David Bergantino, who later authored some of the Freddy Krueger’s Tales of Terror series, did not seek out New Nightmare so much as it fell into his lap. This offer only came after his book about the Friday the 13th movies fell through (again), and someone at New Line Cinema thought of him for the seventh Elm Street novelization. And as the author explained in a 2005 interview, he wrote three samples for his submission: a straightforward novelization that appeased publisher Tor Books, a “scrapbook” and “documentary” version for New Line, and then finally, a combination of the two styles. It was that union of both concepts that got Bergantino hired, as well as made New Nightmare the most unique Elm Street novelization.

Anyone who’s read these kinds of media tie-ins knows how off course they can go. That said, Bergantino stuck rather closely to the source material, as he was writing the book while the movie was being filmed. Other authors are given just the one version of the script to draw and write from, whereas Bergantino would revise his manuscript to reflect Wes Craven’s changes. In the end, the differences between the two versions aren’t especially significant, but then again, that’s never been the main draw of this particular novelization.

New Nightmare is broken up by Bergantino’s side-story—that pseudo-documentary element that attracted both the publisher and the studio in the first place. So when Wes Craven’s fourth wall-breaking idea isn’t being actively adapted on the page, Bergantino chronicles the various stages of his own writing process, albeit fictionally so. His journaling is obvious in nature and lacking in style, but it makes sense for Bergantino to be frank and to only point out the parts that are worth recording. Namely, the strangeness that doesn’t go unnoticed in his creative, not to mention ill-fated, journey.

Bergantino opens the novel with the end of his experience on New Nightmare. In the final entry dated June 29, 1994, and set in the early morning of that day, the author wrote: “Finally finished the book. I’m lucky it didn’t finish me first.” He goes on to say this journal is “about the story of the book and the story behind the book,” and it was intended to be for his eyes only. How it fell into other hands is later revealed in the novelization’s conclusion. For now, and before New Nightmare commences, Bergantino signs off with: “Whatever happens, I should be all right—if the nightmares stop.”

Bergantino began his journal on May 5, 1994, which was when he learned he had secured the job. However, that initial entry isn’t actually shown until the last page of the book. As a result, Bergantino’s understandable excitement—” Today, I start work on the official novelization of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. I’m gonna be published! (Insert small victory dance here.)”—comes across as a sad epilogue. That feeling is definite after reading the details of the author’s investigation into why he’s begun having unsettling dreams, why he feels like he’s being watched and stalked, and why he was really chosen to write the novelization.

New Nightmare came about when New Line’s head honcho, Robert “Bob” Shaye, asked Craven to extend the franchise, even though Freddy (Robert Englund) was supposedly dunzo after the sixth installment. Craven, who had parted ways with Elm Street following his writing on Dream Warriors, then delivered the most unexpected method for bringing the Kruegster back—and without stooping to any hackneyed nonsense. This postmodern, pre-Scream horror movie was also the product of Craven’s “absurdism“ stage as he ruminated on the censorship crusade that was happening in the background of 1990s media. “If you forbid this kind of art, the actual real horror is unleashed in a sense,“ Craven said.

More or less, the novelized parts match what’s shown on screen. The author did, however, fill in some missing mental and emotional gaps whenever possible. Internal dialogue is one of this book’s strengths, seeing as Bergantino gives the sort of direct, unfiltered access to characters that’s not always feasible with movies. Specifically, Heather Langenkamp’s part is more full-clad now that her innermost, sheer thoughts are confirmed in writing. Nevertheless, Langenkamp playing a version of herself—the conflicted, anxious mother, wife, and actor trying to survive an increasingly turbulent world—is never once unclear in Craven’s flick. There, Langenkamp turned in a vulnerable, multifaceted performance that not only illustrated the filmmaker’s aim to show how art can affect its creators but also demonstrated his opinion that censorship (of horror and art) would lead to adverse consequences in reality.

The greatest appeal of New Nightmare’s novelization is perhaps Bergantino’s journal, which feels at home in today’s horror climate. Enthusiasts of metafictional and immersive storytelling should enjoy the author’s phony predicament. From his recurring bad dreams of Freddy to his learning there’s truth in Craven’s screenplay, Bergantino’s concocted saga is a page-turner in itself. The cherry on top of it all, though, is the surprise conspiracy revealed towards the end—the publisher et al hired Bergantino and two other writers, in the hopes that one of them would be able to complete a manuscript before Freddy intervened. And in something akin to found-footage horror, Bergantino goes missing after outlasting his peers and finishing the novelization. The police find only a “grisly scene,” along with a “manuscript and news clippings,” at his apartment. Of course, New Line denies any part in the disappearance: “We don’t need to play sick jokes to promote a film, especially an Elm Street movie.”

New Nightmare is a bit of a missed opportunity; like other tie-in reads, it could have added in anything that didn’t make Craven’s final cut. As examples, the giant, devouring earthquake originally slated for the outset, and Tracy Middendorf’s character Julie playing a more sinister role. Instead, the written companion lines up well with the finished movie—maybe too much so if exclusive or cutting-room floor material is expected from these adaptations. Still and all, Bergantino’s meta-narrative is always there to disrupt the familiarity and hitch a ride on the movie’s ambitious blur of reality and fantasy. Not every Elm Street fan will be won over, yet for those who appreciate weird novelties in their film novelizations, this one is hard to beat.

The post ‘Wes Craven’s New Nightmare’ – Slashing into the Novelization On the Movie’s Anniversary appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

The Innkeepers 4K UHD from Second Sight

The Innkeepers will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on August 25 via the UK’s Second Sight Films.

The 2011 supernatural horror film is written and directed by Ti West (X, The House the Devil). Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, and Kelly McGillis star.

It has been newly restored in 4K, approved by West, presented with Dolby Vision HDR. The limited edition set is housed in a rigid slipcase with artwork by Nick Charge alongside a 120-page book with new essays and six art cards.

Special features include: commentary by West, producers Larry Fessenden and Peter Phok, and sound designer Graham Reznick; commentary by West, Paxton, and Healy; new interviews with West, Healy, Fessenden, director of photography Eliot Rockett, composer Jeff Grace, and line producer Jacob Jaffke; and The Innkeepers: Behind the Scenes.

In a Violent Nature Print by Gary Pullin

Gary Pullin was commissioned by Shudder to create an In a Violent Nature poster inspired by the boldly simple Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter artwork.

16×24 screen prints, signed and numbered out of 30, are available for $65. They’ll ship in August.

New Nightmare Poster from Gutter Garbs

The terror doesn’t stop at the screen with Gutter Garbs’ New Nightmare design by Sam Coyne.

It’s available on T-shirts ($32), long sleeves ($40), hoodies ($55), and 12×18 posters ($30) through Sunday, June 29. They’ll ship the week of July 27.

Skateboarding Shirts from Fright-Rags

Go Skateboarding Day was last weekend, and Fright-Rags celebrated with tees paying tribute to old-school decks and monster movies.

Kyle Crawford’s gnarly shirts inspired by Gremlins, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and They Live are $33, while the Lost Boys baseball tee is $40.

Danza Macabra: Volume Four from Severin Films

Danza Macabra: Volume Four – The Italian Gothic Collection will be released on September 30 via Severin Films.

The box set includes Domenico Massimo Pupillo’s Terror-Creatures from the Grave (1965), Filippo Ratti’s Night of the Damned (1971), Luigi Batzella & Joe D’Amato’s The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973), and Corrado Farina’s Baba Yaga (1973).

Priced at $125, the 11-disc set features all four films on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray from new 4K scans, over 12 hours of special features, a Piero Umiliani soundtrack compilation CD, and more.

For more merch madness, peruse the Killer Collectibles archives.

The post 5 of This Week’s Coolest Horror Collectibles Including ‘The Innkeepers’ on 4K UHD from Second Sight Films appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

I was thirteen when the film hit theaters and absolutely terrified of slashers. Though already a Fear Street devotee and one of Stephen King’s Constant Readers, the masked and stoic killers of this violent subgenre filled me with an icy dread I still can’t describe. I took a chance on New Nightmare and found a young heroine struggling with her own fear of horror movies. The story’s bold construction allowed me to distance myself from the onscreen terror by providing names and faces to the many wizards working in tandem behind the curtain. Seeing star Robert Englund appear both in and out of his Freddy Kruger makeup provided distance between the man and the monster while helping me keep “it’s only a movie” firmly in mind. After surviving my first foray into this frightening subgenre, I dove headfirst into the pool. I would go on to learn about the final girl archetype and meet several incredible female characters – including Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) – who would help me find my own empowerment and wind up changing the course of my life.

Of course it’s in this perception of safety that the horror lies. With no title cards to ground us, we open on a new variation of a familiar scene. In a fiery boiler room workshop, mysterious hands emerge from the sleeves of a red and green sweater and prepare a mechanical glove with knives for fingers. As the blades sever a human hand, we hear a director’s voice enter the fray. Wes Craven glides into the frame and we realize we’re on a movie set. The murderous glove is operated by a remote control device and Heather herself watches from the wings while her young son Dylan (Miko Hughes) sits on her lap. We take a breath and let the artificial nature of this frightening scene wash over us before Craven hits us with a surprise left hook. The glove begins to move on its own and impales the special effects team with its razor-sharp claws. Heather screams herself awake in the midst of a frightening earthquake and we realize we have just witnessed her latest nightmare. No longer on Elm Street, we now find ourselves caught in a Hollywood system intent on reviving Freddy (Englund) for a new generation.

Premiering ten years after the original film, New Nightmare serves as a sequel/reboot of sorts long before the term became industry slang. The film feels simultaneously fresh and reverent, nodding to Craven’s original story with new and unique set pieces and kills. Freddy’s tongue reaches Heather (Langenkamp) from a phone receiver and she chides a nurse to “screw your pass!” in a hospital hall. Along with boiler room imagery and a Hansel and Gretel motif, Dylan waves to us through the clear plastic of an oxygen tent, mirroring the iconic body bag dragged through the hallway of Nancy’s school. When babysitter Julie (Tracy Middendorf) meets her grisly end, she writhes across the walls and ceiling just like Tina (Amanda Wyss) in the franchise’s first – and arguably best – death. This iteration of the iconic scene takes on new horror as Craven alternates between reality – in which Julie dies by unseen hands – and Dylan’s dream world that sees the frightened young woman dragged across the ceiling by the sadistic killer. 

New Nightmare is perhaps most fascinating due to its verisimilitude. In addition to Langenkamp, several members of the cast, crew, and production team of A Nightmare on Elm Street appear as themselves, implying a sort of chosen family that has carried on long after the first film wrapped. Much of the plot was based on real details from Langenkamp’s life including her marriage to a special effects man – David LeRoy Anderson declined an invitation to appear as himself – and the couple’s young son, a boy several years younger than Heather’s onscreen child. Unfortunately another aspect of the film is also true to life. Langenkamp reportedly did have a stalker who caused her to briefly relocate to London. Craven asked for her blessing before including this harrowing plot development in the film’s narrative, fearing some scenes might trigger painful memories of that horrific time. The film concludes with Craven writing a note thanking Heather for playing Nancy one last time and we marvel at the sheer bravery it must have taken to reveal so much of her personal life to the world. New Nightmare feels like a special collaboration between director and star, bringing deeper understanding to an inspirational character. Like Nancy, we watch as Langenkamp takes back power over her own life and directly confronts what must be some of her darkest fears. 

Also making appearances are New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye and veteran actress Lin Shaye, now a horror icon in her own right. John Saxon also appears as himself, offering fatherly support to Heather in the wake of her husband’s death. This warm relationship sets the stage for a gut punch as John begins to revert to the dismissive condescension of his Lt. Thompson persona. The sudden appearance of a police badge on his hip tells us in no uncertain terms that we have crept out of the waking world and into Freddy’s nightmare. But of all the cameos and easter eggs, it’s a scene between Heather and Wes that pulls at our heartstrings. Nine years after the beloved director’s passing, this conversation about the precarious nature of genre storytelling feels like uncovering a treasured memory. 

No Elm Street film would be complete without a matchup between Heather/Nancy and Freddy Kruger. In a duel role, England once again slips into the deadly glove while also playing himself as a genial friend who dabbles in painting. After six films buried under gruesome makeup, it’s nice to see the handsome actor step out of Freddy’s shadow. His relationship with his co-stars adds a layer of warmth to an upsetting story and causes us to question the cost of playing such a despicable villain. We’re introduced to the cartoonish version of Freddy early on as he slices through a talk show set, jokes with Heather, then waves to an audience of kids cheering his name. Though his energy pervades Heather’s California home, we don’t see the monster until much later. With an updated creature design and subdued malevolence, Craven and Englund deliver a much more sinister version of the legendary killer. Gone is the wise-cracking prankster of later sequels and MTV fame. This Freddy feels more like the sadistic murderer who once inspired a bloodthirsty mob of frightened parents to burn him alive.

It’s this fascinating design that gives the film not only its teeth, but its narrative power. The seventh franchise entry, New Nightmare falls after Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare , a horror comedy responsible for killing off the evil dream-lurker. Combined with merchandise, television appearances, and a horror hosting gig on the series Freddy’s Nightmares, the cinematic child-killer had crossed the rubicon and was drifting closer to playground ubiquity and anti-hero status. Heather voices this concern when she remarks that, “Every kid knows who Freddy is. He’s like Santa Claus… or King Kong …” Craven’s own musings on the subject deal more with classic narrative structure. He theorizes that by creating Freddy, he was able to capture an ancient evil within a digestible form. But now that the monster has been defeated, the malicious entity has been set free and plans to break through the barrier between fiction and reality. As the first person to take away the demon’s power, Nancy has become the gatekeeper – the only one able to hold him in the dream world and defend us against a real life nightmare. 

Though Freddy is admittedly terrifying, New Nightmare posits that the horror genre itself has become a sort of boogeyman. Multiple characters rail about the dangers posed by scary movies and a disapproving doctor outright blames the ANOES franchise for Dylan’s mysterious illness. The film follows a decade of self-righteous parents and politicians blaming explicit music, movies, and TV for societal woes. Heather seems to have fallen for this moral panic as well and discourages Dylan from reading or watching anything violent. Though understandable, her concern parallels the first film’s catalytic violence. Freddy gained his power when a group of parents murdered a man suspected of killing neighborhood children then buried the evidence to avoid any consequences. Years after taking the law into their own hands, they watch as their kids succumb to the results of their own misguided efforts at protection. Similarly, Heather tries to shield Dylan from the idea of Freddy, but her attempts to repress this part of her past only causes the supernatural killer to push back harder. She’s repeating the sins of her own cinematic mother by sheltering her child and denying the fact that monsters exist.

