A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors

Dir: Chuck Russell, 1987. Starring: H. Langenkamp, P. Arquette, R. Englund, L. Fishburn, J. Saxon. Horror.

My appreciation for the 3rd installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise skyrocketed after watching Christopher Nolan's Inception. Yes, it takes itself less seriously. Hell no, it never received any Oscar buzz. Yes, it's outright cartoonish at times, And, no, you can't convince me I've lost my mind for thinking this (if I'm insane you wouldn't be able to win an argument with me anyway). A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors is actually the more sensible, and even more creative film. Re-watching it again recently, I was in awe of its inventiveness with dream logic, and its surreal special effects and production design. It also establishes an idea within two minutes that Nolan completely fails at with 148: that death within a dream has high consequences.

Nightmare 3 ignores whatever happened in Part Two, and so it's not required viewing beforehand (though none of it will make a bit of sense to those who never saw the original Nightmare on Elm Street). The film opens with a teenage artist named Kristen (Patricia Arquette in her first feature-length role). She's mixing coffee grounds with Coke to stay awake, and building a model of a certain creepy house on Elm Street she keeps visiting in her dreams. Soon enough, we're in it with her after she falls asleep, and she's attacked by a razor-gloved, dream-stalking serial killer known as Freddy Krueger. She wakes up in her mother's bathroom holding a razor with slit wrists.

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Posted by:
Paul Losada
Dec 24, 2010 12:32pm

Bad Dreams

Dir: Andrew Fleming, 1988. Starring: Jennifer Rubin, Bruce Abbott, Richard Lynch, Dean Cameron. Horror.

"O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."

-William Shakespeare's Hamlet

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Posted by:
Edythe Smith
Oct 19, 2010 4:21pm

Deadgirl

Dir: Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel. 2008. Starring: Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Michael Bowen, Candice Accola. Horror.

I checked out Deadgirl as an experiment. There was no way anyone could make a film about a zombie sex slave and elevate it beyond an unbelievable, exploitative sleaze-fest of misery the trailer painted it out to be. At best, I would walk away from it knowing how NOT to make a horror film; at worst, I'd say "yuck" and take a long hot shower afterward. But I also had to see it because it was the first movie idea I heard in a while that actually made me think I could say "yuck." As horror fans, we're all trying to find the next high--the next stomach-churning gross out, or even better, a story that might actually send a genuine chill of fear down our spines after we thought we've seen it all. Deadgirl delivers the heeby-geebies more effectively than I predicted, but probably not in the way the filmmakers intended. Underneath an odd attempt to create a coming of age story, there's a social commentary being made on how terrifyingly clueless teens might be today on what it means to be a "man."

Unpopular, more likely to smoke a joint than pick up a football, and too inept to talk to girls, Rickie and J.T. at least start the story off as ordinary teenage misfits. When cutting school for a day for some old-fashioned beer-drinking and petty vandalism at the local abandoned insane asylum, however, they find something that proves to be a right of passage neither quite imagined for themselves: a naked girl strapped to a table in the dank and decrepit basement of the hospital. Rickie wants to run away and pretend they were never there, but J.T. gets a more deviant idea. "We could keep her," he says. What's the moral thing to do? Well, that question gets hazy once they realize the girl is sort-of-but-not-really dead. The real trouble begins, though, when word gets out to more boys at school. I'll just say that a whole lot more gets lost than friendship (and virginity).

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Posted by:
Paul Losada
May 19, 2010 12:19pm

Dust Devil: The Final Cut

Dir. Richard Stanley, 1992. Starring: Robert John Burke, Chelsea Field. English/Afrikaans. Horror.

Dust Devil has suffered from a bad reputation ever since Harvey and somebody Weinstein eviscerated Richard Stanley’s cut of the film from 108 minutes to 87 for its ill-fated theatrical release. Stanley’s previous feature was the cult hit Hardware, which was noted for having made back its micro budget many times over as a video store hit. Why the Weinsteins chose to lop off 20 minutes and remove all the sense from the film is a bit of a mystery. Hopefully, Dust Devil: The Final Cut will redeem the film in the eyes of those who had seen it previously and introduce this gem to a new generation of horror fans.

