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[A Nightmare on Elm Street] I... am... eternal. (NSF56k)
Gigazombie Cybermage
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So Nightmare on Elm St. has been my favorite slasher genre horror movie series since I was a kid. They were literally some of my earliest memories of watching movies other than Disney films. I used to dress up as Freddy Kruger all the time during Halloween (...And sometime for no reason at all). My parents simply sat me down and asked "Son, you know this isn't real, right?" "Yup." And so my lifelong love affair with horror movies began (They restricted access of course, nothing TOO gory or movies that had too much nudity), but I always came back to this series. I think it's a real shame that the series is gone, so I think it's time for some Springwood Slasher appreciation! One thing though, I won't be mentioning the reboot, because I haven't seen it. <<; I know, I really want to! But no one I know has it, and I don't currently have a working dvd player.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_nzWyv9wQ&feature=relatedWithout further ado, I'm going to go through each movie with my thoughts, and hopefully we can discuss what future, if any, Freddy still has.
The original, and to some, the best. Robert Englund makes a big impression with his debut as Mr. Sandman himself. I think the reason I enjoyed Freddy as a horror movie monster over others is because everyone was copying Jason and Michael Myers at the time. Big, silent Juggernauts or insane lunatics. And then here's Freddy. He toys with his victims, taunts them, and takes great pleasure in tearing them to ribbons. He talks to his victims, though not so much in this first one other than a few menacing taunts. Heather becomes the Nancy character completely, and makes a great nemesis for Freddy. Plus we get to see Johnny Depp die horribly =D! It also has a great ending. Freddy never dies. As long as there is fear, and nightmares, he will be there. You also see how completely sick Freddy is, the scene where he slices his own fingers off to freak out a victim. It also uses the "false protagonist" well. I also think he was the first mainstream horror monster that was also a pedophile and mainly a child killer, though they toned down that aspect because of certain events. It really is an example of how to do a horror movie right.
Can I say how much I love these surrealist movie posters, because I love them! I have no idea why they don't use them for dvd/blu ray covers. That's some hot shit. Alright... here we go, the infamous homoerotic chapter of Nightmare. Looking back, it's REALLY obvious, but I was a kid, so you know... ;P Though I do recall thinking that Jesse seemed "different" even back then. Englund steps up his game in this, wracking up a better body count and better taunts. My favorite part was when Freddy tears Jesse's body apart to get out and killed his boyfri-err... best friend. The way Freddy was beaten was silly, but, yet again, it has an excellent twist ending. The pool scene is also a highlight of the film. If I'm not mistaken, this movie has his highest body count in any of his movies. Oh! I almost forgot when the stupid kid tries to calm Freddy down like he's some kind of wild animal or something is a crowning moment of funny. "Help yourself, fucker!" Yeah... try to talk with the insane disfigured guy with the razor glove. (b '.')b Good job guy!
Oh man... This is my personal favorite out of the series. Here, Freddy is at his best, sharp-tongued and snarky, but still sadistic and threatening. A lot of classic characters in this, Kincaid being my personal favorite. TONS of classic lines. "Welcome to prime-time bitch!", "In my dreams I'm beautiful... and bad!" and *Anything that comes out of Kincaid's mouth*. It also has the excellent "I... am... eternal" line which reminded us that, no, Freddy isn't a joke. I love how menacing he comes across when he says it. The dream warriors are all interesting, though some seem too dumb to live. The nerd paraplegic (Who turns into the "wizard master" in his dream) who runs up close to the razor-glove guy when he could just zap him from a difference is an example, not that it would have made a difference. Nancy returns and is excellent as always. They even remembered that grey streak she got in the original movie. We also see some building of the Nightmare mythos. We learn about Hypnocil and that the more souls Freddy absorbs the stronger he gets.