Two years later, Craven would explore this idea in Scream, a slasher following teens who have grown up in Freddy’s shadow. These savvy horror fans discuss the rules of slasher lore and believe that pop culture knowledge will make them impervious to the killer’s tricks. A Freddy facsimile does appear, but the Ghostface killer is made of flesh and bone. They are kids not much older than Dylan himself who use genre knowledge to butcher their friends. Yet even then, Craven pushes back against the idea that horror is responsible. After describing his motive, the killer says, “Movies don’t create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!” In the third franchise installment, final girl Sidney (Neve Campbell) goes a step further, insisting that the killers commit their crimes because they “choose to,” not because of any outside force. The Scream franchise is built on the confluence of horror in fiction and reality, the seeds which can be felt in Heather’s parental dilemma. The well-meaning mother must reckon with the effect horror has had on her own life and how it will shape the life of her child, ultimately realizing that it’s in allowing ourselves to be afraid that we’re able to finally find our strength. 

The film concludes with a meta moment in which Heather reads the script of New Nightmare to her son, finally shepherding him through narrative horror. She has once again reclaimed her power and pushed Freddy back onto the screen. Ten years ago, a generation of children were inspired by watching this brave teen take back any power she gave to a monster. Ignored by her parents, she was forced to take matters into her own hands and battle a deadly beast all on her own. But now, she will use what she’s learned to guide her own son through the experience of fear, teaching him to face the monster and find empowerment. Thirty years after Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, early Freddy fans are raising kids of their own. Hopefully they will once again follow Heather’s example and remember that it’s only in allowing our children to explore and overcome their fears that we can raise them to be heroes who are “into survival.”

The post 30 Years Later: How Wes Craven’s ‘New Nightmare’ Created a Bridge Between Slasher Eras appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

With Scream’s release on the immediate horizon, it feels only fitting to dedicate this week’s streaming picks to Craven’s dedication to horror. The selection this week assumes you’ve likely already revisited the first four Scream movies in preparation for the new release and aims to highlight his range in the genre.

From his gritty debut to modern thrillers, here are five Wes Craven horror movies to stream this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

The Last House on the Left – Plex, Pluto TV, Tubi

Craven came out swinging hard with his first feature film, a grimy shocker based on The Virgin Spring. Two teens head out into the city to attend a concert but wind up kidnapped and brutalized by escaped convicts instead. Things get even deadlier when the psychopaths cross paths with a vengeful mom and dad. It’s brutal, grim, and one hell of an entrance to the world of horror. Craven also produced the 2009 remake, which is currently available to stream on Starz.

Summer of Fear (Stranger in Our House) – Crackle, Plex, Tubi

This made-for-TV Wes Craven horror movie premiered on Halloween night in 1978. Based on the best-selling young adult novel by Lois Duncan, Summer of Fear follows teenager Rachel (Linda Blair). Her life is turned dangerously upside down when her cousin Julie (Lee Purcell) moves in following the death of her parents in a car crash. Things get delightfully witchy. Even more interesting is that this is Craven’s first feature after The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left.

Deadly Blessing – Tubi

Before Craven’s seminal A Nightmare on Elm Street, he experimented with the supernatural slasher in Deadly Blessing. After becoming a widow, a woman suspects the Amish-like religious community nearby might have it out for her. Things get super weird and deadly. Look for Sharon Stone, Ernest Borgnine, and The Hills Have Eyes’ Michael Berryman.

Red Eye – Hulu, Paramount+

Written by Carl Ellsworth (Disturbia, 2009’s The Last House on the Left), Red Eye stars Rachel McAdams as hotel resort manager Lisa Reisert. She’s taking a red eye flight home to Miami after attending a funeral. She meets fellow traveler Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), who drops his charming façade to force her into an assassination plot shortly after. At its core, Red Eye is a suspenseful chamber piece that hinges almost entirely on the leads’ performances. Craven knew how to maximize tension and pacing with over three decades of experience under his belt at this point while putting his characters first. 

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare – Tubi

Before Scream, Wes Craven demonstrated a knack for meta-horror in this unconventional sequel to the franchise he kickstarted. Original Elm Street star Heather Langenkamp returns, only this time to play herself as the unwitting heroine forced to fight a demonic entity that’s chosen Freddy Krueger as its vessel into the world. Craven also appears as himself to deliver expositional monologues that reflect on the genre and his part in this franchise’s making.

The post Stay Home, Watch Horror: 5 Wes Craven Horror Movies You Can Stream This Week appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Saxon died of pneumonia in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, his wife, Gloria, told The Hollywood Reporter.

While known for other roles such as starring alongside Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, Saxon is an important name in the horror genre having not only starred in Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974), but also Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Saxon had a major role in the birth of slasher icon Freddy Krueger. He played Nancy Thompson’s father in the first Elm Street and was one of the parents who murdered the child killer after he was freed off a technicality.

He would return to the role in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) where he would battle Freddy Krueger’s skeleton, and eventually appeared as himself in Craven’s concept-bending New Nightmare (1994).

THR, who also wrote a more detailed obit, notes that Saxon’s 200+ film résumé also included Mario Bava’s Evil Eye (1963), Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal (1963), Blood Beast From Outer Space (1965), The Swiss Conspiracy (1976), Wrong Is Right (1982), Dario Argento’s Tenebrae (1982), Richard Brooks’ Fever Pitch (1985), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and God’s Ears (2008).

He will forever be remembered by the horror community as we send our thoughts and prayers to his surviving family and friends.

The post [R.I.P.] John Saxon, Star of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Black Christmas’ Has Passed Away appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The one film I’m constantly told is the best horror film of the ‘90s is Scream. Wes Craven’s adaptation of Kevin Williamson’s semi-parody script brought horror movie analysis into the popular culture in a way that felt accessible, fun, and self-aware. It was an attempt to comment on the nature of horror movies (particularly the slasher sub-genre) while still keeping its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. And Scream is certainly a good time at the movies.

But, when it comes to Wes Craven reflecting on the horror genre and telling a story that examines *why* horror exists and is necessary to our culture, I have to give the edge to Craven’s revival of Freddy Krueger, New Nightmare.

On the surface, New Nightmare shouldn’t work at all. It appears like a vain inside joke of a film by setting itself in the real world, following A Nightmare on Elm Street star Heather Langenkamp as a beleaguered actress and mother, and positing that Craven’s original film and subsequent sequels were a means of trapping some ancient evil entity. If you pitched that idea to most people, it would sound like pretentious waffle.

And admittedly, New Nightmare is being far more meditative and purposefully sophisticated than any other Freddy Krueger film. That’s bound to turn some folks off and I’d even be willing to admit that it makes New Nightmare an unsuccessful execution of what people want from a standard Freddy Krueger movie. However, it’s this boldness and willingness to think outside the box that makes New Nightmare one of the best horror movies of its ilk.

In this take, Freddy has begun to inhabit our reality and infest the lives and dreams of people involved with the franchise, particularly the original film. It’s a clever piece of commentary about how this one film has somewhat haunted the lives of those involved. Even though this is fictionalized, it’s a shockingly honest portrayal of how creators sometimes feel permanently affixed to something they were involved with. Morbidly, Craven himself once commented on his eventual death and said that it was inevitable that every obituary would label him as, “the man who invented Freddy Krueger.” To see that kind of self-reflection writ large in a film is nothing short of extraordinary.

There are other fears present in New Nightmare and the biggest of these is the fear of parenthood. Heather’s young son Dylan (Miko Hughes) is being targeted by Freddy and Heather worries if this has to do with Dylan’s overactive imagination. There’s a running thread in the movie involving Dylan watching the original A Nightmare on Elm Street and having his issues blamed on his exposure to horror. Naturally, the movie is commenting on our tendency to criticize media consumption as the cause of any psychological or behavioral problems children are having. New Nightmare reasserts that there is always a deeper matter to investigate. In this case, it’s the fact that an actual demon is trying to kill Dylan, but this a metaphor for the burgeoning psychological complications that come with a child growing up.

When it comes to being self-referential, New Nightmare isn’t really interested in using horror genre tropes for gags and winking acknowledgments. Instead, it’s focused on a bigger, tougher question: “What makes horror important?” This is traced as far back as the necessity for dark fairy tales that were used as warning tools for children. New Nightmare posits that the reason this demonic entity is loose in our world is the fault of New Line Cinema for no longer making Freddy Krueger movies. This entity was captured in the original film and took on the form of Freddy and liked it. Now that there are no more movies being made, the entity is allowed to enact its violence in reality. It’s not hard to see what Craven’s script is trying to say: art can be used as a way to process the most horrible elements of existence. Without it, that horribleness isn’t given an outlet to channel itself into and is instead made flesh. New Nightmare is making a very direct point about the significance horror plays in our history, and that is a lofty goal that only someone of Craven’s intellect could make work in a movie.

That said, we do have to step away from all the scholarly reads of New Nightmare and judge it as a piece of entertainment. Again, I don’t think it delivers the kind of wackier elements that became synonymous with the Elm Street franchise – there are more than enough bizarre dream moments in the movie, but they aren’t as deliberately kooky as the other sequels – but I don’t think that alone makes it a bad movie. In fact, New Nightmare is probably the only other film in the Elm Street series besides the original that goes for a feeling of genuine dread and terror. Freddy is turned back into an outright monster and that’s reflected in his redesign. Taking inspiration from German expressionism, Krueger’s look in New Nightmare is less outright costume and more of an ethereal concept made flesh. Instead of being burned, his skin is torn open in places as if something underneath is trying to break out. The trademark claw is no longer a workshop project but is now a skeletal extension of Freddy’s own anatomy. It’s an audacious new look but I think fortune favored this bolder take on the character.

New Nightmare is also a wonderful showcase for Heather Langenkamp. More than any other role I’ve seen her in, the character of Heather shows just how talented and effective of an actress she is. It’s not easy to play yourself in a movie and have it come across as something truly genuine, but Langenkamp brings incredible pathos, charm, and tenacity to the role. By the time she has to take on the mantle of Nancy again, she’s transformed into something that transcends our typical take on the Final Girl. This is the Final Woman and she’s fiercer than ever. You also get to see Robert Englund play himself, a public appearance as the wise-cracking fictional Freddy, and the “real” Freddy and it’s a delightful display of his range. Also, I think the witchier look of Freddy in New Nightmare compliments Englund’s expressionistic style of acting better than any other entry in the series.

Wes Craven said that Scream was a movie for people who watch horror movies and New Nightmare was a movie for people who make horror movies. That definitely tracks, but now that New Nightmare has been around for twenty-five years, it’s proven to be something even more special: New Nightmare is a movie for people who think about horror movies. It’s an introspective and contemplative film that wants to bring a level of maturity to the genre that often isn’t considered marketable.

Maybe it’s not as fun as Scream or as digestibly enjoyable as other Freddy Krueger movies, but for my money, it’s Wes Craven’s greatest statement about the genre he called home.

The post [We Love ’90s Horror] ‘New Nightmare’ is Wes Craven’s Meta Masterpiece appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

This 8” figure is fully poseable and comes with two interchangeable heads, a removable trench coat and removable hat.

The retro-style figure perfectly captures Freddy’s updated look, right down to the leather pants and darker colored sweater. The alternate head captures Freddy’s full-on demon form.

Check out the image gallery below and expect this one in Q3 2019.

The post [Updated] Full Image Gallery: NECA Reveals ‘New Nightmare’ Freddy Krueger Figure! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

When it was released in October 1994, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare pulled in just under $20 million at the box office, ensuring that it will likely forever hold a rather unfortunate distinction: New Nightmare is the lowest grossing film in the entire Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, grossing right around half of its three-years-earlier predecessor. Mind you, Craven quickly rebounded by changing the landscape of the entire horror genre just two years later with Scream, a smash hit at the box office, but it’s nevertheless a bummer of a statistic.

An ironic one as well, because New Nightmare may actually be the franchise’s best.

New Nightmare was released exactly 10 years after Craven introduced Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and it marked the horror master’s return to the franchise. Craven, who had seldom been involved with the 1984 film’s sequels (he co-wrote Dream Warriors), came back to Elm Street in the most bold and visionary of ways, conjuring up a new installment of the franchise that took place in *our* world; a world where Freddy Krueger was merely a character in a series of horror movies. He cast original Elm Street star Heather “Nancy” Langenkamp as, well, Heather Langenkamp, the leading actress of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise whose life is shattered by the real-life arrival of her fictional tormentor.

How does that make any sense? Well, the concept is laid out, within the film, by none other than Wes Craven himself. Craven, playing a fictional version of himself, has been having nightmares that have led him to write the definitive and final installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. In a dryly-delivered monologue that doesn’t quite show his brilliance as an actor but sure as hell highlights his masterful grasp on horror storytelling, Craven lays out the overarching theme of New Nightmare to Langenkamp, explaining to her that a real-life demon has taken the form of fictional horror villain Freddy Krueger (a demon, mind you, that had been contained within the Elm Street films those previous ten years), and that she, through re-inhabiting the skin of the fictional heroine who vanquished Freddy, is the only one who can defeat it…

“It’s about this entity, whatever you want to call it,” Craven tells Langenkamp, when she inquires about the nightmares he’s been having and the new script that they’ve inspired him to write. “It’s old, it’s very old. It’s existed in different forms in different times. About the only thing about it that stays the same is what it lives for, really: the murder of innocence.”

“It can be captured sometimes. By storytellers, of all things,” he continues. “Every so often they imagine a story good enough to sort of catch its essence, and then, for a while, it’s held prisoner in the story. But the problem comes when the story dies. And that can happen in a lot of ways. It can get too familiar to people or somebody waters it down to make it an easier sell. Maybe it’s just so upsetting to society that it’s banned outright. However it happens, when the story dies, the evil is set free.”

Craven’s self-written monologue, which one could consider a wee bit self-indulgent, is no doubt an info dump, but it’s during this monologue that New Nightmare really starts to come together as a brilliant piece of storytelling. The fictional Craven posits that scary stories, in essence, keep our real world fears from consuming us, and if you’ve listened to any number of interviews over the years, you know that this is an idea the real Craven believed strongly in. A horror movie about what happens when we stop telling scary stories, New Nightmare was, in many ways, Craven’s most personal work, serving as a reflection of the mindset that likely compelled him to spend his career scaring the living hell out of us.

“It’s like boot camp for the psyche,” Craven once described the experience of watching horror movies. “In real life, human beings are packaged in the flimsiest of packages, threatened by real and sometimes horrifying dangers – events like Columbine. But the narrative form puts these fears into a manageable series of events. It gives us a way of thinking rationally about our fears.”

“I like to address the fears of my culture,” he also once said, touching upon the very same idea. “I believe it’s good to face the enemy, for the enemy is fear.”

This idea of scary stories literally trapping our fears and keeping the world’s true evil at bay is one that is brilliantly explored in New Nightmare, and Craven’s monologue sums up why they have always been such a popular part of our culture. There’s a reason, as many writers smarter than I have noted, that horror movies tend to be most popular whenever the real world is made more horrifying by events like war and terrorist attacks, and the reason is that horror movies can be a powerful form of therapy. Facing our fears within the safe confines of fictional entertainment allows us to overcome them (or at the very least curb them just a little bit), and I’m not sure there’s any horror filmmaker who understood that better than Craven.

