The Horror Movie Darwin Awards # 18: Glenn in A Nightmare on Elm Street

Ah, Nightmare on Elm Street. Not only did it create one of the most recognizable and marketable horror characters ever in Freddy Krueger, but it introduced us to a future Hollywood A-lister, and Tim Burton’s muse, Johnny Depp. Long before he was Captain Jack, he was Glenn, Nancy’s boyfriend. These kids have been through a lot. Their friends are dying at the hands of an evil maniac who stalks their dreams, and now he’s coming for them. Nancy has a plan though. She’s going to go sleep, grab Freddy, and drag him into the real world. All she needs Glenn to to is stay awake and clobber him when she drags him into the real world. Simple enough right? Apparently not.

The two have split up, going to their respective houses. Nancy leaves him with the legendary instructions “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.” They’re planning to kill the man who has slaughtered their friends and is trying to off them too, so this is, oh I dunno, kind of a big deal. They have both been up for days, so it’s going to take some work to stay up. Pop quiz hotshot, what do you do? Drink some coffee? Stay moving? Not put yourself in a situation where it’s easy to doze off? The answer is D, none of the above. Our hero decides to lay down in bed, get nice and comfy, put on the headphones, listen to some tunes, and watch a little TV. Great idea. No one falls asleep that way. The music might have been a good idea depending on what it was, but by the looks of this guy (that half shirt kills me every time), there’s no Slayer blaring through those headphones. Surprise, surprise, he nods off. His mother then wakes him up. Obviously this course of action isn’t working. You’d think that he would get up and do something else to stay awake, right? Wrong. He just lays there.

Inevitably, he falls back asleep, screwing up the whole plan and forcing Nancy to face Freddy by herself. You just lost some serious brownie points there buddy. Any second base plans you had are history. So, how did your ridiculous strategy for staying awake work out for you?

Damn. I do believe pissing off your girlfriend is the least of your worries. Congratulations Glenn, you are today’s winner by virtue of your inability to figure out even the easiest ways of fighting off sleep. Way to go dumbass!

Heads Up! Cheap Horror Movie T-Shirts At Wal-Mart.

Just thought I'd share this with you guys. If you're anything like me, cheap horror swag is definitely something to pique your interest. Wal-mart usually has a couple of cool Halloween shirts mixed in with the cheesy "jack-o-lantern face" and "forget the candy, give me beer" crap. I've found some there over the years that I still wear often. So, while on a run for super glue, ice cream, syringes, a note pad, vitamin c tablets, and a hammer (don't ask) I decided to have a look at this year's selection and saw these...


Yeah, I know, those aren't the best pictures, but I was in a hurry. The shirts are pretty sweet though. The Freddy vs. Jason one is cool, but probably the weakest of the 3. I really dig that Friday the 13th one. The Nightmare on Elm Street one stopped me cold for a second. I knew I had seen that particular image of Freddy before, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Then it hit me....


It's the title screen from the Nightmare on Elm Street Nintendo game, with the bus from part 2 thrown in for good measure. Awesome! Anyway, check your local store, as some Wal-marts have these and others don't. They're only $7.50 too, so grab them while you can. Just a friendly word of advice though, these shirts are by a different company than the one who produces their other shirts, and they run small as hell. Buy a size up from the size you normally wear. If I see more Halloween badassery lurking on the shelves of various stores, I'll let you know. Oh, and one last thing...

♫ 40 days 'til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, 40 days 'til Halloween, Silver Shamrock. ♫

Freddy's Nightmares Review: Part Three

Well folks, it’s been a little while since we took a trip to good ‘ol Springwood. What do you say we drop in and find out what Freddy’s up to. This time around we’ve got Brad Pitt, some nice muscle cars, Springwoods second serial killer, gratuitous melting Gumby, and Krueger doing the most ridiculous stuff we’ve seen yet, and that includes the Wicked Witch scene in Freddy’s Dead! Intrigued? I knew you would be. By the way, if you go to youtube, some of these episodes can be viewed in their entirety.

