The Book of Horror (May Contain Spoilers)

[nopersonality]

Chapter 114: Children of the Dead


The House by the Cemetery
(1981 / director: Lucio Fulci)

★★

Of all Fulci's works-in-progress, I find House by the Cemetery to be the most tragic case of the director's on-again / off-again relationship with filmmaking. Every one of his films feel half-finished. That could very well be what makes him unique enough to explain his cult following. It can't be denied (and I wouldn't dare try) that the guy had talent. I haven't seen a film of his yet where there wasn't some sign of hidden genius. He had an elegant brand of showmanship when it came to artfully minimalist sequences and set-ups. He also knew how to frame a shot and achieve a heady atmosphere. His films are actually better nightmares (with their dripping, gothic dustiness) and make you feel more than Argento's - his obvious competition (both would alternate between the giallo, the Italian slasher film, and supernatural genres). But Argento had more substance and was able to find consistency in his work. Fulci would always either get lost or plain give up. What remains is a series of films that have truly amazing parts but don't make a whole. And so, back to House. This suffers the most from Fulci's inherent shortcomings because, of all his films, it's the only one I've seen with any indication of having a heart. The story is about something, too. Shockingly. It's about children playing. Thankfully, it doesn't try to repeat or rip-off the superior Curse of the Cat People (1944) by delving into the process of a child's imagination. It's actually about what children see that we don't. And in that regard, kudos to Fulci for an idea that beat Poltergeist by a year and The Sixth Sense by almost 20!

The plot involves a family from Boston who pack up and move to the deep woods of a creepy old house in New England when the father accepts a research job cleaning up after a former colleague who went freaking nuts and murdered some people. The mother is not well and takes mysterious pills prescribed by her baker (no, that's not a typo; the movie actually says her baker wrote her prescription). And the young son, Bob, likes to go outside looking for things to bring into the house- usually old toys. When he meets a young girl about his age who lives nearby, May, she won't go inside and warns him never to either. But he doesn't have a choice. Another one of Fulci's great talents was being able to sniff out an amazing music score. In fact, this score by Walter Rizzati is one of the most beautiful and creepy things in horror I've ever heard, both extremes blend together perfectly. If only I could say the same thing about the plot. In spite of the good ideas behind the schlocky sensationalism (Fulci trademarks on full display here, such as gore sequences - within each murder set piece - that last over a minute each), lie perhaps the largest collection of plot gaps in Fulci's entire career. The most glaring one being the babysitter (a painfully obvious copycat of Mrs. Baylock from The Omen). Her character's purpose changes in every scene we see her. Usually, she's playing some variant on mischievous. In one scene that copies Omen shot-for-shot, she even approaches the mother with intent to harm. Then, Fulci changes his mind and turns her into a victim (probably because the bodycount is too low).

Fulci's bread and butter at the time was zombies. After what I assume was his 1979 smash hit film (of the same name), financers demanded he put zombies into every film he made. For awhile. Until this film. This one does feature a zombie but like The Beyond before it, the focus is really on ghosts. Fulci was really into modern mythological ideas suggesting that there are two worlds around us at all times (Lovecraft influenced?). One we all can see, hear, touch. And one that only some of us can sense. That could be the explanation for all the elements in his films that come out of nowhere. Which is ideal if it's a scene of worms flying into a room from an open window. Right there you've got your wall that divides the two dimensions, like a doorway from one world to the other. The horror here comes from not knowing who is in which world and what force can hurt them. That's the set-up. What Fulci does next is herd the cattle in for the slaughter. That's where he loses me, every time. I like gore as much as the next horror fan but I like it handled by someone with a knack for it. Fulci never had that. In his eyes, quantity is quality. Say what you want about the other splatter directors but none of them had as little tact as Fulci. All of them had better resources, or at the very least better methods of editing and techniques to keep us from focusing on how fake it all looks. Fulci shamelessly threw everything in but the kitchen sink when it came to his gore scenes and hated to cut away from them. So, while his dialogue might seem ridiculous (only because of poor English translation), at least those scenes had brevity on their side.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 108: The Mirror Don't Lie


Prom Night
(1980 / director: Paul Lynch)

★★

If most people here were to watch this movie right now, they would scoff at my low rating. I admit, for its' type, this is a very impressive slasher film. It looks amazing (though on all VHS prints, the infamous chase scene in the dark rooms of the high school was too dark to see anything that was happening). The characters are smart, even the nasty ones. The drama is well-handled. The terror and tension are palpable. The violence is sadistic but in an arty way. The music is kinky. The sexual content is adult without being overly insulting. And hey- a chubby guy gets laid without being too obnoxious about it, before or after. Compared to shit like Maniac and The Prowler- this movie would sweep the Academy Awards in the brain department. With Jamie Lee Curtis a shoe-in for Best Actress, she KILLS in this movie. Not to knock a classic, and a film I totally respect, but her performance here blows away anything intented or accomplished for her and her character in Carpenter's Halloween.

And yet, I was consistently distracted throughout the running time by several things. One is how completely irrelevant - and completely boring - the police investigation was to the plot of the movie. I get it, it's like tongue-in-cheek and "Halloween did it, so why can't we?" But if this is a commentary on movie police- I don't think we care. And if this is a commentary on real police investigations of murders, what are you proving by having them guess the little girl died because of an attempted rape? Which we know is completely off the beaten track. There is no evidence of anything like that at the crime scene. And the way they handle it here isn't funny or disturbing (beyond what you'd guess is going on inside the writer's head), so I don't see the reasoning for it. The police stuff here eats up almost 10 complete minutes of screentime, so feel free to just step out and make something to eat. Trust me, you won't miss anything.

Then, there's the bad acting. There are so many bad line readings here, it's painful. From blown lines to facial expressions not matching up with the dialogue to the little blonde girl's amazingly bad 'dramatic' stuttering. Some people are trying a lot harder than others. It's the back-and-forth between the acceptable and the agonizing that turned me off. It takes you out of the mood (set wonderfully by the very unique look of the film) completely. The rest of my complaints are all just a bunch of bad signs. Like- the casting of Cronenberg regular Robert A. Silverman in a non-speaking role (see him in The Brood and you'll understand why that's a bad decision). Or the utter childishness of the tennis flashing scene. Or the predictable behavior of the Nick character, becoming jealous over ex-girlfriend and troublemaker Wendy when she shows up at the dance looking (much) better than his date. Or the incredibly stupid choice of a victim to leave their place of safety in a chase scene just because they see a dead body.

