Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. I had a column all ready to be posted today, but I think I’ll hold off until tomorrow and give this day to honor the passing of one of the modern masters of horror, Wes Craven. His films were often hit or miss with me, but it’s undeniable that the man was one of the most prolific horror writer/directors of our generation. My heart goes out to his family and friends and to honor the work of the man, below are a handful of films I’ve covered in previous AICN HORROR posts, as well as an interview with Wes Craven himself from last year.Sometimes, getting to write this column fulfills dreams I never thought I’d be able to do; case in point, the below interview with Wes Craven. If you were to tell me at ten years old that I’d be talking with the guy who just scared my pants full with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I’d have laughed in your face. But sit down and chat with Mr. Craven, I did. Here’s what transpired when I talked with him about the phenomenon he created with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and the new BluRay release of NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: THE ELM STREET LEGACY.
Here’s what Mr. Craven had to say…
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): It’s an honor to speak with you today, Mr. Craven. Have you had a chance to see NEVER SLEEP AGAIN?
WES CRAVEN (WC): Yes, I watched it when they first completed it.
BUG: OK, having watched them and seeing not only the one’s you contributed to but also seeing the other films in the A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series, did you learn something new from watching it?
WC: There were certainly things about the other films that I didn’t work on that I didn’t know about and things that I didn’t know about the actors who played in those films. Yeah, I found the whole thing to be interesting.BUG: Have you kept up with the NIGHTMARE series even though you’re not really a part of the series any more or is that something you’re not interested in anymore?
WC: I think I’ve put it away. The remake was basically done by other people. It was made without Bob Shaye and even Robert, but they own the rights and they can do whatever they want to with the movie, you know?
BUG: Looking back on the phenomenon that was Freddy Krueger, what’s it like that something you created became such a household name; where all you have to do is say Freddy and people know exactly who you’re talking about?
WC: With NIGHTMARE it was something I had conceived and loved. It was from a very personal place that I created it and I have to say that it’s really fun to know that I’ve—I was watching a news report the other day and they were talking about the Wall Street mess and the image behind the news anchor read A NIGHTMARE ON WALL STREET. (laughs)And just the other night, I was watching NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and they were talking about the African Lion as the perfect killing machine and they showed the lion’s claws and they said, “These claws would even intimidate Freddy Krueger.” (laughs)
Freddy Krueger and the title A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET has just become part of the culture.
BUG: What do you think of the way Freddy was marketed? I mean, there were lunch boxes and children’s costumes and such.
WC: There’s something about Freddy that for some reason it seems kids are always attracted to and the nearest I can come to it is that there are specific tribes in Africa that wear costumes of the most feared animal in the jungle. So it is a form of naming and controlling of the monster. They identify it so that they can control it. It makes the horror safe to handle.
BUG: I was always curious of your choice of Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. How did that all come to be?WC: It was definitely the interview. When he walked in the room, I had already been casting for Freddy for a long time, and I was really looking for someone who could have the acting chops and the physicality for the role. And a lot of people, you could see when they did the readings were playing it kind of…camp. It wasn’t coming out of them, it was what an actor doing what they thought should come out of a horror film, coming from a place where in their opinion seemed to be a lower opinion of these types of films. You have to realize that if you are to go into the head of Freddy, to go into those darker places in one’s imagination, it’s not easy and most people find it distressing. Nobody really wants to feel like, “Yeah, that darkness is in me.” And that’s what the actor playing Freddy was supposed to do, find that place inside themselves that is dark and able to do these horrible things.
With Robert, it really seemed like this was the actor who was going to take the role and really go to exciting places with it. This was very important. Because if you get someone who is just doing it for the job, it’s not going to work. Like with SCREAM, Drew Barrymore and David Arquette both went out of their way to get those roles. They really wanted it, so they gave good performances. Robert Englund just had an incredible enthusiasm to play that role.BUG: To be completely honest, I wasn’t very fond of WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE when it first came out. But not long ago, I revisited it and found it to be really sophisticated and scary, though it was a departure from the other films. It seems like a film that was ahead of its time. It started going meta with the material, a trend you further developed in the SCREAM series. If you were ever to return to the NIGHTMARE series, would you continue to go meta with it?
