Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Description from Netflix:
Freddy's back and he's badder than ever!  Nancy, the historical nemesis of the man with the satanic snarl and pitchfork fingers, discovers that a new monstrous demon has taken on Freddy's persona.  Can Nancy stop this new threat in time to save her son?  Nightmare director Wes Craven and [Heather] Langenkamp also play themselves in this final installment of a horror classic.

Notable actors: Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Wes Craven,
There are also a handful of small cameos from some former Nightmare folks, including Lin Shaye, Tuesday Knight, Jsu Garcia/Nick Corri, Amanda Wyss, and some I'm sure I missed.

My thoughts:
A quick note to clear up the Netflix description: this is not really Nancy.  This is Heather Langenkamp playing herself, not Nancy returning to take on Freddy.

With that out of the way...
The concept of this movie is terrific.  Wes Craven always said that his horror movies came from his nightmares.  It has been 3 years since Freddy's Dead came out, and both he and Heather Langenkamp start having nightmares.  (As we find out later, Robert Englund has been having these nightmares, too.)  Heather finds herself pitted against Freddy.  But this Freddy is different.  This Freddy is meaner.  Darker.  And he's trying to invade the real world, through her son Dylan.

According to Craven, there's an old theory that some ancient evils are kept at bay by storytellers.  If people are telling their story, they remain trapped.  But, once those stories stop, the evil awakens.
And that is what is going on here.  There is an ancient demon who has taken the form of Freddy Krueger, and he has become familiar with our world.  It has been long enough since the last Nightmare movie that he has begun to awaken, and has decided to invade our world.  The only way to defeat him is to make another movie.  But, to do that, Heather has to live it, and has to defeat the evil in order to finish the movie.
Got that?

It is carried out much better than I just explained it.  After watching the series slowly turn into Freddy saying countless punchlines, they brought back a dark edge with this movie.  It feels a little darker.  A little more real.  We see Heather fight for her son, and eventually end up at her old house on Elm Street, playing the role of Nancy one last time.

There are some great homages to the series.  On top of the iconic house, we see John Saxon again, playing a sort of father figure to Heather as she deals with this.  We also get some deaths that are made to look like some of the memorable deaths from the series.

It's a fantastic new take on a series that seemed to have run out of ideas at this point.  This is my second favorite movie in the series (just barely losing to the first installment).  I love this movie.  It can be watched as a standalone movie, but it's a lot more fun if you watch the rest of the series first.

Rating: 5/5

I'll finish up my Nightmare watching with Freddy vs. Jason, then I plan on doing a little wrap-up on the series as a whole.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

Description from Netflix:
Just when you thought it was safe to sleep, Freddy Krueger returns in this sixth installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, as psychologist Maggie Burroughs, tormented by recurring nightmares, meets a patient with the same horrific dreams.  Their quest for answers leads to a certain house on Elm Street -- where the nightmares become reality.

Notable actors: Robert Englund, Breckin Meyer, Tom Arnold, Rosanne Barr, Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp (in a very small cameo)

My thoughts:
Once again, they find a way to have Freddy haunt the dreams of children once more.  This one comes in the form of revealing that Freddy had a kid that no one knew about.  How this went undiscovered for 30+ years is completely beyond me.  But it has been revealed here, so I guess that's all that matters.
The gags are cheesier than ever.

That's Freddy, in the middle of the phrase, "I'll get you my pretty, and your little soul too."

That's Freddy referencing Nintendo's Power Glove.

They also use 3D in this movie.  And, in typical 80s/early-90s fashion, it's terrible.

All this sounds like I hate this movie.  I don't hate it.  I like it quite a bit.  I'd say it's on par with Part 5, which is to say it was good, but not nearly as good as the earlier movies in the series.  Still, it was quite enjoyable.  And we get to see Breckin Meyer stomped to death by a video game Freddy.

It's awesome.

I absolutely loved the credits for this.  It's a montage of a bunch of the deaths from the series.  It's like taking a walk down (a murderous) memory lane.