And this would be my second favorite Nightmare movie. Freddy gets sillier though he's still awesome, there's still a lot of things to like about this movie. Alice is a really interesting character. She starts really shy and introverted and comes into her own as a strong young woman at the end. This is where the series started to become more black comedy than anything really scary, but I like it, screw the haters. The dream warrior aspect returns, with an added twist in Alice as a dream master, who gains attributes of her fallen friends when Freddy eats their souls. I loved the roach motel kill, one of my favorite kills of the series. I also love the part where Freddy's eating a meatball pizza made from his victim's souls. "Mmm, soul food." By this point Freddy has saturated popular culture. After this movie, things start movie downhill for the series, unfortunately. The way Freddy dies in this is both completely bad-ass and really stupid. Stupid because seeing his own reflection killed him, but bad-ass because of the awesome way he dies. The souls inside him tear him the FUCK apart, and it's awesome. I miss Kincaid after this movie though...
This movie had potential, it had some interesting ideas, but at this point Freddy's getting stale, and he's somehow become even hammier and more of a cartoon character than before. Still, I do like the motorcycle kill and Amanda Kruger's backstory continued from number 3. The main idea of Freddy possessing and using Alice's unborn child to get to people was a good one, but more needed to be done with it. It's just all so formulaic at this point. I don't blame Englund, I actually like Freddy's big hamminess if they remember to make him threatening too.
To be honest, I don't care for it. It's just so... BORING! I mean, the concept is awesome. In the real world the actors and crew of the Nightmare on Elm Street series get hunted by Freddy, who turns out to be real. I mean, that really is awesome. SO much could have done with it, I don't see how they went so wrong. The first mistake was not making both Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund as the main protagonist instead of her and her fictional son. Both of them working together with other actors and crew of the series to survive and try to be the fictional horror come to life would have been great. More Englund is always great. ;P Tell me it wouldn't be cool to have Johnny Depp or Ken Sagoes (Kincaid) come back playing themselves just to get butchered by Freddy, or to have the crew of the original movies play themselves as they each get killed by Kruger. The other big mistake was sucking out ALL the personality Freddy had and make him a really generic demon. A better idea would have been to have the same fictional Freddy dream monster come to life because even the 4th wall won't save you. He somehow gained enough power to affect the real world. You could play some games with the audience that way too in terms of how the movie ends. Make him more like Nightmare 3's Freddy, snarky but deadly. *sigh* Oh well...
This is it for the original series, and there it shall remain... I was hoping we would get something with the reboot, maybe a new video game or something, but it looks like Freddy really is dead. I know Robert Englund is getting in age, but I still think he has some of the Krugster left in him. I heard the new guy wasn't all that memorable. Do any of you love this series like I do? Ideas for a revival? Video games?
Honorable Mention:
Hahaha, I remember not believing they made a game out of the series. "Do you get to play as Freddy? How does it work?" What a let down. Unfortunately, it's painfully mediocre. You spend most of your time fighting zombies, halloween ghosts, spiders, and bats than you do Freddy. He's not even that hard when he does show up. Friday the 13th NES game was at least scary and nerve-wracking for it's time. This was just shitty. Oh, if you want to torture 3 friends you can also buy that adaptor that let's you plug up 4 controllers at once. Really, really terrible.
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Case in point:
Also, it was a love bird. Not a parakeet.
The great thing about this, however, is that those two can be skipped over without effecting continuity. They were both self contained chapters.
xD But it's so campy! Good fun
Edit: I counter with this
Tell me Freddy's not awesome here.
I never got to see the main movies as a kid. I did like how the town had defeated Freddy, be just not mentioning him/forgetting about him. Kinda silly in some ways but there are legends/myths of how demons/djinn are only as powerful as people's belief in them.
Edit: Should have read more closely. It was the third movie.
It all started when I was five and my older brother put this film on at 5 in the afternoon. I was playing with toys not paying much attention other than there was a scary burned man who gets you in your sleep. My mum comes wandering in spots what's on and sends me to bed so I don't watch it. I go to sleep and not five minutes later Im screaming because Im having a nightmare about freddy.