“Horror films don’t create fear,” Craven famously said. “They release it.”

As much as New Nightmare is Craven’s rumination on fear and the healing power of exorcising our personal and societal demons with the kinds of stories he dedicated his life to telling, it’s also a film that effortlessly glides into exploring the impact scary stories have on those whose minds and talents generate them. New Nightmare is quite literally a film about the core participants in A Nightmare on Elm Street, a classic horror film, being haunted and hunted down by that story; not only do Craven and Langenkamp play themselves in the film but so too does Robert Englund, who is clearly being haunted by Freddy as much as Langenkamp is – even if his storyline never really goes anywhere or plays much into the whole thing.

The late Roger Ebert, who was no fan of slasher films, praised this aspect of New Nightmare in his 3-out-of-4 star review, writing “I haven’t been exactly a fan of the Nightmare series, but I found this movie, with its unsettling questions about the effect of horror on those who create it, strangely intriguing.”

The character who takes on the brunt of that impact is Heather’s son, Dylan. Young Dylan seems to be compulsively drawn to watching a younger version of his mother in that little ’80s horror movie she’s widely known for starring in, and his terrifying nightmares are no doubt linked to his mother’s involvement in the horror genre. To us, horror films may indeed be “only movies,” as the tagline for Craven’s Last House on the Left famously repeated, but he seems to suggest with New Nightmare that there’s a toll their creators must pay.

A bold, cerebral reinvention for the Nightmare on Elm Street saga, New Nightmare was perhaps a bit *too* far ahead of its time, almost ensuring that it wouldn’t initially be regarded as the brilliant piece of horror filmmaking many have since reflected on it being. Looking back, it’s not hard to see why it wasn’t a huge hit at the box office, as audiences at the time surely had trouble wrapping their minds around what Craven set out to achieve with it. If you were looking for just another Elm Street movie in October of 1994, you sure as hell weren’t getting that with New Nightmare, which dared to defy expectations and shatter the mold to create something entirely new. Not just for the franchise, but for horror cinema at large.

Commenting on horror films within horror films didn’t become “cool” until Wes Craven did it again two years later with Scream, but before that he dove even deeper and perhaps more brilliantly into the genre with New Nightmare, a timeless piece of work that made Freddy Krueger scary again and reminded the world that Craven was a true master of horror.

Without filmmakers like him to exorcise our fears, I shudder to think where we’d all be.

The post [Editorial] Why ‘New Nightmare’ Was Wes Craven’s True Masterpiece appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Debbi starred in several genre films from Total Recall to Batman Returns, Scary Movie 3, and Seed of Chucky, which she also provided stunts on as well as Bride of Chucky, Leprechaun in the Hood, New Nightmare, Spawn and Van Helsing. She also appeared in both “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Dexter.”

There are no other details as of this writing.

We send our thoughts and prayers to her loved ones.

The post Actress and Stuntwoman Debbie Lee Carrington Has Passed Away appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

But there are some that don’t get revisited as often as others. For any filmmaker who has made more than three films, there will always be a black sheep in the family. A film that is not as beloved, is lesser known, or simply never achieved the critical or cult status of their other works.

While we want to recognize the greatest work these pantheon filmmakers have created, it’s sometimes fun and illuminating to look at the black sheep in the family, to see what went wrong, to look at it through the lens of the filmmaker’s otherwise stellar career, and sometimes just to decide if we feel the black sheep status is unjustly applied or understandably forgotten. So who are the first five filmmakers, and what are those black sheep films?

The Filmmaker: Wes Craven

The Body of Work:
A college professor whose career began when he was 33, he didn’t waste any time in creating a huge impact with Last House on the Left, one of the most notorious horror/revenge films of all time. He followed it with The Hills Have Eyes a few years later, and joined the ranks of horror icon history when he created Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. He revisited his own creation in 1994, helping give birth to meta-horror with New Nightmare, and codified the new subgenre by directing every entry in the successful Scream franchise.

The Black Sheep Nominees:
Because it isn’t a horror film, we shouldn’t include Music of the Heart, a drama starring Meryl Streep as an inner-city violin teacher. The same goes for his early-era porn film, The Fireworks Woman (yes, that’s real). There is no lack of opinions from Craven fans about certain films like Swamp Thing, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Shocker, Deadly Friend, and Vampire in Brooklyn; they’re not forgotten films as much as third rails of the Craven filmography that might kill you if you step on them in the wrong company. Deadly Blessing and The People Under the Stairs have earned legitimate cult status to varying degrees, so what does that leave?

Maybe his black sheep is in his television work. Chiller, Stranger in Our House, Invitation to Hell, and Night Visions are all films Craven made for television in the years between Last House on the Left and returning for New Nightmare. But they’re early films that had spotty home releases, often in quickie discs that plastered his more famous horror titles across the top in an effort to peddle the films to unsuspecting viewers. If rarity and weirdness were the only criteria for a TV black sheep, we might as well nominate the “Casebusters” episode of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. No, the true black sheep of Craven’s family is…

The Black Sheep Winner:
…My Soul to Take.

A film that isn’t truly terrible enough to gain laughable cult status, and nowhere near good enough to stand as a strong example of his work, the 2010 film had a lot going against it. A post-conversion to 3-D to cash in on a fad, poor box office performance, worse reviews; even things that had been boons in Craven’s other films, like a cast of up-and-coming teen actors, a central whodunit mystery, and a sprinkling of Catholic themes and imagery, were largely uninspired and fell flat.

The Verdict:
Understandably Forgotten.

The Filmmaker: John Carpenter

The Body of Work:

Do I need to waste your time with this? He redefined indie horror success with Halloween, reinvented a classic terror with The Thing, turned weather into a villain with The Fog, amalgamated Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft with In the Mouth of Madness, and made us afraid of nice cars, vats of green goo, and sunglasses (Christine, Prince of Darkness, and They Live, respectively).

The Black Sheep Nominees:
Because John Carpenter is such a singular filmmaker, his movies tend to run hit and miss, but even the misses have their loyal supporters. Body Bags is a guilty pleasure for many (possibly because of his fun on-screen performance); Someone’s Watching Me is a surprisingly assured early TV film, though it is missing Carpenter’s signature score; and Vampires is a mediocre film elevated by a couple of unbelievably committed performances.

There is certainly an argument to be made for The Ward as deserving of the Black Sheep award. The only reason it escapes that designation is because it is (as of this writing) the last feature film that John Carpenter has made. We all fear it is possible that it will be the last film he makes, if the number of cigarettes Carpenter lights during every commentary track is any accurate measure of how long he will remain with us; and like Jimmy Stewart’s career ending with an uninspired voice-over in An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, we live in fear of it being the anticlimactic end to a fantastic run. No, the film that takes the award is…

The Black Sheep Winner:
…Village of the Damned.

If rumors are to be believed, it was a film John Carpenter didn’t even particularly want to make. Legend goes that he directed the remake of the intellectual property in order to get a crack at one that he liked even more: The Day the Earth Stood Still. When Village of the Damned did poorly at the box office, the film he really wanted to make magically never materialized.

The lackluster performances from Christopher Reeve and Kirstie Alley matched Carpenter’s general level of disinterest, and although a few of the child performances show promise, the tension in the film’s pacing and plot dry up a few minutes after the intriguing opening premise. Add to that a nomination for Worst Remake at the Golden Raspberrry Awards and the fact that 1995 was the last year for Christopher Reeve before an accident confined him to a wheelchair, and it’s understandable why this film has been allowed to vanish quietly.

The Verdict:
Understandably Forgotten.

The Filmmaker: George A. Romero

The Body of Work:
Just add your choice of words to the beginning of the phrase “of the Dead.” Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, and Survival of the Dead. He may have made some films about things that were living, too.

Oh, and Creepshow. A high-water mark in anthology horror and a loving tribute to the morbid comics everyone’s parents blamed for their disturbed children.

The Black Sheep Nominees:
This is a difficult list to create. Aside from certain entries in the Dead series, many horror fans consider movies like Martin and Monkey Shines some of his most interesting and accomplished work, thanks to committed performances and offbeat stories not found in mainstream horror fare.

Two Evil Eyes is nowhere near the brilliant anthology film that Creepshow was, but it dodges Black Sheep status because Romero and Argento working together on a film is valuable for sheer curiosity. Knightriders and There’s Always Vanilla escape judgement because they’re not horror films, and Season of the Witch (or Hungry Wives or Jack’s Wife) was so ahead of its time thematically that I believe its most appreciative audience is actually still finding it. No, Romero’s Black Sheep award goes to…

The Black Sheep Winner:
…Bruiser.

What an unusual film. A frumpy nothing of a man who is marginalized at his job, humiliated by his wife, and is spending a lot of time fantasizing about suicide and worse. After being unable to paint a blank white mask to express himself, he wakes up the next morning to find the mask now covering his own face. He is erased, unreal, nothing. And with that comes the luxury of casting of societal norms. Watch out world, Henry Creedlow is pissed off.

Weird, uneven, and overly symbolic… but still, there’s something scrappy about this obtuse and completely uncommercial film. With an interesting lead character portrayed by “That Guy” Jason Flemyng, and over-the-top performance from Peter Stormare (including a cameo from his penis), and an appearance from punk band The Misfits, I understand why people have forgotten it, but… I just can’t.

The Verdict:
Unjustly Applied.

The Filmmaker: David Cronenberg

The Body of Work:
‘Body’ is the right word to describe his work. Since he started altering physiology back in Shivers, Cronenberg has made a critically well-received and moderately profitable career off of the slow changing of the human body: Rabid, The Brood, The Fly. Even his more popular and less horror-driven films, like Eastern Promises and the play adaptation M. Butterfly, deal with the rigorous physical changes that his protagonists put themselves through.

The Black Sheep Nominees:
Because he came out of the gate so strongly in the horror arena, there are few misses in his work. Sure, we have some questions about why Cronenberg made a 1979 car racing exploitation film called Fast Company, but it’s not horror, so we let it go.

Somehow, the less commercial Cronenberg’s films are, the more cult famous they seem to be. Videodrome, Naked Lunch, and Crash are extremely weird and idiosyncratic, and they have garnered him some of his most die-hard fans. His emotionally reserved and coldly calculating films like Dead Ringers and The Dead Zone have found crossover love from even non-horror fans due to their performances and meticulous direction. In this case, the award for David Cronenberg’s most under-remembered film is…

The Black Sheep Winner:
…Spider.

And frankly, it makes no sense. Unlike Eastern Promises and A History of Violence, Spider was somehow not nominated for an Academy Award for Ralph Fiennes’ stunning, complex performance as a mentally ill man trying to slowly work his way back into society. This film almost didn’t make the list because it barely registers as a horror film, but some of the subject matter, the frankness of content, and the truly disturbing nature of the story allow for a certain leeway (not to mention that the film is fantastic and criminally underrated).

The Verdict:
Unjustly Applied.

The Filmmaker: Tobe Hooper

The Body of Work:
The most unusual of the filmmakers on the list, Tobe Hooper exploded out of the gate with his first feature film, the notorious and surprisingly beautiful artsploitation film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. His subsequent output was a varied as it was interesting: a TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot; a darkly comedic sequel in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2; the box-office super-success Poltergeist that was (rumored to be) mostly directed by Hooper’s producer, Steven Spielberg; and the “definitely directed by Hooper” one-two punch of Lifeforce and Invaders from Mars.

The Black Sheep Nominees:
The rest of Hooper’s career is a mixed bag that is equal parts candy, nails, hot air, and sawdust. He worked with Robert Englund twice in a row with Night Terrors and The Mangler, which is enough to keep them from relative obscurity. His most recent feature, Djinn, is a mildly interesting story that has a very interesting premise; the same can be said for his remake of Toolbox Murders, where he injected a supernatural thread that livened up the proceedings. He even directed one segment of the aforementioned Body Bags, which is possibly the best sequence in the film.

The Black Sheep could be the 2005 film Mortuary, or the 1990 Spontaneous Combustion, both of which barely reached my radar when they were released initially and haven’t done anything to work themselves back into my thoughts since. But the last mention in this article should be a high note, so let’s end with a Black Sheep award for Tobe Hooper’s work on…

The Black Sheep Winner:
…Eaten Alive.

So much of what worked in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre returned in this film because so many of the people who made it returned for this one. Wayne Bell was back to create weird sounds that were sort of a musical score; Marilyn Burns was back on the screen, and Kim Henkel helped commit more disturbing words and actions to paper.

The film isn’t quite as beautiful as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre due to the absence of cinematographer Daniel Pearl (who went on to win many awards in the world of music videos), but the sleazy grindhouse charm is still present and accounted for.  Add to that the first pairing of Hooper with Robert Englund and an appearance from a young lady who would grow into one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and we have a film with multiple reasons to be remembered that doesn’t get remembered enough.

The Verdict:
Unjustly Applied.

The post The Outliers: Horror’s Greatest Directors and Their Black Sheep Films, Volume One appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Packaging:

The figure comes in the standard clamshell packaging with the rest of the ANOES line, with the obvious change to reflect that this figure is from New Nightmare. On the back of the package, there’s a write-up of the film, as well as shots of the figure and its features. One nice thing is that the figure isn’t held in with those twist wires, but instead with a clear plastic frame. Not earth-shattering, but it beats having to untwist the wires.

Sculpting/Paintwork:

Essentially the Cult Classics figure with a updated sculpt, this was awesome then as it is now. The details such as Freddy’s underlying muscle tissue under his skin, the laces on his boots and wrinkles in the clothing are all nicely replicated. The mechanical hand/glove looks amazing, and the likeness is spot-on. It’s especially cool how the inside of his coat is layered red and green in such a way that it feels like the strips of fabric were stitched overlapping the previous strip. It’s more noticeable on the sweater, with different styles of fabric sculpted in. Very cool.

As for the paint, there are some very cool applications here. The red and green come out very strong, with no bleeding over. The mechanical hand sports the flesh and bone colours with the silver blades and connecting pieces. The laces on his boots as well as the eyelets are painted quite well, and there’s even a drybrushing applied to the coat to give it slight colour variation. Freddy is painted in such a way that his eyes are looking off to the side, allowing you to replicate the film’s poster, as well as create some cool sinister-looking poses. Do watch out when looking (no pun intended) that you get a figure that doesn’t have lazy eyes.

Articulation:

As with the sculpt, NECA has gone back to the original figure and given it an updated 25-point articulation. The head is on a peg with a balljointed neck that allows for side-to-side rotation, and can look up and down. The pin-and-socket arms can move outward close to 90°, and turn all the way around. The elbows bend close to 45°, and can swivel out and in. The hands are on balljoints, and allow for some decent motion. The upper torso is on a balljoint, allowing the figure to lean forward and side to side. The legs have a pin-and-socket joint, and can move outward to 90°, and move forward and back. The legs also rotate at the hips, bend to around 45° at the knee as well as swivel. There’s a boot cut at the shin, and finally the feet are on balljoints that allow for some ankle pivot and rotation.