Set in an arid, remote region of South Africa, Dust Devil follows an enigmatic serial killer (Robert John Burke), half man-half demon who follows the lonely highway, making love to and then killing depressed women. The killer uses ritual magic, attempting through his murders to transcend the earthly plane so he can return to the spiritual world. The desert setting gives the film a Western atmosphere as does the casting of an American actor in the drifter-killer role. Whether there are supposed to be additional political connotations in an American man using African magic and killing white African women is an unresolved quandary. Wendy, a narcissistic housewife, leaves her brutish husband, eventually crossing paths with the handsome killer. The fact that neither the killer, nor Wendy, nor her husband are likeable characters and the latter two are idiots, makes the final battle all the more enjoyable. By liberating you from sympathizing with the protagonists, Stanley allows the viewers to consider the killer’s motivations objectively and also enjoy the resulting bloodshed more thoroughly.

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Posted by:
Gillian Horvat
Dec 6, 2008 2:59pm

Frontiere(s)

Dir: Xavier Gens. 2007. Starring: Karina Testa, Aurelien Wiik, Samuel Le Bihan. French/German. Horror.

For a country not known for redefining or even perpetuating the horror genre, the French are starting to step up to the plate and show the world how it’s done. In recent years, we’ve seen several little horrifying gems come from a place better known for idiosyncratic comedies, dark fairytales and, essentially, the definition of modern cinematic storytelling. Such films include Irreversible, Haute Tension, Inside, and this film – Frontiere(s).

First of all, I have to thank Phil Blankenship for motivating me to check this one out. I had read a really good review in a recent issue of Fangoria yet I wasn’t convinced. Apparently, it was apart of the “8 Films To Die For” festival that takes place in November (that could very well be the reason I didn’t take this one too seriously upon discovery). It wasn’t until my conversation with Phil that I really took notice.

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Posted by:
Travis King
Jun 2, 2008 5:42pm

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Dir: Richard Ayoade, 2004. Starring: Matthew Holness, Matt Berry, Alice Lowe, Richard Ayoade. Import.

Ok, so Darkplace is a 1980's horror television show... no wait. It's about this horror author... no, that's not right either. You see, I have to pretend I don't know how to properly describe Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, not only as a silly writer-ly way to start a review but also because I genuinely have a hard time doing it.

Garth Marenghi is a creation of actor Matthew Holness. He is not a real person. Much like Stephen King, Marenghi is a horror novelist who specializes in turning the mundane into the horrific. But then back in the 1980's Marenghi grew tired of books and decided to turn his attention to television and Darkplace was born! Being the way-ahead-of-his-time writer that he his, Darkplace was pulled from television for being either too frightening or possibly too moronic (depending on who you talk to) and never shown again... until now.

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Posted by:
Eric Branscum
Feb 26, 2009 12:53pm

Horror Express

Dir: Eugenio Martín, 1972. Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Telly Savalas. Horror.

This early '70s British/Spanish co-production is more interesting than most of the other horror/sci-fi flicks its countrymen were putting out in its day. It’s also the best Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee flick of the '70s. Horror Express plays like a mad mesh-up of The Thing, Murder On The Orient Express, Night Of The Living Dead, and Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass series. It may be a wacky low-budget affair, but it’s actually an eerie little genre masterpiece.

Anthropologist Alexander Saxton (Lee) boards the Trans-Siberian Express in 1906 with a crated fossil of what he believe to be the "missing link." A mad Rasputin-like monk (Alberto de Mendoza) becomes obsessed with it, declaring it the devil and waking it from its deep slumber. When it escapes and starts killing passengers, Saxton must team up with his rival, Dr. Wells (Cushing), to destroy it. The scientists study its retina and learn that it came to ancient Earth from outer space a la The Thing. And also like The Thing it seems to be able to take the form of the people it mind-melds with, causing the killing to continue.

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Posted by:
Sean Sweeney
Oct 13, 2010 4:47pm

I Drink Your Blood

Dir: David E. Durston, 1970. Starring: Alex Mann, John Damon, Elizabeth Marner-Brooks, Iris Brooks, Tyde Kierney. Horror/Cult.

First off, let me announce that while this film has boatloads of bloodshed and theme music that warns for danger, I think it is safe to classify it as a cult classic if you wish. The plot is amazing and reflects the vast majority of cult films where just about anything is possible. For instance, in what other genre can you see 50-ft women who trample cities, phobias of every drug imaginable, and alternate fantasies pulled from the minds of those with some of the biggest imaginations? I Drink Your Blood is a movie that would please a cult fanatic more than one of the horror genre, more specifically modern horror. Set in a small town, a group of LSD addicted hippies who belong to a satanic cult have come for a little vacation. At first, their stay is merely criticized by locals until a townsman of old age and his grandson stumble upon one of their bizarre torture rituals and discover that all is not well. When caught, the group holds the boy down and forces the old man to take LSD, causing him to later freak out and ultimately traumatizing his grandson. After witnessing the event, the young boy wanders into the woods and confronts a rabid dog, later to return and shoot the animal in order to collect some of its contaminated blood. The next morning he ventures to the local deli where the only thing on the menu, and thus the only source of food for these mean-spirited hippies, is meat pies. He injects the pies with the rabid blood, unleashing a wave of destruction as the LSD addicted hippie-zombies then blow through the town with a thirst for flesh and a phobia of water.

