A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

It’s been a while since I last watched Dream Warriors but I’m not sure that matters too much. Dream Warriors seemed to end with a lot of finality, what with Freddy being defeated in both the dream world and the real world. Surely he’s dead for sure? Well, no, he is not. There’s still more films for him to be in. *sigh*

OK, to the film’s credit Dream Master is pretty enjoyable. The irritation I have with it comes from the way that Freddy comes back. Some dog just pisses on where Freddy was buried, but in the dream world, and now he is back. Not sure why, or how, but that happened.

Now that’s out of the way I need to get on with the rest of the film. The film starts off with the surviving cast from Dream Warriors and Kristine seems to be haunted in her dreams with omens of Freddy’s return. Turns out she is right, because Freddy isn’t giving up that easily and he proceeds, over the next 20 minutes or so, to kill off the final three Elm Street kids. That’s right, they all die. But that’s okay because within this time we’ve been introduced to our new protagonist, Alice, who starts off weak, but ends up kicking arse as the film goes on.

When Kristine is about to die she pulls Alice into her dream and, somehow through dying, she gives Alice her power of pulling people into her dreams. This works to Freddy’s advantage as he uses Alice, a chronic daydreamer, to pull other kids into her dreams so he can kill them too because... I don’t know, he’s psycho. The rest of the film consists of Alice dragging people into her dreams and trying to get them out, but to no avail.

The plot is great. It introduces a new element and utilises Freddy’s powers over dreams in a way you wouldn’t think them to be used. You could tell that the people making this film were looking at all avenues of sleep and dreams to try and make the story fresh and they did just that.

On top of that we have a constant element of threat. I’d be lying if I said I could tell when the characters were in a dream before it became overly clear. This created an air of suspense over the rest of the film. We’re never sure when people will die or who they will be. Sometimes it’s a side character and sometimes it’s the main cast, we are never sure. This is great because it’s shocking when people get killed, especially as Alice is often able to witness the deaths but is powerless to stop Freddy.

Lastly, I’ll have to say that Freddy in this film is probably at his best so far. He is genuinely creepy but also an absolute laugh at times. Even during a scene of great horror he would say something or do something comedic and would make me laugh, and though I’d laugh I would not be taken out of the horror element of the film. Compared to the other films he is astounding and Englund’s performance is perfect. This is the Freddy I had heard about: sinister and creepy, yet funny.

Though I did really like this film and thought it was far better than the first two films I have to say that I did prefer Dream Warriors. That film explored the dream aspect a lot more than Dream Master, but this film gets a lot of credit for trying to expand upon Freddy’s powers over dreams, unlike in the first two films. Sadly, the main issue I had with this film was how Freddy was brought back. Nonetheless, it was a seriously good film and had some good moments.

Let The Right One In (2008)

Like most people I like vampires. There’s just something about the mythological creatures that is interesting. They are powerful on the outside but they are actually extremely weak. They suffer from bloodlust, seclusion, death by sunlight and countless other things explored in the extensive literature and filmography dedicated to them. There are always hits and misses.

Let The Right One In was one of these hits. It’s extremely popular and sits within IMDB’s Top 250 films.

Yet I have to say I don’t like it.

That’s not to say I hate this Swedish film, I just had issues with it. I’ll save myself a little here from the people who automatically want to kill me because of this by saying the film does have many positives.

For a start it is beautifully shot. Anyone who says it isn’t is a liar. They’d also be a liar if they were to say that the directing is bad, which it isn’t. The film also has a fairly decent plot going on and the vampires in the film are exactly what we like to see from vampire movies. They are the classic blood sucking vampires that die if they go into sunlight and can fly. Perfect.

Sadly, I did find that there were a lot of things that let it down. Though I do say that the plot is decent it is far too spread out. There’s a plot point, then a while of nothingness, then another plot point, then more nothingness. The film just lingers and keeps going without anything happening and when the film is 100 minutes long this just gets boring. This annoyed me as I wanted to get invested in the plot and I wanted to care, but the pacing made it so I couldn’t.

It’s difficult to talk too much about the plot itself as so little seems to happen. What I can gather is that there is a boy who is bullied and a vampire girl, Eli, who has just moved in next door to him. She teaches him to be courageous and they start going out. That’s pretty much it. There’s a subplot about people trying to find who has been killing people (it’s Eli) but it doesn’t really go anywhere.

Then we have the acting. It might be due to the fact this is a foreign film but the acting, in my eyes, was very bad. Not so much for the adults, who weren’t in the film so much, but the two main child actors. Not a single line seemed to be delivered well and the conversations they had made it seem as if they were acting, as opposed to just having an awkward conversation.