Accessories:

Unfortunately, the accessories aren’t as varied this time around as in the past. Gone are the base for the figure, as well as the alternate head. We do get the demonic head as before, which features the same great sculpt and paintwork, and can pop on and off the peg (use a hair dryer/hot water to soften the plastic in order to make things easier). Do note that the demonic head’s paint doesn’t quite match up with the rest of Freddy’s “normal” skin, but that’s a minor nitpick. Lastly, we have Freddy’s trusty fedora (cast in green as in the movie) that fits on the standard head. I realize that including the previous accessories would’ve increased the price, but I still would’ve liked to have at least had the other head to maximize the amount of posing.

Overall:

If you missed out on the original Cult Classics version, this is definitely a nice second opportunity, and doubly so if you’re a fan of New Nightmare. While the paint is excellent and the updated sculpt/articulation are welcome additions, I’m a little disappointed with the lost accessories. If you still have the original figure, this update is more of a toss-up, but still worth it if you wanted more pose-ability.

Big thanks once again to Northmen Collectibles for making this figure available.

The post [Review] NECA’s ‘New Nightmare’ Freddy Has Some Gingerbread for You appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

About an hour into New Nightmare, actress Heather Langenkamp visits an old friend in an effort to figure out how/why Freddy Krueger, the fictional villain from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, seems to be tormenting her in the real world. That old friend, of course, is Wes Craven, who plays himself in what is one of the most pivotal scenes in the entire film. With a dryly-delivered monologue, Craven lays out the basic concept of the movie.

“It’s about this entity, whatever you want to call it,” Craven tells Langenkamp, when she inquires about the nightmares he’s been having and the new script that they’ve inspired him to write. “It’s old, it’s very old. It’s existed in different forms in different times. About the only thing about it that stays the same is what it lives for, really: the murder of innocence.”

“It can be captured sometimes. By storytellers, of all things,” he continues. “Every so often they imagine a story good enough to sort of catch its essence, and then, for a while, it’s held prisoner in the story. But the problem comes when the story dies. And that can happen in a lot of ways. It can get too familiar to people or somebody waters it down to make it an easier sell. Maybe it’s just so upsetting to society that it’s banned outright. However it happens, when the story dies, the evil is set free.”

Now that the Elm Street films have ended, Craven explains, Freddy is out of the proverbial bottle.

On the surface, Wes Craven’s self-written monologue in New Nightmare is little more than an info dump, letting viewers know what the hell is going on in a way that is easy to understand. As Craven notes in the film’s commentary track, that was indeed the goal the scene was designed to accomplish, but when you dig a little deeper into his words, you realize there’s a whole lot more to it than that.

In the monologue, the fictional Craven posits that scary stories, in essence, keep our real world fears from consuming us, and if you’ve listened to any number of interviews over the years, you know that this is an idea the real Craven believed strongly in. A horror movie about what happens when we stop telling scary stories, New Nightmare was, in many ways, Craven’s most personal work, serving as a reflection of the mindset that likely compelled him to spend his career scaring the living hell out of us.

“It’s like boot camp for the psyche,” Craven once described the experience of watching horror movies. “In real life, human beings are packaged in the flimsiest of packages, threatened by real and sometimes horrifying dangers – events like Columbine. But the narrative form puts these fears into a manageable series of events. It gives us a way of thinking rationally about our fears.”

“I like to address the fears of my culture,” he also once said, touching upon the very same idea. “I believe it’s good to face the enemy, for the enemy is fear.”

This idea of scary stories literally trapping our fears and keeping the world’s true evil at bay is one that is brilliantly explored in New Nightmare, and Craven’s monologue sums up why they have always been such a popular part of our culture. There’s a reason, as many writers smarter than I have noted, that horror movies tend to be most popular whenever the real world is made more horrifying by events like war and terrorist attacks, and the reason is that horror movies can be a powerful form of therapy. Facing our fears within the safe confines of fictional entertainment allows us to overcome them, or at the very least curb them just a little bit, and I’m not sure there’s any horror filmmaker who understood that better than Craven.

“Horror films don’t create fear,” he famously said. “They release it.”

Maybe without scary stories, evil would indeed be set free.

The post Wes Craven’s ‘New Nightmare’ Stressed the Cultural Importance of Scary Stories appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The Classics

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Anyone who has ever taken a film class has undoubtedly already seen Robert Wiene’s German Expressionist silent film, but now that it’s available on Netflix so a re-watch is in order! The film tells the story of a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) who runs around Holstenwall committing murders at the behest of a hypnotist (Werner Krauss). Running at a brief 71 minutes, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is mandatory viewing for any horror fan.

The Exorcist

William Friedkin’s adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel is one of the best films ever made, horror or otherwise. The winner of two Academy Awards (and nominated for eight more), The Exorcist is the rare horror film to earn widespread acclaim from audiences and critics alike. It is also one of the scariest films ever made.

Hellraiser

The film that introduced the world to Pinhead and his fellow cenobites still shocks to this day (though I’m partial to Hellbound: Hellraiser II). Clive Barker’s tale of a puzzle box that will grant its solver unlimited pleasure (or pain) is a classic for a reason. Jesus wept.

90s Horror

Cape Fear

Robert De Niro stars in this intense thriller as a rapist who is released from prison only to go after the defense attorney (Nick Nolte) he deems responsible for putting him there. While not a horror movie per se, it features enough horrifying elements to merit a spot on this list (just try not to get the chills during De Niro’s flirtatious scene with a teenage Juliette Lewis (the actress was 21 at the time of filming, but her character is definitely a teenager).

Event Horizon

Some people love it, some people hate it. Either way, you’ve got to give Paul W.S. Anderson’s space nightmare some credit for its truly haunting imagery. The special effects don’t really hold up after all these years (all of the CGI anti-gravity effects look cartoonish by today’s standards), but Event Horizon is a pretty freaky mind-fuck of a film.

From Dusk Till Dawn

El Rey’s television adaptation may be all the rage now, but you just can’t beat the original. Robert Rodriguez’s crime-vampire flick is a hoot and a half. Starring a George Clooney (just one year before Batman and Robin happened to him), From Dusk Till Dawn follows two robber brothers (Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) as they kidnap a family and seek refuge across the Mexican border in a bar (aptly named the Titty Twister) that just so happens to be run by vampires. It’s even more fun than it sounds.

Slasher Sequels

Curse of Chucky

After the stinker that was Seed of Chucky, who ever thought we would get an above-average sixth installment of the Child’s Play franchise. Curse of Chucky returns the series to its horror roots and while it’s not without its flaws, it is a serious improvement over its predecessor. The only issue with watching this one on Netflix is that you lose the fantastic post-credits stinger, so make sure you don’t deprive yourself of that luxury if you watch it.

Scream 2

Scream 2 is a near-perfect slasher and a perfect sequel. End of story.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

Wes Craven was on fire in the 90s. New Nightmare is essentially his meta precursor to Scream, and it mostly works. In the film, the Freddy Krueger entity has escaped into the real world after the Nightmare on Elm Street films stopped getting made and started attacking the actors and crew that have worked on the film, with his prime target being actress Heather Langenkamp (Nancy from NOES 1 and 3). While the film could use a few more kills, it’s still whip-smart. It was just released a few years too early.

Foreign Horror

The Host

While we all wait patiently for a sequel (seriously, does anyone know what happened to that thing?), check out Bong Joon-ho’s original 2006 masterpiece The Host. This is how you do a creature feature. The simplistic story follows the Park family as they go on the hunt for the youngest daughter in the family that has just been taken hostage by a creature that suddenly jumped out of the Han River. The Host is more than your average creature feature, as it focuses more on the close bond forged by the Park family (as opposed to the creature’s antics) as they try to rescue one of their own.

Battle Royale

The Hunger What? Kinji Fukasaku’s adaptation of Koushun Takami’s novel of the same name is the original child vs. child story, and boy is it tough to watch. In the near future, the Battle Royale Act was enacted when 800,000 students walked out of school. As part of the act, one class is selected to participate in a death match where only one student will be left standing. It’s a brutal, harrowing film and one of the best films to come out of the 2000s.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Otherwise known as “The first Iranian vampire-western,” Ana Lily Amirpour’s visually striking film (shot entirely in black and white) is also one of the most feminist horror movies to come out in quite some time. The plot is relatively simple, but it also a very sweet story of the love between a lonely vampire and a human misfit.

Modern Classics

The Babadook

The Babadook gets a lot of hate from mainstream moviegoers, and I can understand why. It’s mostly due to the obnoxious child, but I’ve come around on the film since being so hard on it a couple of years ago. It is a rather scary allegory for grief and learning to let go. The creature design on the titular boogeyman is fantastic (even if he’s barely on screen). If you found yourself not liking this one, give it another watch with your expectations in check. You may find yourself having a new appreciation for it.

Housebound

One of the funniest films of 2014 came to us courtesy of New Zealand. When Kylie (Morgana O’Reilly) is placed under house arrest at her parents’ home, she begins to suspect that the house is haunted. What follows is scares and laughs galore with a few twists thrown in for good measure (one of which was stolen by this year’s The Boy). If you want something to watch with friends, Housebound should be your top choice.

The Den

One of the few movies to truly unsettle me this decade has been Zachary Donohue’s The Den. The majority of the film is told from the viewpoint of webcams, but unlike other films with technology gimmicks, The Den actually creates a believable (and totally creepy) situation. Running at a brief 81 minutes, The Den flies by and will have you thinking twice about signing in to Skype or Chat Roulette.

New(ish) Releases

We Are Still Here

While it may be a bit too slowly paced for some, We Are Still Here is a moody and atmospheric horror film that focuses on a quartet of adult characters for a change. Set in 1979, the film follows a couple grieving the recent death of their son who move to a new home in New England, only to come under attack from some crispy spirits.

Hush

While not popular with quite a few readers here at Bloody Disgusting, Hush is nonetheless a tense and exciting experience (my review). The latest film from Oculus director Mike Flanagan (at least until Before I Wake finally gets released in September) is a fun little potboiler of a film that sees a deaf-mute woman get stalked around her house by a psychotic killer. It doesn’t really reinvent the wheel, but it spins that wheel remarkably well.

Starry Eyes

If you saw The Neon Demon and walked out underwhelmed, give Starry Eyes a watch. The Kickstarted film chronicles Sarah’s (Alex Essoe, a revelation) journey to becoming a famous actress. Though a slow burn, Starry Eyes has plenty of cringeworthy body horror elements that will be sure to have you squirming in your seat.

Let Us Prey

This British-Irish horror film was a huge surprise for me last year. The film tells the tale of a mysterious stranger named Six (Liam Cunningham, aka Davos Seaworth from Game of Thrones) who is arrested and put in a prison cell, only to cause the criminals and police officers inside to come to terms with their sins. The ultimate reveal of Six’s true identity may be a bit predictable, but the road there is a gory blast.

They Look Like People

The feature film directorial debut of Perry Blackshear is less an outright horror film and more an intense look into mental illness. Running at a brief 80 minutes, the film stars MacLeod Andrews as a man who believes that the world is being taken over by evil creatures. You will have to watch the film to find out whether or not he is correct, but suffice it to say that the film leads to an appropriately disturbing conclusion.

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Dr. Andover – Fear Clinic

One of Englund’s more recent roles was that of mad scientist Dr. Andover, who is trying to cure the fears of the world’s population using his fear chamber, which immerses his patients in a simulation of their worst fears. Fear Clinic started as a web series and was eventually adapted into a film of the same name in which Englund reprised his role (though it lost the talented Danielle Harris in the process). The film works for the most part, though this is mostly because of Englund’s committed performance.

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POPCORN

Directed by Mark Herrier & Alan Ormsby (uncredited)
Screenplay by Mitchell Smith & Tod Hackett
Produced by Ashok Amritraj, Howard Hurst, Torben Johnke, Sophie Hurst, and Bob Clark (uncredited)
Starring Jill Schoelen, Tom Villard, Dee Wallace Stone, Derek Rydall, Tony Roberts, Malcolm Danare, Kelly Jo Minter, and Ray Walston
Released on February 1, 1991

The early ‘90s (and late ‘80s) saw quite a few self-reflective horror films come along.  Naturally the postmodernist tendencies kicked into high-gear after Wes Craven’s Scream was released in late 1996, but the desire of filmmakers in the genre to examine the past was already well under way by then.  Both Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness tapped into this obsession with self-examination, as did Fred Dekker’s The Monster Squad years earlier.  While most of these are well-known within horror-loving circles, one such applicable film that doesn’t get nearly enough love is Popcorn.

Directed by Porky’s trilogy star Mark Herrier and an uncredited Alan Ormsby (Deranged), Popcorn follows a group of film students who decide to put on a William Castle-style horror movie marathon to raise money for their film program and hopefully fund some of their student projects as well.  I conjure the name of Castle simply because they have chosen three (fake) films to show during their all-night fundraiser that all appear to help from the 1950s/1960s and all have some sort of gimmick.

“Mosquito” is an atomic creature feature not unlike those made by Jack Arnold and William Alland, complete with a big mosquito puppet that they have rigged to swing down from the theater ceiling.  “The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man” sees an AIP-style feature about a simple-minded death row inmate transformed into a shocking (literally!) terror, with The Tingler-style electric buzzers on the seats for added audience goosing.  Finally, there is the Japanese film “The Stench”, released in “Odorama”, where the students use gas capsule to flood the theater with foul smells on cue to accompany the feature.  It’s supposed to be a big, raucous night of ballyhoo and is sure to be a success…

…were it not for the murderous maniac with a different set of plans for the event.  You see, 15 years earlier, there was a fringe cult filmmaker named Lanyard Gates (Matt Falls) who was rather miffed that critics and audiences were scoffing at his work and the work of his group.  In retaliation, he filmed a horror short and shot all but the finale, which he decided he would enact live on stage at the premiere.  Unfortunately, his finale involved him attempting to murder his wife and daughter on stage.  While he succeeded in killing his wife, his sister-in-law (Dee Wallace Stone) burst in, shot him, saved the little girl, and set fire to the theater, thereby burning all of Gates’ demented followers alive inside.

In preparation for this marathon, our students enlist the help of movie memorabilia maestro Dr. Mnesyne (Ray Walston) to supply the old school gags and an assortment of costumes and decorations to spruce up their location with.  Contained within those crates is “The Possessor”, Gates’ aforementioned experimental horror film.  The students watch it and laugh it off, tossing it back into the box and moving on with their preparations.