Episode 9: Rebel Without a Car

Alex is a young boy. He just wants to leave this town, but he works at Beefy Boy and has no car to get around. He finds a car abandoned. He fixes it up real sweet, but this car has a secret and he just might be dead meat. Ok, now go back and read those 4 sentences to the tune of “18 and Life” by Skid Row. How many of you actually just did it? Those who did are the coolest readers EVER! Anyway, the second half of the episode involves Connie, Alex’s girlfriend, going off to college. She pledges a snobby sorority, and is abused by the other sisters. Will a horrible fate befall them? This is Springwood. What do you think? This is a pretty good episode. The acting is decent. We get a lot of funny as hell 80’s rocker hair and some damn cool muscle cars. We also get the awesome line “Yeah, but I give good burger.” Said with a straight face no less. Katie Barberi, who plays Connie, reminded me of a mix between Heather Lagencamp and Lisa Wilcox for some reason. I think she kinda looks like Heather with Lisa’s eyes. Either way, she gives the best performance of the episode. In addition to this being one of the more coherent episodes, it features Freddy popping out of an underwear drawer. The sight of Freddy with a pair of granny panties hanging off of his burned visage is just plain classic. Good stuff. As an added bonus, I tracked down the original commercial for this episode. Enjoy.

Episode 10: The Bride Wore Red

Gavin is getting married, but he’s getting cold feet. His friends take him out to a bar for his bachelor party. In one scene the three buddies are sitting at a table doing shots. One shot later the three buddies and a random skeleton are sitting at the table doing shots. No one ever addresses the fact that the skeleton is there and no one is dreaming yet. Um…ok. He dreams of a stripper who puts him in an iron maiden and calls him out on his fears. A mysterious woman in red appears at his wedding, and he fantasizes about a night with her which does not go as expected. The second half involves the new bride, who is melting down over her parents’ upcoming divorce. She gets her jollies by seducing married men, tying him down, taking Polaroids, and then calling their wives. Why? Because her daddy cheated and keeping his secret drove her crazy, of course. Has one of these man tracked her down for revenge, or is it only a dream? The first half of this episode is boring. BORING!!! I kept waiting for something interesting to happen and it finally did, in the second half. The second half was actually pretty entertaining, with an especially effective childhood themed dream sequence. The saving grace of this episode is Freddy’s off the wall antics. We get a Krueger-in-the-box. We have Freddy and the flaming bouquet. There’s Freddy chained to a bed talking about the “ties that bind, the chains of love.” Funny, I always pictured Freddy as a Dom. We also get Krueger, clad in huge plastic 80’s shades and a RunDMC chain, scratching on a turntable and calling himself “Rapmaster Freddy.” I tried hard to find a picture of that for you folks. I’ll keep trying. It’s great. Half of this episode is awful, half is pretty good, but the whole thing pales in comparison to the funniest Freddy moments this side of “Put that in your VCR and suck on it.”

Episode 11: Do Dreams Bleed?

What the hell are they putting in the water over there in Springwood? First Freddy, now there’s The Springwood Chopper, the city’s resident axe murderer. This town just can’t catch a break. John, the star of Springwood High’s football team, found the Chopper’s last victim, and now he’s unraveling mentally and having dreams about the Chopper killing his parents and Roni, his girlfriend. The football coach catches him trying to chop his girlfriend up, exposing that John is the Chopper…or is he? Institutionalized now, John starts calling to Roni in her dreams, telling her that he’s innocent. Could someone have set John up? Sounds like a good premise, huh? Well, it’s completely wasted. The twist is obvious from the first 5 minutes, and then they even screw that up in the end. There are long periods of time where absolutely nothing happens, and there are a couple of scenes that happen over and over. They beat you over the head with an obvious twist, and then don’t pay it off. The only thing that stops this episode from being boring is when it’s irritating. It’s a pity too, the story had potential. Feel free to skip this episode.

Episode 12: The End of the World

Amy’s mother had a terrible accident and died when Amy was just a little girl. Her best friend may or may not have been paralyzed in the same accident. That’s the world of Freddy’s Nightmares folks. Things don’t ever just happen, they “may or may not” happen. Screw logic. Anyway, she discovers that by saving her mother and friend in her dream, she can alter history and save them in real life. Has she never seen any time travel movie? Her altering of history has unexpected tragic effects. Imagine that! In the second half, Amy dreams about a nuclear disaster, even discovering a classified launch code in the dream. She tells her doctor, played by George Lazenby, who is apparently no longer on Her Majesty’s secret service. He calls some buddies in the CIA, and pretty soon they want Amy to work for them, using her psychic abilities to avert a nuclear disaster. This is one of the few episodes to follow the same character throughout both halves. I guess they chose the right gal for a freaked out psychic, ‘cause Mary Kohnert, who plays Amy, is creepy. She has those psycho eyes. The kind that freak even me out. She’s a pretty good actress though. Everyone else in the second half, with the exception of Lazenby, is awful however. Especially the guys playing the CIA operatives; they may be the worst actors in the series so far, and that’s saying something. The nuclear war storyline comes off as dated and a little hokey today, but in 1987 at the height of The Cold War, it was probably timely and poignant. The episode doesn’t actually make much sense, but at this time anything involving nukes and Russia would sell. I thought it was a nice touch and nod to the cinefiles watching to cast a former James Bond in the international political intrigue episode. We also get a couple of fun cold war moments with our favorite bastard son of 100 maniacs, with a mushroom cloud coming out of Freddy’s head and Freddy riding a missile towards earth Dr. Strangelove style. Oh, let’s not forget the gratuitous random, melting, screaming Gumby I mentioned earlier. This one’s a fun episode and a good 80’s time capsule.