Worth checking out but don't say I didn't warn you if you walk away feeling like I did. For 80's genre-wise slashers, I'd give the edge to Hell Night in a second.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 83:
Lean a Little Bit Closer, See Roses Really Smell Like Poo Poo


Meet the Feebles
(1989 / director: Peter Jackson)

I've never been a religious person, but there is one movie so purely evil that it leaves me reaching for the nearest copy of The Holy Bible (which I assure you, there isn't one of in my house). Shockingly... it's not Peter Jackson's 1996 disaster, The Frighteners. A film that only serves to prove the point I'm now making with this review: man, Peter Jackson does not do average! The guy just refuses to make a horror film that's anything less than the very best or the very worst the genre can offer. So with that in mind, I'm desperate to get in and out of this article as quickly as possible. I choose not to want to dwell on something this horridly disgusting (and trust me: this is disgusting!). Let's just say, in the world of bad taste cinema, this is the ultimate epic. A horror film not of intention but of execution and perhaps in its' heartlessness. John Cleese said (and he would know) that writing comedy is about a momentary anaestheia of the heart. Well, Jackson and company have certainly done that here. Only, they've stabbed the heart and then decided that wasn't enough damage. They torture it, grind what's left up into a fine crude, and then digested it and shit it out. In movie form. And all these years later... edginess is not a valid excuse for this degree of pointless terrorism. Of both comedy and simple, fun horror. This film seeks to equate the characters of the wonderful and harmless Muppet Show with clowns in the arena of childhood fears. For that alone, Jackson should be horsewhipped!

In case you didn't know, this is the 2nd film in Peter Jackson's infamous splatter trilogy. And despite the fact that it doesn't play for scares, it more than equals the reputation of the carnage found in both his sublime, daffy masterworks Bad Taste and Dead Alive. Not to mention the sheer deplorability of the subject matter and how low the plot sinks every time just to try to outdo itself. That's impossible since the stench of tactlessness wafts off of every last shot. And thus, 15 minutes or so into it, you've already fully tasted the worst of the pie and everything after is repetition of the same with only the flair up of gross images (like a new case of hemorrhoids) to remind you you haven't died yet. To close (because I've got to get out of this or lose my sanity, so I'm not bothering with a plot description)... I don't know if Jackson expected brownie points for allowing his gay character to be one of the only survivors. But what did it really matter since he's one of the most offensive stereotypes I've ever seen in movies anyway? Not because of his being too flamboyant or how little taste he had on top of the fact that he's yet another gay character in cinema denied any kind of sex or romance. No... neither of those bother me. Instead, it's how much he deserved to die if the movie's morality is to kill all characters that are nasty, selfish assholes. Especially since he's one of the worst. But no again, Feebles is a shamelessly meaningless free-for-all. The Cannibal Holocaust of horror-comedies.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 124: There's No Crying in Snowboarding!


Shredder
(2001 / director: Greg Huson)

★★

I can barely comprehend this (I'm serious), but some people actually watch horror (especially slasher) films expecting nudity and sexual content as a given every time. Not everyone needs to hear this, but to those who do: they have pornos for that, you know? I guess, when you're a kid, seeing nudity in movies is a big thrill. But kids grow up. So, as an adult, all I have to say to you if you come to slasher films looking for bare breasts and sex scenes is- you deserve to be let down! With that out of the way, the thing to remember about Shredder is that there is truly nothing special about it. The choice to make a slasher movie about wintersports is the sole reason I felt compelled to pluck this off the racks. Also, there was some buzz about it online. When you strip this of characters and the dialogue's attempts at humor, the ideas are rather promising. Skiiers / snowboarders, an abandoned ski lodge, introduction of a ghost story, unsolved murders, condemned property, safety hazards. And hell, the movie sure looks great; it does provide some light atmosphere (especially in a sequence where two characters go searching alone for a power source)! But for all the potential in the raw kibbles and bits of creepy garnish lining the sides of it, the movie is sadly content to ride on Urban Legend autopilot- with only one funny line. Though this film is head and shoulders above the type of offensively stupid and insulting college-party type movies of its' time (National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle)... or the movie has just enough energy to keep you from noticing, the characters remain at a perfect stand-still. And this in fact makes it more noticeable that almost none of the cast can actually act.

One girl ends up playing a frisky Townie and she seems to have some good silent acting skills (great menacing quality and quiet playfulness). But, for the main cast, it's only Juleah Weikel who has the real goods. Unfortunately, the movie gives her the unflattering distinction of being the ambiguous lesbian character. Later she becomes the token geek, giving out all the sound-advice learned from horror movies. Needless to say by this point in the genre: we know the rules, we just want to see people break them anyway. The rest of the actors don't get a ghost's chance of showing any talent they may actually have because they're too bogged down playing characters we've seen a million times before (the lame stoner guy is the first to bite the dust, and good riddance!). Perhaps new to the mix (new to me, anyway) is the fugitive French-Canadian spy (played by Brad Hawkins- the really cute leader of the VR Troopers, one of the many Power Rangers rip-offs), who actually stinks things up a lot as a character with a surprising amount of backstory. Only, I think there's a little too much backstory. To the point where I wish you luck in sorting it all out. Especially since his motivation shifts as many times as the bullet chambers in a gun do. One second, he's the dark, sexy stranger. The next, he's the victim of some cruel, tormenting memory. The next, he's a wanted man on a mission. The next, he's a dumb jock gone a-sexin'. And his inability to properly fake an accent turns the other characters into complete buffoons for buying into it.

Another actor plays a spoiled-rich Daddy's girl gone bad type- a believable character, since they cast a real Playboy magazine bunny type (though, disturbingly, Paris Hilton would have come off with a great deal more sophistication; had she not been too pre-occupied with taking acting lessons for 2-second her cameo in Zoolander). The actress is easy to look at (as a blonde- she went brunet for an episode of one of those Criminal Minds type shows) but seems to be more at home playing the slut than the Princess, when her role demands more Princess. Speaking of sluts, from the moment we meet Holly Towne, she's all-over anything with a pulse. But seems the most childlike of the women here and the slut thing comes off like an awkward act. She's also too druggy when her character snuggles up next to a girl in bed and says, "I'm not gay, I'm just horny." She does, however, get the funniest scene in the film! During a confrontation with the killer, (they) somewhat inexplicably pull her toward a printed list of regulations under the heading, "Skiiers Rules." She's a snowboarder. So, she turns to (them), shouts- "those are Skiiers' Rules, you asshole!!," whacks on that person, pushes them off the lift chair, and insults them even after they fall to their potential death or serious injury. Lastly, we get the most sympathetic character in the movie- a virgin Dawson's Creek-wannabe filmmaker guy who has no luck with women. The actor playing him drums up the proper amount of sympathy but he's still incredibly annoying. None of these characters really get the job done in making us care about seeing them do much of anything.