Rating: 3/5

I'm pretty excited about re-watching Wes Craven's New Nightmare.  I've only seen it once, and I remember really loving it.  I guess we'll find out this week.

Dr. Giggles

Description from Netflix:
Psychotic doctor Evan Rendell -- aka Dr. Giggles -- escapes from a mental institution and returns to his hometown to exact revenge on the locals who killed his father.  The doctor commits a string of gory murders with the surgical tools he has at his disposal.  But the fun really begins when Rendell comes across a girl who's waiting for a heart transplant and decides to take the surgery into his own hands.

Notable actors: Larry Drake, Doug E. Doug

My thoughts:
I remember seeing this movie at the local video store.  I was always curious about it, but never actually got around to watching it.
For better or worse, that changed last night.

"He should've kept his hands to himself" - Dr. Giggles, stand-up comedian

This movie is exactly what I thought it would be.  It takes itself completely seriously, even though it's absolutely ridiculous and terrible.  In other words, your standard early-90s slasher.

He goes through town, killing people with his comically oversized medical supplies.  A massive blood-pressure cuff around a man's head.  A huge thermometer (with a spike on the end) into a girls' mouth.  A reflex hammer to beat a man to death.  And so on.

And, of course, every kill is followed (or preceded) by a punny one-liner.  

On top of those, there are a ton of absolutely horrible lines in here.  A couple of my favorites that I wrote down:

"Ahead of his time, but out of his mind."  (This could've been a quote in a Back to the Future movie, as well.)

"I don't have to promise you doodely squat."

My favorite moments:

- The fact that the main girl had a heart condition.  I don't know why, but that absolutely killed me.  It played into the plot, but it was still ridiculous.  The doctor (her real doctor, not Dr. Giggles) told her that she needed to avoid all strenuous activities, and also to avoid drinking.  So, in her moment of rebellion, she drinks a couple glasses of wine.  She also runs around town for a while, but that doesn't seem to kill her heart.

- Dr. Giggles returns to his childhood home.  It's a horribly broken-down house in the middle of a rich neighborhood.  There also appears to be a doctor's office in the house.  Let me say this again: it was a in a VERY rich neighborhood.  And his house looked like this:

I find it hard to believe that the house wouldn't have been torn down by now.

- There's a scene in a house of mirrors that is so spectacular, I can't even begin to describe it.  It's simply amazing.

- In a flashback scene, we see a young Dr. Giggles crawl out of a corpse.  And it looks like this:

- A scene that was a direct rip-off of the iconic scene from The Exorcist.

- The fact that there were a number of false endings.  I swear this movie ended at least 3 different times.

There were more, but those were my favorites.

This was a ridiculous movie.  And it was absolutely terrible...but in all the right ways.  It's not a good movie, but I really enjoyed it.

Rating: 3/5

The Faculty

Description from Netflix:
Many teens think their teachers hail from another planet -- but what if it's true?  Herrington High students notice that faculty member aren't quite themselves, and discover an alien infection they might not be able to stop.

Notable actors: Josh Harnett, Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Robert Patrick, Jon Stewart, Usher Raymond, Christopher McDonald, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Danny Masterson

I had no idea this was directed by Robert Rodriguez.

My thoughts:
Scream famously helped to usher in an era of self-aware horror movies.  The Faculty came out a couple years later, and it obviously took that theme and ran with it, with a slight difference.  Where Scream had Randy - a movie nerd who made the majority of the references/listed the rules - The Faculty had references coming from a number of the characters.  Here is a list of movies that were referenced:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Alien
Independence Day
E.T.
Men in Black

I'm sure there were more, but I can't remember them all.

There is also a conversation where they pose the idea that all fiction is rooted in reality.  That perhaps Steven Spielberg was actually an alien, which is how he came up with the ideas for E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
None of these references seemed forced, and I never felt like there were too many of them.  Too often I see movies where the characters don't seem to live in the same world that we do.  Or they don't have access to the same movies.  Or something.  (I have this problem with the majority of zombie movies, but that's a much longer post for another time.)  As long as it's not cheesy, I like the references to other movies.  And I think this one did a good job with them.