Episode 14: Black Tickets

I still have absolutely no idea what that title is supposed to mean. It has nothing to do with the story at all. Anyway, Rick and Miranda are having a horrible wedding night. First their car breaks down in the redneck side of Springwood. Did you know Springwood had a redneck side? Neither did I. As they walk to a pay phone, they get robbed at gunpoint by the rapping granny from The Wedding Singer and her husband. Yes, it really is her. They can’t pay the tow truck, because their parents have cut their credit cards off for eloping. The wedding night seems saved when a couple of creepy rednecks give them the honeymoon suite at their equally creepy hotel free of charge. I won’t give away the rest of the story, but it involves a Jacuzzi full of piranhas, cupid, a conveniently abandoned van, saunas, axes, and the following classic exchange…

Rick: “I killed two cops!”

Miranda: “But you were only gone 20 minutes!”

The second half involves Miranda having nightmares stemming from her fears that she may be pregnant. Her dreams include a WWII era Japanese “Post Partum Sleep Deprivation Camp for Unprepared Mothers” and a completely out of nowhere barbershop quartet number. This is definitely one of the more energetically weird and goofy episodes. Rick is played by a young Brad Pitt. This was even before Cutting Class. This episode also includes one of the worst cover-ups for a budget constraint ever. They obviously didn’t have the money to blow up a car, so it drives behind a hill and suddenly smoke rises from behind said hill. No sound effect or anything. We only know the car blew up by the black smudges on the surviving character’s face. Gotta love it. In the second half, they show two items that I believe were made especially for the show, being a cool Freddy nightlight and a Freddy coo-coo clock. If they merchandised either one of those, especially the clock, I would buy them in a heartbeat. Hint Hint New Line! This is not a technically great episode, but for the cheese lovers it doesn’t get any better. Did I mention Freddy with feathers sticking out of his head? Good stuff.

2010: The year in Horror Part 1: The Worst

As I look around the internet, I’m seeing an almost unanimous opinion that 2010 was a terrible year for horror. I’m constantly reading people saying there weren’t enough good movies to make a top 10. With this, my first foray into this whole horror blogging thing, I say COME ON PEOPLE! 2010 was no worse than any other year. True, a lot of crap came out, but what year hasn’t. 2009, which everyone seems to be lauding as infinitely better than this year, sure as hell did. Everyone remembers it fondly now for its bumper crop of good stuff i.e. Paranormal Activity, Zombieland, Laid to Rest, Dead Snow, Trick r Treat, etc. Folks, did we forget about the other side of the coin; about the pain of sitting through Jennifer’s Body, The Final Destination, Children of the Corn, The Box, Sorority Row, Saw 6, The Stepfather or that godawful Last House on the Left remake? 2010 was the same story as it’s been for at least the last 10 years, more bad theatrical flicks than good, but enough great independent and foreign product to make up for it. If you sift through all of 2010’s lame remakes, bad sequels, uninspired Hollywood fare and indie pretension, there is a lot of worthwhile stuff and even a few nuggets of greatness.

In 2010 Hollywood continued to have a tough time coming up with any original ideas. The remake train kept a rollin’. There were a few bright spots though. For every Nightmare on Elm Street or Wolfman atrocity we saw, there was a Piranha or Crazies. I think the epitome of this remake nonsense was Let Me In. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t say if worked or not, but I can say with utmost certainty that it was completely unnecessary. Let the Right One In is a masterpiece. It’s a sad fact that Hollywood remade it only 3 years after its release simply because most American moviegoers won’t go see foreign language films. Then again, the same thing happened with all of the J-horror remakes a few years ago. I also hear people bemoaning the amount of sequels this year. There really weren't any more than usual, but they were definitely a mixed bag as far as quality goes. In fact, 3 of my Worst 5 list of the year were sequels. Then again, so is my #1 best.