I really feel for what this film was going for, I do, but it just didn’t deliver what it set out to do. The people who seem to be the biggest fans of this film appear to be the people who read the book the film is based on. They know more about the events of the film because the book explains a lot more about it. But as someone who knew nothing about the story from before I felt a lot was not explained. A lot seems to be implied, but it is never really shown long enough for you to make sense of it in your head and the film relies too much on interpretation.

I wouldn’t say this film isn’t recommended. Enough people seem fond of it and 98% of critics seem to say it’s a good film so maybe you should check it out. But for me was extremely lacking in most of the things that makes a good film (such as plot), and so I refuse to say that I like Let The Right One In, despite it attaining visual excellence.

Final Verdict: 4/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

Holy crap! This film... this is exactly what I was hoping for when I started watching the A Nightmare on Elm Street films. If you haven’t seen these films and but have heard about them then Dream Warriors is probably the closest that comes to what you were expecting.

Dream Warriors takes place in a psychiatric hospital with seven troubled teenagers. All of them have seen Freddy Krueger in their dreams, which the doctors think is some kind of group psychosis. But these are the last of the Elm Street kids, whose parents killed Freddy Krueger all those years ago.

We see the return of Nancy from the first film, who is now a psychiatrist and new staff member at the hospital. It turns out that the real ending of the first film was pretty much everything that happened before the actual end of the film. Good, this gives a clear cut point from which to build this film from. Over the years she has had to deal with the nightmares and takes a new experimental drug to suppress them. She now works at this hospital in order to help these teenagers against Freddy.

There’s a lot that makes this film more interesting. For one we learn more about Freddy. We learn about his tragic past as the child of a woman raped by mental patients. We also get to see Freddy’s powers more consistently. He is able to alter the dream world completely to his liking. What we see is quite frightening as he completely changes rooms and the buildings on a whim. We also see that he is able to control people in their sleep, so when one might think the person is sleepwalking he’s actually being controlled by Freddy.

But most of all it’s the title that brings the most interest. The so-called ‘Dream Warriors’. Though this might be a bit of a powerful term, it’s what these kids are. They all get brought into the same group dream and have their own powers based upon their own fantasies. So the nerd gets to be a wizard master whilst the quiet guy has a strong and powerful voice.

It’s fucking awesome! This is what should have happened in previous films: the kids getting together in the same dream to try and fight off Freddy. Sure, the dream powers might seem a little ridiculous, but this is the dream world, so they can try and use it to their own advantage. The fact that the kids are actively fighting back just makes everything so much better and so much more entertaining.

Freddy is also great in this film. This time he pretty much sticks in the dream world, where he belongs and where he is most powerful. He is fun and scary at the same time, delivering some great lines and being truly terrifying through his manipulation of both the world around him and the kids.

All of this comes together rather nicely during an exciting climax. Freddy must be defeated in the dream world as well as the real world, where his bones need to be buried on hallowed ground to stop him from having any powers, and so be put to rest. Characters commit acts of badassery and some die in their attempts to defeat Freddy, but they overcome all odds and defeat him. Though there was most probably no other way to end the film it is still intense and you are never too sure if they will actually win.

This is definitely the first of these films that I have liked. It has all the elements of a good horror film. If the previous two films were more similar to this in tone and made more sense then I probably would have liked them. This just did it all correctly and had fun whilst doing it. It’s now a question of whether or not the rest of these films will keep this standard.

Final Verdict: 8/10

Mum & Dad (2008)

Mum & Dad. It’s hard to tell what this film is going to be simply from the title. I mean, it has no allusions to any genre whatsoever. Maybe a romantic comedy or something, talking about the love between mother and father. Something along those lines.

Of course, what you wouldn’t expect from that title is a disgusting British thriller that seems to do everything right!

We start the first 10 minutes of the film with Birdie and Lena, a Polish immigrant, who both work at an Airport. Through this time we get to know the two, Birdie being a chatterbox and Lena being somewhat shunned by her family, left on her own. It’s interesting to see the interactions between these two, who seem like they are going to be good friends as the film goes on. When Lena misses her bus because of Birdie you think nothing of it when Birdie offers to help her get home.

Then Lena gets to Birdie’s house and things get very, very different. She’s knocked out then, when she wakes up, is told that she is the new “daughter” in this family, made up of Birdie, Mum, Dad and the quiet Elbie. What follows is a film filled with claustrophobia, suspense and disgust.

The film’s creepiness doesn’t revolve around gore and guts, though there is enough of that in the film. No, unlike a lot of horror and thriller films in recent years this film is all about atmosphere. The entire film has a constant feeling of dread. The family are such oddballs and played so well that their actions are difficult to gauge, going from extremely kind one second then snapping to murderous the next.