To me, this had elements of a lot of movies, all mashed into one.  The most obvious ones were:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (naturally)
The Thing (the scene when they make everyone snort Zeke's caffeine concoction to see if they're infected or not felt exactly like the scene where they test everyone's blood in The Thing.)
The Breakfast Club (it was impossible to see the ragtag group of survivors and not think about The Breakfast Club.  Zeke was Bender, Stokes was Allison, Casey was Brian, Marybeth was Claire, etc.  I don't know if this was intentional, but it seemed like it was impossible to miss.)

I hadn't seen this movie since shortly after its release.  I remember enjoying it fairly well, but I didn't remember too much about it.  After watching it this time around, I really enjoyed it.  It felt a little dated at times, but it was a really fun movie.

Rating: 4/5

Urban Legends, Ripper, Village of the Damned

Urban Legend

It's an interesting take on the slasher genre: someone is killing college students (at Pendleton University) in the manner of urban legends.
People fight.  People die.  The ones that aren't dead try to figure out who is behind the killings before they die.  There's really not much to it, but I think it's a fresh take on the genre.  I really like it.

There are a handful of big names in this movie: Joshua Jackson, Rebecca Gayheart, Tara Reid, Jared Leto, and Robert Englund.
There are also some other, not-so-big names in this movie: Loretta Devine (who plays the Foxy Brown loving security guard), Alicia Witt (better known for her role at the clarinet player in Mr. Holland's Opus), Brad Dourif, and Danielle Harris.  My favorite connection here is Dourif and Harris.  Dourif played Harris' father in the Rob Zombie Halloween series.  And, while they never share screen time here, I still liked that they were in the same movie.

Rating: 4/5

Urban Legends: Final Cut

This movie is a sequel in name only.  The only character who shows up from the first movie is Loretta Devine, who is now working as a security guard at a new school.
This movie takes place at a film school.  I can't remember the name, but I guess it's not really important.  The main character can't figure out what her senior film thesis should be.  But, after talking with Devine's character, she decides to make a movie where someone kills people in the manner of urban legends.  Shortly thereafter, a friend of hers is said to have committed suicide, but she believes otherwise.  As she begins work on her movie, her friends (and crew members) start being murdered.  Although, unlike the first movie, they're not being killed in the manner of urban legends (except for one).

I don't like this one quite as well as the original, but it was still an enjoyable movie.  I thought it ended really well.

Random actor sighting: Eva Mendes, Anthony Anderson, Joey Lawrence

Rating: 3.5/5

Urban Legends: Bloody Mary

Another sequel in name only.  They reference the events of Pendleton University in passing, but that's about it.  No characters from the first two movies show up at all.

The basic plot: the movie starts in the 50s at a dance.  Football players drug three girls in order to...well...to do what football players do to girls after they drug them.  One refuses her drink, and fights back.  She is accidentally killed, and her killer stuffs her in a box in a storage room.
Fast forward to present day.  Three girls are having a slumber party, and they talk about Bloody Mary.  So, after a pillow fight, one of the girls says "Bloody Mary" three times.  They giggle.
The next morning, the girls are missing.  As it turns out, some football players drugged them and took them to a cave.  Or something.  Basically just to pull a prank on them.  One by one, the football players start dying in terrible ways.  We find out that it's the girl who was killed in the 50s, exacting her revenge.

This was a terrible movie.  It was just awful.  About the only thing worse than the acting was the script.  This was an amazingly terrible movie.  At about the 15 minute mark, I just started fast forwarding through the movie, stopping at points to see if it got any better.  It never did.

The only person I recognized in this movie was Kate Mara.

Rating: 0/5

Ripper: Letter from Hell

Years before, Molly Keller (AJ Cook from Tru Calling) was the only survivor of a terrible massacre of her friends.  She is now in college, and is studying serial killers under a famous FBI profiler.  One by one, her classmates start getting murdered in the same manner of Jack the Ripper's kills.  By studying Jack the Ripper, the class hopes to find out who the next victim might be, and who the killer is.