WC: Once you’ve opened that door where actors talk about being in a film and they talk about real films in the world of the story, it’s hard to go back into the realm of the film and not recognize the films of the series. I am fascinated by metacommentary. It’s kind of like poking your head behind the curtain of the theater and seeing what goes on behind it. It’s like the Wizard of Oz and it’s a fun feeling. You can’t tell if you’re in a movie or not. And that life might just be a movie and a movie can be life. It’s fun to think of things like that. That to me, is something fun to play with.BUG: You had a pretty big part in NEW NIGHTMARE. And you did a pretty good job with that role playing yourself. Have you ever thought of doing more acting?
WC: (laughs) Well, no one’s been beating down my door asking me to act after those performances.
(Both laugh)
WC: I recently played myself in CASTLE on TV. That’s king of the roles I get asked to play. I get asked to play myself. That’s about all I do well. (laughs) I have a terrible memory, so remembering all of those lines is just something I couldn’t do.BUG: I have to ask, what would it take for you to do another ELM STREET movie?
WC: It’s funny. I fantasize about doing that. First of all it would take Warner Brothers to approach me, which they haven’t. I would only do it if the script they had or that I could come up with would be perfect. It would have to make artistic sense to me. I wouldn’t want to go out and do a remake or anything like that. I would use Robert Englund though.
BUG: Of course. Do you still teach at all?
WC: NO, I do occasional appearances at film schools. I just appeared at New York University. And I think I’m going to be doing Columbia this year. But I haven’t taught regular classes in 45 years.BUG: I was wondering what were you like as a teacher and what’s a class with Mr. Craven like to be in?
WC: I was kind of goofy. I was teaching History of Western Civilization and Freshman English and things like that. And so, we all had fun. I get a lot of letters from ex-students. I didn’t really have any intention of going the scholarly route and getting a PhD. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life researching the metrics of Keates early odes or something like that.
BUG: Well, I think we have time for one last question. What are you working on at the moment?
WC: Well, I just finished a five comic book miniseries with writer Steve Niles called COMING OF RAGE which is a sort of coming of age story with a young vampire. That will be published sometime this year, I believe March or April. That’ll be a graphic novel first and then most likely a movie. And I will be directing an episode in the Weinstein Company’s TEN COMMNANDMENTS.BUG: Oh wow!
WC: Yeah, they came to me and gave me my choice and I took “Thou shall not kill.” And I wrote a treatment that they loved, so that’ll be sometime later this year.
BUG: Man, I can’t wait for that. That would be great! Well, that’s all the time we have, so thank you so much for talking with me today. I can’t wait to see all of your upcoming projects.
WC: Thank so much, Mark. Thanks a lot! Bye!
BUG: Below are some of the works of Wes Craven from previous AICN HORROR columns.
THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977)
Directed and written by Wes CravenStarring Russ Grieve, Virginia Vincent, Susan Lanier, Dee Wallace, Janus Blythe, Robert Houston, Martin Speer, James Whitworth, Michael Berryman
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
What more can be said about the original THE HILLS HAVE EYES? It is simply a classic tale of terror about a battle for survival as two families (one your typical mid-western unit, the other a clan of savage feral people) smack into one another with the body count heavy on both sides. Much has been written about how both families functioned on screen; how each had complex relationships and histories, and how each react in times of stress and turmoil. In essence, like most classics, THE HILLS HAVE EYES is much more than the horror film is claimed to be.
Done when writer/director Wes Craven was on top of his game, the film has moments that would resurface in his later films (such as the fighting back sequence involving intricate mechanisms seen in both this film and in the climax of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and the attention to a family’s complex reaction to stress which is also prevalent in THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT), but here there’s a guttural and gritty quality to both the family systems at play in the Carter Family and the Jupiter Clan and the defenses and war plans each take in order to survive. This is an all out war between the two sides with the Carter Clan slowly turning more like the savages that have chosen them as prey.
One of the things I can’t help but mention is the scene where Bob Carter (played by Russ Grieve) is burned in a fire. This occurs early on and sets the stage for the brutal acts to follow. But the reaction from Virginia Vincent (who plays his wife Ethel) to this scene when she sees his body is one of those horrific moments in film history that with no doubt stick with you forever. Ethel’s screams of “That’s not my Bob!” is both shocking and heartbreaking at once. And as the family scatters like an overturned antfarm with their patriarch gone, Craven has never filmed a scene more dire and wrenching.
