Nightmare on Elm Street series

  • Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Blu-Ray, November 2021) By this sixth instalment in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, the flaws of the movies are as annoying as its strengths are well practised. Effectively the end of the first cycle of the series (the follow-up 1994 New Nightmare instalment was meta-commentary, while the 2010 reboot operated in its own continuity), Freddy’s Dead does have the decency to end on an unusually decisive tone — New Line Cinema having decided to put their resources in other franchises. Unfortunately, even being definitive about Freddy Krueger’s death doesn’t lift the film out of the series’ doldrums — as usual by this point, the effective, disturbing dream imagery is sabotaged by the even more deliberate intention to turn Krueger into an inveterate jokester, with puns replacing coherent dialogue and going to the extent of throwing in cartoonish moments of pure comedy. Plot-wise, the film is slightly better than many previous instalments, foregoing the tired “new crop of high schoolers getting slaughtered” premise for a more interesting battle between psychiatric patients (echoes of the third instalment) and a cornered Krueger. The surrealism is often pushed and occasionally better-executed than many previous instalments, but it’s the series worship of its antagonist that grates as much as the way he was transformed into a comedy prop. In that regard, the much-maligned 2010 remake did have the right idea: no jokes, just terror. Freddy’s Dead is definitely at its best when it’s unsettling, but it frequently undercuts its own strengths by shifting to a tone it has no business having. At least it ends on a conclusive note, which is quite infrequent when it comes to long-running horror series.

  • A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child aka Nightmare on Elm Street 5 (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Blu-Ray, November 2021) By this point in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, five instalments deep, the films were almost operating on autopilot, and so will my review. Once again in The Dream Child, Freddy Krueger is slaughtering an entire finishing class of students brought forth as slasher fodder. Once more, a plucky heroine triumphs over near-impossible evil. Once more, the film’s strongest moments (and the series’ chief claim to distinction in a crowded 1980s slasher-horror field) come from the disturbing oneiric sequences where reality and dream logic crash into gory sequences. Once more, the film undermines its own potency by having antagonist Freddy Krueger spout a stream of nonsensical one-liners, simply stringing puns one after the other — it’s hard to make a credible horror film when the antagonist acts like a terrible stand-up comedian. It all combines to create something that is frustrating, but admittedly still more interesting than most of the slasher horror films of the time — a mixture of special effects, gothic weirdness, call-backs to the series’ mythology and some darker imagery to go with the provocative pregnancy motif of the film. Still, you have to be a fan (or at least tolerant) of the series to make it all the way to The Dream Child — it’s more of the same.

  • A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Blu-Ray, October 2021) Annoying in concept and somewhat better in execution, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master benefits from having Renny Harlin in the director’s chair. In what ended up being his breakthrough American film, Harlin here shows some flair in setting up the scares, with better-than-expected cinematography, effective special effects (for the late 1980s, of course) and decent pacing. The surreal imagery that distinguishes the series is once again a reason to watch it over more ordinary slasher films of the period, and so are the actresses. (Lisa Wilcox does surprisingly well as the heroine, but I was just sad when Toy Newkirk’s character left the film.) Where I’m not so happy with The Dream Master is in its overall plot, which brings back characters from previous films only to kill them, with this endless parade of kills only reinforcing the arbitrary nature of the series’ plotting. To that we can add the kiddification of Freddy Krueger in an annoying quip-spouting sort-of-protagonist, neutralizing the dread that the character was supposed to cause. But four instalments in—what were we expecting? It’s a minor miracle already that the direction is decent and the visual style still raises the level of the series’ nightmarish imagery. (That insect transformation sequence… yuck.)  The Dream Master is still worth watching if you’re this deep into the series and know what quirks to expect, but I suspect it won’t make many new fans.

  • A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

    A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, November 2018) Now that’s more like it. After a second film that didn’t do much with the possibilities of the series’ central premise, here comes A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors to dig a little deeper in its potential. Almost entirely forgetting the second instalment, this volume finds Freddy Kruger tormenting kids, the first film’s final girl coming back, and the kids finding a way to fight back. Now, I don’t really like the series—it’s cheap, it’s occasionally far too silly for its own good, the actors are really not good (I like looking at Heather Langenkamp, but her acting here is terrible) and there’s a huge gap between the potential of the series and its execution. Still, Dream Warriors is watchable enough: the imagery of the dream sequences is far more interesting than your average slasher, while the idea of youth fighting back is promising (the execution; not so much). Alas, there are more than a few clunkers in the works: Freddy Kruger definitely takes a turn for comedy here, moderately defanging the antagonist. The story also flirts with a highly inappropriate relationship between doctor and intern, undermining the whole atmosphere. I’m not a fan, but I didn’t have the feeling of wasting my time.

