Hello friends! And maybe even some enemies! It's time for us to began anew! Yes! I bring you a new series of blog posts! Maybe! Hopefully! I want to discuss movie franchises and rank them from worst to best (because it's fun that way) and I figured that the best series of movies to do that with is the A Nightmare On Elm Street because I very much enjoy the majority of films in this franchise! It will be an easy start! I was thinking of Friday the 13th because I also like the majority of films in that franchise but A Nightmare On Elm Street had less films to rewatch and I am quite lazy. Anyway let's roll back the clock to when I was but a wee little child. I grew up in the VHS era. If you wanted to see a movie you had like three options. Wait for it to come on TV at some weird time, rent it on VHS or rent it on Laserdisc. Later on we'd get DVD but that's for another time. Anyway when I was a kid I'd rent something like The Good The Bad and the Huckleberry Hound or The Care Bears Movie 2: A New Generation. I would pick my VHS up and then stroll to the horror section. My parents never let me rent them it was always NO MICHAEL until one fateful trip to Lewisporte. It was our summer vacation trip to visit my cousins and aunt and uncle. I got sick and they worried it would cause an asthma attack and they brought me home but before having to go home early they said I could rent these movies! I went fucking wild. Even if I had to watch them with my dad who would fast forward through the scary/violent bits. They thought I would get tired after maybe a few movies but no sir! I never did! I still watch way too many (probably not very good) horror films!
Now let's go do a little bit of history on New Line Cinema and ol' Freddy. New Line Cinema started in 1967 and mostly just distributed films until they could make one of their own in 1977. It was called Stunts and was made by the man who made the greatest action film of the 1980s Mark L. Lester. The movie he made was Commando, a film all should see. Anyway in 1984 they made A Nightmare On Elm Street with a young fresh faced man by the name of Wesley Craven. It was a hit. So they made another, and another, and another, and another and another and then quit for a while before making another and another. It was Freddy Central for like most of the 1980s and 1990s. I remember being a kid in the 1990s and still hearing about these movies before I had ever seen any. Freddy was EVERYWHERE in the 1980s. He hung out with the Fat Boys, Dokken and Willard Smith. He had many video games, toys and other crap I desperately want to own. Even decades later he still enjoyed success and people still would like to see another entry. Pretty good for a guy who enjoys murdering children. Without Freddy Krueger you probably would never have gotten those stupid Lord of the Rings movies I refuse to ever watch because he made New Line Cinema THAT much money. Also this ranking will have some HOT TAKES that no one will like! Enjoy being angry at a person I guess watching movies wrong.
Anyway let's get to ranking these movies!
The biggest hurdle I had to get over to get this new shiny blog post series out to you people was having to rewatch this giant fucking turd of a motion picture. It was one of the shitty Platinum Dunes remakes. I do not think I liked a single one of them, okay the Friday the 13th remake was okay if I recall correctly. The rest however were dull basic remakes. I remember people freaking out about Texas Chainsaw Massacre being remade in 2003. Now we don't care. Hollywood has beaten us with the past so much that we are like "okay fine give us the Mr. Ed movie or something" but we had passion in the 2000s! PASSION AND JOY FOR LIFE! Okay I have to talk about this movie now. First off, nothing against Jackie Earl Haley but he is a fucking terrible Freddy Krueger. The man seems bored to be even playing this role. I think everyone in this movie was bored. I had forgotten that Clancy Brown was in this movie and how the hell do you forget that Clancy fucking Brown was in something! the man was the Kurgen! and Lex Luthor! It also has no original ideas of its own and just does everything from the original again just poorly. I do not like this movie and I do not want to talk about it any more.
You know how I said this post would have HOT TAKES and to be careful not to get angry over them because it's only a movie and I'm not asking for it to be banned. Please put down the pitchforks and axes and knives and sticks on fire, I don't wanna die because I just do not like Wes Craven's New Nightmare. I know that everyone and their mother who watches horror films loves this one but I do not. I remember even being confused by the movie (probably didnt help that my dad fast forwarded through important scenes) but I was deathly confused and I've seen every other A Nightmare on Elm Street movie several times but I have not seen this one in thirty or so years (good lord I now feel old. Thank you jerks) I just don't really get it. Maybe I just wanted another Freddy Krueger as Freddy Krueger story and not some kind of Storybook Demon that can be trapped within stories. Maybe it's the fact that I just find this movie to be dull. Maybe its the fact that despite acting in like 49324029402490 things as a child the kid actor (who was Michelle's shitty friend in Full House and the kid from Pet Semetary) in this movie is fucking terrible. Holy shit. Couldn't you have found a better actor? Jesus Harold Christ. Am I saying this movie is a turd or anything? No. I can see why people like it but if I have to watch Wes Craven get metatextual and fourth wall breaky in something I'll watch any of one of the Scream films.
This movie actually moved up in my eyes. Now I feel it's...........pretty okay........actually I'm pretty sure I thought it was pretty okay back in the day so I guess it actually didn't move up that much in my eyes. The biggest problem this movie has is that the characters are boring as fucking hell. One thing rewatching these movies showed me is that the characters in the first six films are actually all very likable and you care about what happens to them. Not so here. I did not care about any of these characters. Except maybe the black chick who I think was in Destiny's Child. I do not care enough to check that out. Sorry. She was weirdly hilarious. In fact this movie has some pretty funny lines of dialogue. I like that Jason gets to be WILDLY VIOLENT in this movie and there's a cool fire stunt where the guy playing Jason gets set on fire for like an INSANE amount of time. That shit rules and I love it. Anyway, This movie is okay but I wish it was better.
