Movie Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Don't Go To Sleep!

Directed By: Wes Craven
Starring: John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp, & Robert Englund
MPAA Rating: “R”

A Nightmare on Elm Street is now best remembered for introducing the quick-witted Freddie Krueger and starting a long line of sequels. However, what most people forget is that the Freddie Krueger that Wes Craven introduced is a brutal, terrifying monster that is not humorous or fun. It’s sad to see his face pressed onto lunch boxers, t-shirts, and even a television show. Krueger just isn’t scary anymore. Oh but he was in 1984 when Wes Craven first unleashed him onto the world. If Halloween (1978) reveled in suspense and Friday the 13th (1980) reveled in oversexed teens being massacred, then A Nightmare on Elm Street revels in slick visuals, horrifying special effects, and creativity. This movie will have you staying up late, afraid to go to sleep.

Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) is a beautiful young woman who is terrified when her best friend, Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss), is brutally slashed to death during a sleepover. Everyone assumes that the killer was Tina’s boyfriend, Rod (Nick Corri), who was in the room with her at the time, but insists that it was really an invisible assailant. Nancy’s nightmare continues when she discovers that she and all of her friends, including Tina, have been having nightmares about the same disfigured man who wears a red and green sweater and a glove with four blades for fingers. As Nancy’s friends begin to die, she comes to the realization that someone is killing them all in their dreams. That person is Freddie Krueger, a child killer who was brought to justice when a group of parents burnt him to death in a boiler room. Now, he wants revenge on the children of Elm Street!

What is there not to like about A Nightmare on Elm Street? It’s smart, directed with creativity, and one of the few films that still remains scary all these years later. This is the film that really jumpstarted the career of Wes Craven. After such films as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, Craven steps away from the lower-budgeted, point-and-shoot films of the seventies and really embraces eighties’ approach to style. The musical score (by Charles Bernstein), the novel use of shadows and sinister angles, and the exceptional special effects all show that, while Craven may have been able to tackle disturbing material earlier, he now understands how to do that and make it look good. A Nightmare on Elm Street is as visually-impressive as it is scary and creative. Craven takes a risk by tackling plenty of really difficult material for the time (i.e. the blood geyser) and yet it all looks great.

Heather Langenkamp may not be Jamie Lee Curtis, but she makes for a sympathetic heroine and the perfect opponent for Freddie Krueger. If he is the epitome of evil, she is the epitome of purity. The struggle between them is one that resembles those seen in Halloween and Friday the 13th, except Langenkamp’s character of Nancy cannot escape; she has to sleep some time, after all. Her situation is so desperate and that is what makes A Nightmare on Elm Street even more frightening. We all have to sleep and the film poses an intriguing question about this normal practice: how do we know that our dreams are fake? How do we know that, when we escape some source of terror in our dreams, we aren’t escaping actual death? A Nightmare on Elm Street poses this question and then runs with it to amazing results. You will never want to sleep again!

Movie Review: The Cottage (2008)

The Cottage (2008)

Unevenly Entertaining

Directed By: Paul Andrew Williams
Starring: Andy Serkis, Reece Shearsmith, & Jennifer Ellison
MPAA Rating: “Unrated”

So, this is really the second review that I have written for The Cottage. The first has been completely deleted, because I felt that it did not accurately depict my feelings toward the film. Upon reading it after submitting it, I found that it seemed to be far too negative and, despite my three-out-of-five star rating (which I also moved up to a three-and-a-half star rating), I felt that this needed to be reconciled. And so I am writing a second review. I liked The Cottage a lot as a comedy and felt that it was a little better than average as a horror movie. Looking at the film as a whole, it is a really funny and surprisingly gory British comedy that would have worked better had the filmmakers combined the two aspects (the horror and the comedy) in a more effective way. As it is, the film feels as though we are watching a comedy that suddenly breaks into a horror movie within a matter of minutes.

David (Serkis) and Peter (Shearsmith) are two very different brothers who have found themselves in a spot of trouble. Desperate for money, David orchestrates the kidnapping of pampered princess Tracey (Ellison) and convinces Peter to go along with it by promising him complete ownership of their deceased mother’s home. They take the angry young woman to a secluded cottage and send word to her father about their ransom demands. When Tracey orchestrates an ingenious escape and turns the tables on her captors by kidnapping Peter, she carries him off into the woods. The pair stumbles across another cottage nearby and looks to it for some kind of help. Instead, they find a hulking and brutal serial killer with a fetish for heads who does not want them to leave.

