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Offline until tonight
Mar. 30th, 2006 06:16 amI've got jury duty today, so I'll be offline most of the day. There will be a new Nightmare on Elm Street countdown entry, but not until tonight.
Mar. 30th, 2006
As I've already said, my opinion of the top three NoES movies switches on a near-daily basis, and you can't go wrong with any of them. Today, we're looking at the movie that re-invented Freddy, creating the image of the lovable, wisecracking psychopath who uses gimicky kills. Although that same image is what eventually sent the series straight to hell, it's put to good use here in Craven's hands. Yes, we're looking at that classic piece of '80s filmmaking, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors.
Concept: Freddy is still seeking revenge on the children of Elm Street, and has been turning up the heat on the last few survivors, most of whom have ended up in an asylum. However, the remaining kids have discovered that they, too, have powers in their dreams, and team up to fight back against Freddy. WIth the help of Nancy, sole survivor of the first movie, as well as the one sympathetic doctor, Nancy's dad, and a mysterious nun, will they defeat Freddy and banish him once and for all?
Kills: Technically six, although some would argue that there were seven (even eight, if you count the fake murder of Kristen's mom). See below.
Really bad kills: none.
Really Good kills: All seven. Let's take them in order:
Nothing establishes Freddy's character better than the first kill of the movie, that of poor sleepwalking Phil, whose obsession with puppets leads to the first of Freddy's many ironic murders. While Phil naps, his puppets seem to come to life, including a marionette of Freddy himself. That's scary enough, but instead of giving us a preview of Child's Play (which wouldn't come out for another year), Freddy opts to play the puppet master, slicing open Phil's arms and legs, pulling out the veins, and guiding phil as if he were a puppet. To the folks who are awake, it looks as if Phil's merely sleepwalking again, and it's only when he ends up on a ledge that anyone realizes something's wrong. In the dream, Freddy snips the puppet strings, and Phil goes falling to his death.
Next, we have the death of Jen, which also includes the possible seventh death. While attempting to stay away (and burning herself with a cigarette to do so), she dozes off while watching Critters, and the next thing she knows, she's watching the Dick Cavett show. Out of nowhere, Dick turns into Freddy and fulfills a lifelong fantasy that we all share, by stabbing Zsa-Zsa Gabor to death. Alas, it's just a dream. However, since it's a dream, Jen's in trouble, as the wannabe actress gets grabbed by two cybernetic arms that emerge from the TV. Freddy's head emerges from the top of the set before smashes the girl into the TV set.
That's followed up by the death of recovering junkie Taryn. She's discovered her dream powers (which are, "fight like a gang member"), and holds Freddy off for a while with her switchblades, but Freddy soon grows hyperdermic needles from his glove, and stabs her with them, forcing Taryn to OD.
Next, Will, the resident Dungeons and Dragons-loving geek, confronts Freddy with his dream magic, throwing Magic Missiles and other spells at him (and destroying the evil-looking death-chair that Freddy wants to put him in), but Freddy shrugs off the attacks and guts him. I'll talk more about this one below.
Freddy then deals with Lieutenant Thompson back in our world, animating his remains (which Thompson and Dr. Gordon had been trying to bury) and creating a Harryhousen-esque skeleton that impales Thompson on the fin of a car.
And the final death, although the least gruesome, is Freddy's murder of Nancy. Appearing as her father, he gets her to let her guard down, and he stabs her in the gut. Had this been the final film in the series, it would have been an appropriate death to wrap things up.
Freddy's Quips: Oh, he's chock full of them here. It doesn't get much better than when he smashes wannabe actress Jen's head into a TV, shouting, "Welcome to prime time, bitch!" As he shows the needles to Taryn, he snarls, "let's get high," and after killing her, whispers, "what a rush." Wheelchair-bound Will, faced with the ghoulish wheelchair Freddy wants him to have, says that he'd rather stand, after which Freddy sings, "Back in the saddle again," following that up with, "it's the chair for you, kid." And then there's the great dream in which Kristen's mom's "date" turns out to be Freddy. We hear the date asking where the bourbon is from off screen, then, when she continues to talk to her daughter, Freddy bursts in, shouting, "where's the fucking bourbon?"
But none of those compare to Dick Cavett morphing into Freddy and shouting, "who gives a fuck what you think?" to Zsa Zsa before killing her. Let's face it -- it's a fantasy we've all entertained*.
Notable Celebrities: Well, aside from Cavett and Zsa Zsa, as well as returning vets Langenkamp and b-movie king John Saxon, we also get an early appearance by some guy named Laurence Fishburne, and Kristen, of course, is played by Patricia Arquette (in her first big-screen part). Priscilla Pointer (mother of Amy Irving) plays Dr. Simms, the horrible head of the institution, and that's pretty much it.