The cast of this film is fantastic as well. Everyone is swinging for the cheap seats in this one, especially the Carter family which includes a young Dee Wallace Stone. This also marks the debut of the quintessential weirdo Michael Berryman as Pluto. THE HILLS HAVE EYES is a brutal film that pulls no punches, takes no prisoners, and gives everything from family values to Hollywood convention the middle finger and a curb stomp. There was a time when the name Wes Craven on a film meant something horrifyingly raw, yet bitingly intelligent. I wish Mr. Craven would revisit this classic film and remember some of his old tricks. As is, I’ll rewatch THE HILLS HAVE EYES over a SCREAM sequel any old day.
DEADLY BLESSING (1981)
Directed by Wes CravenWritten by Glenn M. Benest, Matthew Barr, Wes Craven
Starring Maren Jensen, Sharon Stone, Susan Buckner, Jeff East, Colleen Riley, Douglas Barr, Lisa Hartman, Lois Nettleton, Ernest Borgnine, Michael Berryman, Jonathon Gulla
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
I tell you, those creepy Amish with their butter and their straw hats and their moustache-less beards. Well, technically, the religious folk in this film are called Hittites, but they are a radically more religious sect of the Amish and on top of that, damn, fucking scary. DEADLY BLESSING is an early work from Wes Craven. After the HILLS HAVE EYES and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, but before he burst onto the scene with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Keeping the chronology in mind, it does turn out to be quite an interesting, yet flawed little thriller.
The story follows a widow Martha (the gorgeous Maren Jensen, Athena from the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and in her last film appearance) who recently lost her husband in a freak barnyard accident (that may not be an accident. Martha, a city girl married into the Hittite defector and returned to the Hittite community, but was never accepted and called an “Incubus” by the Hittite elders and ever-creepy man-child Gluntz (Michael Berryman). After her husband’s death, Martha’s city girl friends Lana (a super young Sharon Stone) and Vicky (Susan Buckner) come to the rescue, urging her to leave, but Martha wants to stay. Meanwhile, the Hittites are boiling, with Ernest Borgnine leading the way with the harsh words of spite and heresy. Hittite bodies start piling up to add to the mix and soon the three women feel more unwelcome than usual as their dreams are assaulted with religious iconography, all forms of slithery creatures, and creepy whisperings and indications point that there’s a real life stalker in their midst as well.
This was the film Craven did before A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and many of the same themes apply here. Dreams factor heavily into the story as Lana dreams of being swallowed and then swallowing a spider while Vicky feels drawn to the local Hittite Willie Ames clone John (Jeff East, which sounds like a porn name to me). Martha continues to be wracked with guilt about her husband’s death, so there’s lots of angst, pathology, and temptation for Wes to play with here. This interest in psychology definitely shows up in Craven’s later works, but here it feels as if he’s just skimming the surface, as if this is the film he showed his interest in the subject.The scene where Martha is slipped a snake in the bathtub shows up in the famous Freddy glove between Heather Langenkamp’s legs from NIGHTMARE. Here the terror is very real, but just as terrifying. There are numerous expertly edited sequences (dream and real) as Craven takes full advantage of the farm environment with stark open fields and imposing creaky barns. Surprisingly, some of the most effective scares come in the Sharon Stone scenes who may have missed her calling as a scream queen as she takes part in a truly terrifying chase scene in a barn involving a lot of hay, a stalker, and a spider then has a great dream sequence which is mimicked on the poster (though the image looks nothing like her) as a pair of hands force Stone’s mouth open wide as a spider drops from above.
Some of the performances here are laughable. Berryman’s performance is straight out of the creep handbook and interesting in that he basically plays the same character as Crazy Ralph in the early FRIDAY THE 13TH films and suffers the same fate early on. Still Berryman’s serpentine smooth visage is much ookier than Ralph’s any old day.The main theme here which is reiterated numerous times in the nice little extras focusing on the lead actress, the writers behind the film as they collaborated the film, and the FX folks behind the final sequence which I will get to in a bit is that anything that is oppressed is bound to come back with deadlier, triple fold power. Centering on the highly religious culture of the Hittites with rigid rules and mores, the film proves for a fantastic backdrop for discussion about how strict religion can cause more problems than good. While many films covered here on AICN HORROR are somewhat disposable fluff with cheap scares and thrills, DEADLY BLESSING is definitely fodder for a meatier discussion afterwards.