The Cottage is, if nothing else, a well-made and well-acted comedy that keeps its audience almost completely entertained throughout the duration. The film begins suddenly (in a good way) by throwing us immediately into the kidnapping plot and telling us that things are not going well. Much of the rest is about how the plot goes from bad to worse. The beautiful, but annoying Tracey is far more intelligent than the two bumbling kidnappers and, given the fact that they have the upper hand (she is bound and gagged), it is fun to watch them all butt horns. When Tracey breaks Peter’s nose, I thought I would die laughing. Her big escape is hilarious and completely appropriate to the film. When the horror kicks in, I was not impressed with the originality, but the creative gore scenes really bowled me over. This movie packs a harsh punch.

So, if I enjoyed all of this about the film, why did it not get a perfect score? Well, there are a few times when the pace slows to a crawl and nearly stops, taking us out of the action for a little too long. Also, the horror and the comedy do not really gel that well. Imagine if you got halfway through Halloween (1978) and it suddenly turned into a comedy. That’s how The Cottage felt, except opposite. It didn’t really work well for me. Also, was it just me or was the horror aspect completely underplayed? It made up a small fraction of the runtime and was never really developed enough for me. Who was the killer? Who were those cannibal women in his basement? I have no idea. However, even if The Cottage has several holes in its narrative and somewhat of a creaky overall structure, it is quite a fun film that sports a sleek sense of humor and some pretty wicked kill sequences.

Movie Review: The Happening (2008)

The Happening (2008)

The World Fights Back

Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, & John Leguizamo
MPAA Rating: “R” (for violent and disturbing images)

M. Night Shyamalan began his career on a pedestal with The Sixth Sense and, though he remained on solid ground with such films as Signs and Unbreakable, he faltered with The Village and drove his career clean off of a cliff with Lady in the Water. Now, he is trying to revive himself with The Happening, his first R-rated film (you probably knew this because it is stated in nearly every commercial). For the film, he again collected a wonderful cast of talented stars led by Mark Wahlberg and featuring Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo. He again keeps many plot points under wraps, no doubt hoping that mystery alone can get butts in seats. He doesn’t need to worry about that. The box-office results are in and Shyamalan has finally made another financially-successful movie. The only question is this: is it any good?

Elliot Moore (Wahlberg) is a science teacher in Philadelphia who is taken by surprise when his class is interrupted by the principal who tells him that there was a terrorist attack on Central Park. Elliot immediately heads home to his wife Alma (Deschanel) who has also learned of the attack via the news. They are your typical horror movie couple; they are having trouble, but we all know that, live or die, their problems will be rectified by the final credits. We also meet Julian (Leguizamo, not like himself), a math teacher at Elliot’s school. Julian has a young daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), and a wife, but we never meet her. When they all head off together in hopes of waiting out the turmoil brought on by the attack, they soon find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere and forced to endure the happening.

One thing that can always be said about M. Night Shyamalan is that he is a good director with an eerie visual style. Never before have I seen construction workers leaping to their deaths look so beautiful. The Happening is a visually-arresting film that displays his directing talent well. I must also give him props for maintaining a level of mystery in the advertising and yet not relying on yet another twist ending for the film. The Happening is far too subtle for some big revelation to seem fluid. Shyamalan also does well by providing a unique perspective of what seems to be the apocalypse. He never films anything that remotely resembles hundreds of people desperately trying to escape Philadelphia, instead focusing on the internal turmoil that one must go through when his or her life is thrown into a state of disarray.

The Happening is also entertaining almost constantly. Though it does have times where the plot slows, they feel necessary. Our characters need time to reflect and the film is very keen on self-reflection. However, it must be said that Shyamalan really fails when it comes to writing realistic dialog and creating solid relationships. I just didn’t feel like any of these characters were very real. The chemistry between Wahlberg and Deschanel is practically nonexistent and Shyamalan does nothing to help that with the dialog between the two of them. Some of the acting is also quite questionable. Even the usually wonderful Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel do not achieve their maximum potential here. Still, after nearly two months of big-budget explosions and superheroes, it is nice to take a breather and enjoy a more introspective film. It may not be a complete return to his pedestal, but for Shyamalan it is a step in the right direction.

Movie Review: The Evil Dead (1981)

The Evil Dead (1981)

Unyielding...Violent...Amazing

Directed By: Sam Raimi
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, & Betsy Baker
MPAA Rating: “NC-17” (for substantial graphic horror violence and gore)

If you have not seen The Evil Dead, then you are not a true horror fan. Pack up your bags and head back to the Disney Channel, because this is the movie that will push you to your limits before kicking you squarely off into a whole new world of terror. If you have seen it and don’t like it, then you just don’t like movies. Shot on a miniscule budget with an unheard-of cast and a fledgling director, it is 85 minutes of pure horror violence. Blood coats every second of this bitter pill, literally running from electrical sockets and lightbulbs when it isn’t exploding from some poor gal’s severed limb. To watch it and not be shocked by the level of carnage on display is impossible.

