The Friday Night Horror Movie: A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

nightmae on elm street

This is going to be a slight cheat. Obviously, I write a lot of movie reviews for Cinema Sentries. I do it for fun; I don’t get paid for it (I do get free Blu-rays, which is nice.) I’m not sure if I’d want to be in the cultural critic business right now; those folks are having a tough time of it. I’m also happy I don’t have anyone demanding I watch certain things. I review the things I request. I try to keep my requests down to a steady pace, but sometimes I go a little overboard, and I wind up with a stack of Blu-rays sitting on my desk, and that can be overwhelming.

That’s happening to me right now. I have a Blu-ray in front of me that I just watched but need to review. I’ve got another one I’ll hopefully watch later tonight. I have a six-film boxed set of Errol Flynn movies and another boxed set of all seven Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

That’s a lot of movies to watch and review. The Nightmare set is actually on the bottom of the pile, but since tonight is Friday and I always do a horror movie on Fridays, I thought I’d bump the first Nightmare on Elm Street up and kill two birds with one stone.

That also means I won’t be digging too deep into it because I’ll want to save all my best thoughts for the official review.

What I will say is that I love this movie. I grew up in the 1980s, and so slashers are my horror movie sweet spot, and this is one of my all-time favorites. Freddy Kreuger is a horror icon, and this is where he started. In later films he’d become a wise-cracking goof (admittedly a goof that will kill you in the end, but still a goof), but here he’s absolutely terrifying.

It was a stroke of genius having him kill inside of dreams, as that allows the film to eschew the laws of physics and reality. Anything goes, and the film makes good use of that. The imagery here is absolutely iconic. From the wall that turns elastic to the claws reaching up from the bathtub or the stairway steps turning to goo, to Freddy’s outstretched arms, the film is simply loaded with memorable shots. There is a wonderful tactile quality to the film and its use of practical effects. Sometimes that means you can see the filmmaking behind it – you can tell that the goo inside those steps is oatmeal, and when Freddy falls down the stairs, you can see the mattress he lands on—but I much prefer that to the CGI garbage so many modern films rely on.

So, yeah, I love this movie. I will have more to say about it and all of its sequels in a week or so. Look right here in these pages for that link when it comes out.

Funny story, just now as I’m about to post this I have a premonition to do a search of my site for this film, just in case I’d written about it before. I couldn’t remember writing about it, but I write a lot of stuff so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick search.

Friends I wrote a full review of the film (and its release in UHD) just over a year ago!

The Strange Woman (1946) Blu-ray Review

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Hedy Lamarr was a remarkable woman. Not only was she a great actress, but she was an inventor too. She helped design a torpedo navigation system that became the basis for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies.

Here she plays a woman who is considered strange, and perhaps evil because she has the audacity to act like a man. Not in any physical, sexual, or gendered way, but rather she recognizes that to get what she wants, she has to do what the men do around her – she has to take it.

It is a strange movie, and not a particularly great one, but it has a great performance from Lamarr. You can read my full review of the new Blu-ray over at Cinema Sentries.

The Rapacious Jailbreaker (1974) Blu-ray Review

rapacious jailbreaker

This Japanese drama is loosely based on a real guy who kept breaking out of jail only to be sent back shortly after (then he’d break out again.) In the film this becomes his entire identity. He cannot live in the hell that is prison, yet when he escapes he doesn’t know what to do with himself so he always gets caught and finds himself back in prison.

It is more of a character study than any type of thriller, but it is a good one. You can read my full review here.

31 Days of Horror: The Mummy (1959)

the mummy

I’ve talked about Hammer Horror numerous times in these pages. Their most famous, and arguably their best, films were when they essentially remade the classic Universal Monster Movies (Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy). Hammer updated the filmmaking to 1950-1970s standards, giving them lots more violence and sex appeal, while still keeping the stories interesting and familiar. They made a lot of sequels to the three main monsters, and I’ve seen most of them, but never in order. A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to actually watch them in order. Unfortunately, I watched the first two (Dracula, The Revenge of Frankenstein) before I decided to start writing again, and it has been too long for me to reasonably be able to talk about them now. So we’ll just begin here.

The Mummy (1932) is my least favorite of the classic Universal Monster Movies (at least of the originals; some of the later sequels are pretty bad.) And so it is with Hammer’s attempt at making a Mummy movie (the only truly good Mummy film is that one with Brendan Fraser from the 1990s).

This one has its moments, but it gets bogged down in a rather dull backstory that completely destroys any momentum the film had going for it. The plot steals most of its details from several of the sequels to the Universal Mummy movie. A couple of archaeologists are searching for the tomb of Egyptian Ananka in 1885. The father finds it and accidentally awakens Kharis (Christopher Lee) the mummified guardian of Ananka. This sends the father into a catatonic state.

He awakens three years later and tells his tale to his son, John Banning (Peter Cushing.) The Mummy will now attack all those who desecrated Ananka’s tomb. But first, an overly long backstory. The film flashes back to tell us about Kharis and his secret relationship with Ananka. Honestly, it isn’t interesting enough to delve into, but the film seems to love it.