The ending is the only part of DEADLY BLESSING that I felt missed the mark and I’ll put a SPOILER ALERT here to make sure to preserve the ending for those not wanting it revealed. The entire film centers on how strict belief in something often oppresses and causes a negative effect when not addressed. This comes up, for the most part, in the form of sexuality as the Hittites are known for calling women who don’t follow their beliefs whores and heathens. The film is very much firmly rooted in reality, with some fantasy sequences taking part in the form of dreams, never once suggesting something supernatural is going on. Sure, by having a demon and a ghost appear in the final moments is a hell of a shockeroo, but really does betray the tone and feel of the rest of the movie. It’s explained that Craven and the other folks behind this film had their hands tied when the studios wanted a shock ending like FRIDAY THE 13th and CARRIE, so while the bursting demon sequence looks cool, it still just doesn’t feel right. It’s funny that this same type of nonsensical ending was again used in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, but that one can be attributed to a dream sequence. Here the final girl is most definitely abducted by a demon which betrays the rest of the excellent film we have sat through.Final seconds aside, DEADLY BLESSING is a hell of a great time. Filled with quite a few fun extras from Michael Berryman, the FX crew, writers, and actresses, this new BluRay is definitely worth checking out.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
Directed by Wes CravenWritten by Wes Craven
Starring Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Ronee Blakley, Charles Fleischer, Lin Shaye
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
It’s always difficult to review the classics. It’s not that there’s nothing to say about them, it’s just that there’s been so much said about them that I feel I’m not saying anything new about it. I guess what I can do is talk about the first time I saw A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and see where that trip back down memory lane takes me.
It was a Wednesday night and my mother was going to some kind of class reunion meeting or something, and in order to shut my brother and myself up for a few hours, my mother took us to the corner video store to rent this recently released movie on VHS called A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. At this point, my brother and I were no strangers to gore, having seen our fair share of FRIDAY THE 13THs, HALLOWEENs, and late night oldies on Night Owl Theater out of the Columbus station we could get in our small Ohio town. But all of those films didn’t really prepare us for this film.Immediately, we were bombarded with the opening sequence which told us all we needed to know as a grumbling and heavy breathing man in the shadows constructs a heinous clawed glove in a filthy workshop near a furnace. While there was no dialog, this montage of construction and moans set the tone that this was the beginning of something special.
Soon after, we were treated to some pretty fantastic dream sequences which seemed to make sense and not make sense all at once, but as with dreams, you go with it. Why is there a sheep running down a hallway? Why does a short run down a hallway seem like an endless trek? Why do things pop out of nowhere? This was horror without a net. And while my brother and I were thrilled watching a hatchet wielding madman stalk some counselors, there were a set of rules which always held those films to a strict sense of reality. That sense was not present with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and because of that, at least in this first film, it made for amazing stuff for Wes Craven to play with.Though a lot of the acting in this film is pretty awful (even the then-unknown Johnny Depp comes off as pretty cardboard), the performances were pretty memorable. But we look past that because Robert Englund’s nightmare boogey man is so damn good here and the dream sequences are the stuff of the darkest recesses of our imaginations. While later outings got bigger and more effects driven, Craven relied on (most likely due to budget) subtle horrors such as a bloody body bag with a moaning person in it, stretched out arms that extend past that of a normal human’s should, sliced off fingers, and a phone with a tongue that immediately became iconic.
Sitting on the couch with my brother, both of us with pillows up to our 12 and 10 year old chins to cover our eyes when necessary, we were scared shitless by Craven’s creation. It borrows heavily from Craven’s first foray into the dream realm with DEADLY BLESSING (the bathtub sequence is almost exactly the same up to a point), but it expands on the concept showing Craven coming into his own as a filmmaker and ideaman.I don’t plan on explaining the first time I saw every movie in this newly released BluRay collection as I focus on one installment of the series after another over the next few weeks, but maybe this trip to yesteryear will prompt others to share the first time they saw A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. It was definitely a memorable experience for me and my brother on our feet cheering Nancy on as she battled Freddy in the closing moments.
THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2 (1985)
Directed by Wes CravenWritten by Wes Craven
Starring Tamara Stafford, Kevin Spirtas, John Bloom, Michael Berryman, Janus Blythe, Robert Houston
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
In the intro of Wes Craven’s follow up to his highly successful and critically acclaimed THE HILLS HAVE EYES, they mentioned that “The hills still had eyes!” which I think would have been a much cooler title. Not sure why I started out this review with that, but for some reason that’s the first thing that entered my head as I sat down to write. I guess that’s better than leading off with the acknowledgement that THE HILLS HAVE THIGHS is a pretty hilarious name for a porno that I didn’t not not not see on Skinemax a while back.
I guess my interest in rejiggering the name of the film speaks to how much I want to like THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2. It does have a lot of things going for it. Returning to the project is writer/director Wes Craven, who had just finished A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET a year earlier. Robert Houston and Janus Blythe, as well as Michael Berryman returned to the cast. Henry Manfredini lends his fluttering keyboard fingers for the score. Hell, it even worked out so that clips of the original were able to be used in this sequel. Despite all of that, though, is not great. I don’t want to call THHE2 a complete dud, but for many reasons, the film just doesn’t stack up to the original despite all of the returning factors.Gone is Craven’s multi-textural dissection of the modern nuclear family that was so prevalent in the first film. In part two, it’s a group of motorbike riders who get stranded in the middle of the desert after taking a shortcut through a dangerous nuclear test site. Anyone who saw the first film knows that this is a no-no as two of the surviving killers from the first film, Michael Berryman’s gaunt skinhead Pluto and John Bloom’s Neanderthal-like Reaper, stalk and kill the bikers in a fashion that was tried and true even at the time of this film’s release. This film seemed much more like a cash grab (something I’d be more willing to accept from Craven now, than back then when he actually had some horrific themes he wanted to explore and the gumption to do it effectively and riskily). Though THE HILLS HAVE EYES wasn’t getting any acting awards, years later, Craven didn’t get is cast to try so hard here either. The menace of the original family is kind of reduced to Pluto calling Beast (another returning character from part one, this one, a dog) a snot-licker before being knocked off a cliff to his death and the Reaper just growling and body slamming folks to death.
The film also is heavily reliant on flashbacks. Many of the most effective scenes from the first film are shown again through dreams and flashbacks from Bobby (Robert Huston who was a survivor from the first film) and Ruby (the young female from the family of killers who now is older and domesticated, played again by Janus Blythe). Hell, even the dog Beast has his own flashback sequence! When the pooch begins to have the squiggly screen, it’s become the point of parody.In many ways, this feels like a Wes Craven directed FRIDAY THE 13TH film as he goes through the motions that were well mapped out in those films by the time this one came out. It doesn’t help that Henry Manfredini’s score is almost identical to his fantastic FRIDAY THE 13TH scores minus the “Kill-kill-kill-ma-ma-ma!” echoes. The star, Kevin Spirtas even shows up in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 7 A NEW BLOOD a few years later.
Though it is a by the numbers slasher film, Craven does bring his trap making game as there are all kinds of pullies, spiked traps, sand pits, and the like made by both the biker kids and the killers themselves as they wage war on one another. Most are overly elaborate, but as with Nancy’s traps for Freddy in the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and the matchstick exploding trailer and makeshift tripwire survival traps of THE HILLS HAVE EYES, they are at least interesting to look at. Depalma gets a lot of both awe and flack for his overly complex set pieces, but Craven did his fair share of Rube Goldbergian monstrosities in his earlier films himself that is worth noting.If anything, this is a nice snippet of what horror was like in 1985. Everyone was trying to invest their own slasher franchise and with Craven branching out from NIGHTMARE, it seems he was placing his chips in an older property. Lacking in the deft themes and a lot of the grittiness of the original, THE HILLS HAVED EYES PART 2 remains entertaining as an oft times laughably bad horror schlocker.
Maybe if only they called it THE HILLS STILL HAVE EYES, it might have been better…
THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991)
Directed by Wes CravenWritten by Wes Craven
Starring Brandon Quintin Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer, Ving Rhames, Sean Whalen, Bill Cobbs, Kelly Jo Minter, Jeremy Roberts, Conni Marie Brazelton
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
While Wes Craven is responsible for some of the most influential horrors in modern cinema, THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS is not one of those films.