So what’s the connection?  Our mysterious killer is hellbent on finishing the Gates film during the marathon, complete with an uninterrupted recreation of the murderous live final act.  There are some further twists, turns, and revelations, but what we basically have here is a postmodernist slasher that, in many ways, must have been on Kevin Williamson’s mind when he first sat down to write Scream (or Scary Movie, as it was originally titled), as well as the opening sequence of Scream 2.  Hell, we even have a cast of characters here who are as obsessed with movies as their eventual attacker is!

While the core narrative and characters are entertaining, thankfully including the disguise-changing villain himself, a lot of the fun comes from the movies-within-the-movie themselves.  These segments were directed by Alan Ormsby (who was fired from directing the whole feature) and, coupled with the fact that the film’s FX were supervised by uncredited producer Bob Clark (Black Christmas), it makes this all an unofficial reunion of talent from the makers of Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, Deathdream, and Deranged.  Each of these faux films matches the style and tone of the era they are attempting to evoke almost perfectly, making the entire set-up more genuine than a lot of films that pull similar routines.

“Mosquito” absolutely plays out like a William Alland feature in the vein of Tarantula or The Deadly Mantis.  “Electrified Man” skews more towards early AIP fare like I Was A Teenage Werewolf and War of the Colossal Beast.  “The Stench” lands more in early color Toho territory, evoking the non-kaiju efforts of Ishiro Honda.  As for “The Possessor”, it contains more of a ‘60s Euro-horror vibe, evoking psychedelic experimental cinema and the works of Italian maestro Mario Bava.  These different flares all give it an extra appeal for any horror fan obsessed with or interested in the genre’s history.

Judging the film based on its look is a bit hard at this time, as the only copies of it one can find these days are the old VHS release and the now-OOP DVD from the ‘00s, which itself looks like a high-end VHS copy.  As a result, I’ll refrain from commenting on its overall visual atmosphere, at least until Synapse finishes the HD restoration that they are apparently working on as we speak.  Fingers crossed that it sees release sometime within the next year or so, as I suspect this film will look pretty damn good once it has been spruced up.  Popcorn certainly deserves it.

The tone and style of the film evokes mid-to-late ‘80s cinema, almost to the point where if I didn’t know it hailed from 1991, I would have automatically assumed it was made around 1987 or so.  The acting also holds to this vibe, especially considering some of the cast members.  In addition to aforementioned genre vets Dee Wallace Stone (The Howling, Cujo) and Ray Walston (“My Favorite Martian”, there are quite a few familiar faces.  Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather, Phantom of the Opera ’89) is our final girl, Maggie.  Tom Villiard (One Crazy Summer) plays her goofy fellow film student pal Toby and Derek Rydall (Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge) is her on again-off again boyfriend, Mark.  We are also treated to Tony Roberts (Annie Hall, Amityville 3-D) as their professor and Malcolm Danare (Christine, The Curse) and Kelly Jo Minter (Summer School, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child) as two of the other students.

Popcorn isn’t a forgotten classic, but it is definitely an under-loved gem.  From its ‘80s vibe to its fun concept to its wide assortment of bonafide horror talent, it’s a lot of fun and probably a great film to pop in and munch down on some popped corn with a few like-minded friends.  Whether you decide to wait for Synapse’s promised Blu-ray or you track down on your own before then, chances are you’ll be entertained by this offbeat slasher and its homages to ‘50s & ‘60s genre cinema.  It starts off a bit rocky, but once it gets going, it’s a fun ride.

Up Next: Wishmaster (1997)

Previously On…
Species | Mute Witness | Popcorn | Wishmaster | Alien 3 | Cast A Deadly Spell
Disturbing Behavior | The Sect | The Addams Family

The post Exhumed & Exonerated: ‘Popcorn’ (1991) appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

We could discuss some of the various alternate versions of existing films or a few almost-mades.  Freddy vs. Jason, for instance, came close to being made so many damn times in the 1990s.  Fans have a handful of books, numerous websites, and even a few documentaries from which they can discover such information, however.  So, in an effort to be different and have some fun, I have concocted (with the help of my friend Troy of AndersonVision) an entertaining list of faux unmade films from the Friday the 13th franchise!  Below lies a list of five adventures that Jason Voorhees almost went on.  I hope you enjoy it and are able to conjure up some wild images in your mind as you read the following…

The post 5 ‘Friday The 13ths’ That Almost Were! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

There are many masters of horror. Carpenter. Romero. Cronenberg. Barker. Miike…However, in spite of all of the achievements of these experts of the trade, none of them truly revolutionized modern horror in the same way that Wes Craven did. In lieu of the legend’s passing, it felt appropriate to dissect three of his films, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Scream (and its sequels), and Cursed, that epitomize the director’s ability at pushing the genre forward, especially in terms of establishing a brand of horror that was self-aware and reflexive.

There’s a fascinating through-line that’s present in these films that’s deeply representative of the newer brand of horror that came to be embraced, which would not have been possible if not for the work that Craven did here. This all comes down to Craven’s obsession with reality and the simulacrum constantly keeping it in flux. With New Nightmare he depicts a world where a movie comes to life; with Scream, the idea is that life is a movie; and in Cursed, it’s almost like you’re watching “life’s movie.” What that means is that it’s the self-aware film that would have been made by the characters out of the previous films. In spite of the spark of this beginning in 1994 with New Nightmare, Craven was already beginning to do a ton to move horror to a more modern, meta place.

New Nightmare
“This is still a script, right, Wes?”

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, the final film in the canonical Nightmare on Elm Street series which Craven began ten years prior, is sort of a fascinating animal. The ambitious storyline sees Freddy’s horror from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies crossing over into the real world. The smart film even goes as far as having Heather Langenkamp, the actress who played Nancy in the original film (and Dream Warriors; go Dream Warriors!) being made the protagonist here, but forcing her to “play” Nancy one last time to beat this evil. There are countless layers going on here between reality and fantasy. Even the first scene terrifically undercuts what you think is a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, until it reveals itself to actually be the real life filming of a scene (complete with Wes Craven there as himself). Actors from the Elm Street films are constantly appearing and weighing in, and a moment is even taken to insult all of the past Elm Street sequels, essentially retconning them and establishing a new continuity. In the process, New Nightmare manages to “fix” the franchise so to speak, in a very ambitious, interesting way.

Craven would go on to play with this reality/fantasy meta hybrid heavily in the second half of his career, but it really feels the most organic here as the movie just casually spools off into real life. There’s a dazzling energy that fuels the film as you watch a real person try to become their movie persona (versus six years later in Scream 3, where he has characters being literally paired off with their movie version counterparts) so they can save the real world based off of the horrors that her movies have indoctrinated. That is insane, and sounds like it should never work, but it turns into one of the better Nightmare on Elm Street movies simply because of the reinvention it takes. Even more power is gained when considering that this series in general is all about determining what is real and what is a dream, so to double down on that concept to say, what is real, what is a dream, and what is a movie, is for sure the strongest synthesis of Craven’s themes in this series.

This film also introduces a concept that remains fairly consistent through all of the films looked at here, which is the idea of these people doing interviews in the movie, reflecting on their fictionalized selves. We see Robert Englund and Heather Langenkamp doing it here, Sidney and Gale doing it throughout Scream, and hints of it throughout the celebrity heavy portions of Cursed. All of this just adds more to the thesis being pushed here, as the truth is forced to comment and dissect the fiction that has informed their lives.

Another welcome dimension to the film is that there’s a pleasant symmetry to this idea of Freddy coming to life coinciding with Craven making another Elm Street movie, which of course coincides with the actual release of New Nightmare. This film is all about legitimacy, and as Freddy is given more focus and attention, his strength only continues to rise. There’s an interaction in the film that even echoes this:

“I think the only way to stop him is to make another movie. Now I swear to you I’m gonna stay by this computer and keep writing until I finish the script, but…when the time comes, you’re gonna have to make a choice.”
“Choice? What kind of choice?”
“Whether or not you will be willing to play Nancy one last time”

In the end it comes down to real people taking agency to overcome these imaginary horrors that are invading their world. It might sound fairly pedestrian now, but at the time it was really pushing something new. It’s a concept that’s even quite similar to what’s going on with Sidney throughout the Scream sequels. She’s not choosing to reprise a role in a film, but by again rallying against Ghostface and putting herself in the fray, she’s accepting her title as Sidney Prescott, Final Girl, one last time, to conquer this reflexive evil. While New Nightmare would do much to usher in Craven’s fascination with a modern, self-aware approach to horror, he took this idea to staggering new heights a mere two years later with Scream.

Scream
“But this is life. This isn’t a movie.”
“Sure it is, Sid. It’s all a movie. It’s all one great big movie. Only you can pick your genre.”

The Holy Grail of Craven’s career in a lot of people’s eyes, beyond being just a very solid slasher film, Scream is all sorts of meta goodness in a way that you wouldn’t think would work. Scream chronicles a serial killer who’s killing a bunch of teens who happen to be tremendous horror aficionados. The film expertly breaks down the genre, discussing mistakes made in horror classics, horror film firsts, and even laying out the rules of the genre. It honestly feels like a film thesis that keenly dissects the genre…that also has gratuitous grisly murders.

If New Nightmare is about people struggling with the idea that they are their movie personas, then Scream is about how to use those personas to rise above the genre and stay alive. If we are tropes, then there are rules, and if we follow those rules then conceivably we can survive. The concept that Sidney and the people of Westboro’s lives have been transformed into a horror film is fully embraced by them too, as characters shout out things like, “No, please don’t kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel!” They’ve full out accepted their fate in many cases. At other times they’re outright dismissive of horror, “What’s the point? They’re all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It’s insulting.” Characters almost have a disdain and lack of respect for the genre, until this killer can legitimize it and bring back its power (for the characters in the film, and for the audience).

Repeatedly, the life and death of our cast seems to be dependent upon horror tropes, or the film wisely choosing to skewer them whenever it’s appropriate. It’s such a simplistic idea, to crack open horror’s skull and just play around in the metaness of it all, but with a lot of the greatest horror films, simplicity works. There’s no denying that this more modern take on horror was being accepted by audiences. Scream essentially brought the horror genre back to life in the ‘90s, and a slew of self-aware knockoffs like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Final Destination, and Urban Legend began crowding the box office. Even now, the tongue-in-cheek, reflexive titles like Cabin in the Woods and the wealth of television efforts like American Horror Story and Scream Queens wouldn’t be possible without the trails being blazed here.

While Scream is much to credit with this phenomenon, it’s still highly worth reflecting on Scream 2, which not only carries over the themes that Scream has introduced, but becomes even more reflexive by taking the canon of sequels under its wing now, too. As a result of this it arguably has more to say than the original film and pushes Craven’s modern horror even further. The film is also well aware of the burden and stigma that sequels see, and even addresses this head-on a number of times:

“So, you’re suggesting that someone is trying to make a real life sequel?”
“Stab 2? Who would wanna do that? Sequels suck! Oh please, please! By definition alone, sequels are inferior films!”

By wearing its sequel-ness on its sleeve, it not only is capable of hitting new reflexive heights, but it manages to surpass the sequel slump that most horror witnesses. There’s something to be said for the incredible set piece that opens the film where a crowded theater are ostensibly watching the Scream murders on screen, while criticizing the genre and the characters’ actions, yet simultaneously being guilty of them themselves. It seems so simple, but there are many layers going on here contributing to a massively meta product that courses through the whole film. Maureen’s death in the theater is perfectly synchronized with the murder happening on the movie screen as everyone is oblivious and just cheering at the chaos. There are few situations where you could justifiably have a room filled with Ghostface killers, and yet this one pulls it off perfectly.

Even just having these characters in a film class now, taking apart sequels and talking about movies being responsible for violence is a huge set piece that could play out terribly awkward. Due to the college setup and everything the movie establishes, it’s surprisingly natural, in spite of its glaring on the nose-ness.

Scream’s sequel also allows itself to buff out many of its rough spots by becoming the critic itself. A more self-aware eye often means a more critical one, so by proxy the movie is capable of cleaning up some of the original film’s plot holes. We see people telling others to, “Star-69 his ass!” to figure out who the killer is, as technology moves on and is incorporated into the film accordingly. Elsewhere the film even has Sidney being terrorized by a caller early on only for her to immediately undercut him with Caller ID. The times are changing and the film is smart to use that to its advantage rather than ignoring it. The film even insults the previous one for its killers’ motives, saying they were too thin or unbelievable, as this film is set on surpassing it with a better ending.

The lasting message that Scream 2 seems to want you to take from it is the whole “blame the movies” aspect. It’s Mickey’s defense, and the entire film is predicated on it since the success of the fictional Stab is what has brought these killings back to life. Even though the motive is simplified to be “too ‘90s”, it’s an extension of what the first film introduced. While that was using the knowledge of horror movies to survive, this one has used horror films as the justification for causing the killings in the first place. It’s carrying out the damage that the first film introduced, with the meta answer that Scream caused Scream 2 to happen, both in the logic of the film, and in its real world context.

Scream 3, which we’d be remiss to not touch upon here, is certainly not as focused of trilogy-centric in the way that Scream 2 is about sequels, but it is focused on the Hollywood movie aspect of it that seemed to slowly take over Craven’s focus. There’s much more here about artifice, attacking cinema, and the trappings that make horror movies in the first place. The film does much with these murders taking place on the Stab set, or a production lot, with cinema clearly being the lens that all of this is being filtered through. We have cast members of the movie being killed now and murders actively changing the film that’s being created, rather than it just being a device. Now the killer’s murders are consciously changing the production of Stab that is being done, as these worlds mix and the audience is supposed to pull out some message about reality. We even have characters appear from beyond the dead via videotape, bridging these two ideas of reality and cinema even further. The missteps taken with Scream 3 were not necessarily corrected with Craven’s next modern horror film, Cursed, but it still carries on and tries to add to the message that he’s carefully cultivated through these films.

Cursed
“Fair fight? This is Hollywood!”

Cursed is a big, sprawling mess of a film, but if you squint really hard you can see what Craven was shooting for here. Cursed is trying to reinvigorate werewolves, like Scream did slashers (right down to Craven reuniting with Scream screenwriter, Kevin Williamson, for the picture), but rather than it playing into conventions, it tries to break them. In Scream, everyone is fascinated by movies. They are their Gods and the rulemakers. Here, they’re the shitty bosses that keep you late at work; you’re still beholden to them, but the worship is gone and the snark is turned up, and it’s (one of the reasons) why this movie doesn’t work. At the same time, it’s almost a better product judged based on what it’s attempting to do–and with the film going through such a production hell, it’s easy to believe there was a good version of Cursed in there at one point–It has the same knowledge and reflexivity that Scream does, but it does substantially less with it. It’s like this is the film the characters from Scream would have made.