There seemed to be a few trends emerging this year. Led by grindhouse throwbacks Piranha and Machete, a lot of movies were released that seemed to be less concerned with being “good” than with being “fun.” In both of these cases, they succeeded. I, for one, am all for a good, mindless, gory romp. Speaking of Machete, this year there was some serious genre line blurring. Machete, an action flick, let the guts fly more than 90% of 2010’s horror, and Shutter Island and Black Swan, a couple of big budget psychological thrillers, skirted the boundary and were embraced by horror fans.

Horror documentaries came into their own this year, with the release of Never Sleep Again, Best Worst Movie, American Grindhouse, and many others. Unrated films challenged the MPAA, unsuccessfully unfortunately, as Hatchet 2 and I Spit On Your Grave both saw short uncut theatrical releases. Of all this years trends, this is the one I most want to see continue. I think this year’s biggest story in horror, however, was the rise of horror on TV. The Walking Dead became a phenomenon, pulling in amazing ratings, while True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Dexter, and Supernatural all continued to do great numbers.

All in all 2010 was a mixed bag, but if you look hard enough, there was a lot to enjoy. So without further ado, lets get these lists out of the way. Since, when it comes to horror, I try to be twice as positive as negative, I did a 10 best and 5 worst list. Lets get the worst out of the way first, shall we? By the way, Nathan says do not check these out.

5 Worst:

5. Paranormal Activity 2 : Or, as I like to call it, PA2: Book of Shadows. If you get that reference, you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is what happens when a big studio takes a great low budget horror flick and tries to improve on the formula. Everything that worked in PA1 is overdone and ruined here, because Hollywood doesn’t understand suspense or subtlety, the main 2 ingredients in PA1’s effectiveness. Katie basically turns into Michael Myers at the end. Need I say more?

4. Saw 3D/7: The plot was even thinner than usual, the twist made even less sense, the traps were just ok, and so little was done with the 3D that I forgot I was watching a 3D movie at all halfway through. The last good Saw movie was still 3, but at least this one was better than 5. By the way, for those of you who have been duped into believing that this was the end of the franchise, I only have one thing to say: Friday the 13^th 4: The Final Chapter.

3. 30 Days of Night: Dark Days: Oh man, where do I start? There is nothing about this flick that isn’t cliché. The 28 Days Later style 3^rd person shaky cam/rapid fire editing (don’t get me started on 28 Days Later) is here, as is the awful acting, the worst fake blood since Hammer films, one of the most ridiculously tacked on bad sex scenes ever, and a plot that I had figured out 10 minutes in. Did I mention the acting? Ok then. I only paid a buck to rent this crap and felt ripped off.

2. Legion: I’ve always said that I can forgive a lot of things when it comes to movies, but there is one thing I will never forgive a movie for being…boring. Legion is boring. All of the good stuff is in the trailer. Add to that about an hour of people talking, 5 minutes of shots of people shooting guns, 10 minutes of people crying, and an ending that’s an angelic rip off of Terminator 2, and you’ve got Legion. If the next movie hadn’t been not only a bad movie, but an act of heresy, Legion would have been #1.

1. Nightmare on Elm Street: I have been accused of not judging this movie fairly because it is a remake of one of my favorites, so I’m going to forget for a moment that it’s even a remake and tell you why it sucks on its own. Jackie Earl Haley is good as the killer. I’ll give them that. The rest of the cast apparently went to the Twilight acting school, in which looking bored and constipated counts as emoting. The characters themselves are so annoying that you can't wait for them to die. The CGI is absolutely awful. Just look at the “Freddy through the wall” shot or the final claw through the face and you’ll see what I mean. You’d think they could afford decent effects with Platinum Dunes money. The director and writers tried to compensate for their inability to build suspense or even interest by relying on constant cheap jump scares. I stopped counting at 50 and the movie wasn’t even halfway over. The Freddy makeup, while looking a bit more like an actual burn victim, also makes our supposedly frightening villain look like a rubber frog with down syndrome. Add to that the fact that they did, in fact, take a giant steaming dump on everything fans loved about the classic film and its iconic story and characters, and you have the worst cinematic travesty in a long time. If there was ever a movie I would use the cliche EPIC FAIL for, it’s this one. Die Michael Bay, die!

Enough about the bad movies of the year, come back tomorrow for part one of my Top 10.