2 years later after a few more nightmares I have to be in hospital over night for an eye operation. But as soon as my parents leave for the night and i'm on my own I start crying and practically crapping myself, because I remember there was a scene where Freddy kills someone in a hospital (something about he's a doll that turns to into freddy, and he uses the guys veins to turn hm into a puppet and make him jump off a building). Needless to say I did not sleep that night because I was keeping an eye out for Freddy.
The worst thing is id have a nightmare with Freddy in it, I'd win and kill him or what not. But because its Freddy he always comes back and haunted my dreams again. just like the films only without physically killing me.
Basically I have a massive phobia about Freddy Kruger and still pretty much can barely watch the films.
Also in like 2 weeks Robert Englund is at a convention I might be going to so I might go scream at him for ruining my childhood.
I actually really like Freddy Vs. Jason. My complaints are only that Freddy needed a bigger body count, Kane Hodder should have played Jason, and the writing for the teenagers were ridiculous. But who cares about Boobs, Black Girl, Nerd, Jay Clone, and Forgettable Male Lead anyways... We came to see Freddy and Jason. It works as pure fanservice. I LOVE the fights between the two, but there should have been more of them. Englund is at his best Freddy here, hammy and awesome (Love the scene near the end where he leaps out of the water COMPLETELY FUCKING PISSED, I only didn't include it (Thought about it though) because I wasn't sure about it being technically a part of the series. And yeah, I love they brought back Hypnocil and established more of Freddy's mythos.
Ah, that was a great kill. You really see how much influence Kruger has on the real world too. I mean, he makes the poor kid materialize right through a locked door -in the real world- and drops him out of the window. Maaaaaan... I wish I could meet Robert Englund. He's Freddy. Period. I wonder what he thinks of his legacy being such a famous horror icon.
(reasoning is the that the Easter egg of the Evil Dead Necronomicon in a Friday 13th movie wasn't just an Easter egg).
From what I remember, Englund LOVED/S being Freddy. Also, I remember him giving an in character interview to Nintendo Power to promote both the movie and game (and his custom razor tipped Power Glove).
A friend of mine had almost all the Nightmare movies at his house and I stayed over one night and watched 'em all. All except the elusive Nightmare on Elm Street 4. I looked everywhere for that goddamn movie, but no video store in town had it. Well, one did, but it was one of those movies that was perpetually on the shelf as "checked out" and I slowly came to realize that whoever'd taken it wasn't gonna bring it back. Asshole.
Anyway, I got a lot of nostalgia for Nightmare on Elm Street and 80's slashers in general. The third movie was best.
I was leery of Freddy vs Jason when I first heard about it in the wake of the awful, awful Alien vs Predator movie. In the end though, I think they did a pretty good job. Both Freddy and Jason felt true to their previous incarnations.
I also felt they did a pretty good job on the Friday the 13th reboot.
I was not, however, a fan of the Nightmare reboot. You can't replace Englund as Freddy. You just can't. He is Freddy. Overall it felt pretty generic.
At least it wasn't as bad as Jason X. Campiness and humor are all well and good, but I hate to see classic horror icons turned into parodies of their former selves. That's the fate that befell Chucky.
Though Freddy does get to be president in the sequel comic.
I wonder how much the remake goes over? Like just the first movie, or does it incorporate bits of 2? All I know is that they really played up how more serious Jackie Earl Haley was over Englund's playful psychotic in the reviews and various MTV trailers.
My mother was pretty careful about what we watched without being too harsh (basically violence was fine, but nothing terrorizing or overly creepy, and she was always sure to watch stuff with us and point out that everything was fake), so I watched Terminator 1, Alien/Aliens and Predator all by this time with her blessing. But she wouldn't let me or my brothers watch any horror movies unless she;d seen them first. She was fine with Friday and Halloween, but not this.
Unfortunately for her (us!) we had next-door neighbours who weren't nearly as careful. And they had kids who just LOVED to watch horror movies. So one day aged 8 me and my older brother (10) went round their house and we all sat down to watch their parent's newest VHS purchase...
Needless to say, none of us got any sleep that night, including the 'experienced' neighbour kids. They probably shouldn't have had their 3-year-old brother there too...