What Wes Craven is trying to do here is absolutely admirable though, and had this project worked and he brought the werewolf genre back to life, it could have been a very interesting time. It’s easy to picture a Cursed trilogy much in the same vein as Scream, as the werewolf lore continues to get bent and reworked. In a sense, he was trying to bring werewolves–and by proxy, monsters in general–into mainstream slasher territory. Obviously that’s not saying werewolf films are niche or that creature/slasher hybrids haven’t been popularized, but this is trying to do it in such an endlessly “hip” way and lacks most of the conventional baggage that you see associated with werewolf films. It’s treating them completely different, in a way that’s not unlike Robert Rodriguez’s Body Snatchers riff, The Faculty.

To begin with, Cursed lacks the huge reflexive set pieces that kick off New Nightmare and Scream, instead opting to go down a much “hipper” route. Right down to the wolf howl and “edgy”, “subversive” Little Red Riding Hood song that kicks off the movie, clearly the intention here is to buck your expectations. There’s a weird needless obsession with wolves in this universe too that tries to pass as self-awareness, but is simply sloppily inserting wolf references. There’s a scene where Ellie is spooked by a clock, which just happens to be a Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood cuckoo clock. This is a clock that she owns, mind you. This sort of wolf-inization is constantly going on throughout the movie in lieu of actual depth.

Elsewhere we get attempts at reflexivity in the form of these characters getting hard-ons for Lon Chaney’s cane from The Wolfman and other werewolf iconography as they spout out facts and crib notes on the topic. One character runs a Planet Hollywood aping horror venue called Tinsel’s that acts as an excuse to have everyone racing through a mock graveyard, a house of mirrors, or staring at a dormant cenobite as these worlds continue to bleed together awkwardly. Just like Scream posited what would happen if a slasher attacked people that were slasher film experts, Cursed similarly looks to explore what would happen if werewolf aficionados were attacked by a werewolf. Except they just look like werewolf experts. This is a film that has several sweeping crane shots over the Hollywood sign, after all. Or the fact that the werewolf is taken down by Ellie negging and insulting her to the point that her vanity gets the better of her and forces her to reveal where she’s hiding (while also giving them all the finger in werewolf mode, which is just too insane to believe).

There’s also a very bizarre feeling going on in Cursed as you ricochet between needless characters that almost act as a who’s who of Craven’s latest films. These familiar faces feel like they’re showing up to answer nostalgia and convey a certain tone for the movie to convey rather than to actually be taken seriously as characters. It’s all part of the aesthetic that Craven is trying to put together, but falters terribly. Along similar lines the film tries to sloppily handle “subtext” like turning into a werewolf being analogous to homosexuality. The entire film works off of the premise that we’re all “cursed” as we make our way through this thing called life, just only some of us are turning into werewolves. We all have secrets and baggage that we want to hide, and this movie makes that abundantly clear. ”Men, they’re all beasts,” is sort of the mission statement being put out here.

Even if Cursed is a complete misfire that continues some of Craven’s work with modern horror and breaking the fourth wall, it largely focuses on the wrong elements of celebrity and fantasy. At the least, this wasn’t his last film, and the proof of its intentions are at least encouraging. It’s the sort of attitude that surely slowly accumulated to Craven and Williamson finally reuniting for his final picture, Scream 4, which essentially takes everything these three films are trying to say, and contextualizes them together nearly perfectly (while also adding on the fodder of horror’s recent obsession with “torture porn”, the endless onslaught of remakes, and the fever pitch that being a celebrity has hit).

The horror community is truly at a loss with Craven now gone, and it’s endlessly enticing to think about what the master might have come up with next considering where his latest pictures were dwelling. While many new up and coming auteurs are starting to make a name for themselves in the genre, it will still be hard for any of them to hold a flamethrower next to Craven and how he managed to push modern horror into a new, exciting place, with New Nightmare, Scream, and Cursed largely being responsible for this renaissance of the form.

The post How Wes Craven Revolutionized Modern, Meta Horror appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Reddit user Big_Badger took the time to sift through those two services as well as Amazon Prime Instant and Shudder to find which Craven films were available for everyone to watch at their leisure. The list is below but it should be noted that these could be taken down at any moment, as is the case with any streaming title.

Additionally, MTV has announced that they will be paying some form of tribute to Craven with this tomorrow’s “Scream” finale, although it is not yet certain what that tribute will be, EW reports. Craven was executive producer of the show. The finale airs tomorrow at 10pm EST.

Netflix (US)
New Nightmare
Nightmare on Elm Street
Scream 1, 2, 3
Cursed
Music of the Heart
Vampire in Brooklyn
The Hills Have Eyes 2

Hulu
Swamp Thing

Amazon Prime Instant
Deadly Blessing
Chiller
Cursed
New Nightmare

Shudder
The Hills Have Eyes
Deadly Blessing

The post These Wes Craven Movies Are Currently Streaming appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The trailer for “Scream”, premiering June 30th, featured a new, fleshy mask, instead of the the one featured in all four of Craven’s films to which the show is based on.

And while we’ll get to that in a moment, the shocker is that Craven, who we love so much for his ability to be candid, reveals that he regrets changing the look of Freddy Krueger in his 1994 New Nightmare, the seventh film in the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise.

“In general,” Craven says, reflecting on his own experience with the Scream sequel and beyond, “we didn’t mess with the mask at all. It’s something we didn’t try to change. With Freddy [Krueger] and the New Nightmare (above), I felt that I probably should have stuck with the original face. [With Scream,] we just let Ghostface be Ghostface.”

“It would have been safer [not to change Freddy],” Craven continues. “I’m not going to speculate in public, probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it, but you know, sometimes you realize that something’s not broken, so don’t fix it. And that was the course we took on all the Scream films: Don’t mess with that, it’s just perfect.”

This all stemmed from the revelation that MTV’s “Scream” will feature a new mask, as mentioned above, to which Craven wanted to make clear was not his decision, as he’s involved in name only.

“I just put my name on it,” Craven explains, referencing his executive producer credit. “I was too busy to do much else.”

For Craven, the success of the Scream franchise hinged upon the mask. No other mask would have done the trick. “No way. No way,” Craven insists. “I knew it in my bones that [Ghostface] was a unique find, and I had to convince the studio that they had to go the extra mile to get it.”

Why MTV chose to go in a new direction with the mask is unknown, although we’ll reserve judgment for when the series, starring Willa Fitzgerald, Taylor-Klaus, Bobby Campo, Connor Weil and Joel Gretsch, premieres this summer.

The post Wes Craven Shocker: Reveals He Should Have Left Freddy Krueger’s “Look” Alone! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The Internet has brought out the creative in everyone, resulting in almost too much horror goods. Besides breaking my wallet, I have nowhere to put all this cool stuff.

I’m going to need to figure it out because I must have this ‘Rex’ stuffed animal replica as seen in Wes Craven’s 1994 New Nightmare!

Standing approximately 19″ tall, it’s printed fabric on both sides. Stitching pattern is only on one side of Rex. Art and concept by Matt Ryan.

Pre-order is only $30.

The post Own ‘Rex’ From Wes Craven’s ‘New Nightmare’! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The documentary is hosted by another one of the franchise’s anchors, Heather Langenkamp who appeared in parts 1 and 3 as “Nancy” before playing herself in New Nightmare. I recently spoke with her about what she calls “the role of a lifetime.”

Check it out below!

I kind of wanted to track your experience playing Nancy through the years. In each film she’s in a completely different place in her life. Or your life, for the last one.

I’ve been done playing her for so long now that Never Sleep Again actually helps me look back at them. I don’t know if there are any other examples in history of an actress that got to play a teenager, the mid-20’s version of the character and then the mid-30’s version of the character. Now when I look back on it, it’s the role of a lifetime. Nancy and I, especially in New Nightmare, often get conflated into being the same type of person and Wes must have seen something in me that was the good type of girl Nancy was. Very self sufficient, strong and loyal to her friends. She’s a genius in some ways and has a spunky “won’t give up” spirit. As a teen auditioning for him, he must have seen something that he liked which was very flattering.

In the second script he worked on for the series, Dream Warriors, he said, “we’re going to bring you back. You and Fred are the core of the storyline and I want to have a throughline that connects the past and these new kids in a really natural way.” You have all of these new kids that are really struggling with what Nancy struggles with in the first movie.

And then in the 7th one I’m playing myself as the actress who saw these movies get made and I have a bit of a cynical attitude towards these things. But it really brought her character to a wonderful ending because she actually lives and you have this meta story type that was further explored in Scream.

And New Nightmare is also informed a bit from some of the fallout you had becoming a celebrity – a stalker.

Yeah Wes used that. At the time there were a lot of cases of stalkers. It’s pretty de rigueur to have an issue with a fan that has “demands”, there were a lot of cases like that. So Wes kind of used that to sort of hint that I might be going a little nuts with all of this pressure of a stalker but really it’s Freddy coming up into her life. He often has that red herring of a plot point. Initially the stalker was a much bigger character but it was unnecessary and Wes cut a lot of it out of the script.

In Never Sleep Again you’re examining a lot of these films that you’re not in. Did you follow those as they were being made or did the documentary give you a chance to familiarize yourself with them?

I was totally unfamiliar with the backstories for the other films. I went to one of the premiere parties for Nightmare 4, I think I had seen the TV series, and I met Renny Harlin at that point. I was intrigued by that branch of films and where they were going into super sequel franchise mania. It became such a big business, it became so commercial. When I got the part in the first movie I was like, “oh I’m in a horror movie that no one will go see.” But by the 4th and 5th one people who were getting cast were like, “yes! I’m in a Freddy movie!”

Numerous Special Features Also Included:

· Extended Interviews
· First Look: Heather Langenkamp’s “I Am Nancy”
· For the Love of the Glove
· Fred Heads: The Ultimate Freddy Fans
· Horror’s Hallowed Grounds: Return to Elm Street
· Freddy vs. The Angry Video Game Nerd
· Expanding the Video Game Universe: Freddy in Comic Books and Novels
· The Music of the Nightmare: Conversations with Composers and Songwriters
· Elm Street’s Poster Boy: The Art of Matthew Joseph Peak
· A Nightmare on Elm Street in 10 Minutes
· Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy Teaser Trailer

The post [Interview] Heather Langenkamp On Playing Nancy Through The Years! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

This is all a long way of saying that, while I do find the films in this list to be “overrated,” I don’t necessarily think all of them are “bad.” I’m not here to kick sand in their eye. It’s just interesting to look back on movies whose legacies have weathered the years and re-evaluate them with the perspective that only the passage of time can offer.

Head below for my list of 5 Overrated Horror Movies!!!

THE CROW

The Crow isn’t necessarily a bad film but considering the rabidness of its fan base almost 20 years later you’d think it would be some kind of masterpiece. It isn’t. It’s elevated by a good performance from Brandon Lee, but narratively speaking it’s a disjointed mess. I feel like the perception of the film benefitted from the legend of Lee’s tragic demise and its release during the height of goth’s popularity in 1994. Both of those factors and the nostalgia that surround them obscure the film’s weaknesses.

WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE

I know a lot of people prefer New Nightmare over Scream, which is insane to me. The film has a bunch of interesting post-modern concepts, stuff that Scream would later improve upon (and make entertaining to boot), but the execution here is haphazard. The design of the “new” Freddy isn’t remotely frightening or aesthetically pleasing and the film is too in love with its ideas to let them play out organically. Almost 20 years later, this film feels forced – a interesting demo of something Craven would polish to a high sheen just two years later.

THE OMEN

The Omen is a good film, but it’s not really the classic many suggest it is. I’ve seen some people place it in a similar league as The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, which feels off base to me. It has some great moments, a great cast and a good premise, but the tone of the piece too often veers towards camp. Now, normally I’m good with camp, but I feel like The Omen takes itself too seriously to go all the way with it. As a result, the film is stuck somewhere between “good” and “great.” Director Richard Donner quickly moved on to superior material.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

This is sort of the opposite problem. I know not many people think of I Know What You Did Last Summer as a classic, but the fact that it gets any consideration at all is beyond me. Step away from the 1997 moment you may be re-living whenever you watch this film and marvel at how it ever became a thing to begin with. It’s pretty laughable stuff. So in terms of being overrated – some people actually think this film is decent. Decent would be rating it too high.

THE HOWLING

I LOVE Joe Dante. Love him. Gremlins and Gremlins 2 are two of my favorite movies ever, so whenever I write about this film it pains me. I know I pile on The Howling every now and then but it’s just because I’m sort of mystified that it has the status it does. It’s a decent film, of course. I just think that Dante’s name, some really good effects work and perhaps one of the greatest posters of all time have somehow convinced people that this is one for the ages. It’s not. The pacing is off and the setting – which should be ripe for a pulpy lark – is never fully utilized.

It’s not even in the Top 5 Joe Dante films for me. I place The Burbs, Explorers and the aforementioned Gremlins films way above it. Truth be told? I even prefer his underrated recent effort The Hole.

The post 5 Overrated Horror Movies!!! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Note to fans: This is the same Blu-Ray boxset that was a Best Buy exclusive since October 2012, so don’t freak out.

For those who have no idea who Freddy Krueger is (and/or for those who were rudely introduced to him by the 2010 remake), here’s the deal: Freddy is a child killer nicknamed the Springwood Slasher who is eventually subjected to vigilante justice by the parents of his victims and is burned to death. However, his spirit lives on through the dreams of a group of teenagers living in his old Elm Street neighbourhood. By entering their dreams and killing them in their dreams, the teens end up dying in real life, often with gruesome results. Even though he lives on in dreams, he still carries the burns that he suffered, as well as his trademark bladed glove. Simple, yet effective.

Undoubtedly, the first film is a modern-day classic. A Nightmare On Elm Street combined the unique ideas that creator Wes Craven drummed up from childhood memories and a few newspaper stories from the LA Times to create one of the greatest horror films ever made. Whether it was Craven’s imaginative story blurring the lines of fantasy and reality, Heather Langenkamp’s portrayal of protagonist Nancy Thompson, Robert Englund’s iconic Freddy Krueger, the eerie score by Charles Bernstein or the film’s gruesome special effects, A Nightmare On Elm Street was a hit, and still remains a staple in the genre.

Despite Craven’s resistance to make a sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge hit theatres in 1985. Directed by Jack Sholder, this film divided fans of the original and continues to be a source of division amongst fans of the franchise. Why? For starters, Freddy now decides to use a host body to carry out his killings. No more dream killings. Instead, Freddy now possesses Jesse Walsh, whose family has moved into Nancy Thompson’s former home. Soon after settling in, Jesse begins to have nightmares in which Freddy appears, demanding that Jesse kill for him. Freddy periodically takes possession of Jesse, eventually even slicing his way out of Jesse’s body and wreaking havoc on Jesse’s friends. The other source of contention is the perceived homoerotic themes. Whether it’s Jesse’s perceived conflict with his own sexuality, lines like “There’s something inside of me.”, or Jesse finding his gym coach at an S&M bar, there’s plenty to raise a few eyebrows. That, and the fact that Jesse was played by Mark Patton, who had previously come out as gay. Regardless of all of that, I enjoyed Freddy’s Revenge. Granted, it wasn’t as great as the first film, but the chemistry and the relationship between Mark Patton’s Jesse and Kim Myers’ Lisa is very much a clincher for me.