Actually, I feel like the costume and set designers worked really hard on this section (and probably spent a lot of money on it), so the filmmakers felt they needed to make all that time and money fill the screen for a while. There is literally a parade where extras in extravagant costumes, carrying ornate props, walk across the screen for several minutes. It completely kills the momentum of the film.

Eventually, we get back to the film proper and get some good Mummy action, and it is there that the film excels. Christopher Lee’s mummy costume looks great. He mostly just moans and walks awkwardly across the screen, so I can’t say much about his acting (he is unmummified in the flashbacks, which might be why that scene is so long – Lee wanted more time on screen unwrapped). Whenever the Mummy gets shot, holes blow right through him. The effect is pretty chilling (though sadly there is no scene like you see on the poster where a light shines straight through.

Peter Cushing is great as always and the scenes where he’s battling it out with the Mummy are the best parts of the movie. The rest of it is rather dull, I’m afraid.

Still, it is definitely worth watching if you are interested in Hammer Horror. But I’d recommend the Dracula films first.

Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection is the Pick of the Week

peanuts

It is a very good week for new Blu-ray/4K releases. There are tons of cool stuff to choose from but I had to go with a bit of a nostalgic choice. I have very fond memories of watching those classic Charlie Brown specials when I was a kid and this new boxed set includes 40 different specials/movies, most of which I haven’t seen but I’d love to dig into them.

You can read all about it and more by clicking here.

Dogtooth (2009) 4K UHD Review

dogtooth

Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most creative, strange, and incredible directors working today. Dogtooth was his second feature film, and it might be his strangest.

It is about a man and a woman with three adult children. The children have never been let out of the house/garden. They are regularly taught false meanings to everyday words. They believe they have a fourth sibling, whom was bad and thus was sent to live outside of the yard and to whom they regularly talk to and throw gifts (but who doesn’t actually exist.) Etc. Basically the parents had children to experiment on them.

It gets even weirder but that would spoil the film. It is utterly bizarre but like all Lanthimos films there is something deeper going on behind the strangeness. I loved it, but I don’t know that I’ll ever want to watch it again.

You can read my full review here.

31 Days of Horror: The Descent (2005)

the descent poster

Three best friends come together one year after a terrible tragedy. It has been a difficult year, not only because of that tragedy but because it ripped their friendship apart. They have gathered in the Appalachian Mountains, along with three other women, for a little spelunking adventure, and hopefully to mend their friendship back together.

As one might surmise, things do not go that well for them. As some of the girls are not hardcore cavers the initial plan is to take a relatively easy expedition. Not too easy, mind you, as all the girls are adventurers and like a good challenge, but nothing too difficult or dangerous. As you might surmise, that plan is dropped. One of the girls, without telling the others, leads them to an uncharted and unnamed cave.

After a brief introduction of the characters and the setup, director Neil Marshall literally drops us into the main action. To get into the cave, they have to drop a good hundred feet straight down. The film makes great use of the setting’s darkness. Things are only illuminated by flashlights, the red glare of flares, and occasionally phosphorescent rocks. It uses the tight, claustrophobic spaces to great effect as well. There are times when our characters must squeeze through the tiniest of openings, or avoid falling into dark pits. The danger is palpable.

A cave-in pushes them into desperation. With no map or guidebook, they’ll have to use their wits to get out. And then something even more terrifying occurs. They realize they are not alone. The last chunk of the film moves into more gore-centered slasher territory, which I found to be a letdown. But until then, The Descent is one hell of a thrill ride.

An interesting side note. I originally watched this when I was living in Shanghai, China. About the only way to see films there was to buy bootleg DVDs. With those, you never knew what you were going to get. Sometimes they were cam rips, created by literally filming it inside a movie theater. Other times you’d get some old VHS rip. It was difficult to watch non-English films because the subtitles were often translations of the Chinese translations of the original language.

Usually they were rips of the DVD releases, and even then you never knew what you were going to get. I watched a copy of Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake, and when I went to read the reviews, I realized the film I watched was not the same film everyone else was talking about. I had some kind of alternate cut.

While watching The Descent on the Criterion Channel, I realized the ending was different from my memories. Looking it up, I found there is an American version and a much bleaker European cut. I guess I originally watched the European cut.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: What Lies Beneath (2020)

WHaT LIES BENEATH poster

Robert Zemeckis had an incredible run in the 1980s through the 1990s. It started with Romancing the Stone in 1984 and ran through the Back to the Future Trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Death Becomes Her, and Contact. I was a big fan. When I learned he was making a thriller with Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, I was completely on board. I believe I saw it opening weekend in the theater. I was highly disappointed. I’ve not seen it since.

The Criterion Channel is currently running a bunch of horror films from the 2000s. This is one of them. Lately, I’ve been revisiting films from my youth that I didn’t much care for at the time to see if the decades since might have made me more attuned to their wavelength. This is especially true for films that my critic friends seem to like.

