, lovers, or family members add further intrigue. If anything, it adversely tanks character development because there’s no resident we intimately care about.

Which brings us to the “fog” of it all. Carpenter’s maggot-ridden swashbucklers from the deep are memorable and creepy, while Wainwright pulls his haunted visuals from a grab-bag. Sometimes, they’re atrocious see-through animations made of mist — other times, indiscriminately human entities. One victim contracts leprosy as his punishment, another fried to ash upon touch, and yet another is dragged underwater by invisible hands — there’s zero continuity to Wainwright’s justifiably antagonistic forces. They become a Mad Libs gaggle of props fitting whatever scare-of-the-hour The Fog decides is necessary at that moment, none of which ever collaborate in unison. That includes Captain Blake’s parting climax, in which he abandons his group’s attack on Antonio Bay because he claims Elizabeth as his ghost wife after it’s clear she’s the spitting image of Blake’s 1870s lover [insert seventy thousand question marks].


The Result

The Fog remake tom welling

‘The Fog’ (2005)

The Fog remake is everything I despise about thoughtless horror outputs rolled into a briny clump of seaweed and misbegotten reinventions. It’s hardly scary, unable to let audiences invest in atmospheric spookiness, and so wildly incompetent. Each scene gets progressively worse, starting with the reveal of evil personal belongings stamped with identifiable “Hallmarks” that become pieces of a puzzle that never gets finished. Carpenter makes you feel the offshore breeze rolling in with his fog, sending chills up your spine as these scurvy-soaked scoundrels start stabbing and hooking Antonio Bay residents. Wainwright doesn’t ever grasp what his iteration of Blake’s demons should look like or how they should cause havoc, so he starts throwing basic horror visuals at the screen out of desperation.

Revolution Studios’ The Fog downgrade sinks thanks to primarily messy effects, hampered by the early millennium’s digital capabilities. That’s not exclusive to awful ghost illustrations that look like someone just decreased the “Transparency” slider in Photoshop. The fog, the TITULAR FOG, doesn’t even hold up to Demon Wind standards (in which the wind is essentially fog, roll with it). Wainwright and his team brainstorm ideas that sound rad on paper — an older woman gets barbecued, a ghost outline appears in fog like Imhotep’s sandstorm face, a younger woman is attacked by seaweed — but execution almost exclusively whiffs. The remake’s drunkard generalization of Father Malone (which is such a slap in the face to Hal Holbrook’s fantastic original performance) should meet an epic death when Captain Blake levitates glass shards as a containment circle, but three pieces fly through Malone’s body, and it’s over. That’s the level of SFX disappointment that festers throughout 2005’s The Fog, all buildup with no reward.

The film’s finale feels like a prank; the rest of the conflict’s resolution is lost at sea. Carpenter’s much heavier scolds against organized religion’s dirty dealings help give his film an identity down to the glimmering golden cross, while Wainwright goes as generic as they come and abandons ship when the well runs dry. Nothing justifies the kind of conceptual excitement that comes along with worthwhile remakes, whether that’s copycat role replications (I love Selma Blair, but her Stevie doesn’t match Adrienne Barbeau’s presence) or storytelling reductions that choose numbing violence over folkloric sensations of dread. We love a horror movie that’s critical of early America’s disgusting colonization tactics, but The Fog doesn’t know how to turn those frustrations into a compelling genre production. Whatever’s kept from the original holds no candle to Carpenter’s version, and whatever’s added — like Nick and Elizabeth’s awkward shower sex scene set to softcore porno music — brings nothing of value.


The Lesson

‘The Fog’ (2005)

Just because your remake starts with a banger like Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down Swinging” doesn’t mean the film itself is a banger. There’s no world where I’d recommend Wainwright’s The Fog over Carpenter’s titanically superior original, and I say that as a leading Aughts horror remake champion. It’s another Nu-Horror approach that strips away commentary crucial to the plot’s intrigue since all Layne musters is a non-creepy and waterlogged story that feels like an unwieldy CW episode — not meant as a compliment. Not even the chiseled beauty of an early 2000s Tom Welling in a wool turtleneck can save this travesty from becoming another forgotten wreck.

So what did we learn?

● Not all CW figureheads have a hit horror remake in their blood.

● Less is so often more when it comes to horror movies, as long as you’re selling scares and confidently telling a story within your means.

● Some movies from the 2000s horror era will always suffer thanks to dodgy digital effects because while it was the shiny new toy everyone wanted to play with, golly, the technology was rough to start.

● Horror fans can be easy to please, but they’re also first to call out your bullshit — get out of here with these ghosts and their inability to pick a lane.

Wainwright’s film never knows what kind of horror movie it wants to be, and that’s the kill shot. Is it a slasher flick? Zombie movie? A large-scale haunted house blueprint? There’s never any indication that Wainwright or his screenwriter conceptualize a path forward, so they barrel on, praying there’s enough horror familiarity to appease the masses. There isn’t, it’s a boneheaded slog, and that’s that. Horror fans deserve better than to be fed the equivalent of table scraps for 100 minutes. To each their own and all, but now that I’ve finally seen 2005’s The Fog, the only times I’ll think about this movie again will be if someone interacts with my Letterboxd post.

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