"A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)

Directed by Samuel Bayer
Written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer

Rated R for strong bloody horror violence, disturbing images, terror and language.

Alright movie fans! My new full-time job has prevented me from reviewing as many films as I would have liked this last week and a half or so, but this one was just too big to keep under my fedora.

The newest installment in the famed series "A Nightmare on Elm Street" restarts the series at it's dark beginnings, expanding on events that were only mentioned briefly or alluded to in the original "Nightmare" movie.

The teenaged children of Springwood are being stalked in their dreams by an eerie man in a striped sweater, fedora and a glove with knives for fingers. The film opens at the Springwood Diner, where Nancy (the hero of the original), Kris (her best friend) and Quentin (Nancy's boyfriend) watch horrified as one of their friends commits suicide with a steak knife while screaming that he's being attacked. I felt like this was a fairly solid opening. The initial dialogue in the diner is a little contrived as it's obvious main purpose is to quickly introduce the main characters. The death scene however, is a great first kill for Freddy. Because witnesses saw the boy kill himself there are no supernatural loose ends that might merit further police investigation. In other words, a death that the parents of the community can mourn as a tragic fluke without worrying enough about their own children to do anything about it. A perfect start to a new "Nightmare".

Well, almost perfect. One of the big problems with this movie is acting. For the first third of the movie, I thought that Nancy (played by no-name actress Rooney Mara) had some kind of speech impediment or learning disability. She speaks like she's having trouble breathing and looks like she's zoned out on some heavy medication. I blame "Twilight". Those terrible "glam-pire" movies have sullied what it means to be a horror movie heroine. Instead of tough, passionate and resourceful, like Heather Langenkamp's original portrayal of Nancy, Mara's version of the character is frail and waif-like, bookish and brooding. It sickens me to draw a comparison between such a good series and such a bad one, but in her worse moments, Mara's Nancy seems like a carbon-copy of the hideous and reprehensible character Bella from the "Twilight" series. 

The devolution of horror heroines (left to right): Heather Langenkamp as Nancy in 1984, Rooney Mara as Nancy in 2010, and Down's Syndrome Bella.

In all fairness to Rooney Mara, even Heather Langenkamp was a terrible actress when she first stepped into Nancy's shoes. The key difference between their performances is that Heather knew how to scream and act frightened. Mara's acting in the remake was of such a low intensity that it almost seemed like Freddy Krueger was an annoying ex-boyfriend who won't stop calling; obnoxious but ultimately harmless. How is the audience supposed to be afraid of the villain when the heroine is so lethargic?

The story of this new "Nightmare" film is actually very good. The writers have taken characters and situations from the original and re-imagined them in a modern setting, with an increased focus on Freddy's back-story (which was only alluded to in the original). In the original "Nightmare", Nancy's alcoholic mother reluctantly reveals that Freddy Krueger was a perverted school janitor who killed (and possibly molested) little children. "...the lawyers got fat and the judge got famous, but someone forgot to sign a search warrant in the right place and Krueger was free, just like that." The parents of Springwood corner Krueger in an old abandoned boiler room where he had taken kids to do terrible things to him, and set it on fire with him inside, killing him and ultimately turning him into the vengeful dream demon we  all know and love. In a deleted scene from the original "Nightmare", Nancy's mother goes further to reveal that all of the main kids who are being targeted by Freddy had older siblings who Freddy had killed when he was alive, but when the kids were too young to remember. Watch the deleted scene here:

My idea of the perfect "Nightmare" origins story would be a portrayal of Freddy when he was murdering the first batch of kids as a living man. The film would chronicle all of his alleged kills (around 20) and end with his fiery death at the hands of the town's parents. They could even use this deleted footage from the original (touched up digitally so it looks shiny and new) as a way to tie the new prequel to the original. The new "Nightmare" didn't take this path, but rather tells a story that weaves parts of the original into something new. 

In the new film, Krueger is not killed for killing children, but for allegedly molesting them. He seems more sympathetic in the new film because the parents choose to kill him without even trying to let the law handle him. In the first flashback dream sequence, we see him chased into an abandoned warehouse(?) by the angry parents. As they set the fire, Freddy looks scared and is screaming "I don't know what you think I did". All in all, we're set up to question whether or not Freddy was ever really guilty of the crimes he was killed for.