Ash Williams (Campbell) and his friends, including his loving girlfriend Linda (Baker), head off to an abandoned and run-down cabin for a weekend of fun. After hearing a strange noise in the basement, Ash finds a book made of human skin and written in human blood as well as a recording of an old professor describing some terrible evil. When the professor begins to chant a strange incantation of sorts, an unspeakable evil is awakened and begins to plague the friends. When the innocent Cheryl (Sandweiss) tries to escape, she is savagely attacked and raped by the trees, forcing her to return to the cabin. Not too long later, Ash and everyone else realize that she has been possessed by the evil and that, unless they can stop the force, it will possess all of them and turn them into rotting, snarling, and bloodthirsty monsters.

Okay, so let’s be very honest for a second. The Evil Dead is not a technical marvel. The special effects are hammy and the acting is second-rate. Not even the most jaded horror enthusiast would deny any of this, but none of this really matters when you look at its budget. Sam Raimi could not really help any of this given his limited resources. However, the important thing is what he did with what he had. If he had a carton of milk, he would load it up into one of the monsters and let it spew out. Using practically nothing except for a camera, a small cast, and plenty of fake blood, he makes one of the best horror films of all-time. His direction is smart, savvy, and wild; he plays up the strange camera angles all the time. The music seems to fit it all. Like I said, Raimi uses what he has to create a truly amazing movie.

What can I say? I love The Evil Dead...love it, love it, love it. It’s the kind of movie I could watch over and over and never get bored. Packed with all kinds of gore gags, truly scary moments, and off-the-wall violence, The Evil Dead is gross, obnoxious, vile, and as close to perfect as it could possibly be. The fact that Raimi had to use such cheap techniques to create the violence somehow makes them even scarier. Look at the larger-budgeted Halloween II (made the same year), the violence on display there looks nice and all, but it does not even come close to the imperfect terror that permeates each and every scene in The Evil Dead. If you want to really make a hardcore horror fan cringe in terror and disgust, just show them this film. It gets me every time.

Movie Review: The Lost Boys (1987)

The Lost Boys (1987)

I Love the Eighties

Directed By: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Jason Patric, Jami Gertz, Corey Haim, & Keifer Sutherland
MPAA Rating: “R”

The eighties are best remembered for producing hundreds of dumb-as-nails slasher flicks that sported boobs, blood, and not much else. Many of these films were not that great, but every once in a while the horror genre managed to spit out a truly creative and fun piece of film that is still remembered and even loved today. In 1987, one of those films was released...Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys. Featuring a hip cast of rising stars (many of whom are still recognizable...for good and bad reasons, of course) and showcasing a wild visual feast from Schumacher, The Lost Boys is a stylish vampire film that, despite a few flaws here and there, is one of the most fun films to come out of its decade.

Sam Emerson (Haim) and his older brother, Michael (Patric), are none too pleased about having to move to California with their mousy mother, Lucy (Dianne Wiest). They want to stay in Phoenix, especially when they discover that their new home is called the “Murder Capital of the World.” However, the optimistic Michael insists that it won’t be so bad and so the two try to find their place on the local boardwalk, while their mother flirts precariously with her new employer, Max (Edward Herrmann). On the boardwalk, there is a group of leather-clad misfits led by the pale and mysterious David (Sutherland). With the help of two strange comic book salesmen, Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan (Jamison Newlander) Frog, Sam learns that this is a group of vampires and, unless he can stop them, his brother may soon be their new member. To save Michael, he must find and kill the lead vampire...but who could it be?

The Lost Boys did something that I do not believe was ever done before it. Instead of portraying vampires as polished aristocrats who lived in expensive castles and drank blood out of golden goblets, it portrayed them as hip teenagers who were very much a part of the California party scene. They were social people, not eerie recluses. We can see how this trend expanded in projects such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which owes a lot of its edginess to The Lost Boys, by the way). Filled with references to other horror films and delivering almost constantly witty dialog, The Lost Boys never takes itself too seriously and yet never seems to be too comical. It walks a very thin line, but does it quite well. The Lost Boys almost always seems to understand just exactly what it wants to be and nails it almost constantly.

If there is a problem with The Lost Boys, it is because I had to use the word “almost” in the previous sentence. The film is always on the verge of breaking into deeper, more profound material and yet it restricts itself too often. We never get to see any depth behind the lost boys (with the exception of David) and the film even fails to deliver in showing just how Michael deals with his descent into the vampire lifestyle. Adding just these two elements would have heightened The Lost Boys to an entirely new level. As it is, The Lost Boys still works as stylish entertainment that doesn’t skimp on satire or straight-edged terror. The vampire makeup is sinister, the musical score is affecting, the direction is vivid and colorful, and the performances all work well. If nothing else, The Lost Boys features Keifer Sutherland chewing up the scenery and sporting a wicked blonde hairdo.