The only ultra-cheesy aspect of the film is the music that looms in the background when danger is up ahead. In short, it sounds like a collaboration of speedy synthesizers near the point of combustion. The costumes are great, as well as the color contrast, and especially the lighting. The film stock is a bit grainy, which works well for a film from the '70s and adds to the whole drive-in movie effect. The hair…my God, it alone holds the movie up. Never again will you see awesome styles, still lingering from the '60s, equipped with stunning sideburns and overflowing chest hair. The dialog is cheesy, but placed in the right context and certainly one-of-a-kind. I almost wish I could take a trip back to the '70s in order to see if the phrases they used actually existed in everyday speech, or if they only appeared in movies. At every corner there is some sharp object (knife, sword, dagger) or cooler tools like fire, water, and stakes to wage war between the locals and the Satanists, whose number only increases as they contaminate others.

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Posted by:
Edythe Smith
May 3, 2010 5:27pm

Intruder

Dir: Scott Spiegel, 1989. Starring: Elizabeth Cox, Renée Estevez, Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi, Eugene Robert Glazer. Horror.

Could you imagine what it would be like to finish an exhausting shift at a retail job, only to find upon closing that there is a killer who wants to use the abundance of box cutters and deli knives to expose your innards? Well, that's where this slasher movie begins, and that is just the beginning of its craftiness. Slasher films are usually really good about having slaughter come in the most inopportune times: swimming, camping, love making, eating and so forth. I think this adds that special tension that comes along with horror films—the old “don't go up the stairs” warning you try to tell the characters by squirming in your seat. Intruder lacks this tension at first because you're not exactly sure what's going on, and with the large cast and lack of character background with any of them, it's hard to decipher where everyone is and who is still alive. Perhaps that's a good thing. Surely when the movie's awesome kill scenes surface, you really don't care who gets the ax; you just want to see how many horrible ways someone could be murdered within an hour at a supermarket.

As mentioned before, the cast is considerably large for a slasher, and they are killed rather swiftly. I couldn't really catch most of the characters' names or tell Ted and Sam Raimi apart, but it really doesn't matter. Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox) and her coworker Linda (Renée Estevez) are the only two employees at the registers when it comes time to close at their supermarket. Meanwhile, all the male workers are busy cleaning, butchering meat, and adding numbers in various parts of the store. The last customer to be rung up is Jennifer 's ex-boyfriend who was recently released from prison. Their breakup has left him a little disgruntled, and he picks a fight with her. When the fight turns physical, all the male workers attack and kick the brute out. The police are called and can't find him, so everyone goes about their routine closing, which seems to take much longer than it normally should. They all get together and one of the veterans there expresses his disappointment that the store will be closing and the property handed over to the government. A little more prep work is done for the following day, but when it comes time for everyone to leave, no one is able to make it out of the front door. Using meat hooks in the cooler, table saws, box cutters and various knives, a mysterious killer has infiltrated the store and intends on leaving no one standing. But is Jennifer's woman-beating boyfriend the culprit or does someone else have a score to settle?

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Posted by:
Edythe Smith
Mar 17, 2011 6:38pm

Jaws

Dir: Steven Spielberg, 1975. Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw. Horror.

The summer of 1975 saw a decline in beach activity and beach resort profits, not because of anything that happened in real life, but because what happened in the cinemas that summer. It was a little film, by a twenty-something director, that due to technical problems was barely able to get out of the water. At the time of its release Jaws may have been the biggest cultural blockbuster since Gone With The Wind. It was all the talk, all the rage, and its effect on beach life and the reputation of sharks is still felt today. But more importantly, hype aside, Jaws is also some good old-fashioned filmmaking, and is still one of the greatest adventure, horror films ever.

In the mid '70s it was rare for a director of a major studio movie to only be in his 20s, but after a string of acclaimed TV movies, including the landmark thriller Duel, Steven Spielberg was called a wunderkind. His first go at the big screen, The Sugarland Express with Goldie Hawn, was a well done road picture. Though it was steeped in '70s rebellion, it didn’t come close to revealing just how in touch with the pulse of audiences Spielberg would prove to be.

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Posted by:
Sean Sweeney
Apr 29, 2011 7:21pm
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