Whether or not he's a child molester, Freddy is pissed and out for revenge on the kids whose "stories" got him killed. Killing is clearly what Freddy's best at. The kill scenes are pretty solid, and are mostly recreations or homages to the fantastic death scenes in the original "Nightmare". Some of the classic visuals have been redone fairly well. Kris' death scene is a more brutal homage to Tina's death scene in the original. Her terrified boyfriend watches in horror as she's thrown against the ceiling and walls by an invisible force. While it lacks the charm of the "rotating room" special effect in the original, it's a scene that will make fans of the original smile. Certain other effects from the original are worked into the remake in a different context than in the original. Some scenes, like the bathtub scene are almost shot-for-shot.

What Jackie Earle Haley fails to do well is be scary. The makeup artists were supposedly using real burn victims as the inspiration for Freddy's new face. What these talented professionals came up with looks like a cross between Voldemort and Two-Face. Freddy's new, reptilian look is in no way creepier than Freddy's face in the original. I didn't even like the "updated" Freddy face in Wes Craven's "New Nightmare" (perhaps the best of the "originals"), but at least it bore a stronger resemblance to his old face. 

 

Another big mistake with Freddy this time around is that he's over-featured in his own movie. In an effort to provide fans with the maximum amount of fan-service, Freddy all but juggles and does tricks for peanuts. He's practically got more lines in this movie than Nancy, and the lines he does have are mostly bad puns and one-liners. While Robert Englund's Freddy did have his share of one-liners, they only got really cheesy in the sillier "Nightmare" sequels (like when he says "Welcome to prime-time, bitch!" while shoving a woman's head into a television screen). The original was so scary because like "Alien" and other great horror films, the villain was barely seen or heard. The lines he did have were creepy and unsettling, and most importantly didn't sound like he was rehearsing for a stand-up comedy act.

Freddy in "Nightmare 1" is also only seen fleetingly, in part, from a distance, through fog, in the dark or indirectly lit. The overall effect is that we never get a very good look at him and our imaginations are allowed to go crazy. Freddy has more than a few close-ups in the new "Nightmare", and is often well-enough lit that his make-up and attire seem more garish and carnivalesque than creepy. While I have many friends who laud Jackie Earle Haley for his portrayal of "Rorshack" in "Watchmen", I can only say that he made a decidedly sub-par Freddy Krueger. Like George Lazenby, the oft-forgotten actor who played James Bond for a single movie after Sean Connery abandoned the role, Haley has a very hard time filling the shoes of his predecessor. 

I'd give the new "A Nightmare on Elm Street" an 8/10. The "Nightmare" series has been fairly consistent in one thing: the odd-numbered movies are good, the even ones are terrible. This has held through the first eight movies (with "Freddy vs. Jason" as the last bad one), and it holds true for number nine as well. Overall, this is a solid entry in the series. It is true to the feel of the original without being overly derivative. While the lead actors were mostly disappointing, Rooney Mara grew on me a bit towards the end. It's not Shakespeare, but it's an entertaining homage to one of the best horror films of all time.

The first eight films have been recently released in these cheap 4-film packs. Only the odd-numbered ones are good, but even the even-numbered ones are entertaining. If you're a "Nightmare" newbie, stick to the first four. If you like 'em and feel adventurous, check out five through eight.
 

Shutter (2008)

Directed by Masayuki Ochiai
Written by Luke Dawson

Rated PG-13 for terror, disturbing images, sexual content and language.

"Shutter" is one in a long line of recent Hollywood remakes of Asian horror films. Though I haven't seen the original "Shutter" (2004, Thailand), I feel like the American remake is a respectable addition to the "Asian horror remake" genre. Asian horror fans will appreciate the frequent homages to the "classic" Asian horror films, most notably "The Ring" and "The Grudge". Beautifully photographed and well-acted, "Shutter" is more than just another horror rehash.

