31 Days of Halloween - Day 29: Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4 - The Dream Master

For the last few years I always do a 31 days of Halloween month. The past few years I re-read all the original Goosebumps books and before that I'd watch 31 horror movies. However I realized every single time I watched 31 Horror movies I exclusively picked ones I enjoyed. I decided to do something slightly different. I composed a list of every horror movie I owned and put them in alphabetical order. Then using a random number generator I generated 31 numbers and watched the movies that corresponded with those numbers. Some are great films and others… well… are less than fun let's say. I hope you enjoy!

Day 29: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4 - The Dream Master (Movie #346)

The Dream Master starts off with a lot going against it. It's not easy following The Dream Warriors (arguably the best horror sequel of all time). This film also gets a ton of flake for being the film that turned Freddy into a straight up stand-up comedian. Watching the 4 hour documentary Never Sleep Again there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stories that explain a lot about why this movie feels the way it does. Specifically the amount of times Robert England and Director Renny Harlin refer to this as the MTV Generation Freddy.

That being said, looking past that issue (and a handful of other flaws) this movie isn't that bad. I certainly prefer it over the next entry The Dream Child. The biggest reason I always like this movie is the cockroach kill which I think is the best death in this franchise (and possibly horror in general). It's so gross, disturbing and taps into my hate of bugs that it will always strike a chord with me.

The other plus is Renny's directorial choices. The scene in which Kristen is falling asleep due to sleeping pills her mom cooked into her diner has some incredible camera movements and the cockroach kill I mentioned earlier has a surreal moment where Freddy throws a barbell at the audience causing a mirror to shatter.

There's also some bad ideas. Like the invisible karate sequence. It's probably best we forget that ever happened in a movie.

Matt Kelly is the host of the popular podcast The Saint Mort Show, a frequent contributor to Geekscape.net, the founder of Chords for Cures and the co-writer/co-director of the upcoming comedy Describing the Moon. He also loves it when people surprise him with purchases from his Amazon Wishlist… just saying.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 14: Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

For the last few years I always do a 31 days of Halloween month. The past few years I re-read all the original Goosebumps books and before that I'd watch 31 horror movies. However I realized every single time I watched 31 Horror movies I exclusively picked ones I enjoyed. I decided to do something slightly different. I composed a list of every horror movie I owned and put them in alphabetical order. Then using a random number generator I generated 31 numbers and watched the movies that corresponded with those numbers. Some are great films and others… well… are less than fun let's say. I hope you enjoy!

Day 14: Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 (Movie #350)

To quote Dr. Sam Beckett… "Oh Boy". This might be my least favorite movie I own, and that is saying a lot as I have over 2,000 DVDs. Also today's my birthday… talk about a shitty birthday gift.

So why do I own it? Good question. I didn't see this in theaters, I ended up seeing it was on sale at Best Buy for $4.99 one day and figured "I'll have to buy it one day" (as I'm a completest with franchises) and figured I'd never see it for cheaper. When this movie was first advertised I actually had high expectations. I liked who they picked as Freddy, I even liked the burn-victim look of him. Also the idea of questioning if he was a child molester or not was intriguing. Plus it's a Freddy movie, even at their worst they are usually pretty entertaining… I was wrong.

There are plenty of websites and articles out there that can go into more details about why this movie is unenjoyable. I'm going to just explain the things that bother me the most.

1) They call into question if he was a Child Molester. This is a great idea. The idea that he was an innocent man burnt alive for a crime he didn't do… it's such a unique twist on the character. It's not just a slasher it's a revenge story. But in the end (spoiler alert) he's just a child molester. We wasted 20-30 minutes of film researching sometime only to find out nothing new has been added to the story at all.

2) The movie recreates moments from the original film except they do it with shitty CGI when the original (and probably cheaper) practical effects were far more effective.

3) There is absolutely no fun in this movie! The reason someone likes Freddy is because in a dream world he can do and become absolutely anything. Jason and Michael will just stab you … but Freddy will become your fear or twist the things you love into your ultimate death. Do you like making puppets? He'll turn your ass into one. Are you terrified of bugs? Prepare to die as a cockroach. Unless you're attacked by this Freddy. In that case he will just slowly walk up to you with his claw glove and stab you. The End.

I actually feel bad hating this movie because the Nightmare films are so strongly a franchise that I love. But these films open so many doors of possibilities but someone (not sure who's to blame, the writer, the director or the producer) decided to ignore and walk past all those doors and go for the blandest interruption. 

But I'm a completest so I refuse to sell my copy of this. So I have no one to blame for myself that I had to sit through this again. 