After the problems with Freddy’s Revenge, Wes Craven returns and co-writes the screenplay for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Chuck Russell is at the helm this time, and Freddy is once again after the last of the Elm Street children. This time, the children have all been committed to Westin Hills Asylum. All of them have been experiencing dreams in which Freddy has shown up. Things don’t make sense until Nancy, now a staff research scientist at the hospital, meets with the group and they all discover the truth. With Dream Warriors, Freddy makes the transition to the mainstream, going from the dark and scary to the one-liner spitting antagonist that eventually would become the bane of the franchise. Despite this, the film hits all the right notes. Slick special effects (thanks to a bigger budget), well-developed characters and a return by Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon from the first film had this one being a hit.

Now comes the downward spiral. Picking up where Dream Warriors left off, the three survivors from Freddy’s last romp have been released from Westin Hills and have managed to make new friends while attending high school. Among them is Alice, who frequently daydreams. However, Kristen once again is experiencing bad dreams. Eventually, Kincaid also has a dream in which he and his dog Jason are in the same salvage yard that Freddy’s bones were buried. Jason then urinates fire on the ground where Freddy was buried, and the Springwood Slasher lives again. Freddy quickly dispatches the remaining Elm Street children, but faces a new challenge in Alice, who has the ability to inherit the talents of the former Dream Warriors. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is style over substance in many ways. Freddy has become no longer scary, dishes out one-liners left and right, the direction by Renny Harlin is a blend of stylish and straightforward, the soundtrack is a mix of pop and rock songs, and isn’t overly gory to appeal to the masses. Still, the characters are enjoyable and once again well-developed (even if the Dream Warriors holdovers are dispatched so easily), Harlin’s direction balances both atmospheric and the flashy, and the effects are one again well-executed. Still, gone are the scares from the first three films, and despite this film being the most successful of the original franchise, is a sign of things to come.

With A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, things try to return to the dark tone of the first three films, but MTV Freddy gets in the way. Directed by Stephen Hopkins, the story has Alice and her now-boyfriend Dan from the previous film graduating high school. After a night of getting it done, Alice has a nightmare involving her wearing a nun’s outfit at an insane asylum. Dan doesn’t believe her, but soon Alice has a dream in which the nun, Amanda Krueger, gives birth and the baby turns into Freddy. Alice eventually discovers that she’s pregnant, and that Freddy is using her unborn child’s dreams to get to her friends. As mentioned before, the film tries to be a marriage of the previous film and the first three. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. While the atmosphere and pacing of this film are on the ball, the linear storyline seems to be a repeat of the previous film, but this time the only character you really care about is Alice. Everyone else is Freddy fodder. Speaking of Freddy, his one-liners have gotten lame. That, and the fact that he’s slid even more into the goofy side of things, which really doesn’t work with the times that he’s being serious. The kills are either appropriately gruesome or just plain silly. All in all, it’s an okay entry, but is miles above what’s coming next.

As an addition to the above, The Dream Child was originally cut for theatres, due to Dan’s death and Greta’s death being too much for the MPAA. These scenes unfortunately haven’t been restored for the film, and aren’t available in the extras. There are clips of the scenes on Youtube if you look, as well as in the franchise documentary (unfortunately also not included in this set), Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

What can be said about Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare that hasn’t already been said? Despite the film being a financial success at the box office (for some reason), the whole thing stunk, and stands as a low point for the series. Directed by Rachel Talalay (who went on to direct the stinker Ghost In The Machine and Tank Girl), the story for this one has all of the teens in Springwood being dead, save for one. An unnamed teen (Shon Greenblatt) awakens from an encounter with Freddy to find himself at a youth rescue center, headed by Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane). Maggie has also been experiencing bad dreams, and decides to take a trip to Springwood with John and several other patients to unlock the mystery of the dreams. The mystery ends up being a zany and not at all scary Freddy. Gone is Freddy being the scary child killer, and in his place is some unfunny goof with Play-Doh stuck on his face wearing Freddy’s glove, hat and sweater spitting out awful lines. Want to see Freddy riding a broomstick, cackling about getting souls? How about him pushing a bed of spikes a la Wile E. Coyote? Or Freddy playing a video game of him beating on one of the teens? Want more? There’s the twist in the story that makes little sense about Freddy’s origins, or the stupid 3D sequence that was available in theatres (and the original DVD boxset) that seemed more like a sad attempt at making things interesting, characters we couldn’t give a rat’s ass about, and no scares, whatsoever (unless you count cameos by Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold). For all intents and purposes, Freddy was dead, but deserved a much better fate.

Three years after the slap in the face that was Freddy’s Dead, Wes Craven decided to put Freddy to bed in proper fashion, writing and directing Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. The story takes place in real life, where Wes has begun work on a new Nightmare On Elm Street film. Actress Heather Langenkamp (herself) is on the set watching her husband, effects artist Chase Porter (David Newsom), at work on the film. Also present is her son Dylan (Miko Hughes), whom she tries to shield from seeing the blood and gore going on. She’s also on edge, from a string of earthquakes hitting the Los Angeles area, as well as a telephone stalker who won’t leave her alone. Dylan himself seems to be not himself, frightened by the monsters under the bed and acting strangely. Soon, people close to her begin to die. Heather confides in Robert Englund (himself) in an effort to figure out just what’s happening. She soon comes to learn that an evil force is awake, and wants her son. Before Wes worked his magic turning horror tropes on their heads in Scream, he explored the “movie within a movie” idea with New Nightmare. While unfortunately a victim of the 90s horror crash, New Nightmare was genuinely ahead of its time. Employing a more psychological tactic and nods to the original film, Wes makes this film the true conclusion for the franchise. Doing away with the fantasy visuals in favour of something more grounded and more realistic akin to what people might feel in a particular position (that is, a famous movie actress dealing with fans and potential stalkers while also protecting her family). Everyone is spot-on with the acting, Heather Langenkamp being the stand-out once again. As for Robert Englund as Freddy, he is once again scary. Very scary. He’s animalistic and very much something to be afraid of. Couple that with his new design (love the claws!) and some brutal kills, the film deserved a better fate than what it got in 1994.

At the end of the 702 minutes, you get the sense of why the franchise was a hit with people. It had its highs and lows, while also showcasing talent in front of and behind the camera, cementing its mark on pop culture cinema and film history. While the more recent “reimagining” left something to be desired, there’s no question how much of an impact the franchise has had on horror fans.

Video/Audio: Transfer-wise, the quality of each film varies. While all look great on Blu-Ray, none of them can be considered reference quality. Each 1.78:1 1080p transfer shows their age, showing some softness here and there, but still look quite good when compared to their DVD predecessors. Colours vary between the installments, as well as black levels, but aren’t horrible. Detail ranges from very good to just average. All in all, it’s good to see all of the films in HD, despite inconsistencies.

As for audio, each film save for the first comes equipped with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless track. A Nightmare On Elm Street, on the other hand, gets a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track. Again, there’s a lack of consistency between the films, with some having really good audio (ANOES) while others (Freddy’s Revenge) aren’t quite as strong in terms of clarity. Still, there’s enough of a sonic assault and quality here from each of these films that fans won’t be disappointed.

Extras: The good news is that New Line has ported over many of the extras found from the original DVD boxset, as well as omitting the interesting-yet-tiring menu game where you had to solve puzzle in order to unlock more extras. The bad news is, well, there’s still a ‘could be more’ feeling to it all.

First up, Disc 1 features the original A Nightmare On Elm Street, and is an exact copy of the Blu-Ray that was released a few years ago. Featuring two audio commentaries, the exhaustive Never Sleep Again documentary, The House That Freddy Built documentary, the Night Terrors doc that looks at the possibility of people dying while they sleep, three Alternate Endings, and the Fast Track and Focus Points options.

Disc 2 features Freddy’s Revenge and Dream Warriors, along with their supplements. For Freddy’s Revenge, we get the Heroes and Villains piece which is a quick look at the story and the film’s place in the franchise, Psycho Sexual Circus (the filmmakers talk about the aforementioned homoerotic and sexual undertones within the film), The Male Witch (a look at the special effects used in the film), Freddy on 8th Street (covers the publicity stunt done by Jeffrey Wells prior to the release of the film) and Robert Englundthe film’s theatrical trailer. For Dream Warriors, there’s Behind the Story, which covers things like developing the story, special effects, cast experiences, etc. Also included is Dokken’s video for ‘Dream Warriors’ and the film’s theatrical trailer.

Disc 3 has Dream Master and The Dream Child, as well as their respective extras. Dream Master has Krueger, Freddy Krueger, which looks at the production with cast & crew interviews, Hopeless Chest focuses on special effects (including the pizza), Let’s Makeup has Howard Berger talking about Freddy’s makeup, The Finnish Line focuses on director Renny Harlin’s reaction to his movie, and finally the theatrical trailer. For The Dream Child, there’s another Behind the Story featurette that looks at the various aspects of the production, music videos from The Fat Boys performing “Are You Ready for Freddy?” and followed by Whodini performing “Anyway I Gotta Swing It”. The film’s theatrical trailer rounds out the disc.

For Disc 4, we’ve got Freddy’s Dead and New Nightmare. For Freddy’s Dead, we get a talk with Rachel Talalay and her directorial debut in Rachel’s Dream, 3D Demise focuses on the discussion of shooting the movie with 3-D effects in mind (which oddly seems relevant even today), 86’D has producer Robert Shaye being honest with his overall satisfaction with the franchise, Hellraiser has Clive Barker (of Hellraiser fame) giving his opinion on the Nightmare series, and finally the film’s theatrical trailer. For New Nightmare, New Line carries over the Audio Commentary with Wes Craven from the DVD, as well as the mini featurettes Becoming a Filmmaker, An Insane Troupe, Two Worlds, The Problem with Sequels, Filmmaker and finally the film’s trailer.

For the fifth disc, we’re presented with all-new extras, starting with Fear Himself: The Life and Crimes of Freddy Krueger. This featurette focuses on Freddy, his popularity, Robert Englund as a horror icon, as well as analysis of the franchise. Following that are two episodes of the short-lived Freddy’s Nightmares TV show. The two episodes in question are It’s a Miserable Life and Killer Instinct, which were the second and third episodes, respectively. Welcome to Prime Time is just under an hour of interviews with various cast and crew, which are essentially deleted sections from previous documentaries that were cut. Topics vary from Robert Englund’s influences for Freddy, Craven’s difficulties in getting studios to take on his project, designing Freddy’s glove, the series’ commercial success and more. The last extra is Conclusions, which is an examination of the series’ sadomasochistic elements, its style, the new digital effects landscape, the importance of story and novelty in horror and more.

Now while all those extras are extensive and interesting, there’s still a few pieces that were left out. The biggest piece missing is the Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy documentary, which covers the entire series and offers up more cast interviews and production footage. Yes, it’s available separately, but since Universal was able to nab The Shark Is Still Working for the recently-released Jaws Blu-Ray, why couldn’t New Line do the same for A Nightmare On Elm Street? Also, there’s the aforementioned deleted scenes from The Dream Child, as well as series of extended scenes from Freddy’s Dead, which aren’t exactly interesting, but still would’ve been nice to have. Overall, this is probably as good of a package for a horror franchise like this as you’re going to get.

The post [BD Review] ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street Collection’ Gives Fans Reason To Upgrade appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

You’re sitting there in the movie theater with your Junior Mints, or in the case of psychopaths, sitting there with Dots, waiting for the movie to start. You have a terrifying debate with yourself for ten seconds while you try to determine whether the lights in the theater are actually dimming or maybe you’re having a stroke. Once that bright green screen pops up, proving that your brain does indeed have enough oxygen, you catch a glimpse of some of Hollywood’s newest garbage. Between romantic comedies and animated adventures starring pop singers, it all looks like the same old stuff. Unexpectedly, a trailer pops up that seems to be pretty creepy, have some decent actors in it, and the credits tell you it’s from people who helped make other horror movies that you absolutely love. When the title is revealed, the entire audience groans, followed by nudging the person next to you and saying, “Can you believe they’re even making that movie?” Or maybe you went to this movie alone and angrily took out your phone to post your disdain on Twitter for everyone (read: not really anyone) to see. No folks, the title didn’t reveal that the trailer you just enjoyed was an M. Night Shyamalan joint, but instead, the movie is a remake, adaptation of, or sequel to something else. No matter what the source material is, nothing seems to cause fanboys to angrily roll their eyes more then finding out their favorite movie/book is getting a remake/adaptation/sequel. My advice to all of you is to quit your complaining about something you had absolutely no involvement in making and should focus your energy on revisiting the source material.

More inside…

Before you guys all start getting cranky, yes, there are HUNDREDS of terrible movies that get made that are remakes/adaptations/sequels. I’d like to also point out that there are just as many horrible movies being made that aren’t direct remakes/adaptations/sequels. I don’t think the problem that people have with remakes/adaptations/sequels is that they typically aren’t very good, but rather that these movies seem to be an acknowledgement of the lack of ideas that Hollywood has when it comes to the horror genre. That’s another point that I’m certainly not arguing with, as even something like Nosferatu, which is 80 years old, was a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Obviously the past 30 years have seen far more remakes/adaptations/sequels than the previous 50 years, so yes, I can see the amount of remakes/adaptations/sequels being a stronger indicator of Hollywood’s recent lack of inspiration. That’s another point that I’m not going to argue, as I feel that there’s a much bigger issue at hand, which is the sense of entitlement among most subcultures.

Before I go any further, let’s get you guys in the right frame of mind. I recently went to a 35mm screening of John Carpenter’s The Thing, which is one of my absolute all-time favorite films of any genre. In fact, if you ever want me to hang out with you, all you have to do is say we’re going to watch The Thing and I’ll come over. Not only is Carpenter’s version a remake of the 1951 film The Thing from Another World, but it’s also an adaptation of the novella “Who Goes There?” from 1938. Okay, well, that’s the obvious example of a remake that’s arguably better than the original. What about David Cronenberg’s The Fly from 1986, which is a remake of a film of the same name from 1958, which happens to ALSO be based on a short story from 1957? FINE. Those are like, the ONLY two examples of good remakes, right? Even though I’m not a huge fan of the film, I know that 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is highly regarded in the horror community, if not for surpassing the original from 1956, but at least for coming pretty close to it. Seeing as those examples are all at least 25 years old, and I acknowledged the more recent trend of remakes for the sake of Hollywood cashing in, I should cite more recent examples. I know I’m not the only person who enjoys Alexandre Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes 2006 remake more than Wes Craven’s 1977 original. Also, Aja’s 2010 loose remake Piranha 3D might have been a more campy, humorous remake of the 1978 film Piranha, but it’s definitely a loving tribute to the horror genre and the absurdity of creature features. Even some lesser appreciated remakes like House of Wax (2005) or Dawn of the Dead (2004) did some things that were more original than horror films that weren’t remakes. And even though I think it’s an absolutely worthless attempt to reinvent something that doesn’t need reinvention, some people think that Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) is worth watching. Things are also looking up in 2013 with a remake of Evil Dead that is doing 100% practical effects and completely avoids even casting anyone to replicate Bruce Campbell’s genius portrayal of Ash, as well as a remake of another one of my all-time favorite horror films, Maniac (1980). I’ve seen the remake already and even though I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy the original, it was much more ambitious, unique, and entertaining than most other horror films of the past year.

