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 12: Mother's Day (1980)

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 12: Mother's Day (Movie #329)

There's a chance that you are only familiar with Mother's Day because of the recent remake. The remake is a remake in name only and while in a lot of ways it is superior to the original I still prefer this version of the film.

This Troma film (directed by Lloyd's brother Charlie Kaufman) isn't as tromarific and other titles but it's obvious that the Kaufman brother's share a very similar sense of humor. The first 20 minutes or so of the movie basically is a college road trip film. However when the horror element squeaks in it's practically a pre-cusor to the torture porn genre.

That's not just me making up shit either. When I had Lloyd Kaufman on my podcast he mentioned that this movie was Eli Roth's (creator of Hostel) favorite film. Hostel along with Saw definitely helped ring in a couple years of demented psychological horror and torture. The only difference is Hostel didn't have a shitty plaster head in a birdcage… which makes this movie much much better.

Mother's Day follows a group of 3 female college friends who get together every year for a road trip and to relive their past memories. On a camping trip full of pot and skinny dipping the three find themselves kidnapped and in the home of two deranged brothers and their evil Mother. 

These boys will do anything to make Mama proud, including rape and murder. The film's sense of humor is very similar to Texas Chainsaw Massacre's having complete insane characters acting like a perfect family. One particularly memorable scene involves the brothers coming home to brag about how they beat and kidnapped the girls only to be disciplined by their mother for not wiping their feet before they entered the house.

In the end the film turns into a revenge film in a similar (but fair less dark) vein of Last House on the Left and I Spit On Your Grave. While it's a greatly flawed and ultra-low budget horror movie, there's just too much charm to not find enjoyment in Mother's Day.

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.