Matt Kelly is the host of the popular podcast The Saint Mort Show, a frequent contributor to Geekscape.net, the founder of Chords for Cures and the co-writer/co-director of the upcoming comedy Describing the Moon. He also loves it when people surprise him with purchases from his Amazon Wishlist… just saying.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9: Freddy vs Jason

For the last few years I always do a 31 days of Halloween month. The past few years I re-read all the original Goosebumps books and before that I'd watch 31 horror movies. However I realized every single time I watched 31 Horror movies I exclusively picked ones I enjoyed. I decided to do something slightly different. I composed a list of every horror movie I owned and put them in alphabetical order. Then using a random number generator I generated 31 numbers and watched the movies that corresponded with those numbers. Some are great films and others… well… are less than fun let's say. I hope you enjoy!

Day 9: Freddy Vs. Jason (Movie #180)

I've said before that Scream was the Horror movie that made me a horror fan. After that film opened the door for me I started to track down every title from the obscure to the well known. I befriended people who were horror fans who would introduce me to films. Basically everything I did was to allow my horror knowledge to grow and grow. It was my friend Joe who showed me Nightmare on Elm Street.

Now I didn't live under a rock or anything. I was well aware who Freddy was. The commercial for Freddy's Dead was one of the many things that give the elementary version of myself… nightmares. However watching the first movie for the first time was huge for me. Up until that point I had never seen anything so unique and bizarre. I was never a massive fan of Jason, in fact it really wasn't until a year or two ago that I developed an appreciation for anything other than parts 1 and 6 of that franchise.

Regardless of my lackluster opinion of Jason when Freddy Vs. Jason came out I wanted to see it. Proving themselves to be the worst friends ever my circle of friends at the time all went and saw this in theaters when I was working (despite the fact that they were moderate horror fans at best). I ended up missing the theatric experience of this movie but I bought it immediately upon it's Home-Video/DVD release and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I've heard in interviews and podcasts a fairly negative perspective on this movie. That always bothered me. The fact is that pairing this two against each other doesn't really make much sense. It's basically fan fiction fodder at best, but what they were able to make out of that premise is impressive. Like many of the sequels before it, yes there were hundreds of drafts and different plot ideas, some possibly bette than what we got but this was pretty fucking good.

The kills are fun, the gore is over the top and the humor works most of the time. The only real issues I have with this movie is (a) the wanna be Jason Mewes character and (b) the over usage of CGI. But in the grand scheme of things this a fun little action/horror flick that I've enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy) for years.

Matt Kelly is the host of the popular podcast The Saint Mort Show, a frequent contributor to Geekscape.net, the founder of Chords for Cures and the co-writer/co-director of the upcoming comedy Describing the Moon. He also loves it when people surprise him with purchases from his Amazon Wishlist… just saying.

31 Movies of Halloween: Never Sleep Again

For the Next 31 Days I've been watching horror movies and reviewing in honor of my favorite holiday. Enjoy!

DAY 10: NEVER SLEEP AGAIN

Okay, so this is cheating. Instead of watching Nightmare on Elm Street (the greatest horror franchise ever) I watched the documentary Never Sleep Again. That being said, if you’re a horror fan (not even just a Freddy fan) this is a must see documentary. It’s 4 hours long, but it feels like only 2 hours and full of interesting information and great interviews.

The opening credits along depict these incredible claymation reenactments of famous scenes from the series before it dives right into the story. We learn the history of the the first film, where Wes got the idea, how special effects were done and exclusive never before seen cut footage. We learn about the stories of friendship and fun on the set of Dream Warriors and a break down of why Dream Warriors and Dream Master are both so much better than they deserve to be.

The most fascinating parts of this documentary come from the fact that it was independently made so everyone is honest. They discuss why Part 5 didn’t work and if the gay subtext in Freddy’s Revenge was intentional or not.

The most interesting part of the entire documentary was about the making of Part 6 Freddy’s Dead The Final Nightmare. First talking about the unproduced (but extremely interesting) Peter Jackson script and leading into why Freddy’s Dead is uneven (but still awesome). I always enjoyed Freddy’s Dead despite many referring to it as the worst film in the franchise, now I can understand why. It was put together by a collection of production experts from the John Waters camp (get it?!) and even originally called for a cameo from Divine.

If you’re reading this blog because you love horror movies, you should not just see this, but own it because beyond the 4 hour documentary there’s a second disc of even more incredible bonus features.

When Matt's not blogging he's tweeting, writing for Geekscape.net and producing his podcast The Saint Mort Show. And don't forget the being broke is the worst nightmare of all