The characters of Mum and Dad are played extremely well and make the film an absolute pleasure to watch. For some it might seem weird seeing Meggy from This Is England perform such disgusting acts, implying paedophilia and incest, but he nonetheless carries it off extremely well. He is honestly fearful and Mum is the same. She never shows as much anger as Dad, but because of this she is even creepier, torturing Lena as if it is the most natural thing in the world.

But this film isn’t just about the creepiness. There’s also a lot of dark humour in there. Stuff you know you shouldn’t be laughing at, but you laugh nonetheless. Out of the entire film it is most probably the Christmas scene that is the funniest. Just because they have a prisoner, ahem, I mean, new daughter, doesn’t mean they can’t celebrate Christmas with her. It’s a family occasion!

That scene is just so funny and so creepy at the same time, bringing together everything that is disgusting so far in the film and upping the stakes to bring it towards a climax which is both fitting and satisfying. Disgusting, creepy, violent and disturbing. Everything that we experienced in the film and more!

This film is not exactly light-hearted and nor is it for those who can’t watch films where things are so messed up, no, actually 'fucked up' is more accurate. Mum & Dad is a great piece of cinema that not many will be aware of, but because of that only the people who are interested in this type of film will watch Mum & Dad and they will be the ones to enjoy it the most!

Final Verdict: 8/10

The Zombie Diaries (2006)

I wouldn’t be surprised that anyone familiar with George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead would think I am talking about that film, giving it an incorrect or alternate title. Maybe they would think this is a rip-off of that film. But both of those are incorrect.

The Zombie Diaries is a film that has no connection to George A. Romero and was released before Diary of the Dead (which I will hopefully be watching soon). Instead, it is an independent British film released in 2006 (DVD in 2007).

The film revolves around three groups of people, all conveniently having a hand-held camera in order to film the zombie invasion of the UK. Thankfully, the people behind the camera do explain why they have the cameras with them, even if it is basically “because we might come across something interesting.” All of these groups of people are made up of your ordinary British civilians trying to cope with living in a Britain full of zombies. We’ve all seen it done before.

But for some reason this film seems to do it well. Sure, the acting can get pretty poor at times and there being not so much of a story, but it’s interesting to see how people cope with the invasion. It is obviously taking a lot of influence from the Romero films, concentrating on the people more than the zombies. This is very refreshing and something I prefer compared to the extent films seem to concentrate on the zombies these days.

I also find that this coupled with the fact that we can tell there is a real person behind the camera really helps. A lot of the films in this sub-genre seem to forget there is someone holding the camera, making it so that they don’t do anything when they really should do. But in The Zombie Diaries we see the person putting the camera down and running over to help their friends.

Sadly, the use of a hand-held camera can get rather nauseous and I couldn’t quite understand what was going on because the camera was shaking too much. Though I didn’t like it I feel it did help me feel the confusion and horror the characters felt at the time.

Which is something else this film does well: horror. Some of the moments in this film felt like proper horror. I was getting tense when they slowly opened each door in an abandoned barn, waiting for the undead to appear in one of the rooms. As the undead slowly approached the heroes I was on the edge of my seat, hoping for them to get away. I truly cared for them, hoping they would escape.

I was surprised about how much I liked this film. It was only cost £8,100 to make and at times it shows. But the effects are solid, looking realistic (another testament to actual effects as opposed to CGI), the story is interesting, the characters are likeable and their actions are believable. More horror films need to have the feel of this film, where there is legitimate horror as opposed to jump scares, and more zombie movies need these slow zombies as opposed to the speedy zombies that we see nowadays, which oftentimes don’t make sense or aren’t scary at all.

I seriously recommend this film. It might not be to your tastes, and doesn’t appear to be overly popular, but hopefully you can appreciate it the same way I did.

Final Verdict: 7/10

Video Nasties: Axe (1977)

a.k.a. Lisa, Lisa; California Axe Massacre

Year Re-Released: 2005 (uncut)

Axe supposedly takes place in a secluded and isolated farm, where a psychotic girl named Lisa cares for her paralysed grandfather. This isn’t quite true. The first half of the film basically follows three criminals doing some stuff. I’m really not sure what it is they are doing. At first they kill a couple of guys for some reason, and then they go to a convenience store and throw tomatoes at the clerk, then play a bit of William Tell with her.

When it gets to the 25 minute mark we finally arrive at the secluded house. But it’s only after some faffing around that the criminals meet Lisa. They decide to stay low here, and Lisa doesn’t put up much resistance.

