Nightmares on Elm Street
Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host David, and today we’re going to be doing a special Halloween episode.
Last October we screened and ranked every Friday the 13th movie, and today we’ll do the same with our old friend Freddy Kreuger and the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
If you include the crossover movie Freddy vs. Jason (and we certainly do!), we have a total of nine movies in our ranking today.
I re-screened the seven I had already seen plus the two that were new to me in chronological order while taking copious notes.
Since this order is different, it may seem like I’m complaining about stuff that may not have “happened” yet, but I’m sure you’ll be able to follow.
We will begin with the worst, as always, and in this case the worst is the very first SEQUEL which was rushed to theaters only a year after the original made its impact.
That’s never a wise decision.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
R/87 m/IMDb: 5.4/directed by Jack Sholder
Body Count: 10
Also directed by Jack Sholder: The Hidden, Alone in the Dark
*Special appearance by CLU GULAGER?!
*Freddy driving a school bus is pretty spot on. School buses are rolling nightmares to begin with.
*High school is an absolutely terrible place. In this movie, and in ALL movies.
*An unpacking montage? In an 87-minute movie?
*The basement of this house is insane. The furnace looks like it could heat a factory.
*Sadistic gym coach should be in prison. There’s a shower scene in this movie that was very cringy and solidified my prison idea for the gym coach.
*Freddy tries to get a teen to kill for him? What happened to the dream thing?
*” Animals just don’t explode for no reason.” - Clu Gulager
*The singing jump rope girls always terrified me.
*Did Freddy kidnap and kill all 20 kids at the same time? Is that why he’s driving the bus?
*Parents hosting a party where teenagers are drinking, and the parents LEAVE the party to go and have sex.
*I blame the parents for everything that happens in ALL of these movies.
*This is what happens when you make a sequel one year after the original. This was nothing but a money grab.
*No real ending, just a setup for the third movie, which was no surprise at all, even in 1985.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)
R/112 m/IMDb: 6.4/directed by Wes Craven
Body Count: 7
*See if you buy this, because I didn’t: we have Heather Langenkamp as Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund as Robert Englund, and even Wes Craven attempts to act as Wes Craven. He fails.
*Turns out this is a world where the Nightmare on Elm Street movies exist as movies, and now a real-life demon is using the fictional Freddy to kill all new people.
*How on earth did R.E.M. allow a character to sing “Losing My Religion” in this movie? How!?
*A character strolls into a morgue to identify a body and there are people being cut open and bodies all over the place. Is that how morgues are run?!
*Dan Dority from “Deadwood” is in this! It did not help!
*John Saxon as John Saxon!!!! Where will it end?!?!
*There’s a kid actor in this that is absolutely terrible. I hate to say that about kids or actors or kid actors, but it’s the truth.
*Wes Craven cannot act at all. You’d think that a director who has directed some of the greats would have picked up some tips along the way and could at least fake it. He cannot. He can’t even play himself convincingly.
*A script is shown on the screen that’s the actual script of the movie. And they’re “reading it.”
*Vomit. We have multiple vomits.
*There is WAY TOO MUCH tongue in this entire series! WAY TOO MUCH!!!
*How many times are they going to have Freddy blow up?
*At the end Heather gets a script that’s the script to THIS MOVIE!!!! It’s word for word. Get it?!? This was some self-serving masturbatory nonsense from start to finish.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
R/89 m/IMDb: 5.1/directed by Stephen Hopkins
Body Count: 5
Also directed by Stephen Hopkins: Predator 2, Judgement Night,
Blown Away, Lost in Space
*Englund once again with top billing, and “over” the title!
*Opens with an unnecessary shower scene, of course. Can’t be part of this genre in the 80s without one, sad to say.
*Unbelievably unrealistic high school graduation scene! I’ve been to high school graduations, and they ARE NOT RUN LIKE THAT!
*Really creepy birth/baby sequence. I’ve been to two births, and they were NOT this bad!
*Broken record, but these parents are the worst parents in the history of film!
*” I don’t know how, but he’s back!” I hear you! I don’t know either!
*Freddy’s mom was a nun who was assaulted by the lunatics at the asylum. That’ll do it.
*Other than the dream sequences, this one is kind of boring.
*Can’t help but think that Freddy would have had so many ample opportunities to get me.
*It seems like his victims kill him again, but we know that can’t be true.
*Jacob, the kid, is just as creepy as Freddy.
*Baby Freddy goes back inside num mom, and he then claws his way out? Why did you do that Freddy? Is any of this her fault? That’s just unwarranted.
*And yet another fake happy ending. So lazy for this series, and genre for that matter.
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
R/89 m/IMDb: 4.7/directed by Rachel Talalay
Body Count: 3
Also directed by Rachel Talalay: Tank Girl, Ghost in the Machine
*Why does a 90s movie have such an 80s soundtrack? If you’re thinking, “It’s only 1991,” that is not an excuse.