Denouement: A dying Nancy is able to attack Freddy long enough to distract him (and even stabbing him with his own claws), and Dr. Gordon buries Freddy's bones in consecrated ground, vanquishing Freddy forever. At Nancy's funeral (one of the many funerals that surely takes place that week), Gordon discovers that the mysterious Sister Mary Helena is really the ghost of Amanda Krueger, finally at peace now that her evil son has been destroyed.
Miscellany: The screenplay here was written by Craven, and worked over by director Chuck Russell (who would go on to give us the incredibly under-appreciated 1988 remake of The Blob, as well as The Mask), Bruce Wagner (best known for Wild Palms), and Frank Darabont, who would go on to pen and direct other b-horror flicks like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
There was a pre-movie novelization that differed vastly from the final release, featuring the deaths of Dr. Simms, Joey, and Kincaid, and shifing the final half of the movie into our world, with Freddy causing havoc using Kristen's power to create dream warps. I'm not sure if (or how much) that reflects Craven's original intent, but fun as some of those scenes would have been, they're not canon.
This movie establishes a real history for Freddy. In the first movie, we knew he was a child killer, but now we get a sense of his true origins. We discover that his mother was raped in an asylum, and we see him actively harvesting his souls. It's also the movie that really gives Freddy his personality as we know it.
But what makes this really important is the power it establishes. Take Will's death. He's got tons of nifty powers, and should be, in theory, invincible. But it's still Freddy's realm, and when Freddy decides to get serious, he's unstoppable. Everything the kids do in the dream realm, no matter how cool, is meaningless. Freddy likes playing with them, and likes challenges, but eventually, he just decides that enough is enough, and does whatever he feels like. People don't beat Freddy in the dream realm one-on-one, or even by teaming up. They beat him by catching him off-guard.
Overall: God, I love this movie. We meet Freddy's mom, we get his history, we see Nancy and her father again, we get the wisecracking Freddy and still get a legitimate sense of menace. And that's not even mentioning one of the great horror movie theme songs, Dokken's "Dream Warriors." Some aspects of the movie have aged poorly, but it's still a blast to watch. The acting is near-perfect, with notably good performances from all the kids (especially Arquette), and most of the adults (Langenkamp is surprisingly week, alas). Throw in a damned nifty script, some superb dream sequences (the Freddy snake, the tongue-ties on Joey, the junkyard skeleton), and you've got a damned fine flick. True, the films that followed this took the nifty concepts and watered them down into c-grade formula, but here, things are fresh and fun.
*If the screenplay circulating on the 'net is to be believed, it was originally Sally Kellerman who was to die here. Zsa Zsa was a much better choice.
Concept: Freddy is still seeking revenge on the children of Elm Street, and has been turning up the heat on the last few survivors, most of whom have ended up in an asylum. However, the remaining kids have discovered that they, too, have powers in their dreams, and team up to fight back against Freddy. WIth the help of Nancy, sole survivor of the first movie, as well as the one sympathetic doctor, Nancy's dad, and a mysterious nun, will they defeat Freddy and banish him once and for all?
Kills: Technically six, although some would argue that there were seven (even eight, if you count the fake murder of Kristen's mom). See below.
Really bad kills: none.
Really Good kills: All seven. Let's take them in order:
Nothing establishes Freddy's character better than the first kill of the movie, that of poor sleepwalking Phil, whose obsession with puppets leads to the first of Freddy's many ironic murders. While Phil naps, his puppets seem to come to life, including a marionette of Freddy himself. That's scary enough, but instead of giving us a preview of Child's Play (which wouldn't come out for another year), Freddy opts to play the puppet master, slicing open Phil's arms and legs, pulling out the veins, and guiding phil as if he were a puppet. To the folks who are awake, it looks as if Phil's merely sleepwalking again, and it's only when he ends up on a ledge that anyone realizes something's wrong. In the dream, Freddy snips the puppet strings, and Phil goes falling to his death.
Next, we have the death of Jen, which also includes the possible seventh death. While attempting to stay away (and burning herself with a cigarette to do so), she dozes off while watching Critters, and the next thing she knows, she's watching the Dick Cavett show. Out of nowhere, Dick turns into Freddy and fulfills a lifelong fantasy that we all share, by stabbing Zsa-Zsa Gabor to death. Alas, it's just a dream. However, since it's a dream, Jen's in trouble, as the wannabe actress gets grabbed by two cybernetic arms that emerge from the TV. Freddy's head emerges from the top of the set before smashes the girl into the TV set.
That's followed up by the death of recovering junkie Taryn. She's discovered her dream powers (which are, "fight like a gang member"), and holds Freddy off for a while with her switchblades, but Freddy soon grows hyperdermic needles from his glove, and stabs her with them, forcing Taryn to OD.