It’s a while after this that stuff actually starts happening. After 40 minutes of nothingness we have attempted rape, which causes Lisa to murder the criminal. With a straight-edge razor. I thought this film was about an axe?

Well, it does turn out there is a murder committed with an axe. One. That’s it. What a jip!

But I’ve spent far too much time looking at the plot. In fact, I think I’ve spent more time looking at it than the film does because this film is boring as hell. It takes 40 minutes for something to happen and that isn’t exciting. There’s no tension and no excitement.

None of the characters are likeable. Lisa is just bland, two of the criminals are basic criminals and the other is pathetic and wimpy. There’s not a single moment spent on character development. We never get to know these characters or why they are doing the things they do. This is especially true for Lisa, whose psychosis is never explained. Maybe if the film spent more time on its characters rather than doing sod all we might have something to care about!

With all this said, though, the film is hilariously bad. The editing is terrible. At one point blood is meant to appear on a mirror, so they put a few frames of this in the middle of Lisa looking at the mirror. The way the camera shifts is so obvious it’s pitiful. In addition to this we have terrible acting from all present. Horrific scenes just come across as humorous.

I think maybe this film is a Video Nasty for one of two reasons, one more plausible than the other. I doubt it was due to the “rape” scenes, which are so badly shot that it doesn’t look like rape. No, I think it was more likely to be due to the title. Axe just sounds like it has an ungodly amount of violence. But it doesn’t.

Surprisingly for a film that is 68 minutes long it feels far too long. And when we consider that if we remove the start and end credits the film is more like 62 minutes long then that’s even more surprising. 62 minutes of rubbish.

Final Verdict: 0/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

This film really confuses me. I don’t quite know what to think about it. It isn’t confusion in the same way as A Nightmare on Elm Street confused me. Everything seems established a bit better in Freddy’s Revenge and some things make a lot more sense. No, I’m confused because I’m not sure to what extent I like or dislike this film. I suppose actually writing about it will help me get my thoughts around it.

For one, I’m pretty sure the ending of the first film has been retconned to “everyone died and Nancy went insane” but that isn’t made entirely clear. That at least gives a simple ending to the first film and allows the events of the original to make more sense. Not sure if I like this, though.

Then we have the fact that our main character, Jesse (Mark Patton), seems to be slowly getting taken over from the dream world so that Krueger (Robert Englund) can commit murders through him. That should bring in some more psychological horror aspects as Jesse doesn’t know when he will become a violent killer. But Jesse never seems entirely phased by this. Only when he is changing into Krueger or just killed someone does he actually seem scared at all. Not only this, but it also means nothing really happens in the dream world. This makes the first film being about killing the kids in their dreams almost pointless.

However, it does lead to some creepy scenes and does build a little bit of tension. It is also an interesting concept, not being able to control oneself and becoming some violent supernatural killer. But this never comes up often enough, with Jesse being mostly himself throughout the film. There’s little to no tension. Thankfully, it does build up to a scene of violence and death, but this is all too little too late. And at the end Krueger is defeated by the power of love (cop out) and then everyone acts like nothing ever happened.

Oh, and then Freddy’s hand bursts out some girl’s stomach and the school bus goes careening off somewhere. THE END!

I’m going to go ahead and say I am not going to look forward to the ends of these films. I think they will all turn out disappointing.

But I have to say that overall I do find that this film does some things a bit more right than the original. It’s more clear cut, less confusing and a lot less ridiculous. Nonetheless, I think I have to say that I don’t really like this film. Barely anything happens in it and the overall climax was a bore, just to have some lovey-dovey nonsense come along and ruin what should be some epic ending, what with Freddy running around and all.

Which, to be honest, was another problem. Freddy getting out properly and doing things ruins the supernatural feel of the character. He no longer just has power in dreams and the outside world to a lesser extent. No, now he just goes right ahead and kills people in the real world. In trying to make a better story they seem to have ended up with a less creepy villain.

So I guess I’m less fond of this film. What I liked the most about the previous movie, the villain, has been stripped down to just a normal killer, in a way. The pacing of this film was terrible, at times plot points would go nowhere and there's the tiniest amount of tension or suspense. I realise now I have focussed mainly on the plot, but not what happens within the film. This is mainly because nothing happens in the film, but there is a bare bones plot in there somewhere. It’s hard to talk about a film like that.

Hopefully there will be more to talk about in the later films, be it good or be it bad!

Final Verdict: 3/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t quite understand the popularity of this film. Maybe it isn’t this film in and of itself, but rather the franchise. But A Nightmare on Elm Street holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, this seems to be mostly from horror reviewers, but the point still stands: this film is popular.