I remember seeing THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS when it was released in theaters and now after rewatching it on it’s Shout Factory BluRay rerelease, and both times I walked away from the film frustrated because somewhere inside this film is a decent and horrific movie. But while Craven seems to have wanted to tell a film ripe with social commentary, somewhere along the way he forgot that he was supposed to make his horror movie scary. Craven seems intent at pointing the finger at Da’ Man than serving up shocks by giving us cardboard characters, goofy attempts at humor, lame action, and horror that just misses the boat in terms of mood and effectiveness.Fool (Brandon Quintin Adams) is a street savvy kid who, like most people in his neighborhood, has fallen upon hard times. With his mother’s health deteriorating from the cancers, he teams up with Leroy (Ving Rhames) to break into the spookiest house in the neighborhood, owned by two whiteys who happen to be the landlords of the entire neighborhood. But after breaking into the house, Fool finds out that the unnamed Man (Everett McGill) and Woman (Wendy Robie) reside in a house of horrors with endless corridors, booby traps, and a basement full of freak children who haven’t seen the light of day in years. Trapped in the house, Fool befriends Alice (A.J. Langer) the abused perfect daughter of the Man and Woman who helps him elude their wrath in the walls of the house.
Laying the metaphor on like a peanut butter lover puttin’ peanut butter on a PJB with the crusts cut off, Craven pulls no punches in terms of naming his characters according to the role they are playing here. This is a broad and remedial commentary on minority oppression by those in power and Craven makes no steps in making anyone act like real people here. If you’re black in this film, you’re the picture of sainthood. If you’re white, you’re either utterly naïve or evil. There’s no in between here. And while my problem isn’t that it is a film geared towards a black audience, I do have a problem with the allegory being so paper thin that it insults the intelligence of the audience it is geared for. Making things this simple may make sure even the most mouth-breathing of the viewers get it, but shooting for the lowest common denominator doesn’t make for the most intellectually stimulating of films.So basically, we have kids acting tough when they should be piddling in their pants. We have weird fetish wear and equipment inserted for no reason other than to be weird and make the monsters more outlandish and unrelatable. And logic is tossed right outside of the window. For example, the Man fires his shotgun repeatedly throughout the house, but firing the shotgun outside is a no-no. The mutant kids in the basement haven’t seen the light of day in years and have turned into zombie-like monstrosities, but when the film ends, they scatter into the night. How in the hell are these albino metal head looking freaks going to survive now that they are out of the basement and wandering the streets? Craven cares not about the answers to these questions. All intellect, psychological heft, tactile terror, and thematic depth put into A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is nowhere to be seen in one second of this film.
The worst offense this film inflicts on those brave enough to view it is that it isn’t scary one bit. All of the astute timing of scares we saw in Craven’s earlier works is absent. Though most of the film happens inside of the house, everything is well lit and every camera shot feels rooted and bogged down. The action scenes don’t feel as if anything is at stake because the kids don’t really act like kids at all, just tiny adults who don’t have the height, power, or intelligence to back up the tough talk they are spewing. There’s a scene where Fool punches Man in the nuts, done solely for a laugh, that just exemplifies how far into the pit of bad filmmaking Craven has fallen. This scene alone makes Man look not like a formidable monster, but a buffoon that would be more comfortable terrorizing Macaulay Culkin than a horror film with Wes Craven’s name on it.Everything from the horrifically bad and repetitive soundtrack to the flat lighting to the shoddy effects makes me want to toss this movie across the room. While I always hope for good things from classic directors, THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS was the indicator that Craven had gone Hollywood and left the smartly scary stuff behind him for safe, remedial, and most disappointingly un-scary horror.
For those of you who like this film, I don’t hate you. I get there’s a quirky charm to this film. It’s just that the metaphor was so hamfisted that I always felt Craven was better than this. This BluRay is filled with all sorts of bells and whistles in the special features from interviews to behind the scenes footage. So if you’re a Craven completist, a fan of the film, or just a glutton for punishment, there’s a lot that goes along with this disk to enjoy.
WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994)
Directed by Wes CravenWritten by Wes Craven
Starring Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Wes Craven, Miko Hughes, Matt Winston, Rob LaBelle, David Newsom, Marianne Maddalena, Robert Shaye, John Saxon, Lin Shaye
Retro-reviewed by Ambush Bug
Though by far not the worst of the A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series, it definitely is the one that took the most risks. With this restart to the series New Line was hoping the man behind Freddy, Wes Craven, would inject some new life in the character which began to sag with age as the sequels went on. In doing so, Wes begins the meta-textual stage in his career looking at the subject through a movie within a movie lens. This is something Wes would expand upon with SCREAM, which comes out two years later, but it is here that Wes not only tries to continue his dissection of dreams, but also tried to say something about storytelling in general and how stories, like dreams, can often have a life of their own.Without getting too heady, NEW NIGHTMARE follows the original NIGHTMARE star Heather Langenkamp who plays herself as she begins to have increasingly horrific nightmares. Soon she finds that her son, Miko Hughes, is suffering from these nightmares as well, stating that “the bad old man” in his dreams is telling him to do things. As the antagonist from the NIGHTMARE films begins to seep more and more into Heather’s life, she uncovers that Wes (paying himself) is writing a new NIGHTMARE film which is taking a life of its own in the real world. Scenes play out of Wes’ story just as he is writing them, and given that Wes excels most in horror, this is nothing but trouble for Heather and her son.
Langenkamp is pretty good here playing herself. At times in both NIGHTMARE 1 and 3, her line delivery was often pretty flat, but here it seems Wes was able to pull some emotion from her. Wes and New Line producer Robert Shaye play themselves as well, which is a fun peek behind the curtain, though both roles highlight how they shouldn’t quit their day jobs for acting. The real treat is seeing Robert Englund play himself, tormented by Freddy in nightmares of his own. I wish more of the film would have focused on Englund and given him an opportunity to shine. An actor plagued by the role he had been type-cast to play has been done before, but never with this popular a character. I would have loved to see the struggle Robert faced as an actor with authentic talent who is overshadowed by one specific role.But that’s not the story Wes wanted to tell here. Instead, themes from THE DREAM CHILD are revisited as Freddy tries to possess little Dylan (Miko Hughes, who also played the psycho kid Gage from PET SEMETARY). Shades of THE EXORCIST and PET SEMETARY occur as Heather is distraught seeing her son being taken over by some kind of dream manifestation. For the most part, this drama pays off well. There’s a specific scene that takes place in a hospital later in the film which is one of the film’s best as an isolated Dylan attacks his mother and, in a scene that is repeated from the first NIGHTMARE film’s beginning, his nanny is shredded right in front of Dylan and the nursing staff, dragged across the wall and ceiling, and killed.
Freddy is much more menacing in this film. Not a lot of one liners and more mood, though there are scenes where Freddy is shown without the use of shadow which definitely pops the bubble of mystique. The final sequence inside the dream is disappointing, as the film resorts to tactics we had seen before in the sequels and were more FX heavy. Had Craven maintained the level of unease and simplicity that occurs in the first portions of the film, I believe this would have been a stronger attempt. But as the credits rolled, it felt as if this was just another FX-heavy climax, more focused on spectacle than depth.Still, if you’re looking for a good A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET film, WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE is much better than most of the sequels. I have to give them props for trying new things and listening to fans who complained about the bad stand-up comedian Freddy had become in the sequels. This Freddy is menacing and much more deadly; it’s the one fans of the original had been screaming for. Too bad the climax goes the easy route rather than the cerebral one Wes treats us to throughout most of the film.
SCREAM 4 (SCRE4M, 2011)
Directed by Wes CravenWritten by Kevin Williamson
Starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin, Anthony Anderson, Adam Brody, Anna Paquin, Kirsten Bell
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
SCREAM 4 (do I have to call it SCRE4M?) wants to have it both ways. It wants to make fun of the horror genre as if it was better than all of that, yet it still wants to function as a horror film itself. But in order to do this successfully, both the meta-criticism and the horror have to be top notch. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson pretty much achieved this in the very first SCREAM, but since then the SCREAM films became the horror clichés they tried oh so hard to comment on. As the movies went on, the plots got more predictable and scares got lamer. I was hoping that a decade off from the franchise would somehow give the folks behind the film enough time to harness what made the first one work. Sadly, that’s just not the case with SCREAM 4.