So, all that's left is the blood and gore factor and that's where the movie disappoints the most. There's a lot of blood in this movie. But it doesn't look good at all. And the death scenes are executed so plainly that they're very boring.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 96: You'll Be Sorry When the Wolf Comes to Your Door


Rabid Grannies
(1988 / director: Emmanuel Kervyn)

★★½

Ah... what a wonderful and wacky world is Troma. Its' own veritable Disney-Land of the perverse, strange, wild, vulgar, tasteless, unique, and often brilliant. Where few other films have dared to go. What many filmmakers only dream or fantasize doing... Troma is one of the world's leading, and only still truly, independent sources of films. Their reputation made with the shockingly cheap and shockingly bad; 1976's Blood Sucking Freaks, 1984's The Toxic Avenger, and 1997's Tromeo & Juliet- among others. One could say they sought to bring the same attitude of much of the films considered "video nasties" in the U.K. to America, putting some of the most grotesque and shocking things ever seen onto movie screens. They acquired a cult following, and with the success of Avenger and its' sequels, 1985's Class of Nuke 'Em High, and 1990's Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, began distributing somewhat more respectable films from clearly more ambitious directors. Including 1983's Monster in the Closet (the greatest horror parody I've ever seen), 1990's daring and smart Def by Temptation, and this little Belgian import.

Grannies is a darkly absurd and ingeniously acidic splatter film about two kindly old aunts and their horrible family of shameless, opportunistic ne'er-do-wells involved in all sorts of underhanded doings. When the aunts host a dual Birthday party, the cousins swarm in from all around to put on an act of smirking, fingers-crossed behind-their-back sincerity, each hoping to con the wealthy women into leaving them a chunk of their vast estate and fortune. Meanwhile, the aunts' house staff know all about the lying and dirty tricks but keep their mouths shut because the women are so close to senility, they probably wouldn't believe them. And so begins the decadent dinner party, where the cousins stab each other in the back and try to poke holes in everyone else's reputation, hoping to make themselves look better to the aunts by comparison. Until the aunts receive a mysterious surprise gift with a letter from a disinherited cousin who decides not to attend the Birthday party, wishing them all the best. However, when the old ladies open it, they become possessed by evil spirits and mutate into cannibalistic, demonic zombies, hungry for human flesh. And they're not above feasting on their deviously immoral loved ones.

What makes this so brilliant is how well thought-out and smart it is. Yes, the cousins are all despicable, loathsome things. But, when the gore starts to fly, and the death scenes become increasingly mean-spirited and frighteningly intense (the film's one legitimate flaw), you start to see the humanity in them. Even the worst of people have their human side, all evil has an understandable motivation. By that virtue, the sweet old aunt characters are not entirely clean themselves. They are judgmental (especially to the lesbian cousin and her girlfriend), patronizing to their loyal butler Radu (a smarter version of Manuel from Fawlty Towers), and religiously elitist. But they're also kind and charitable (as we see, they help out a homeless beggar in the street), so you have to feel bad for them. A little. And finally, when the aunts become possessed, they are suddenly filled with a sense of perception they were missing before. They now see right through all the smiling, two-faced acts of their nasty relatives, and are not eager to forgive all their bad deeds and deception.

Most important to mention is a scene where the demons confront one of their cousins, a priest who hates kids. The first hands him a machine gun and suggests (in a more overt fashion than, but still in the mood of, Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None) that he kill himself to spare him the agony of being viciously ripped apart. The second tells him not to trust the first because, if the priest kills himself, he will go to hell; suggesting- is an eternity of suffering in the afterlife worth sparing him a few minutes of agony in his current life? They continue bouncing pros and cons off each other, playing a game with him, basically betting over what his choice will be. It's a razor-sharp and clever scene that highlights the film's devilish intelligence and witty subversiveness. Of course, it also goes a little too far as times. Never moreso than when a certain cousin on the plump side has his leg carved open and slowly stabbed, licked, chewed, and devoured by the putrid, alien-like demons. Maybe leaving a little to our imaginations is a good thing.

The film deftly marries elements from 1982's Creepshow, 1987's Dolls, 1985's Demons, and 1981's The Evil Dead, including- the greedy family salivating over an old relative's fortune, being trapped in huge old creepy castle-like mansion, demonic possession from the essence of a somewhat ancient object, and of course, the sadistic murderous zombies with sharp teeth and claw-like fingers. Rabid Grannies would also go on to inspire other rabid grannies in Peter Jackson's 1992 cult classic, Dead Alive, and Luca (Ghoulies) Bercovici's grimy little 1995 cheapie, The Granny, whose gore was not nearly as savaged as this film (Troma's print is missing everything, save for a couple terrified closeups). Not bad for a movie almost no one has ever heard of.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 91: An Exchange of Bitches


Hostel
(2006 / director: Eli Roth)

★★½

Some films of the horror genre defy explanation. Just about everything Eli Roth has made fits that bill. After making 2002's remarkably well-paced and watchable, yet sloppy and ridiculous Cabin Fever, which like all other Lions Gate films wasn't released until years after it was finished, Roth decided he wanted to make a horror film as shocking as his new idol Takashi Miike's films Audition and Ichi the Killer were over in Asia. What Roth ends up doing is making a suspenseful but shockingly anti-human film that was seen by the world as just more torture film fodder. Any great message Roth had was lost on the general public, which either avoided Hostel because they felt it was only gratuitous graphic violence, or flocked to it because they just wanted to see people being tortured and didn't care about anything it might have been implying. The film was hugely controversial, therefore it raked in mountains of dough for everyone involved (controversy had previously made huge box office hits out of 2004's The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11) and made Eli Roth a pop culture icon, where previously he'd just been a beefy punk with his infectious fanboy attitude all over Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments special. Following Hostel's success, he even took his starry-eyed defiance onto Fox News, challenging business correspondent Neil Cavuto. Which only made him look more callous and gave Fox another Jewish face on young Hollywood and what is widely considered their snotty sense of superiority.