I'll never forget the arm-stretching scene though. I mean, what a fucking intro!
Although, when I was ~6, we were on a long trip and stopped for the night in Baton Rouge to stay the night with my mother's friend from college. It was late, I remember being exhausted, and my mother's friend foolishly left the Freddy Kruger tv show on with the lights off. Some boy, laying on a slab, literally had his heart taken from him by an attractive lady, and to this day, whenever I think of that scene, I shudder inside.
Also, the actress as horrible, which is weird, because she has shown herself to be amazing in other movies. (Dragon Tattoo/Social Network)
The NoES remake was one of the worst pieces of garbage I have even seen and I am a pro-remake guy.
The director was the reason it failed, IMO. And he made it fail hard.
Current me knows thats impossible but still doesnt like watching these films
It was so so so bad.
I thought that was the coolest shit when I saw the commercials. I would buy the game simply to kill the Kombat cast with Freddy. xD He needs to make more cameos in other games. No idea why he has two gloves though.
1) He drops down into Hell, and pops up behind his opponent, grabs them (by thrusting his claws through them), then pulls them down with him to Hell followed by the geyser of blood.
2) He summons the furnace and throws them in, waving "good-bye" as they're burning and slamming the door shut on them.
Ah hell, here:
I really really like 4 and then 3 as the best, though 4 is alot cheesier then 3 and 3 deserves to be a classic. I think it's because I saw 4 first that I like it better, but 3 really is the better movie.
If you haven't seen Freddy vs. Jason it's well worth it. To me it's up there with 3&4.
The remake was ok-ish. I would like to see a remake of the 3rd story line however, because it's the one with the best storyline.
Hahaha, that's awesome. Why is he even dicking around with them anyways. ;P
Freddy as "champion of Earth-realm" is hilarious.
Also, there's this:
Oh 80's...
Wait... Not sure if that second one counts cause it wasn't on the soundtrack.
Also got about 30 minutes into garbage pail kids before having to turn it off. So bad I couldn't even finish it.
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
As a massive Coheed & Cambria fan, I literally came into this thread to post this. So good.
As far as favourites of the movies go, it's always been a toss up between the First and Third. I really like New Nightmare too. The first is incredibly dark, especially in comparison to the later entries.
Never saw the remake though. What do people think of it?
Its really bad for a whole host of reasons.
Instead they just went with the last minute reveal that he was a bad guy, just to make it better for the audience.
That's not really true... like at all.
The kids having micro dreams was incredibly stupid and terrible as it was just an excuse from jump "scares", and the movie contains one of the dumbest plot holes I've ever seen.
When Freddy kills the boyfriend in jail in the original he strangles him making it look like a suicide at least at a glance. In the remake he jams his whole fist through his stomach. One the cell had a camera in it, we actually see it's view from the booth, two there was a cellmate but he was not covered in blood so it could not have been him that did it. Clearly something crazy happened there, but we're just going to pretend it didn't happen and call the kids crazy when they think something crazy is going on. What the hell.
Also flat-out stating Freddy is a pedophile ruins the appeal of the character. While I think the Nightmare franchise mostly had likable protagonists, you were still kinda rooting for Freddy to kill least a few of them in amusing ways. Now though? Fuck that guy, he touches children. Yeah there was always the implication he might have been even in the originals, but it was very much in the background and never specifically stated what he did or even if he truly did anything at all (well at least till 6 where we see him kill his wife).
TLDR: The remake sucked, really sucked, worst in the series.
I agree with most people here, three was the best, followed by four. Had some of the memorable kills, and likable characters. If I were to rank them I'd go with. 3, 4, 1, 5, 6, 7, 2, remake.
Seven had some great potential, but they just wasted it. It became another creepy kid movie till we finally see Freddy at the end. They should focused more on the making another movie aspect, and having "real" Freddy interfering with the production; killing crew and cast members. That could have been amazing.
Also I remember playing that IBM game a long, long time ago. My memory really just boils down to Freddy taunting you when you go over spikes or something taking damage to get an item with "No pain, No Gain!" over and over again. Didn't get very far in that game.
