aka A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Final Nightmare/A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 666: Freddy’s Dead
⭐️⭐️1/2
Ten years into the future (so, 1999 I believe) the entire population of children and teens has been wiped out in Springwood, OH by the fashion-forward kid-killer with that oh-so-familiar razor-tipped glove. Evidence comes to light of one surviving teen and that means old Fred Krueger (Englund, obviously) has more work to do. A weakening dream demon is getting desperate and the amnesiac teenager is just the thing old burn-face needs to escape the confines of his hometown and go worldwide with his campaign of terror… but not for the reason you think. Ya see, Freddy has an offspring and this offspring just so happens to be a counselor at a facility for troubled youth. I think this is supposed to be a surprise but if it is they do a horrible job of making it a twist. Maggie Burroughs has a group of kids under her care who are now prime candidates for Freddy’s particular style of ridiculous murder because she decides taking the kid with no memory back to Springwood is the best way to get him remembering. Of course, the other kids in her care have snuck aboard the van to attempt an escape. Uh oh. Fuckin’ Yaphet Kotto is hanging around as a kindly doctor pushing for dream therapy treatment, a young Breckin Meyer gets high, Johnny Depp cameos as himself, Alice Cooper cameos as Grandpappy Krueger and Tom Arnold shows up alongside notable racist Rosanne Barr as some of the mentally ill adults of Springwood. It’s a very dumb time that doesn’t take itself seriously which is more fitting to its wise-ass villain but also doesn’t offer up interesting protagonists that the series had previously put some effort towards. Hell, even the worst of the bunch (that would be Part 2) offered up some depth to its limited cast. Here, they kind of feel a bit more like kids Jason would be hacking apart. The slasher bubble had well and truly burst by this time with the usual boogeymen wandering around in their death throes. Diminishing returns on the familiar threats were a problem which is why the last hurrah of these creeps had to change things up. In ‘93 we got the undervalued Jason Goes to Hell, ‘95 gave us whatever the fuck The Curse of Michael Myers was and ‘94 blessed us with the refreshingly meta New Nightmare but this one came before them and pointed in the direction that the slashers we fell in love with through the eighties had ran out of steam. It’s not unwatchable and there’s even some bits I look back on fondly but it also shows that you can only beat a dead horse for so long.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Freddy Reborn! And also, Freddy Origins! The Dream Master’s survivor Alice (Lisa Wilcox) has a bun in the oven and a certain crispy, razor-gloved lunatic has a plan. The sleeping mind of the developing fetus is allowing Freddy (Englund) to continue on with his dream-related shenanigans, making contact with the one that managed to get away and using her abilities to continue on with his campaign of terror. This baby-to-be also serves as a means for Krueger to get his ugly ass reborn into this world. Alice has been having dreams about a nun coming to an awful fate… there’s a reason they call Freddy “the bastard son of a hundred maniacs” and it’s fortunately not explicitly presented but still nauseating. The unfortunate mother of the dream demon, Amanda, may be the key needed to defeat the monster for good but Alice and the recent batch of high school graduates in her friend circle may not last long enough for any kind of happy ending. A very dark undercurrent is awkwardly agitated by the wise-cracking villain slaughtering the attractive youths in ridiculous ways. I mean, it is what the audience paid for but it seems like there was a refreshingly bleak and weird vibe this flick was going for that it keeps stumbling over thanks to how it presents its star attraction. The Freddy the public wants just doesn’t fit into the story the movie wants to tell. So, it makes for an awkward time. Some of the visuals are impressive and even atmospheric at a few points and the cast is solid in the usual fashion this series was shockingly good at (hell, they even develop Alice’s alcoholic dad from the prior outing and that’s just unexpectedly great) but it truly feels like there was a better movie buried underneath all the excess. Again, it’s not a problem because you know what you’re getting into when you throw on an Elm Street movie and it’s not a bad addition to the series, there was just something different in the works that couldn’t be realized thanks to what the audience (but let’s be honest here, more likely the studio) expected.