Which is what makes Hostel's anti-humanity all the more shocking. Eli Roth is not a bad guy. Rather, he's a surprisingly intelligent writer and director who understands a lot. But when it comes to his own films, he's always more thoughtful about how to market a movie than what actually goes into it. Cabin Fever was marketed as a disturbing, extreme gorefest, and it's not. If anything it was a forgettably pedestrian film made from a story with potential that turned into a David Lynch-ian series of tableaux that all failed to hit that much-hunted raw nerve. Roth is so concerned with the appearances of his films before people see them, the films suffer incredibly. He also hangs elements on his films, like ornaments on a Christmas tree, that are supposed to make people think they are deeper than they really are. In Cabin Fever, it was the perception by backwoods America of anything the 'city folk' did as being "not Christian," and therefore the locals can just shoot anyone they want to and not get in trouble for it. I think Larry Fessenden's Wendigo was trying to make a similar point years before Cabin Fever was released; though in all fairness, Roth had finished writing Fever in the mid-1990's. The point being, Fessenden did it with much more grace and intelligence than the well-meaning but bumbling Roth.

Hostel is, by all signs, nothing more than traditional teen sex comedy taken to the modern equivalent of a concentration camp. Or, a cruder version of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. Now, when I say that- please don't imagine the American Pie crew or Harold and Kumar hanging out there, cracking jokes, and having kooky misadventures before finally being sprung and learning a valuable lesson about friendship and common, everyday morality. Believe it or not, Hostel does have a serious side. It's just hard to see it through the haze of plastic, sexy teen / early 20's characters with their trendy one-liners and dated slang, shallow pursuits of casual sex with nameless foreign women, selfish drinking and drug binges, brainless usage of homophobic slurs, and unnatural attachments to their cellphones- which should just be grafted onto their hands to save the time of having to whip them out of their pockets, as well as less chance of having them be stolen by impoverished punk gangs of local street children. It's hard to see any point to Hostel at all. Especially when the director then makes a sequel a year later which is virtually the same thing, only with women and more obvious misogynistic elements. In the first film, with men being the target of most of the film's pretty graphic violence and murder, people saw the film as being a portrait of the effects of the shameful behavior of America's military under command of George W. Bush on international attitudes toward American men. Knowing Roth, the film was probably nothing more than a style exercise in gritty exploitation, just to have people mindlessly being tortured in the name of Roth's favorite cinematic past-time, watching "fucked up shit."

With that kind of ambition, it's no wonder people find Hostel a brainless experience. I initially bought into the film as a hard-hitting piece of horror, for my own personal reasons. In fact, I still do see the film as a simple morality tale. Featuring young Americans who could easily be any of the random numbs on the E! Channel's Wild On television series, or the background drunkards in the Girls Gone Wild videos, doing whatever they want to, showing an apathetic streak toward everyone but themselves and a hateful attitude toward anything considered "gay." Take these fools and drop them in the middle of a country they know nothing about, where people are being murdered and pleasure-seeking tourists disappear into thin air. It's like young Americans are being bred like pigs for the slaughter. If it wasn't overseas, it was right in our own country. Though the terror mongering has quieted down considerably since Obama's been in the white house, when this came out- America was as scary a place as anywhere else: overpopulated, people breeding too much, resources drying up very slowly, with fears of terrorist attacks and disease pandemics flying fast and furious- this movie's vision of the world could hardly be distinguished from the real one. Tobe Hooper's first season Masters of Horror's entry, Dance of the Dead, glides over similar terrain. And could probably have been more effective than Hostel, all things considered, had that piece not been as afraid of the graphic violence this bathed in.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 93: Somebody's Watching Me


Clownhouse
(1989 / director: Victor Salva)

★★★

Horror is not usually geared directly at kids. For better or worse, kids are seen in the background or reduced to the child in peril to get a reaction from adult viewers (Cujo). Adults were the first audience horror movies were tailored to. It was only somewhere around the time of The Blob in the 50's when whole genres were being invented just for young people and with that, horror started focusing on teenagers instead of making them side characters. This was done because people behind the camera realized teenagers could go out on their own or with friends their own age to see movies without their parents. And it shaped the future of horror because around the 1970's, horror became less about marketing to an age group and more for giving anyone who wanted the see each movie, the full adult experience. So it was only natural that in the overkill 80's, a decade which did feel like everything was targeted to a specific group, they would start making horror movies for kids. This began pretty much with non-genre movies that wanted to use horror to raise the stakes in a few moments - 1984's Ghostbusters and Tim Burton's films - and finally experienced a horror explosion in '86 and '87 with a huge number of horror movies for kids: Critters, The Lost Boys, The Gate, Monster Squad, and Return of the Living Dead Part II to name a few. This is the point - the rise of the PG-13 horror films, though many of these have since become cult classics, where many fans feel the quality of horror dropped off.

I can't say this is the moment where this film rode up on a white horse or something and changed everything. But it did attempt to be a self-aware commentary on both the new genre of kid-oriented horror and what brought it about- the frightened child in all of us. Clownhouse's first admirable decision is to define each of its' 3 stock young / teenage characters, playing a group of brothers left by themselves for one October night but none with the guts to be alone for the night (and that is actually never addressed in itself but only when one needs to fix a broken fuse or check a noise outside for a second), with 3 distinct personalities that aren't designated by their actual age. Eldest teen Randy is really an adult whose usually rotten attitude is somewhere post-college and pre-home owning father. Middle teen Jeffrey is more mature and acts like the father figure of the group in self-defense to the bullying Randy (although you can tell, the worst of this was done before the movie's story takes place). And tween Casey is growing up on the outside but can't develop in any other way due to his paralyzing fears which he just can't leave behind in his toy years. We're never told why but his brothers give him constant reminders throughout the film. Also, he has a habit of whining a lot. Viewers will have a hard time adjusting to Casey who is the main character but they don't have to relate to his home life to feel the creepiness of the film. And that, unfortunately, comes with a terrifying real-life backstory.

The short of it is that the movie's director and the boy who played Casey knew each other through family friends and that dynamic is often used by sexual predators to manipulate children into engaging in sexual activity. And that's exactly what happened here. The boy stopped acting and the director went to jail for 5 years. Afterward, the director went back to work and while the details were kept private to protect the young man's life from being further scarred, Salva's career has been tainted forever. Following the release of his 1995 drama, Powder, a storm of controversy kept him from working in the mainstream again until 2001's mega hit Jeepers Creepers. Due to that film's success, a sequel was put into production and MGM bought the rights to Clownhouse for a DVD release. 2003 rolled around and the controversy returned in full-form, thanks to an explosion of online comments from people who didn't want to forget about Salva's past crime. It might not have been so strong were it not for MGM's insistance to release this film on DVD despite actual protest from people who knew the former victim. This again burned Salva out of the mainstream for years to come. Since, he's made a very poorly reviewed drama and written an episode of NBC's Fear Itself. I could have made the choice to not bring this all up but I feel compelled as a gay man and horror fan myself to do it first. No one really agrees pedophilia is acceptable but movie making is also a business and I don't agree we as viewers have any right to control people's lives based on their past. It was bad but it happened 22 years ago and all the law can do is make sure this one man never is alone with children again. And he never will be. End of story.