  • A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

    A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Blu-ray, November 2018) I probably shouldn’t expect much from the Nightmare on Elm Street series, but its second instalment feels silly and dull. Freddy’s Revenge clearly isn’t beholden to any kind of internal logic, meaning that stuff happens without explanations or rigour in what is made possible by the rules of the series. The strength of the Nightmare on Elm Street series is how its films can flip squarely in dream logic without much notice, but there isn’t enough of that in this sequel. There are, to be fair, some decent sequences here and there—the idea of a character possessed to conduct a series of murders is horrifying enough, and there is one showcase sequence in which antagonist Freddy gruesomely emerges from the protagonist’s body. The special effects do have a quaintly charming quality that reminds us that this is merely a movie. Still, taken at face value, Freddy’s Revenge isn’t much to talk about—as if someone had seen the first film and had to turn out a half-baked script in a few weeks. But if you do read about the film and discover that there was an intentional attempt (not recognized by the director) from screenwriter David Chaskin to insert a significant amount of homosexual subtext, then the film suddenly become far more interesting, even in retrospect: Suddenly, the lack of romantic chemistry between hero and heroine, the tone of the coach sequence, the “friendship” between the two male leads and the body-horror all become pieces of evidence in a deeper reading of the film. I’m not among the target audience for such alternate takes on material, but it’s there and it does lend quite a bit of depth to what had been at face value an uninspired sequel.

  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

    A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2016) Watching this A Nightmare on Elm Street remake so close to seeing the original is an exercise in comparing different film eras. The eighties were marked by rapid experimentation, at the frequent expense of polish or logic. The Teens, especially at the Hollywood studio level, are about crass commercialism, storytelling templates and visual slickness, even if the result often feels as if it comes off an assembly chain. In A Nightmare on Elm Street’s case, there’s also twenty-five years of accumulated fannish expectations regarding Freddy Krueger, who’s been featured in five sequels, one crossover, videogames, comics, Halloween costumes and enough merchandizing to make anyone wonder why we’re cheering for a serial child killer. Thankfully, the remake goes easy on the homages: While this new version of A Nightmare on Elm Street keeps more or less the same structure as the original and doesn’t dare deviate from its iconography, it’s also relaxed about doing its own thing. The acting is much better (Jackie Earle Haley is fine as Krueger, while it’s a surprise to find Rooney Mara in a pre-stardom role here), and so is the cinematography. The progress in special effects technology means that the remake is far more visually cohesive than the original. There is a pretty good sequence, for instance, in which action in a small supermarket seamlessly shift into a boiler-room nightmare and that’s the kind of intricately controlled special effect set-piece that the 1984 low-budget film couldn’t even aspire to execute. On the other hand, this reliance on digital wizardry means that this remake looks far more deliberate and restrained than the original. Everything from director Samuel Bayer seems planned, with few surprises or genuinely upsetting visions along the way. (This being said, I’m more annoyed than I expected at the last gory death of the film.) While this A Nightmare on Elm Street does stand on its own as an average horror movie, it does pale in comparison to the loopy terrors of its inspiration. Even five years after the remake, it seems clear that the 1984 original will be remembered for far longer.

  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

    A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2016) I was about to watch the 2010 remake of Nightmare on Elm Street without paying homage to the 1984 original … but then common sense came back to me and I had to take a look at it. Despite the film’s flaws, I’m glad I did, because this original Nightmare has a few things that weren’t captured by the remake. Probably the most significant of them is the eerie horror of the film’s dreamlike logic: Freddy’s first confrontation alone has more disturbing imagery than the entire remake, and the roughness of the film’s execution often highlights the disarming surrealism of writer/director Wes Craven’s vision. It’s this nervous energy that runs through Nightmare on Elm Street and makes it far more memorable than many slasher horror movies of the time. In other aspects, the film doesn’t fare as well: The acting isn’t particularly good (Heather Langenkamp is disappointing as the lead, and Johnny Depp does not impress in his big-screen debut), the pacing stops and goes, the cinematography is recognizably low-budget. And that’s without mentioning the somewhat unsatisfying ending, which just throws reality and nightmares in the same dumpster, then sets fire to everything and runs around laughing. Meh. It’s worth noting, from a perspective thirty years later, that Freddy’s character in this inaugural film, even played by Robert Englund, isn’t the wisecracking chatterbox of latter films: he largely remains this implacable threat and that further distinguishes this film from latter sequels and remakes. While this original Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t, strictly speaking, an exceptional movie or even a particularly good horror movie, it does have, even today, something more than other horror movies of the time. No wonder it still endures.

  • Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

    Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2016) Watching this movie without much knowledge or affection for either the Friday the 13th or the Nightmare on Elm Street series had me feeling as if I was attending a very strange party to which I hadn’t been invited. The concept of horror villain fandom baffles me—I had the impression that Freddy vs Jason was trying to get me to cheer for one mass murderers of children or another, which just seems wrong. It doesn’t help that Freddy vs Jason is, in most aspects, a thoroughly forgettable slasher: Here are a bunch of teenagers, there are the monsters, watch as they get picked off one by one until the final girl. Yawn. The film’s sole distinction is the amount of worship that Freddy vs Jason has for either Freddy Krueger (cackling one-liners) or Jason Voorhees (silent brute), which doesn’t translate into anything meaningful. Again: I’d like a horror movie that doesn’t make me feel like a psychopath, please. Some aspects of the film warrant mention due to imperfection: the CGI effects, in particular, look fake and dated. Some of Ronny Yu’s direction has some high-energy moments (with Robert Englund clearly having fun in a familiar role), even though the Crystal Lake third act feels far too long for its own good. I almost certainly could have gotten more out of Freddy vs Jason had I watched the interminable series that inspired it. But frankly, I have better things to do.