This was a fun movie.  Not altogether different from most slasher movies, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating: 4/5

Village of the Damned

Since this was on Netflix instant watch, I opted for this version over the 1960 original.

In a small town, the entire population loses consciousness at the same time.  When they wake up, all the women are pregnant.  Then, 9 months later, they all give birth at the same time.
Before too long, it is apparent that these children are not normal.  There are a series of deaths, all of them ruled accidents.  As it turns out, the children are the spawn of an alien race, and are capable of mind control.  As they get older, the children get stranger.  They all have white hair, they all hang out together, they show no emotion, and they kill anyone who gets in their way.
The movie turns into a fight between the townspeople and the children.  But, as the townspeople find, it's hard to fight against a group of mind-controlling children.

It was an enjoyable movie.  The set-up was a little long, but, once it got past the birthing scene, it was really good.

Big name actors in this movie: Christopher Reeve, Mark Hamill and Kirstie Alley

Rating: 4/5

I Know What You Did Last Summer Series

I had never seen either of these movies, so I did what any normal person would: I bought a pack with both of the movies on Ebay (for the record, I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer doesn't count as a movie in the series, so I didn't watch that one).  Both of these were pretty predictable horror movies...pretty much exactly what I expected.  But I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Our four main characters are Julie (the good girl), Helen (Julie's best friend), Ray (Julie's boyfriend...he's also supposed to be the poor boy in a rich town, only he doesn't look even close to poor.  Of course, when you're played by Freddie Prinze Jr, it's kind of hard), and Barry (Helen's boyfriend.  He also is, by far, the biggest jerk in the movie).  Helen wins the local beauty contest, and the four of them go out to celebrate.  They get drunk and hit a guy.  Instead of calling the cops, they throw him into the ocean, presuming him to be dead.
A year later, with all four nursing some sort of guilt, people in the town start getting killed, and the four of them are stalked.  They run.  They fight.  They try to figure out what is going on.  And so on.
I will say this for Helen (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar): she's a fighter.  Where Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) makes every stupid mistake imaginable, Helen scraps and claws and punches and jumps out of windows...all to try to get away.

The two survivors from the first movie (Julie and Ray) have defeated killed The Fisherman and are back to living their lives.  Julie is in college, and Ray is working as a fisherman.  Julie and her college friends win a trip to the Bahamas, so they go.  Ray tries to make it, but The Fisherman reappears, killing his friend and putting Ray in a coma.
Somehow, some way, The Fisherman follows Julie and her friends to the Bahamas and starts killing people (including Jack Black, who shows up as a stoner).  They fight back.  And on it goes.
There wasn't much of a difference between this movie and the first one.

Again, there was nothing overly surprising about either of these movies, but I really liked both of them.  For a high school slasher movie, you could do a lot worse.

Rating: 4/5

Return of the Living Dead Series

The Zombie Prom was this past Saturday.  I'll get into it a little more in my next post, but I'll say this here: it was a lot of fun.  Around 150 kids showed up, which far exceeded our expectations.  The place looked great, and there were some fantastic outfits.  I'll post some pictures in the next post.

I watched the entire Return of the Living Dead series on the day before and day of the Zombie Prom.  That is an awful lot of Return of the Living Dead in a short period of time.  So these will probably be very short reviews.

Return of the Living Dead

This is about the only movie I've ever seen that actually references other zombie movies (or previous knowledge of zombies).  The story goes that the events that happened in Night of the Living Dead actually happened.  The bodies that were taken were actually sent to a medical supply warehouse on accident, which is where this movie is set.  Of course, one of the barrels breaks open, unleashing the plague upon the workers at the warehouse...as well as the dead bodies in the warehouse.  One of the bodies comes to life and attacks the workers.  But, unlike most zombie movies, a shot to the head doesn't kill them.  In fact, nothing seems to kill them.  They eventually cremate the body, which kills the zombie...but the ashes end up causing acid rain that reanimate all the corpses in the adjoining cemetery.  Of course, all hell breaks loose.
I love this movie.  It's funny and crazy and a little strange.  It's a little different from your typical zombie movie, but it fully embraces that.