The film reminds us that Salva has a disturbing preoccupation with real-life aspects of childhood sexuality (usually defined by mocking and humiliation) at every turn. While most 80's horror films lost their edge the second Misery hit screens in 1990 and the style changed from surreal fantasy horror to pretty straight-forward, realistic shocks and psychological depth-filled stories, Clownhouse retains the full power of its' freak factor. Whether that's because you can imagine an intense subdermal creeping at the prospect of being leered at and/or touched by an ominous figure in the distance or because the dialogue, filled with squirm-worthy references to embarrassing bodily functions (always related to "having something in" their underwear), is the epitome of tastelessness- the movie's ability to unease can't be denied. It almost doesn't matter what makes this as creepy as it is, it's just that creepy. And even if you knew nothing about the history of its' making, you'd have to agree. It helps that the film is a throwback to the John Carpenter 70's school of horror: subverting the effect of violence during death scenes and cranking the dial up on the pre-kill fear. This creates a palpable atmosphere of terror. You get to know the inside of the house pretty well and are legitimately scared that at every turn something is waiting to get you. Most memorable about the movie is how many levels it attempts to creep on. It's more than just a slasher film. It also has a well-rooted character philosophy, about not being able to hide from fear.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 54: To Scratch


Demons
(1985 / director: Lamberto Bava)

★★

More than just about any other nation in the world, Italy's horror is a real family business. A lot of the big names in the genre all got their start because of some family connection to previous filmmakers. Lamberto Bava owes everything he has to his famous father, who died before he could see his son's first film. Now- it's clear that Demons, his best known and most popular film, will never be mistaken for being of the same quality as Mario's best. But despite his worst, Lamberto is overall a man who deserves respect. Other than the fact that he was a trusted friend of Argento and assistant director on two of his most important films, his approach to suspense and horror is potent without being overly insulting and, at least with this Argento-produced as well as co-written film and its' sequel, the guy knew how to tap into the pure freak quality of horror and let it flow like a river. Demons came after the Fulci wave of zombie films and to show that times have changed, Bava and Argento pretty much stay away from Romero's films entirely (although Dawn of the Dead's helicopter does make an appearence at the end) and aim more for the transformation-horror showstoppers, The Exorcist and The Evil Dead. Especially the latter, which scared audiences with - among other things - a new concept of having zombie-like living corpses kill people not to eat their flesh but just for the fun of it.

This film succeeds in a few areas; one is in the improved quality of the gore effects, a huge step above the work of Fulci and all the more impressive since Argento's work has been drowning in schlock since 1998. Two is in the powerfully spooky, dark, and creepy opening 30 minutes. The mood here is so good, it's not even spoiled (initially) by things like a foul-mouthed black pimp who shouts, "shut up, bitch!" at one of the girls he has on his arms or a husband and wife pair where the husband is so angry (and is doing a great job of making you believe he's really an asshole when the cameras aren't rolling) that you just want him to go away. Three is in a kind of subplot... not really a subplot, just cutaways to a series of short scenes featuring a group of punks doing drugs in a car you just know is going to end up in front of the movie's Metropol theater at some point (they play with this in the superior sequel). Anything to get out of that nasty theater! At first, you don't know what's going on and they're just annoying. But later there's a fascinating little bit involving the ratty guy's flippant sexuality, spilled cocaine, the girl's open top exposing her breast, and a razor blade. For the most part, this movie is weaker than Fulci's best films. But Fulci tried for this kind of thing in 1982's awful The New York Ripper and didn't get anywhere near the rawness of this moment.

But, after the first 30-33 minutes, the film fails far more than it has succeeded. Almost to the point where you walk away when it's over, even though you most likely had low expectations going into it (as I did), feeling disappointed. The body count gets a major boost and you may jump a few times but much too quickly, the effect of the constant barrage of yelling, loud rock music, body-ripping becomes monotonous. Not to mention it's yet another zombie-type movie from the mid-80's about trapping the potential victims in a place they can't escape from. It literally takes 50 minutes, the rest of the movie, for anyone to escape (and then- the movie has a surprise for you!). And (not that this has ever been essential to Italian horror, but) you don't care about anyone in the movie anyway; they're only here to be killed off. And they're nobodies to us so it won't bother us when they die. Now, had the movie been able to sustain the creepiness of the beginning through the middle and not devolved to near silliness- it could have worked. We still need to be at least creeped out by what's happening but the movie slips up every time they try. All that's left from the opening is a smothering sense of claustrophobia. Not because we're scared of what's going on in the movie but instead because it's getting stuffy and we can't muster the breath to gasp at the freakiness anymore. It feels like it will never end. Which is an unappealing possibility, but not a scary one.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 76: A French Vampire in America


Innocent Blood
(1992 / director: John Landis)

★★★½

Take this however you want to, but, it's not that hard to make a good vampire film. Since the 1980's, vampire films have been known for their radical style, wildly overt sensuality, a lack of serious gore, and an abundance of either humor or drama. Even 1996's From Dusk Till Dawn, which sought to turn vampires into the new zombies, realized that to shake things up you have to talk to the audience about the lore of vampires and such. Explain things. To even that out, they load on the comedy. That film didn't work as well as it could have but it was still a damn sight better than 1994's weepy, whiny sleeper (in every sense of the word) Interview with the Vampire. I mean; dreary me- do we need that kind of thing in the horror genre? Actually, it's pretty easy to write it off as a drama and just completely ignore it. But mostly, vampire films wind up becoming comedic for the simple fact that the filmmakers believe vampires can't be scary. And for the most part, they're usually not (with the exception perhaps of Jerry Dandridge in 1985's Fright Night). Instead, again they're either sensual (The Lost Boys) or romantic (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Vampire in Brooklyn). When we first meet our head vampire (and only vampire... to start with), Marie, she's fully naked (pubic hair and all) and giving us a narration into what her life is like. I believe it's been said by wise people that narration is the tool of a desperate screenwriter. But I also believe that only applies to serious films. Innocent Blood is not a serious film.