*This starts with a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche?! What, the Bible isn’t good enough for Part 6?!?
*Wait, this takes place 10 years in the FUTURE? So, 2001? Where were my flying cars, then?
*At least they now acknowledge that all the kids in Springwood are dead, and the parents are suffering from psychosis. Well-deserved psychosis if you ask me.
*Freddy as the Wicked Witch? How did they not get sued?!
*Never liked Breckin Meyer, always liked Yaphet Kotto.
*Is this just about Freddy getting a new “Dream Master?”Again? That was only two movies ago!
*Springwood appears to have 1890s style industrial pollution for some unknown reason.
*Good GOD, Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr are in this? Why? Why was that done?!
*In this version of the story, Freddy has a daughter who was taken away from him (for good reason!).
*There was a scene where Freddy dragged his razor fingers across a chalkboard and that was the scariest part of this movie for me.
*They brought Depp back to shoot a fake anti-drug PSA? The old egg/brain thing.
*There’s a video game sequence in this mess that goes on for way too long. I realize it’s a sign of the times, but it was still awfully long for what it did.
*This may have been written while it was being shot. I’ll bet there was a lot of, “Okay, let’s do that!” during this production.
*Yaphet Kotto fights Freddy Krueger?!? How do I not remember this??? What? This was new to me? No wonder I don’t remember seeing it. Score one point for my addled brain!
*Daughter of Freddy goes inside Freddy’s brain. Not a good place for anyone.
*” Son of 100 Maniacs!” was chanted to Freddy at school when he was a kid. He should have killed all of those kids as well.
*Fratricide! Daughter’s line when shoving a lit pipe bomb into Freddy’s chest ....” Happy Father’s Day!”
*And right before he explodes, he breaks the 4th wall and says, “Kids.”
*Last line of the film is “Freddy’s Dead,” and the end credit sequence features Freddy’s “Greatest Hits” so to speak. Looked like this was definitely meant to be the last one, and I guess it kind of is even though there were two more. Sort of.
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
R/97 m/IMDb: 5.7/directed by Ronny Yu
Body Count: 22* (*=shared)
Also directed by Ronny Yu: The Bride with White Hair,
Bride of Chucky
*Exposition featuring more TONGUE!
*Flashbacks? Really?
*It took all of 1:33 for them to show some gratuitous nudity.
*Jason’s mother brings him back because the children on Elm Street have been naughty and his work isn’t done and, what?!
*So happy Jason is killing a lot of deserving teenagers, especially that first guy. What a douche.
*Dumb ass cop shows up at a crime scene and sees three screaming girls, one of whom is naked and covered with blood and he asks, “Do you need any help?” Blood girl’s spot on reply is, “What the fuck do you think?”
*Why so much exposition? Who did they think was watching this?
*I prefer Jason to Freddy. He’s more justified in his actions.
*My favorite scene is when Jason is confronted by two assholes in a cornfield. He twists one’s head around and machetes the other. Deserved!
*Both Jason and Freddy are better than the cops and parents in this series. Wait. Is that the point of all of this?!
*More tongue?!
*Actual dialogue: ”How is that possible?” “Anything is possible.” Is that how they get away with all of this?
*Style points for Jason cutting a guy in half!
*If cannabis produced the kinds of hallucinations portrayed in films it would cost a million dollars an ounce.
*Jason was tormented and bullied at camp. Bullies deserve Jason.
*Some of Freddy’s lines in this are gross and racist.
*Jason kills Freddy with Freddy’s own razor hand/arm and Freddy is then decapitated by the final girl with Jason’s machete.
*This crossover film ends with Jason walking out of Camp Crystal Lake carrying Freddy’s severed head. As he walks by, Freddy looks into the camera and winks.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
R/95 m/IMDb: 5.2/directed by Samuel Bayer
Body Count: 7
Also directed by Samuel Bayer: music videos for
“Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
*” I can sleep. I just don’t want to.” And I don’t want to watch, and yet here we are.
*Pre-title sequence includes a guy cutting his own throat in a diner. Harsh.
*Connie Britton?! Say it ain’t so!
*There’s a “mother/daughter” combo in this movie and the actresses are, at most, eight years apart.
*Have horror film set directors ever been in a real attic or a real basement?
*Jackie Earle Haley is excellent, and a great choice to play Freddy, but this is all kind of unnecessary.
*There are so many boys climbing into so many girls’ second story bedrooms in this series.
*”If you die in your sleep, you die for real.” Please…
*We’re going to redo the hand between the legs in the bathtub bit? Of course we are.
*I still prefer all of the old-style practical FX to this.
*More tongue and more licking?! Seriously?!
*Springwood actually DOES have 1890s factories!
*”Why didn’t you go to the police?” The kid is right! Valid question!
*I’m tired of all of the “What if I’m the only one” nonsense in this series.
*Jackie Earle Haley’s makeup is tremendous.
*” How’s that for a wet dream?” That line again? Do we need to recycle everything?