Rating: 5 stars

Return of the Living Dead Part II

Some kids are playing around in the woods at the beginning of this movie, and they find a barrel with a body inside.  Like the first movie, it's opened, people get infected, and the dead are reanimated.  Not much more to say, except for the fact that two of the main characters from the fist movie reprise their roles in this movie...even though they died in the first movie.  Of course, they don't have the names, and they even make mention of it during the course of the movie ("All of this seems like it has happened before,").
There's not much to it...it's a pretty standard zombie movie.  But it's a very good zombie movie.

Rating: 4 stars

Return of the Living Dead 3

There are a couple teenagers in love at the beginning of this movie.  The father of the boy in love works for the government in a program where they try to reanimate corpses and control them for use in wars (through the help of an exoskeleton and a gun that freezes their brains (which stops them, and allows them to be stored for future use).  Of course, this doesn't work.  The young couple sees this experiment.  They decide to start a new life for themselves, and they ride off on his motorcycle.
Of course, they get in a wreck, and the girl dies.  The boy heads back to the lab to reanimate his girlfriend.  He does.  She starts eating people.
But she's a little different.  She doesn't try to eat him (something about their deep connection).  She is somehow able to curb her hunger by inflicting pain on herself...so she jabs nails through her hands, and spikes all over her body.  It's a little strange.
It goes on like this.  They have to fight a small gang (who she bites and turns).
It's good, but not great.

Rating: 4 stars

Return of the Living Dead IV: Necropolis

A group of kids are messing around on their dirt bikes.  One falls off and is knocked unconscious.  He goes to the hospital...but he is taken out of the hospital, and to a government laboratory that experiments with (you guessed it) the undead.  The kids devise a plan to break in and free their friend, which they do...but they also free a bunch of other undead, including a couple that have been fitted for war.  The kids fight the zombies.
Some odd things happened in this movie.  For one, when a living person has been infected, they just start acting like jerks.  In previous movies, they just act sick.  So I don't know where that started.
Even stranger, in this movie, a shot to the head can kill the undead.  In 1-3, nothing (short of burning the body completely) can kill the zombies.  But a bullet to the head can now kill them, and they never explain why.
It's an enjoyable movie.  Not the greatest in the series, but it was fun.

Rating: 3 stars

Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave

The survivors from Necropolis are now in college.  Somehow the stuff that reanimates the dead gets put into pill form, and is sold as a kind of Ecstasy (instead of "E" it's called "Z", because it puts the user in a zombie-like state for a short period of time).  The only problem is that it's not just a short period of time...it eventually will turn anyone who uses it into zombies.
The big scene at the end of this movie involves a rave, where most of the people have been taking Z.  So they all turn into zombies, and it gets a little out of hand.  Again, head shots can kill the zombies, so the humans begin killing the zombies, but there are too many of them.  Cops come, and missiles are fired.  Big fun.

I'll put this one on the same level as Necropolis.  Not great, but an enjoyable movie.

Rating: 3 stars

Halloween H20 & Resurrection

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later

Welcome back, Laurie Strode.  In this movie we find her twenty years after the events of the first two movies.  Having faked her death, she is living in California under the name Keri Tate, and being the headmaster for a private high school.  She has a son (played by Josh Hartnett...who has a little of the Michael Myers soulless eyes going on), and he has just turned 17 (the age Laurie was during Michael's first killing spree in Haddonfield).  Of course, Michael finds out where she is (by killing the nurse of the late Dr. Loomis and stealing Laurie's files), shows up, and starts killing.
Really, it's the same formula as all the others, but this one feels more tense.  More well done...less a sequel just to have another movie.  And, of course, it's great to have Laurie back.
It's not as good as the original, but it's still really, really good.