The story starts with the wedding of Benjamin and Jane Shaw (Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor). While Joshua Jackson isn't my top pick for a horror lead, he does well enough as a newlywed photographer with a dark past. Rachael Taylor is pitch-perfect as the "blond Asian horror remake survivor girl", joining the proud ranks of fellow "survivor girls" Sarah Michelle Gellar ("The Grudge") and Naomi Watts ("The Ring"). Taylor is beautiful and vulnerable as a new bride being called away to Japan for her husband's work.

In the car on the way to their Japanese honeymoon, Jane accidentally hits a strange woman who appears suddenly in the road. Jane loses control of the car and it crashes. As she's sitting in the wrecked car, Jane sees the woman she hit sit up and look at her creepily. By the time the police and ambulance have arrived, there's no sign of the strange woman, and no evidence that she was ever there.

Disturbed by the experience, Jane tries to enjoy her honeymoon but is still haunted by the image of the girl on the road. Ben has been suffering back pains since the car wreck, but is otherwise no worse for the wear. He starts his job at a big Japanese company where everyone seems to know and like him. Ben has worked in Japan previously, though Jane is visiting for the first time. Jane is a little uneasy about how friendly Ben is with his female Japanese co-workers, especially his sultry and aptly-named secretary Yoko. Ben also has two crass, womanizing male coworkers named Bruno and Adam that immediately make Jane uncomfortable.

While Ben sets to work on a big Fashion photo shoot, Jane shows herself around the city. Disturbed by some phantom images on her honeymoon photos, Jane has Yoko take her to the publisher of a "spirit photography" magazine. Yoko explains that the Japanese are very interested in supernatural phenomenon. While most "spirit photos" are faked using computer editing effects, some are thought to be the result of actual spirit activity. Yoko's friend tells Jane that Polaroids can't be faked. The simple shutter action and self-developing format make it impossible to insert an image artificially into a Polaroid picture, therefore spirit images on Polaroid film are considered to be authentic. Back at the fashion shoot, Ben is having problems with phantom images too. He thinks he sees a girl on the photo set, but when he looks again she's gone. When the film from the shoot is developed, Ben finds that every photo has been ruined by faded ghostly images. Ben assumes that the camera must have been damaged by the car crash, but Jane suspects something darker is at play.

Jane notices that in the photos from the fashion shoot, all of the phantom images point to a certain corner office in the building Ben works in. Borrowing a Polaroid camera from Yoko, Jane sneaks into the building to look for the dead girl. The office in question turns out to be the "International Office", where Ben, Bruno and Adam work. Jane uses the Polaroid to "scan" the room for the ghostly girl. When she gets a glimpse of the ghost, Jane panics and starts to run out of the office, but a picture falls off of the wall, startling her. It's a group picture of several of the International Office's employees, including the ghostly girl whose name Jane learns is Megumi Tanaka. On the back of the photo is a stamp that reads "Photo Taken by Benjamin Shaw".

Jane is furious to discover that Ben had been lying about knowing Megumi. He reveals that she is actually his ex-girlfriend. They had been dating steadily for a while when Ben was in Japan several years ago, and when he decided to break it off, she became depressed and started stalking him. Ben says that he asked Adam and Bruno to talk to Megumi about it and that he hasn't seen her since. When Adam and Bruno both die mysterious, gruesome deaths, Ben worries that he's next. Newly armed with the identity of their phantom stalker, Jane and Ben rush to Megumi's abandoned apartment to find out what happened to the intense, quiet girl.

I give "Shutter" an 8/10. It's too derivative of other Asian horror films to be a truly great film, but it follows the formula lovingly. A few instances of noticeably computer-generated effects brought the overall visual quality down, but most of the film is beautifully shot and well-edited. I particularly enjoyed the twist at the end, in which the true reason for Megumi's wrath is revealed. The end also features one image that is both original and creepy-as-hell (bonus points if you post a comment that describes the scene I'm talking about). Of course I use the term "original" loosely, as "Shutter" is a remake itself. All-in-all, this fine contribution to the remake genre makes me yearn to watch the original Thai "Shutter" (review to come?).













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Sorority Row (2009)

Directed by Stewart Hendler
Written by Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger and Mark Rosman

Rated R for bloody violence, language, some sexuality/nudity and partying.