Rather, it's a film playing with all genres. John Landis's previous film was also a bit of a gangster parody, Oscar. And that's the only way I ever prefer to see my gangster movies, as subjects of ridicule (not a Godfather fan here). Oh, I know Landis is probably a Godfather fan but still I think this entire concept is brilliant. Here's what you need to know: Marie is in the big city and she is starving. She hasn't been eating because she only eats people that she has sex with. One flip through the newspaper gives us the impression that she has a thing for bad people- she spots an article about the local mob boss, Sal the Shark, and his mob/gang killing, terrorizing, whatever, and decides that's the tree from which she'll go picking. When she flirts with his driver, she comes face to face with Sal the Shark... Dangerous guy! What does she do? She insults him- calling him a "pimp" and a "goon." She's dead meat, right? Remember, she's a vampire. She has nerves of steel and a cold expression; when she insults someone, they are nothing to her and she means business. But Sal's never been spoken to before like this and he always means business too. Before this fateful meeting (and it is fateful, but I'll explain why soon), we see him dispatch of a worthless employee like a pro. We know he is boss of this city. But she is boss wherever she goes- she outranks him. He does not know this. And watching what happens next in this scene is just too perfect. He thinks he's the cat and she's the mouse but we know vaguely what she's capable of and that he should not be messing with her.

The real center horror hook in the movie is the concept of a gang of thugs (which Landis has called "monsters" in an interview, which is the reason why I've said I believe at the core with these movies, he's parodying gangsters and not trying to make them look more cool than Hollywood's made them look already) who are "made" by Sal, after he becomes a super-powerful vampire, into vampires themselves. His intent is to do, well( twice the amount of evil now that they have the supernatural abilities that come with being what Marie is herself. This is something the film has in common with 1994's Wolf, where Jack Nicholson became a werewolf and his senses were all heightened (smell, sound, sight- etc). Now imagine that with a gang of criminals. The power dynamics in this film are never equal between her and the men, which we learn later. However, watching Marie always in control does make the movie consistent. Landis's horror films are very much unique from his other films because, we all know Landis has a thing for action - but, the action we see in Blood and An American Werewolf in London is either ironic or comical. So, the tone is comedic but it's also very inspired. He obviously believes that horror is about "the absurd," and it doesn't get much more absurd than this. At times, it's almost side-splittingly over-the-top. But in a way I find to be either highly original or just pure John Landis. The worst thing that could be said about this film is that, within its' rulebook, it's predictable. But this is a kind of predictable I can live with.

Look for cameos, by the way, from: Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead), Dario Argento (Suspiria), Frank Oz (Little Shop of Horrors), and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine creator, Forrest J. Ackerman.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 18: Your Pain is Our Pleasure


Hellraiser
(1987 / director: Clive Barker)

★★★

In the world of low budget horror, there is a lot of art and very few artists. It would seem the two just don't mix. Clive Barker came to horror cinema a master of the literary art, with a huge fanbase, and a lot of reputation to live up to. None of his films have proven that he could deliver something with the passion and intensity of his writing, but Hellraiser (film version of The Hellbound Heart novella) comes close. The real reason this is relevant is because of how many amateur mistakes are made here and how often they impact on the scenes they're in. When most directors make these kinds of technical errors, they don't matter because the mood is lighter or there is enough going on to take your mind off of them. The former you typically find in lower budgeted films such as this and it's intentional because the director wants to cover themselves (Joe Dante even tweaked a scene in Gremlins because he realized people would probably react poorly if they noticed the raw error). Unless the audience is meant to notice the flaw, it's important to do some kind of damage control work to smoothe the bumps out. In Hellraiser however, they're right up front and center, and the mood of the film is always - appropriately - either cold or brooding. So, when you see Kirsty looking intensely at something and immediately you recall; that's the same shot as they used earlier when she was in the same place... to say the least, it's distracting. The mood is too stiff to hide the film's obvious missteps and Barker is too wrapped up in the story to check out the surface.

To be fair though, despite the fact that this can't stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, The Evil Dead, Suspiria, and others, it does have several moments that more than justify the hype and a deliciously original plot set-up. Who even thinks about the role of the mistress in horror films (maybe Argento)? Or tries to use great sex as a motivation to turn someone into a killer (maybe Cronenberg)? The movie becomes downright intriguing with the implications of blood-spattering, skinless scenes of romance. In a traditional dirty, dusty, dilapidated haunted house, no less. No matter how many sequences are compromised by Barker's first-time director status, there's no denying it's a thrill to watch slinky Euro-bitch Clare Higgins dress up in yellow-and-black 80's chic decked out with cheap, thick plastic black star earrings and cruise outdoor bars for desperate goobers while pretending to not-be looking so they'll be willing to approach her. In this case, God is in the details and after a true war back and forth, the win happens to be in the film's favor. It also helps that the costuming and character makeup on the gang of Cenobites is so good, as are Doug Bradley's Pinhead and especially Andrew Robinson's Frank-in-Larry's-Skin as backup villains. The fact that it's basically a romantic triangle slasher film featuring a 4th player - Kirsty, the rather butch damsel in distress - and an admittedly interest-sparking mythology involving an entire dimension of luck-of-the-draw S&M destinations (leaving a lot to your imagination) makes up for the all too frequent freshman kinks.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 6:
Suzy, Do You Know Anything About... Witches?


Suspiria
(1977 / director: Dario Argento)

★★★★

Of the many ecstasies of the so-sublime-you-can-taste-it Suspiria, one of the most intimidating is that it's the single definitive horror film about witches, or that it was, in fact, so definitive that almost nobody tried to follow it up or rip it off. Though its' influences are profound and have made their way into films far and wide (including, believe it or not, 1991's Oscar-winner for Best Picture, The Silence of the Lambs) and inspired such future masters of horror as John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, Joe Dante, Wes Craven, John Landis... that in itself is mind-blowing! Some call it a fairy-tale. Some call it the king of style-over-substance. Some call it an acid trip. They're all correct. Suspiria is a sense and sensory-driven nightmare film about a mysterious ballet school where young girls gossip, telling secrets. Especially about the teachers. This makes them curious to know more, since the women all seem to have similar lives outside the school. After supper every night, they walk out together, at the same time, leaving the girls all alone at the school with maggots in the attic and the never-seen Directress who floats through the halls and back stairways of the building. At this academy, it's not wise to be curious and it's a very bad idea to leave your room at night and go wandering around. And there is one secret you don't want to know. Because if you do, no matter where you go or where you hide, you'll be found and you will be very sorry.