Rating: 4 stars

Unexpected actor sighting: Michelle Williams, Janet Leigh, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Halloween: Resurrection

At the end of H20, we see Laurie chop Michael's head off.  Well, as it turns out, that wasn't Michael...it was a paramedic who Michael knocked unconscious and put his mask on.  Not being able to live with the guilt, she ends up in a mental institution, which is where we find her at the beginning of this movie.  Michael comes back, yada yada, Laurie isn't in the movie anymore.  Sad, really.
This movie follows an online reality show.  They grab a group of college students, put cameras on them, and have them go into the Myers house to find out "what makes a killer tick".  Of course, Michael comes back and starts killing them, but everyone thinks it's a hoax.  At the end, they try to make it some sort of commentary on the downfalls of fame, but it falls a little flat, because no one really cares what a kung-fu obsessed Busta Rhymes thinks.
Not as good at H20, but still enjoyable.

Rating: 3 stars

Unexpected actor sighting: Katee Sackhoff ("Starbuck" from Battlestar Galatica), Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks

The Zombie Prom is coming up (May 21), and I'm working on remixing some horror movie themes (currently working on Psycho and Nightmare on Elm Street, already have one for Halloween).  Any suggestions for themes to remix?
Also, I've decided to go with the name of DJ Braineater.

Halloween 4-6

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Dr. Loomis is in this movie, but he's the only one that returns from the previous movies.  And, unless I'm mistaken, they never really talk about how he escaped the explosion in the hospital from the second movie.  Sure, he has some burns, but nothing major.
Anyway, in this movie, Michael returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven year-old niece, Jamie.  Laurie (her mother) is gone...apparently presumed dead (although they never say why).  She is living with her step family. Her step sister is babysitting her, Michael Myers shows up, lots of people die, but a handful (including Jamie, her step sister, and her adoptive mother) escape.  There's kind of a twist at the end, but it wasn't anything major, and it felt pretty forced.
This was pretty boring...nowhere near as good as the first two.

Rating: 2 stars

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

This takes place a year after the events of Halloween 4.  Jamie is traumatized...she doesn't talk, and she is in a children's mental institution.  She seems to be channeling Michael Myers (by that I mean she draws the things that he is seeing, and she goes into convulsions when he kills).
Basically, this movie is like the fourth one.  Michael comes back to kill his niece.  He stalks and kills her step sister and her friends.  There ends up being a confrontation between Michael and Jamie and Dr. Loomis in the Myers house.  It's hard to keep these two movies straight, but I'm pretty sure there's a scene in this one where Jamie calls Michael "Uncle Michael", and he starts to cry.  It's fairly ridiculous.
Also, there's some weird love story going on with Jamie and her institutionalized friend.  It's very strange.
This is basically the same movie as Halloween 4.

Fun fact: the actress who played Jamie is named Danielle Harris.  She went on to play Marybeth in Hatchet II, and Annie in Rob Zombie's Halloween 1 & 2.

Rating: 2 stars

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

This one takes place 6 years after the events of Halloween 5.  Dr. Loomis is retired, and Jamie is pregnant.  At the beginning of the movie we see that she has been kidnapped by a group of druids who are helping Michael.  Or something.  Anyway, she escapes and gives birth to the baby...and then she gets killed by Michael.  The baby is found by Tommy Doyle.  In case you don't remember, Tommy is the boy that Laurie was babysitting in the first Halloween.  Now he's older, and he's kind of a freak.  He is also played by Paul Rudd, so that was pretty fun.
Anyway, Tommy lives across from the Myers house, which is now inhabited by the Strodes (Laurie's adoptive parents).  Michael comes back to town looking for the baby (the last of his blood line), and he does what he always does: he kills lots of people.  Tommy - with the help of one of the Strodes - tries to keep the baby safe.  And, of course, Loomis shows up to help.
In the end, we find out that the druids have been controlling Michael all this time, and they've been the ones that have made him kill.  Or something.
In case you couldn't tell, this movie was no better than the last two.

Rating: 2 stars

Here's what I learned about the Halloween movies: if there's no Jamie Lee Curtis, it's not a good movie.