A remake of the 1983 slasher flick "House on Sorority Row" (which I unfortunately haven't seen), "Sorority Row" is another of several recent revivals of 80's horror franchises. With the remakes of "Halloween", "Friday the 13th", and "Nightmare on Elm Street" already out or in the works, some enterprising filmmakers have taken on lesser-known films to remake. I tried to watch the recent remake of "Prom Night", but it was too bad. REALLY BAD!!! I've seen better acting in movies-of-the-week. It's the first horror movie in nearly a decade that I've turned off without finishing. Luckily for me, "Sorority Row" is not a "Prom Night" style remake. Done with style and good humor, this self-aware horror flick redefines the slasher genre for a new generation of horror audiences.

The film starts with an epic sorority party, complete with horny jocks, women on trampolines (with their butts hanging out of their old-school pajama flaps) and lots and lots of alcohol. The senior sisters of Theta Pi, (left to right: Jessica, Megan, Claire, Cassidy, Ellie and Chugs) meet in an upstairs room to have a celebratory toast. But celebration isn't the only item on the menu. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and no one serves it colder than sorority girls. To get back at Megan's ex-boyfriend Garrett (who is also Chug's brother) for cheating on her, the girls have given him a "roofie" (really a vitamin) to give to Megan. Megan pretends to choke and Garrett freaks out, convinced she's dead. The girls add to his panic, giving cruelly realistic performances of grief over their friend's "death".

Garrett and the girls pack Megan into a car to drive somewhere to get rid of "the body". Megan has trouble keeping from giggling while playing dead. The not-so-funny joke becomes even less funny when Garrett drives a tire iron into the supposedly-dead Megan's chest (to remove trapped air so the body won't float to the surface when they dump it), killing her for real. At this point Cassidy (the most heroic and moral Theta Pi sister) insists that they go to the police, but bitch-queen Jessica insists that Megan would not have wanted the sisters to ruin their futures over a tragic accident that they cannot undo. The other sisters wrap Megan's body in Cassidy's jacket (so that if she goes to the police, she will implicate herself), and dumps it down an abandoned mine shaft.

Jump ahead 8 months. Graduation is just around the corner and the girls of Theta Pi are gearing up for a legendary year-end sorority party. Cassidy has grown away from Theta Pi since the accident, but still plans to show support for the other girls by coming to their last party as sorority sisters. But just as the festivities approach, the girls start receiving eerie picture and video messages from Megan's phone (which was with her body when they dumped it in the mine shaft). They immediately suspect Garrett, who has had serious psychological problems since the accident, but Chugs assures them that her brother (while not a great guy) would not joke about Megan's death. To make things more complicated, Megan's little sister Maggie is planning to rush for Theta Pi in the fall, and insists on coming to the year-end party to meet her sister's friends.

Convinced not to let the ominous phone messages ruin the biggest party of the year, the sisters of Theta Pi get into celebration mode. The party begins and sorority row is stormed by hundreds of drunken, horny graduates. The girls become worried when Chugs never shows up. As the night wears on, more people disappear, and the girls begin to catch glimpses of a black-hooded figure carrying a "tricked-out" tire iron. As the party starts to thin out, the girls begin finding bodies. In classic 80's slasher-flick style, there is no indication of who or what is behind the killings. Is it Mrs. Crenshaw (played by Carrie Fisher), the house-mum whose had enough of her girls' whoring ways? Is it Jessica's boyfriend, the son of a senator who sees Jessica and her friends as potential threats to his political campaign? Is it Garrett, the boy who was cruelly pranked, resulting in Megan's tragic death?

I give "Sorority Row" an 8/10. It's a tightly-woven, self-aware horror flick that takes gruesome delight in the torturous murder of vain, self-involved, oversexed college kids. It's what my mom would call a "dead teenager movie". Think "I Know What You Did Last Summer" only less sucky, with better death scenes and a more evolved sense of dark humor. If you shy away from slasher flicks, you probably won't get much out of this, but fans of the genre will appreciate it's modern twist on classic horror. The death scenes are creatively brutal, and the twists are predictable yet generally satisfying. A good popcorn flick for a lazy weekend evening.













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