Next, Will, the resident Dungeons and Dragons-loving geek, confronts Freddy with his dream magic, throwing Magic Missiles and other spells at him (and destroying the evil-looking death-chair that Freddy wants to put him in), but Freddy shrugs off the attacks and guts him. I'll talk more about this one below.
Freddy then deals with Lieutenant Thompson back in our world, animating his remains (which Thompson and Dr. Gordon had been trying to bury) and creating a Harryhousen-esque skeleton that impales Thompson on the fin of a car.
And the final death, although the least gruesome, is Freddy's murder of Nancy. Appearing as her father, he gets her to let her guard down, and he stabs her in the gut. Had this been the final film in the series, it would have been an appropriate death to wrap things up.
Freddy's Quips: Oh, he's chock full of them here. It doesn't get much better than when he smashes wannabe actress Jen's head into a TV, shouting, "Welcome to prime time, bitch!" As he shows the needles to Taryn, he snarls, "let's get high," and after killing her, whispers, "what a rush." Wheelchair-bound Will, faced with the ghoulish wheelchair Freddy wants him to have, says that he'd rather stand, after which Freddy sings, "Back in the saddle again," following that up with, "it's the chair for you, kid." And then there's the great dream in which Kristen's mom's "date" turns out to be Freddy. We hear the date asking where the bourbon is from off screen, then, when she continues to talk to her daughter, Freddy bursts in, shouting, "where's the fucking bourbon?"
But none of those compare to Dick Cavett morphing into Freddy and shouting, "who gives a fuck what you think?" to Zsa Zsa before killing her. Let's face it -- it's a fantasy we've all entertained*.
Notable Celebrities: Well, aside from Cavett and Zsa Zsa, as well as returning vets Langenkamp and b-movie king John Saxon, we also get an early appearance by some guy named Laurence Fishburne, and Kristen, of course, is played by Patricia Arquette (in her first big-screen part). Priscilla Pointer (mother of Amy Irving) plays Dr. Simms, the horrible head of the institution, and that's pretty much it.
Denouement: A dying Nancy is able to attack Freddy long enough to distract him (and even stabbing him with his own claws), and Dr. Gordon buries Freddy's bones in consecrated ground, vanquishing Freddy forever. At Nancy's funeral (one of the many funerals that surely takes place that week), Gordon discovers that the mysterious Sister Mary Helena is really the ghost of Amanda Krueger, finally at peace now that her evil son has been destroyed.
Miscellany: The screenplay here was written by Craven, and worked over by director Chuck Russell (who would go on to give us the incredibly under-appreciated 1988 remake of The Blob, as well as The Mask), Bruce Wagner (best known for Wild Palms), and Frank Darabont, who would go on to pen and direct other b-horror flicks like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
There was a pre-movie novelization that differed vastly from the final release, featuring the deaths of Dr. Simms, Joey, and Kincaid, and shifing the final half of the movie into our world, with Freddy causing havoc using Kristen's power to create dream warps. I'm not sure if (or how much) that reflects Craven's original intent, but fun as some of those scenes would have been, they're not canon.
This movie establishes a real history for Freddy. In the first movie, we knew he was a child killer, but now we get a sense of his true origins. We discover that his mother was raped in an asylum, and we see him actively harvesting his souls. It's also the movie that really gives Freddy his personality as we know it.
But what makes this really important is the power it establishes. Take Will's death. He's got tons of nifty powers, and should be, in theory, invincible. But it's still Freddy's realm, and when Freddy decides to get serious, he's unstoppable. Everything the kids do in the dream realm, no matter how cool, is meaningless. Freddy likes playing with them, and likes challenges, but eventually, he just decides that enough is enough, and does whatever he feels like. People don't beat Freddy in the dream realm one-on-one, or even by teaming up. They beat him by catching him off-guard.
Overall: God, I love this movie. We meet Freddy's mom, we get his history, we see Nancy and her father again, we get the wisecracking Freddy and still get a legitimate sense of menace. And that's not even mentioning one of the great horror movie theme songs, Dokken's "Dream Warriors." Some aspects of the movie have aged poorly, but it's still a blast to watch. The acting is near-perfect, with notably good performances from all the kids (especially Arquette), and most of the adults (Langenkamp is surprisingly week, alas). Throw in a damned nifty script, some superb dream sequences (the Freddy snake, the tongue-ties on Joey, the junkyard skeleton), and you've got a damned fine flick. True, the films that followed this took the nifty concepts and watered them down into c-grade formula, but here, things are fresh and fun.
*If the screenplay circulating on the 'net is to be believed, it was originally Sally Kellerman who was to die here. Zsa Zsa was a much better choice.