Maybe it’s the villain. Freddy Krueger, only really referred to as Fred Krueger in this film. Freddy is a pretty good villain. He is scary looking and pretty eerie. He doesn’t speak much, but when he does it’s either funny or creepy. The fact that he seems to toy with his some of his victims before killing them suits the character and the mere fact that he is a child murderer would be disturbing to some.

At first I was quite upset that Freddy didn’t actually seem to get much time on screen but that really works for his creepiness factor. The less you see him, the more you fear him. Sadly, when it comes to the climax he seems pretty useless and is comically taken down at one point by a sledgehammer (come on, he’s some supernatural being!), which takes away from his legitimacy as a fearsome villain.

The acting in this film is also another positive for this film. All of the actors are pretty good, especially the leading cast, such as Heather Langenkamp as Nancy, and Johnny Depp. Langenkamp is the heroin of the film and she carries off her role perfectly, unlike the girl who gets killed first, played by Amanda Wyss.

So we have two positives, but why does this film confuse me?

Well, it’s the execution of the plot. You see, Freddy is dead, killed by the parents on Elm Street because he was a child murderer and got off of prison on a technicality. So now he is getting back at the parents by killing their children in their dreams, where he has power. It's a very interesting a good basic plot to the film.

But I find that it all falls apart when we see Freddy affecting things outside of the dreams. One of the characters is killed off by being hanged by his bed sheets in a police station cell. How does he do this? Does he have control over anything to do with the bed? Depp’s character is clearly awake when he is killed, blood gushing up to the ceiling from a hole in his bed in a ridiculous manner. At the end of the film he gets out of the dream and tries to kill the main character.

By the end of the film we have all of the characters alive again, together in a convertible. Then the cover comes up and it’s in the design of Freddy’s shirt, the doors all lock, the windows all go up and the car drives away. The Nancy’s mum is then waving them off and suddenly Freddy’s clawed hand busts through the door and drags the mum in. The End!

What? What happened there?! Was this all a dream? I get the feeling that this is like some sort of Inception dream within a dream within a dream/which reality is reality and which is the dream stuff going on. I have no idea what happened at the end there, nor what happened before it. The movie has made no effort to explain these things and instead just leaves me sitting here feeling confused.

This is why the popularity of this film confuses me. Conceptually it's really good but it just fails in execution. Freddy’s powers are confusing and the events of the film are questionable. It’s such a shame because A Nightmare on Elm Street does a great job at building up tension and suspense, but this is all sadly taken over by confusion as the film goes on.

And when the better version of this film is the parody from The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror VI then there may be some issues with the source material.

But maybe when I think A Nightmare on Elm Street is popular I’m thinking of the franchise, and not the initial film in the series. I’m sure I’ll find out as this series continues.

Final Verdict: 4/10

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

I didn’t like Paranormal Activity. It was an interesting concept which tried to re-introduce something within the horror genre that hasn’t been seen for a while, i.e. psychological horror rather than jump scares. Nonetheless, I felt that it was carried out fairly poorly but passable for a low budget film.

Paranormal Activity 2 has an upper hand over PA with its vastly greater budget, yet doesn’t use it to a good enough effect, turning out another poor performance.

It’s quite tragic this film was so bad as it has some pretty good elements. The film provides a fantastic link to its predecessor, showing what happened to the sister of Katie (the lead in the first film) and her family. This gives a greater understanding as to why the demon haunted Katie and Micah, creating an interesting and disturbing tale in conjunction with the first film, with enough being left vague to leave an air of mystery.

The best part of the film was the ending sequence, which used a Blair Witch Project-style shaky cam to deliver an exceptional finale, as well as showing some of the events that occurred post-PA. Also, the use of multiple cameras rather than a single camera helped the film show events all over the house.

However, these points do not redeem PA2, as there is much wrong with the film. The characters are in no way likeable and the child appears to grow up too quickly (going from a new-born to a few months old in a badly done montage). Characters names are hard to pick up, with one character changing names from Kristi to Kirsty and back again.

PA2 takes a long time to build up to anything good. Though this turns out to be worthwhile, it still took too long for any good advancement in plot and throughout the majority of the film the audience feels bored and cannot be fully immersed. This is combined with lazy jump scares that detract from the psychological element of the film. In fact, some seem funny rather than scary, with many people in the cinema laughing at the ridiculous effects.

Though better than its predecessor for plot, albeit less scary, it just doesn’t deliver where it should. The best points of the film come within the last 10 minutes, leaving 81 minutes of boredom.

Final Verdict: 3/10