aka Book of the Dead/Into the Woods
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Bonafide low-budget masterpiece put the name Sam Raimi into the hearts of genre fans and made a forever-hero out of Bruce by-God Campbell. Campbell is Ashley Williams (better known as Ash later on) and along with his girlfriend, sister and friends, they’re having a little weekend getaway at a rundown cabin in the middle of the Tennessee woods. Ash’s sister Cheryl has some psychic tendencies and picks up on the eerie vibes of the place immediately. When a freak gust of wind blows open the cellar door, the group uncover a horrifying book, a more horrifying dagger and a tape recorder featuring the recordings of a professor going on about demons, The Book of the Dead and the ability to summon these horrible things through the book. Of course, playing the actual recitation off of the recorder works well enough to bring forth the awfulness. A horrifying sexual assault via the surrounding forest leads to full-blown possession and it doesn’t take long for the physical destruction of human flesh to follow. Escape proves impossible as the bridge out is destroyed and the night drags on with very little hope for any of our heroes to make it out in one piece. Raimi and company turn everything up to 10 and let it run wild. Stop-motion and fake blood are put to good use while limbs fly, corpses reanimate and the demons corrupt the flesh. It’s constantly impressive just how much this team of enthusiastic rascals are able to pull off. Slight pacing issues may drag things at some points but it just adds to the incorruptible charm of the whole thing. Followed by a perfect sequel, a third entry that only pompous assholes dislike, a solid remake, a wonderful tv series and then two further entries that may have their flaws but remain immensely watchable. Innovative (that camera work has been homaged more than the fucking Necronomicon), exciting for just how damn different it feels, horrific despite its amateur roots and rightfully holding its place as a cult classic.
aka Halloween 6/Halloween 666: The Origin of Michael Myers/Halloween 6: Michael’s Back
⭐️1/2
All these years on, I still can’t believe this film wasn’t shot in Bulgaria. I mean, it feels like a penny-pinching exercise that should have been shot in Bulgaria. That’s just me. I opted to watch the theatrical cut because it was the one I didn’t have to go digging around for and my memory of the producer’s cut may be sketchy but I’m pretty sure it’s a film that deserves no extra effort. I’ll probably get to it someday… not anytime soon but someday. This is the culmination (and half-assed explanation) of the Mark of Thorn arch which goes to show that a heavy focus on this dumbass premise was never deserved because it blows. I’m sorry, we should have gone full-blown supernatural demonics or something to make this interesting. Hell, autumn aliens would have worked just fine for me, your movie was doomed to suck but at least it could have strayed so far beyond the premise of the series that I would have at least been impressed by the courage of the filmmakers. Alas. Here we are. Michael’s niece Jamie gives birth to a little baby in the evilest delivery room I’ve seen outside of a sleazy European horror flick and is soon murdered by her uncle after a sympathetic nurse helps her escape with her newborn child. The Cult of Thorn pulls the strings but also cursed Michael because… uhm… evil. So, Jamie manages to call into an irritating shock-jock’s radio program before getting slaughtered and it just so happens that Dr. Loomis (a thoroughly wasted Donald Pleasance in his final American film which just adds further insult) and Tommy Doyle (the boy Jamie Lee Curtis babysat in the original, here played by Paul Rudd, who would come a long way after this in acting ability and pay scale, in his first movie and billed as Paul Stephen Rudd) are listening in. Tommy is keeping a close eye on the Myers’ house because he knows evil will return. Jamie’s nebbish aunt and awful uncle who have, for some reason lacking any logic or plausibility, moved into the old Myers’ house along with their single-parent daughter (who has a derpy but possibly homicidal son) and “hip” teenage son. What the fuck? You’re just courting tragedy… dumbasses. Of course, Tommy manages to figure out where the call-in came from because socially awkward weirdos are always good at that type of thing and is able to find the stashed baby in a bus stop bathroom who really needs to consider hiring in a different janitorial staff. I mean, they missed blood splatter on a sink and a crying baby in a cabinet. Come on, team. Through coincidence, Tommy runs into Loomis when he takes the baby to the hospital and fills him in on some stuff. Michael is looking to slay Jamie’s son which has him returning to Haddonfield (which is in the process of throwing its first Halloween celebration in years) and wipe out the rest of the family in the process. The wonderful Mitchell Ryan is around as Dr. Wynn who is definitely up to no good whilst hanging around his retired colleague Dr. Loomis and Marianne Hagan is at least easy to look at as the Strode woman trying to survive the seasonal slasher and protect her spooky-ass son from the evil influence. Undeniably garbage outing is awarded some points because of how dumb it is but that will only get you so far. Pleasance is great, he always was no matter how little he was given to do and Rudd may not show any discernible talent in his debut but it’s fun watching him mishandle the character of Tommy. Laughable jump scares, a few despicable idiots, a mess of a plot, callbacks and some violent but lame murders (we do get an exploding head, I have never complained about an exploding head) keep things somewhat interesting in the right mindset. It’s still the weakest entry up to this point and would be followed by a much stronger outing a few years later… which would, in turn, be followed by a much weaker but hilarious outing and would then be thoroughly abused in the less-than-capable hands of Rob Zombie… but let’s not jump too far ahead.