So, I figured it was time to revisit this one and see if I’ve changed my mind. Friends, it still stinks. Well, okay, it isn’t that bad, but it is a bit of a mess.

This is basically Zemeckis doing Hitchcock, but that’s not really a thing in his wheelhouse.

It begins like a Rear Window homage. Claire Spencer (Pfeiffer) and her husband, Norman (Ford) live in a big, beautiful, lakeside house in Vermont. He’s a fancy researcher at a fancy college. She gave up her musical career to be a mom. As the film begins, they are saying goodbye to their daughter, who is headed off to college. Claire is having a hard time with this. She’s lonely and bored.

She notices the new neighbors are often fighting. Loudly. One rainy night she spies him loading something (a big covered something) into the trunk of his car. Did he just murder his wife? Suspicions run even higher when she stops by with a welcoming package and realizes that the wife’s car is in the garage, but she seems to be gone. And the husband is being cagey.

But just as that idea gets going, the film shifts gears. Now Claire is seeing ghosts. She hears whispers, the front door keeps finding itself open, and the bath is filled with hot water when nobody’s home.

All of this works well enough. Ford and Pfeiffer are too good of actors, and Zemekis too talented a director for it not to, but it never rises above. It never quite thrilled me. I never really believed the ghost angle, and without that there isn’t much more to the story. I kept half expecting the neighbor to show back up and to be an actual killer. I think I would have preferred that to what we actually get.

The trailer for the film famously spoils half the movie and the big twist towards the end. I won’t do that in case you haven’t seen it. The first time I watched the film, I felt the ending really killed the film’s momentum, but this time I found the final act to be the most interesting. That’s when Zemeckis goes into full Hitchcock mode, allowing himself to move away from the problematic script (by Clark Gregg!) and into pure direction. Although, I’ll still admit there are some really silly bits to its conclusion.

It isn’t a terrible film, just not a great one. And with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see how this marks the beginning of a downside to the director and his two stars.

Now Watching: One Battle After Another (2025)

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One Battle After Another (2025)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, and Chase Infiniti

When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue one of their own’s daughter.

Rating: 8/10

I’ve been hearing raves about this film, and I really wanted to see it in a theater, so when I got off work a little early today, I went to a matinee. The show started at 3, and I arrived about 7 minutes till. I bought my ticket and my snacks (Junior Mints and a Dr. Pepper – a rarity for me, as my wife always makes me get popcorn).

The guy behind the counter told me the theater number, but I didn’t pay him much mind, as they have posters up in front of each entrance. I wandered down the hall one way, then the other, and finally found my theater.

It was completely empty. Surprisingly, they didn’t have any commercials or trailers playing on the screen. It was completely dark. I figured since I was the only one there and I had just bought my ticket, they weren’t bothering with the usual pre-movie nonsense.

Time passed, and soon it was five minutes past three. Then ten. Still no movie. And it was hot. I was literally starting to sweat. I got up and went back to the guy who sold me the ticket. I politely explained the movie wasn’t running and asked if he could turn down the air. He said he’d tell his manager, and I went back and sat down.

Another five minutes rolled by, and now I’m getting annoyed. The movie is a long one, and I don’t want to be here all night.

Then the guy comes in. He sheepishly says he’s figured out the problem. I’m in the wrong theater. Those posters in front of the entrance are digital displays, and they’ve got them all wrong. It is now fifteen minutes past the hour, and I’m afraid I’ve missed the start of the movie. I curse, then rush to the correct theater. Luckily, they are still showing previews, and I’m good to go.

Paul Thomas Anderson is a director I really like, but I find his films difficult at first watch. They are usually long and dense, and their points of view are off-kilter, which can make them difficult to grasp.

I usually have to sit with them for a while and then maybe watch again before I decide to really love them.

And so it was with One Battle After Another. I liked it a lot, but I’m not ready to love it. I need to think about it for a bit.

Leonardo DiCaprio is very good as a former revolutionary who seems to have really gotten into it for a girl and who isn’t all that bright. Years after a big dustup between his group and a racist Army dude (played to perfection by Sean Penn) pass, and he’s now a slack-jawed stoner trying to raise a teenage girl. The Sean Penn character comes back into the picture, and things get wild.

Really wild. The name is apt because this is a film that very rarely lets up. The performances are all top-notch, and there is plenty of black humor, crazy absurdities, and more. I really did like it, but like I said, I need to sit with it a bit.

As the title of this post implies, I’m back with the idea of writing little mini-reviews of all the movies I watch. Let’s see how long I keep up with it this time.

Five Cool Things and The Mandalorian and Grogu

batman three jokers

I just wrote my new Five Cool Things for Cinema Sentries which you can read here. Of course I’ve written lots of other things for Cinema Sentries since I started taking a break on this blog. I’ll try to regularly post those and then go back and post all the other things I’ve written for them and never posted here. Plus some new stuff as well.