Great example being Freddy's ability to affect the real world from within the dream world, specifically in how the bodies of the children transfer damage from dream to real world. In the first nightmare it was pretty direct, what happened inside the dream literally did affect the real world, although the only showpiece of that was Glen getting eaten by his bed and puked up as a bucket of gore. Of course, the first one ends on an ambiguous note, as does the second, so not a lot happening there. NOES 3 really did it about the best it could (with what I'm sure was a small SFX budget) and changed that slightly to allow Freddy to control the bodies of the children as they slept, levitating them into objects (Jennifer), through locked doors (Phillip), or even puppeting them to kill themselves (Kirsten).
In NOES 4 and up everything that happens however takes the easy way out and finds convenient excuses to explain how these crazy dream deaths are now entirely unnoticeable in the real world to the general human population not having them. A part of what made the early NOES films so awesome wasn't just Freddy but the fact that the entire town had to do his dirty work and cover up his murders because they couldn't face what they had done. Nancy's mother drinks herself into a coma and locks her inside her home entirely because she's so scared that the kids are right and Freddy really is back; she goes batshit trying to prove it wrong entirely to clear her own guilty conscience.
In Nightmare 3 this seemingly reaches the pinnacle of killing as Freddy has apparently turned Springwood into a demilitarized zone for children. It didn't pick up entirely on that corrupt-hidden-guilt riff from the first nightmare but it did far better than any other film. After part 3 though this essential piece of the magic, the complicity of the town and the "upstanding adults" who allow Freddy to perpetuate (and at times make the situation worse) all to cover their own asses for what they knew they did. By making the kills after part 3 mostly into gore showpieces (although Alice's dad was written well for what small part he had, the character cannot stand in for the moral drama regarding the entire town trying to cover things up.) it killed the biggest part of what made Nightmare so gripping. But then Part five had these amazing deaths, and if the characters at that point hadn't become so hollow (and they'd put some real effort into figuring out a way to translate some of that gore into the Real World rather than copping out and saying that Freddy can transfer cuts but when he transforms your entire body it magically doesn't count.)
It's actually for this reason I have a lot of respect for Freddy vs Jason, Ronny Yu did what he could to try and recapture the elements that got left out of the later films, even if his Freddy was still going to be funny some of the time (Which considering Bride of Chucky I'd be a little disappointed he didn't.) I watched the remake and while I loved the SFX I can't help but feel they squandered the chance to significantly reboot the franchise. If they'd made more out of the drama surrounding the children and Freddy being essentially lynched by the town, they could have build solid bedrock for not just one film but for an entire new nightmare franchise.
There were a few scenes in the first two movies, and Freddy vs Jason where he attempted to sexually abuse a girl with his glove before he murdered her, or at least implied it was coming. They just never pushed it that far and instead had him murder them or attempt to before they inevitably woke up.
Also @Brutal_J
Furthermore, it was kind of the main theme of the first three movies that he was killed because he was a child molester. It wasn't really understated at all until they started fucking with his past in later movies (the whole, his mom was a nun who was raped by an army of prisoners and that's why he's evil, he's the seed of 100 angry inmates, and the whole he was given powers by demons bullshit)
More remake discussions:
The nature of Freddy's crimes is pretty unknown throughout the series, we never see what happened and only hear from what the characters say. Freddy was found not-guilty on technicality and the townspeople were out for blood and murdered him; their bloodlust makes them kind of unreliable witnesses to Freddy's nature. They never say he was charged with child molestation and the whole thing is really just implied. Something that's implied rather than stated can be more easily overlooked by the audience regardless of how likely it was.
Now, the creepy pedo stuff in that movie could have worked; it was pretty messed up how he was creeping on the girl at the end in the dream world, but that is just soooo not Freddy and never was. Even when Freddy wasn't all jokey, he wasn't perving on his victims. It's all rather uncomfortable to watch, and hey that can work in a horror movie sure, but for a Nightmare on Elm Street? You're not really playing to your audience here, you're just going to alienate them.