aka Peachfuzz
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A man diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor hires a videographer for one day to make a video for his unborn son. The young man behind the camera becomes increasingly unsettled as the day progresses and begins to suspect the worst from the supposedly dying man. Discomfort grows as the truth is learned and the videographer manages to escape... then things get worse. A creepy wolf mask belonging to a “friendly” wolf character named Peachfuzz is introduced early on and it would seem the “sick” man has an unhealthy tie to it. You’re well aware right off the bat that something just isn’t right and are allowed to slip into the same unease as the protagonist. Some poor decision making may have the viewer slapping their head but the two-man show is well handled with Mark Duplass standing out as the man who is just charming enough to make you silence that doubt in the back of your head, screaming to take to the hills. Minimal but in a completely satisfying way.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Freddy (Englund, naturally) gets funny but still kills, proving that you never work a day in your life if you love your job. With his murder-boner still firmly pointed in the direction of those damn Elm Street kids, old crispy-face gets back to manipulating dreams to murder local idiots. Resurrected after a dog lets loose some flaming piss on his final resting place (checks notes… yes, a dog pees fire on his junkyard grave), the dream demon with a book full of dad jokes gets to killing the survivors from Dream Warriors. Patricia Arquette does not return as Kristen but cute as all hell Tuesday Knight (who would show up much later in Amityville Bigfoot) is more than capable in the role. It doesn’t really matter anyways because in a nice little curveball she gets the Marion Crane treatment just much later into the film than the lovely Janet Leigh. This leaves the battle up to the daydreaming Alice who Kristen transfers her power to just before Freddy claims her soul. This also means a new group of youngsters are now on the chopping block for the sins of a different generation. Not exactly meticulously etched out characters, they’re still unique enough to be more memorable than most of the dinks that came under whatever sharp instrument Jason was carrying at the time. I still prefer the traditional slasher stylings of the Friday the 13th flicks but I’ve always felt that the Nightmare series had better victims… except for Ginny, Ginny is greater than all of them. Sorry, Amy Steel tangents happen to the best of us. Anyways, with most of the people she loves dead, Alice decides to take the fight to Freddy and things get silly. As an idiot who doesn’t hold eighties horror over any other decade, I’m completely fine with our hero doning materials from her deceased buddies and flipping around like a ninja while using vague powers to fight the villain. I’m just a silly boy and this is just a silly film with some suitably icky special effects. Death by toddler hands is no way any franchise villain should go out but I’m not complaining.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Yes. It does deliver both blood and sex, it even combines them more than once but outside of a pretty cool looking zombie slasher and some blood splattered naughty bits there ain’t much else. Horny piece of crap Nick, guilts his virginal girlfriend Amy into going to a sex resort with him in the middle of the woods. As soon as they arrive they run into a creepy and horny old timer named Walter who rambles on about banging and the imminent death of everyone. Soon, kinky couples are dropping like flies and it’s revealed Walter is in cahoots with the zombie killer whose limbo-trapped spirit was unleashed when all the sexual energy of the perverted camp stirred things up. Amy begins having visions (I think because she’s Asian she’s supposed to have a stronger link to the supernatural or some such bullshit) and the rotting killer has a plan for rebirth. Graphic penis dismemberment, strangulation by severed dick and a rotting dong ejaculating blood all over poor Amy are just some of the weirdo sites that await you. Sadly it suffers from the whole cannon fodder problem of character introductions for the purpose of gruesome demise. It’s alright for what it is and the sexual violence does give it a leg up to the usual low-budget humdrum backyard slashers end up delivering. Plenty of nudity and cheap gore but it still feels a little too empty for my tastes.