*Another fake happy ending?! Come on! To what end?
*Connie Britton deserved better.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
R/93 m/IMDb: 5.6/directed by Renny Harlin
Body Count: 7
Also directed by Renny Harlin: Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger,
The Long Kiss Goodnight, Deep Blue Sea
*Starts with a Bible verse…yikes.
*Englund once again has top billing. He must have had a good agent.
*One of the stars is named “Tuesday Knight.” Is this an adult film?
*Once again, and I can’t stress this enough…high school sucks.
*The dog’s name is Jason, and he pisses fire!
*Nude girl inside the kid’s waterbed? Weren’t you suspicious of that, high school boy? How would she breathe?
*Nope, just Freddy. “How’s that for a wet dream?” Wonder if they’ll recycle that joke…
*Could they make these parents any worse? I mean, really.
*”Sorry you and your tennis pals torched this guy and now he’s after me!” Right?!?! 100% correct!
*Not every film in this series is a winner, but they all did an excellent job with the nightmare sequences.
*Houses must be dirt cheap in Springwood, Ohio with all the dead kids and all.
*So, Freddy makes Alice the “Dream Master” since the last of the original kids are now dead and he now needs her to bring kids to him in nightmares? That actually makes sense as far as these stories go.
*The pizza with the kids’ faces in the meatballs is absolutely wonderful!
*There’s a roach motel sequence that makes you feel terrible for the roaches that are trapped in them. If that’s possible.
*The kids claw their way out of Freddy’s body in another wild scene made without the use of CGI.
*So, Freddy is dead? Again? “Rest in hell.”
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
R/96 m/IMDb: 6.7/directed by Chuck Russell
Body Count: 6
Also directed by Chuck Russell: The Blob, The Mask
*Patricia Arquette, “Larry” Fishburne, Dick Cavett, AND Zsa Zsa Gabor? Yes, please!
*Fishburne plays the psych hospital orderly. He appears to be the only orderly in the entire hospital.
*” Freddy’s home…” - little girl. No me gusto.
*More terrible parents, more trashy moms!
*Gotta love a psychiatric hospital that allows some patients to freely roam around everywhere while others are in solitary confinement.
*Rotting banquet with a pig that comes to life and snarls! Yes!
*Again, praise for all the quality practical effects.
*Dick Cavett is here to morph into Freddy before killing Jennifer by shoving her head into a television.
I love Dick Cavett.
*Wouldn’t this hospital be shut down after so many patient suicides in such a short time?
*” You are the last of the Elm Street children.” At least this one tries to make sense.
*Gratuitous nurse nudity. Yikes, how old was the boy in that scene?
*Heather Langencamp is back. She was a teenager in the original, and now three years later she’s an intern at a psychiatric hospital?! How does that work?
*She is later “relieved of duty.” She’s an INTERN! Duty? What duty?
*”What a rush!” Andrew’s favorite line from the entire series.
*Love the effect of the kids' heads poking out of Freddy’s chest.
*The old false happy ending. Yawn. You’re better than this.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
R/91 m/IMDb: 7.4/directed by Wes Craven
Body Count: 4
Also directed by Wes Craven: Scream, The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left, The People Under the Stairs, Red Eye
No surprise that this was going to be at the top of our list. It’s the first and it’s the best, by all accounts.
*John Saxon!
* Johnny Depp with an “Introducing” credit!
*Robert Englund is billed as “Fred” Krueger.
*Film opens with Fred crafting his iconic blade gloves.
*”You won’t need a stretcher up there; you’ll need a mop.”
*Horny/borderline rapey guys were all over this genre. Awful and gross.
*Heavy handed crucifix incorporation!
*Fantastic practical effects throughout.
*Tina’s death on the ceiling is pretty sweet.
*The acting, including Depp, is pretty rough.
*80s voyeurism on display as we get a lingering bathtub shot from between Nancy’s legs. Wonder if they’ll recycle that bit…
*Convenient trellis leading up to your teenage daughter’s bedroom is convenient.
*” Oh, God! I look 20 years old!” Is this a comedy?
*These parents had it coming, yes? They suck!
*Maybe mom is an alcoholic because she participated in a murder? Ever think of that?
*Where the hell is this town? The weather is always perfect!
*20 kids from the SAME neighborhood were abducted and killed by Fred? Is there a police department, or just a drunken John Saxon?
*They put Depp in a midriff! Great bed death scene!
*The tongue out of the phone receiver is brilliant. Little did we know that there would be more tongue in this series than Katz’ Deli!
*This gets a little Nancy in the horror version of Home Alone at times, but it’s still the best of the bunch!
Well, that’s a wrap for our Halloween episode and our attempt to rank all nine films in the Nightmare on Elm Street universe.
We hope you join us again next time as we run down the Best and Worst films we screened during the month of October. I’m sure there’ll be some horror (or horrible) films to report on.
Hope to see you in the cinema for that one, and until then; Happy Halloween, and take care.