Suspiria is a pure workout machine for Dario Argento's signature brand of super-horror. So filled with atmosphere and electrified energy, and every last inch of every last shot licking you with bold style as every second bludgeons you with haunting auditory spookiness, this transcends spooky (as Argento usually does, in his prime) and becomes something so uniquely superior in the realm of terror that there isn't a word I think will apply to it. To try being as crude as possible, it's epic and loud and that quality actually works to the film's advantage. When you crank these sounds up, they do pierce you and they do hold your heart in their hands, pulling it higher up in your torso. They blend perfectly with Argento's ultra tense shots cut in the most nerve-racking fashion. With Argento, a camera cut is the closest in any movie you'll ever feel an actual blade cutting at you. His obsession with enhancing the senses gets a real response when viewed properly. And intrigues even if the lights are on and the sound isn't as loud as it should be. But turn the lights off and those Disney-esque colors will pop out at you like 3-D! To answer back at the criticism this movie gets in some circles (and it's considerable, much to my eternal chagrin), the style is the substance here and there's nothing wrong with that. Even if Suspiria were the first film in history where this worked to the film's advantage (it's not), it's still the best example of how effective style can be when it's this flamboyant, imaginative, and well executed.

The story is a rough construct of several classic fairy tales, including Alice in Wonderland (girl lost in dream-like fantasy world full of bizarre, unreal characters- some helpful but most not), Bluebeard (the secret that will kill you if you discover it, rooms in the "castle" you're meant to stay out of), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (the wicked "Black Queen," magic and evil spells, the dark forest surrounding the "cottage"), and Pinocchio (temptation to do things you shouldn't, young kids in peril - this aspect of the movie was written into the script but never shot, the ages of the actresses had to change when the financers said it would be too risque to kill children), mixed with Argento's classic outlandish approach to murder set-pieces and momentum building scenes. For example, Argento is famous for scenes where the camera goes off and just explores areas within the story's setting or lingers on objects that will be relevant later on, or drifts over to something like the moon / nature features or cuts away to random action to suggest something bad will happen in the future. It's touches like this that make Argento films treasure in the box of golden oldies. The fact that a horror filmmaker even has the guts to make a horror fairy-tale considering that most people don't know about the dark side in their original incarnations is audacious of Argento. This is something I appreciate immensely and - like Argento always does - adds important variety to the genre. Looking back on this film will always be a breath of fresh air.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 4: The Wrong Place at the Right Time


Friday the 13th
(1980 / director: Sean S. Cunningham)

★★½

Designed by producer-turned-director (and creative partner of Wes Craven all-throughout the making of his 1972 debut shocker, The Last House on the Left) Sean S. Cunningham to be an inferior rip-off of John Carpenter's Halloween (itself highly reminiscent of Bob Clark's successful 1974 slasher, Black Christmas) with shades of Mario Bava's savage Bay of Blood in its trademark bodycount, Friday the 13th may not come anywhere near matching Clark's ultra-tense stalking p.o.v. shots or Carpenter's refined, Argento-esque camerawork and mood, but it certainly retains every bit of its' original rawness. Though it may inspire many today to squirm in all the wrong places, we can't forget its initial impact on the genre. It was so effective at making audiences react in terror with its' well-timed scares, razor-sharp Harry Manfredini music stinger cues, and copious, bloody death scenes that by sheer public demand, the movie spawned the longest lasting and perhaps most financially successful franchise in horror history. Future sequels would eclipse the first in terms of originality, character developement, and style, but almost none were able to equal the charm of its' nearly accidental flair for capturing the deep, dark, and dank quality to being alone in the woods with an unknown threat. Surely that is also the only thing that legitimizes this franchise in the hall of horror, allowing it to stand next to the likes of the critically lauded Night of the Living Dead (with superior sequel Dawn of the Dead and inferior Day of the Dead), the wildly unpredictable A Nightmare on Elm Street (and its' sequels that turned Freddy Krueger into a pop culture icon faster than any other slasher character), and epic cult phenomenon The Evil Dead (though the sequels were silly to the point of deserving scorn, it's nonetheless considered the Star Wars of the horror genre).

Despite the large number of influences in its' hacky writing and the superiority of its 70's slasher ancestors, Friday the 13th tapped into a wealth of material that still feels somewhat novel in comparison. Though it's possible the whole idea of setting the carnage in the woods of a summer camp by a lake was taken directly from Bava's Bay or Craven's Last House, neither contained an actual summer camp. The deserted atmosphere of the camp and the oppressive isolation that comes from each cabin being so far away from the next adds an immediate feeling of really being there, aided by Cunningham's decision to film everything in sight. Wind blowing through the tree tops, animals swimming, the full moon overhead, and the camera trekking through dozens upon dozens of feet of tranquil forest as the day wears on and the night approaches. The dialogue is generally worthless due to the main body of characters existing only to be killed but the eldest characters in the cast still surprise. Not only serving to build solid intrigue (or at least inspire amusement) by presence alone (especially in the case of the quintessential slasher film prophet, Crazy Ralph) but their monologue-like mouthfuls actually contain some fine, creepy foreshadowing. The acting is notoriously bad from nearly everyone and that no doubt is responsible for the film's appropriately unpopular critical reception. Though that was hurting the film up until the final third, the legendary scene where it introduces the character of Mrs. Voorhees is a glorious rebirth of its' potency. Betsy Palmer's arrival onscreen is one of the most incredible low-budget tour-de-force performances in the genre, completely re-defines the movie's primary function, and ties the threads of all the prior mood elements together for a freak twist on the psychologically tortured killer genre that leads up to an almost masterpiece ending.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 103: Let's Get Meta - Physical


Masters of Horror:
Cigarette Burns
(2005 / director: John Carpenter)

★★★

In some cases, my honesty brings me a little discomfort. Such is the case of having to discuss John Carpenter's career in the horror genre. As most people know, he made one of the genre's finest films with 1978's immortal Halloween. Not 2 years later, he followed it up with 1980's divinely spooky ghost horror film, The Fog- probably the best ghost themed horror movie ever made. Carpenter had mastered the horror film but his heart seemed to belong to other genres. Especially action. This turned out to be a problem since he became typecast in Hollywood as a horror director. After The Fog, Universal paid him to write Halloween II and offered him the chance to remake the 1950's sci-fi creeper The Thing from Another World. One of these two projects destroyed Carpenter's master's touch. The Thing was a harshly (though, luckily- not hastily) directed sci-fi thriller but a flawed and unrewarding horror film. It also represented his best work in his feature-length genre offerings. Following, he just floundered in horror with 1983's Christine, 1987's Prince of Darkness, 1995's In the Mouth of Madness, and 1998's Vampires. Each film being, at best- boring, and at worst- painful to sit through. For the wrong reasons. Although... since this first installment of Masters of Horror was released and with the first piece of the campy anthology Body Bags which he directed, there's now a good argument for Carpenter being at his best with a low budget film.