Now we are getting to the movies that I quite like. This and all of the rest are movies I will willingly watch with anyone if they so desire and not complain. I will complain if you make me watch Lord of the Rings portnoyd. Don't even try. Anyway this movie involves Jesse a new kid on Elm Street and Freddy wanting to get out of the dream world and trying to use Jesse. I don't even know why Freddy wants to get out of the dream world because he's pretty much God inside it. Anyway this is considered the gay one because of hilarious gay subtext that the people making it didn't realize was there. I don't really buy that because the character ends up in a damn gay BDSM bar at one point. You tricky boys knew what you were doing! Anyway I've always liked this one but not as much as the others. It's interesting because it really is a bit different than the others. It's the black sheep of the franchise. Like Halloween 3: Season of the Witch and Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning. I've always liked all three of those movies and It's the only time I will ever get to say that I was ahead of the curve on something. It's not much but I at least got that!
Look at this beautiful UK poster for this movie. This is the one with Alice's kid who Freddy uses the dreams of to kill her friends. They decided to have Freddy become pregnant. Which really doesn't make any sense for a lot of reasons but it's funny so I decided to use it here. Anyway, this is a really fun Nightmare outing. I enjoy the ridiculous death scenes in this one. They were making the death scenes more and more ridiculous. The more money they made the more ridiculous the deaths became. My favorite of course is the comic book one. SUPER FREDDY! I think that one is hilarious. The motorcycle one was also awesome. I also loved the ending. Somehow finding Amanda Kreuger's dead body causes her to get the power to shove Freddy back into the womb. It is special effects driven lunacy and holy shit am I here for it. I enjoyed the characters and if they ever make another one of these I hope they bring back Alice. She was a cool cat.
Why does Freddy Kreuger have a weird Cybernetic Cyborg eye in this movie poster. I do not get it and I really want to know. They say you get to ask God a question when you pass and I think that just might have to be my question. I'm pretty sure the answer will be "The artist thought it would look cool (AND IT DOES)" then God would tell me I'm bothering him and to go away. I would be sad. Then I would watch this movie because it is awesome and always cheers me up. It is the second part of the Alice/Dream Warriors trilogy within this franchise. It wild that all three big horror franchises of the 1980s, Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street all had these mini trilogies within them. That's really neat. Anyway this one is pretty great, it's the start of Freddy Kreuger as a big giant goofy clown that enjoys to murder. I have to give credit to Mr. Robert Englund. When Freddy had to be scary the son of a bitch was scary. When he became THE COMEDY MASTER, he made the son of a bitch really funny. I also like that they bring back the bad guy in the most ridiculous way possible and I watch a lot of horror movies and read a lot of comics but nothing beats a dog pissing fire which brings Freddy back to life. It's awesome. The only problem I have is that Kincaid, Joey and Kristen had to die. I just don't really like when the sequel kills off the previous movies heroes. Oh well, it still went for some great entertainment. Also the kill where Freddy turns that tough girl into a cockroach is probably the greatest kill in the history of cinema. Wild shit.
Yes. I told you there would be two hot takes. I think this hot take will cause more anger than the last one. People do not like Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare but I fucking love it. Yes, I know that Freddy is no longer even one iota scary in this film. I get that. However, he';s fucking hilarious in this movie. This is the most quotable of all of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. "NO SCREAMING WHILE THE BUS IS IN MOTION!" He literally becomes a demented Bugs Bunny in this one. There's one scene where a deaf guy is trying to find his way around things and Freddy's jumping around in the background and I'm like wow if Elmer Fudd couldn't hear for some reason Bugs Bunny would do the same thing. The only exception is that Freddy than murders the deaf kid and screams HEY CARLOS NICE HEARING FROM YA! I just can't hate a movie that's this gleeful. It's just not possible. I also liked seeing some of Freddy's early life. My brain is also telling me to tell you about the Cracked magazine spoof of this movie called Dreddy's Dead. Yep. That's not very good but that's Cracked Magazine for ya! Also it's on the internet archive and you can relive the "glory days" of Cracked magazine here!
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I should spend some time talking about Wes Craven. Even though I don't agree with him about the rest of the series being not great or just wishing it was one movie, the man was really quite good at making horror films. Hell even when they were not very good they were still fun to watch. Tell me Deadly Friend wasn't a hoot. The only Wes Craven movie I haven't seen was the one non-horror movie he directed which he really wanted to do. Didn't hate horror movies or anything just wanted to at least one time direct something that didn't involve blood and guts and people going through trauma. I also like that he picked the least like a horror movie he could choose. Didn't Meryl Streep show up in Music form the Heart? again I've never seen it. Anyway this is his best motion picture. At least when it comes to directing. He really knocked it out of the park here. This movie is incredibly creative, pretty well thought out and pretty damn scary. I also like that Freddy owns some kind of dream lamb that he uses to scare people. That is weirdly hilarious but weirdly unsettling. Just imagine your in a weird ass boiler room and of all animals a fuckin lamb starts charging out at you. That's weird as hell man! The only problem is that I think the ending could have been done a bit better. The I TAKE AWAY THE ENERGEY I GAVE YOU thing is a tad goofy. The actual shock ending might be a little goofier. I still love this movie and I really wish Heather Langenkamp got to go on to a really big acting career. I always thought she was good and I still think of her first when I think of Elm Street heroines (sorry Alice and Freddy's daughter, Maggie) Anyway it's a classic and should be watched by all!
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