Okay Wolfman, we get it, there are some good remakes that have been done, but they’re turning my favorite comic book/novel into a movie, and there’s no way it will be as good as the source material! Well, you might have a point. There have been some AWFUL movies based on books and on comic books. On the other hand, some of the absolute best horror movies, in my opinion, have been based on books. Movies that are regarded as classic horror films, like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Shining, are all based on novels. Maybe you, like Stephen King, didn’t like The Shining. That’s fine, to each their own, but Stephen King wrote the novels that The Mist, Misery, and 1408 were based on, so you have a few other types of horror movie that are pretty well done. You also have weirder stories being successfully turned into movies, like H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West-Reanimator (directed by Stuart Gordon as Re-Animator) or, wait that’s right, I did mention Carpenter’s The Thing is based on a novella, right? I’d also argue the point that there are some movies that become so incredibly huge, successful, and revered that people forget it’s even based on a book. Did you know that in Peter Benchley’s novel “Jaws”, Hooper has an affair with Brody’s wife and is eventually killed? If Jaws isn’t a good enough example of movies surpassing their source material, what about the influx of superhero movies that gross millions, in some cases billions, of dollars with the medium that birthed these characters barely seeing a spike in sales? And if you think those are just blockbuster summer movies, let’s not forget that in 1991, one movie took home the Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director, AND Best Film? And that movie happened to be just this little horror movie called The Silence of the Lambs, based on the, you guessed it, Thomas Harris’ book from 1988. I’d say there are countless movies that incorporate literary references from stories spanning centuries, and it seems like some of the movies that take direct cues from books can be quite fantastic.

The only horror movie fanboy myth left to debunk is that “sequels suck”, or at least, studios focus on making A sequel as opposed to waiting to make GOOD sequels. This one is a little bit more slippery of a slope, seeing as the amount of sequels that are subjectively better than the original is an incredibly short list. In my opinion, the first example of a horror movie that comes to mind that surpassed its predecessor would be Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. Despite the previous film, House of 1000 Corpses, having some really good stuff in it, I think Zombie spread his creative juices too thin and the film suffered from cuts and edits because of all the issues with the MPAA. The Devil’s Rejects took the three most engaging characters from the first movie, Otis (Bill Moseley), Baby (Sherri Moon Zombie), and Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), and just followed their trail of death and destruction. As if that wasn’t enough, it added some other horror heavyweights like Ken Foree and Michael Berryman to add even more fuel to the fire. Again, in this Wolfman’s opinion, Evil Dead II more seamlessly blends horror with comedy than the movie that came before it, despite my love for the whole trilogy. The idea of all of society being in shambles due to a zombie outbreak is more terrifying to me than just trying to survive one night in a farm house surrounded by zombies, so I enjoy Dawn of the Dead more than Night of the Living Dead, and there are even others who prefer the third film, Day of the Dead, out of the entire franchise. Even though it’s only been a recent passion of mine, I’d also happily say that the story is a little bit more concise in Phantasm II than it is in the original, and I also enjoy the pacing of it more. This isn’t even to begin breaking into some of the franchises with at least five or six entries. If you ask anyone to rank their favorite Friday the 13th/Halloween/A Nightmare on Elm Street/Hellraiser movies, you’re going to get answers across the board. I’d say the first four Friday the 13th movies are each as entertaining as the next, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is my favorite of those sequels, and New Nightmare is my favorite Freddy Krueger sequel. With some newer franchises, like Saw or Final Destination, I’m sure you’ll find scattered responses on which sequels are better than others. I’d also say I like Paranormal Activity 3 more than I like Paranormal Activity 2, but neither are necessarily all that great. Closer to the sci-fi/horror end of the spectrum, there are plenty of people who enjoy Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Aliens more than the moves that came before them, and the classic example, stepping completely outside of horror, is the amount of people who enjoy The Empire Strikes Back more than Star Wars. Even though there are some movies that don’t need sequels, finding out that a part 3 or 7 or 10 is being released could mean the possibility of expanding the mythology a little bit to get something more entertaining than the movie that came directly before it.

Why am I now choosing to rant about trying to justify the value of remakes/adaptations/sequels? It was recently announced that Dan Trachtenberg would be directing a movie adaptation of the comic book series “Y: The Last Man”. Right alongside “Preacher”, I’d say that “Y” is one of my absolute favorites comic book series. The project has gone through various stages of development and rumors have been all over the place, but this is the first solid piece of information anyone has released. With the source material being so close to my heart, I never saw a reason to adapt it into any other medium, especially a film that would take years to make and only tell a fraction of the story. Even though Trachtenberg is getting some positive response to a fan film he made about the videogame “Portal”, most of the reactions were incredibly negative.The negative feedback wasn’t necessarily about the choice of director, but with evidence presenting itself that solidified a studio going forward to make this movie. This is where it ties back to my original point, which is that no matter how good something might look or how excited you might get over a project, the entire thing can be discredited if it’s a remake or an adaptation or a sequel to something people already connect with. It doesn’t seem to matter to most people the talent behind something when it’s much easier to judge it quickly and harshly. It seems like most members of any subculture, whether it be horror movies or comic books or videogames or (insert any subculture here), are going to be upset to see something that they consider to be “theirs” becoming more accessible to the general public. How many times have YOU been involved with or overheard a conversation about “The Walking Dead” TV series that involved the question of “Well do you read the comics?” Or, even better, “Do you read the graphic novels?” because “The Walking Dead” ISN’T a graphic novel and has merely been collected into trade paperbacks, but I digress. For those of us who have found acceptance and entertainment in something that’s slightly off the general public’s radar, we feel the need to grasp onto it tightly and not let it escape into the hands of the dreaded general public to enjoy. I understand being upset over not being a fan of the director attached to Y: The Last Man or not enjoying any of the actors involved in the remake of Evil Dead, but it seems like just the mere existence of different incarnations of things we already enjoy causes people to feel angry. I mentioned it earlier, but I hate, no, I absolutely LOATHE Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween. When I hear people talk about it, whether they be horror fans of just members of the general public, rather than get angry at the fact that it was made, it reminds me of all the reasons why I love the original. These are people who might not have known about Michael Myers before seeing a relatively mainstream movie who might check out the original or maybe check out some of Zombie’s other, better films.

As sad as it might be to think about, the creators of these movies/books that we love so much have sold their souls a long time ago. There was a point where John Carpenter wasn’t the legend he is today and really needed money to make his movie. he was willing to sell the concepts and intellectual properties to make Halloween, so 35 years later, there’s not much he can complain about. Even this Evil Dead remake has some support from Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, which isn’t something they needed to do, but felt they could do to help promote their legacy. Some directors spend the rest of their careers trying to forget about movies they wished they had never made, where others realize they have done things for paychecks as opposed to artistic integrity. If you focus all of your energy on fighting against the people who gave you the opportunity to create for doing something with the material THEY bought from YOU, you’ll just turn into Alan Moore. Not that there’s anything wrong with becoming a hermit/wizard creature, especially when you’re as talented as he is, but he’s more of an exception to the rule. I propose that when we see one of our favorite things being turned into someone else, instead of immediately shutting it down or calling out others for not knowing things are remakes/adaptations/sequels, we remember why we loved that original thing in the first place and hope that the people in charge of making it love it in the ways you love it. If not, don’t let a terrible incarnation soil your love for the core material and instead try to focus your energy on turning others who enjoy the more “mainstream” version towards the source material. The more people watching/reading/buying the good stuff, the more people there are taking an active part supporting what we love, the more opportunities we’ll have to be entertained by these things. Or, I don’t know, just complain about it on Twitter or something, you could do that too.

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After last week’s Dream Warriors Script To Scream I found that I had a lot of leftover thoughts racing in my head regarding the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise in general. Was Part 3 better than Part 1? How did they fail so badly with the remake? Is scary Freddy better than funny Freddy? Why does Freddy’s Dead even exist?

Of course, some of these answers are self evident. Nevertheless, with all of these thoughts about the series cluttering my brain, I decided to embark on my own personal ranking of the films in the franchise (including Freddy Vs. Jason). So here they are, ranked in the simple order of which ones I’d prefer to watch over the others.

Hit the jump to check it out. I expect plenty of you guys to disagree, so feel free to include your own ranking in the comments!

It pretty much goes without saying that the first entry is the obvious winner. Despite some slight hiccups (Freddy visibly landing on a mattress on the staircase, Heather Langenkamp’s performance in general), it’s legitimately a landmark film. For one, it’s actually scary. And I suspect it would be even scarier if the sequels hadn’t taken such a protracted detour into one-liners and camp comedy. In effect, Freddy was spoiled for us – and I wonder if the film would be held in higher regard if the entire franchise ended here.

Putting my wishful pontificating aside, A Nightmare On Elm Street has a genius conceit and a near-perfect villain. Good performances by Amanda Wyss and Johnny Depp (along with great 70‘s-esque whitesploitation performances from Ronee Blakley and John Saxon) seal the deal. It’s a great idea, fully developed and played completely developed.

A lot of people have this as their #1 and I completely understand why. Chuck Russell made a really fun horror-fantasy film that fully realizes (at least as far as its small budget will allow) the potential of the dream world both as a setting and as an extension of its characters (many of whom are actually charismatic). But there are elements that haven’t dated well, such as the needless elaboration on Krueger’s backstory and the idea that his remains needed to be buried. Freddy was explained every bit as much as he needed to be in the first film. That plotline and the trend of one-liners that were kickstarted by Dream Warriors would forever haunt the rest of the series.

Also, many people exult this film as somehow being more imaginative than the first. As I said earlier, I think it fully realizes the concepts outlined in A Nightmare On Elm Street – but I think we’re forgetting how imaginative the construct of that film is. Part 1 truly built the world, Part 3 merely expanded it.

Freddy’s Revenge is incredibly flawed, but Jack Sholder crafted one of the more fun entries in the series. It has some outlandish elements, and it makes the mistake of pulling Freddy into the real world at the pool party – but at least it’s still trying to be scary. And the oft-discussed gay subtext (or more accurately, text) is actually a pretty good theme to go hand in hand with the idea that Mark Patton’s Jesse is scared of becoming Krueger himself.

Freddy’s Revenge is often thought of as being some kind of fiasco – but what that means to me is that it’s just one of the more interesting entries in the series. Exploding parakeets, Clu Gulager, Jesse’s bedroom dance, Bob Shaye in leather – it’s all so d*mn entertaining. And again, Freddy is still a monster here, he’s not quite in “take my wife, please” territory yet.

Here’s where we really start heading downhill. The Dream Master was actually my favorite Elm Street movie when I was growing up, but that’s probably because it was the most successful one. Renny Harlin’s film was utterly embraced my the mainstream – if Freddy ever had a pop culture “moment”, this was most certainly it – which at the time I felt kind of legitimized my fandom.

It’s too bad that a more recent revisiting of the film found it to be utterly lacking in logic, suspense or scares. A lot of it still works, it’s not like the movie is boring, it’s a fast-moving adventure film that colorfully sums up the year 1988. But anytime Freddy impersonates Jaws with his glove, pops out onto the beach and puts on his shades – you know you’ve jumped the shark.

A lot of you might be bothered that this is ranked so low on the list, but this entry is hugely overrated. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare feels antiquated – its attempts at meta commentary now feel more smug and grating than clever. It’s thematic territory that he would cover to far greater effect in Scream just a few years later.

Technically I suppose it’s a better film than The Dream Master, but what does that even mean when it’s such a boring slog? Plus, the Freddy redesign isn’t remotely scary. He’s too brightly lit and looks almost like an WWF Wrestling interpretation of the concept.

Stephen Hopkins’ Dream Child is an utterly confounding film. Why would New Line so drastically slash the budget of this when they were coming off the uber-successful Dream Master? I don’t know, but the result is a cheapo movie that feels completely neutered. I could understand a mandate to spend less if they were aiming to make something more in the vein of Part One, but as the third film in the makeshift trilogy started by Dream Warriors you need to go big or go home. This film did neither. If memory serves it also has the lowest body count of the series – even if Greta’s force-feeding kill is pretty cool. Super Freddy? Motorcycle Freddy? No thanks!

The only reason this movie is placed as high as it is is because it functions fairly well as a Friday The 13th film. The rave scene is fun, the opening kills are cool and brutal and the narrative kind of barely holds together up until act 3. But then Ronny Yu lets the whole thing devolve into a protracted wrestling match between Jason and Freddy. To be honest, who the f*ck cares?

Freddy Vs. Jason is one of those ideas we thought we all wanted, but boy were we wrong. After this and Alien Vs. Predator, hopefully we’ve learned to stop mixing our killers.

A dead, soulless remake that makes no sense and cowardly backs away from the one cool new idea it had – what if Freddy were innocent? If they’d actually gone all the way with that one I would have been a little more impressed, but by no means would it have saved the movie. NOES 2010 benefits from having the resources to render its dream worlds slightly more absorbing than prior entries, but how many points can you award a film for simply having more money to spend? Decent actors and performances are utterly wasted and, worst of all, we lost our shot at returning the franchise to the dark roots of the original. Or continuing the franchise at all. The film was a financial success but there are no plans for a sequel – which speaks volumes about how much fun everyone must have had making this one.

Dear God. I remember seeing an interview with Rachel Talalay where she bemoaned Platinum Dunes for not staying true to the original vision or consulting with the original New Line team for their remake. I’m not sure if she should be throwing stones because her Freddy’s Dead is easily the worst film in the entire franchise.

Awful makeup, horrible one-liners, the completion of Freddy’s journey towards becoming a burn-victim Jay Leno, the rogues gallery of stupid cameos, Wicked Witch Freddy, Bus Driver Freddy, Freddy pushing traps into the road like Wile E. Coyote, and the Nintendo Power Glove.

Am I missing anything? Oh yeah – horrible 3D, a stupid Alice Cooper cameo and yet even more unnecessary clouding of the Krueger backstory by making Lisa Zane’s Maggie his long lost daughter.

Your turn! How would you rank the franchise?

The post [Special Feature] What A Nightmare! Ranking The 9 ‘Elm Street’ Movies! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.