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.