Masters of Horror was the single most exciting thing to be announced in the genre since the 1990's. It's still so difficult to wrap my brain around the concept, even 5 years later. Someone was actually willing to admit the new-millennium in horror was suffering and needed the master's touch. We know now who came up with the concept: Mick Garris. And his experience with the genre actually goes back into the 70's and 80's, but not as a director. He was a talk show host, writer and story editor for Steven Spielberg's television series Amazing Stories, and directed "making-of" featurettes for Avco-Embassy, Universal, and Warner Bros. Through doing that and his television show, The Fantasy Film Festival, interviewing directors (including Spielberg himself), he was able to meet all the North American horror directors who had made highly successful films in the 80's. Many of whom became attached to the series when it was announced sometime in late '04. And not only were the money people willing to admit the genre needed help, they were smart enough to know the genre didn't need help from the young school of directors (not at first) producing awful but successful new-millennium films like Saw, Haute Tension, and remakes such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre '03. Instead, they brought in (a good deal of) The Masters. Including some who had been away from the genre for a long time like Larry Cohen (Q the Winged Serpent, It's Alive) and Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling), and some who had lost their touch but were itching to get it back, like Dario Argento (Suspiria, Deep Red) and Carpenter.

Body Bags and Cigarette Burns are without question the finest cohesive work he's done in the genre in almost 30 years (it's been about that long since The Fog). I wouldn't blame him if souring his own creation with Halloween II made him bitter. But however it happened, the stars aligned here and he channeled all his energy into turning back time and almost back-tracking through his failures with this project. It probably helps that it's the first dialogue-driven horror piece he's ever worked on. Some directors need a radical change to get back something they've lost. In terms of tone, this is prime, dark Prince of Darkness stuff. And thankfully for the most part, Burns is able to stay away from the schlockiness which devastated that film. Being dialogue-driven, Carpenter has to infuse the acting with all the intensity rather than sets and silly special effects. Because he is a rather cynical and seemingly joyless man, the performances are as brooding and mechanical as his son Cody's excellent music score. And that not only works magnificently here, but it works with intelligence- something the vast majority of other quasi-realistic "style"d horror films this millennium lack. Eventually, it sinks when the ending caves in to the phony, cheap gore effects and one of the biggest "why on Earth would you do that?" directorial decisions. But prior, the balance between the almost silly story ideas (but credit Scott Swan and Drew McWeeny for some compelling dialogue) and interesting characters was stable. Of the more Off than On Masters series, there is no question that Carpenter's first offering is among the best. And is a film that takes some real chances.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 66: What Happened to The Count?


Martin
(1976 / director: George A. Romero)

★★½

Martin is one of the most perplexing horror films ever made. At least, to watch it certainly leaves one with a billion questions. And I'm sure to directors like Romero- that's what cinema is about. Leaving the viewer with more questions than answers. I honestly respect that. So long as, if horror is the venue you choose to work in, you remember what the genre requires. The thing I think every last horror film needs is something to haunt you or creep you out. This necessity represents the film's weakness. Because in the realm of "sex-horror," this translates to a rape film. And Romero being Romero, he has to be ironic and shoot the scenes almost lovingly. This is what he's doing to make the film creepy. Since Romero's not usually the type of director to do something for the sake of gratuity (at least, not prior to maybe 1988's Monkey Shines), I'm left scratching my head at this. Nothing makes sense. Not a single thing. Least of all that Romero seems to be using Martin to make a statement about religion that I agree with... only to have that character go around drugging and raping women. This movie has a lot of supporters and they really get it. I can't lie and say I do as well. The more I describe it as I sit here, the more the irony becomes apparent. But ironic ideas are flat. The execution must get your attention and add to a mood. And that's Martin's true strength. It has mood and it's effective as an exploration film, more about travel than voyeurism. At least, visually. I give Romero credit for challenging old fashioned beliefs and only take it away when Martin lies and tells the women he attacks that he won't hurt them, yet he cuts their wrist and drinks their blood, and we're shown no sign of them being alive afterward. It's no wonder then that the best scene in the film is one where his victim has a boyfriend, so now he can drink the man's blood and rape the woman (it's actually more intricate than it sounds, there's a very clever chase scene that happens between the three).

[nopersonality]

Chapter 112: Freddy in Wonderland


A Nightmare on Elm Street 4:
The Dream Master
(1988 / director: Renny Harlin)

★★

I'm not sure whether most people know this or not, but despite the questionable ending of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven never meant for his film to spawn a sequel- much less a franchise. The phenomenon of Freddy Krueger became a public appetite for more answers about this fascinating boogeyman - who basically lacked a real myth - and New Line Cinema's Rob Shaye became the master of ceremonies. Though, somehow, it usually seems difficult to blame him for the creative mistakes of the far more miss than hit sequels, his fingerprints are all over this one. Like what he did to Craven's ending, Nightmare 4 offers no more answers but lots more questions. Visually, this is without a doubt the most breathtaking of the series (think Suspiria colors mixed with otherworldly sets- and I haven't even gotten to the death scenes and special effects yet) but in terms of substance, this is nothing more than a surreal free-for-all masking a pretty darn bad teenage soap opera. And from listening to the stories of how the film came about (it was actually the hardest to make after the original, the crew encountered a large number of setbacks at nearly every turn), it was always Shaye's intention that it should be that way.

The teens just can't get along with their parents (and the fact that they caused their children's suffering at the hands of Freddy by burning him alive in an attempt to save them is still laying right on the surface, used as a cheap ploy to launch into a confrontation scene with the shallow Mrs. Parker character) and are compelled to mope about it rather than get on with their lives. Oh, we see them having a bit of fun now and then but Freddy's a huge downer (even when he's cracking his trademark clever Cryptkeeper-esque one-liners) and serves to remind us that life for young people is a prison of repetitive routine. The mood here is consistently drab, while the story weaves in and out of dreamy side scenes which do keep us awake and we need desperately to lift us out of the horribly acted scenes of whiny, spiritually self-indulgent chatter (we're talking real new-age, pre-Charmed type stuff, without the light touch of "well, here goes nothing" to try and balance out the silliness). It's really as if Dream Warriors never happened. It takes almost an hour for anyone to decide that Freddy needs his ass kicked and from there, it's a distant hope that we'll see anymore of that teamwork spirit that gave Warriors something special the original didn't have.