Those looking for a spoiler laden review naming the killer of the film and who will survive will be sorely disappointed here. Even though I didn’t particularly like the film, I won’t spoil the big mystery. Let’s just say that the reveal of who the killer is definitely is one of the lamer reveals of the series and leave it at that. The momentum screeching exposition by this character explaining each and every move they took to make sense of the film (which lobs out red herrings like a red herring cannon next to a pond well stocked with red herrings…ok, I know that was bad). But the identity of the killer is not what soured SCREAM 4 for me.The film starts out promising and cleverly incorporates horror and comedy (the two elements that made the first one work so well) in a series of false starts that were genuinely fun. This opening sequence, by far, is the most enjoyable part of the film. It’s a clever and fun way of starting out this SCREAM like the other SCREAM’s while making it wholly original. I wish the fun would have continued at this level for the rest of the film.
The main problem of SCREAM is that it isn’t scary in the slightest. Due to multiple sequels and parodies, Ghostface just isn’t scary anymore, and here, the way Craven frames him, he is even less scary. Sure there are a couple of good jump scares, but I attribute them to the sound guy who mallet-fists a keyboard at full volume rather than the content of the scene. Every time Ghostface showed up, all I could think about was the SCARY MOVIE “wassap!” sequence. Craven and Williamson probably have it in them to make the character scary again, but with one or two exceptions (there was a good sequence where we think the killer is calling from the closet that works well), the killer just isn’t that scary.Another problem is that the new generation of cast members aren’t nearly as likable as the original crew (or even that of the sequels prior). Sure there’s the chick from HEROES and there’s a Culkin, but none of them match the caliber of the original cast. The reason why the first worked was because the cast was filled with talented young actors (and Matthew Lillard…JOKE!). With SCREAM 4, it feels like casting just plucked whoever was at the food court on the WB lot at random and gave them a role. When you don’t care whether or not the cast lives or dies, you don’t give a shit when they are being chased by a killer.
The cast that do return (Cox, Arquette, and Campbell) just seem to be going for a paycheck here. Arquette’s Dewey has been elevated to sheriff status and spends the entire film arriving just shy of the nick of time and looking befuddled. Cox as Gale is given a bit of a meatier role with her character trying to write a new novel about the new murders while struggling with an understanding of the advancements in technology and media. Campbell has the same problem as Arquette, with her Sidney character serving only to react to all of the events around her and never really mattering in the equation. These three leads are barely present in the third act as the WB kids take center stage in the final showdown. Even professionals like Mary McDonnell fart through their lines with little to no energy. And don’t get me started at how ultimately lame Anthony Anderson and Adam Brody are as a pair of bumbling cops (one line in particular delivered by Anderson is definitely the biggest groaner of the film).
Speaking of groaners, the film is littered with them. The snappy dialog and sharp criticism of the genre just isn’t present in SCREAM 4. But here’s the thing, although I acknowledge the original SCREAM as a pretty good movie, I loathed what it represented and what stemmed from its success. Yes, the horror genre needed a reboot. It needed someone to stand up and call it out for its repetitive, formulaic trappings. SCREAM served that purpose and popped up at a time when horror was pretty stagnant. Being an avid fan of the genre, it got pretty annoying though after a time when every cliché listed in those films were deemed stupid or beneath the characters, writers, directors, and even viewers of the film. The thing is, a lot of those clichés, in talented hands still work. They’re still effective. They can still scare you. The most important failure in SCREAM 4 is that it has the balls to look down on scary films by casting the fans as nerds and weirdos, by listing aspects of the movies over and over and deeming them lame, by having the characters themselves not like horror films in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink fashion—without proving it can be scary itself. The final moments of this film are supposed to have us revved up to a fever pitch as the heroes and the killer battle it out. If I had the nerve to say how stupid these types of films are in a meta-commentary, I damn well better make a superior horror film. SCREAM 4 isn’t that as the last act fails miserably because of the lameness of the killer and the effectiveness of the story behind it.At its best, SCREAM 4 is a remake of SCREAM. Though SCREAM made the slasher movie cool again with decent acting, funny quips (I still say “Liver alone!” on occasion), and somewhat astute observations on the genre, SCREAM 4 plays like the endless remakes that have overcome the industry these days with little else to add to the conversation. Though it started out strong, much like the bulk of the remakes out there these days, I could have done without SCREAM 4.
