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Nightmare on Elm St.: Franchise Binge

Me and my roommate binge horror while playing hot-seat Civ VI. This is life now.
1The Afghan Whigs
In Spades

Nightmare on Elm St.:
I'd seen this one before and it's just as good as I remember it. It works incredibly well as a serious-minded horror film, taking itself and its concept with far a more crafted and artistic mindset than the "Friday the 13th" movies. It's extremely clever with how it plays with audience expectations through its dreamscape premise, and the kills here are far more creative at the same time. It can be a bit hard to keep up with the twists and turns given that we weren't paying enough attention, but to be fair I'd seen it before. This here is a great horror film with some great shots, awesome effects, and most of all, a lot of fun. The only issues I'd say is that there were some pacing problems, scenes would last really long where nothing would happen, and then in others a lot of stuff would go down without much breathing room. And of course the characters weren't super engaging, but I'm not looking for Picasso-level art here. It's just great horror. 8/10
2Brand New
The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
What the fuck.
Like what the fuck.
This was just fucking weird. Like, it was really bad, but like a really watchable kind of bad. Where all the scenes and locations and characters jump around pointlessly through hoops and ideas and goals that are never fleshed out or brought up again. Where random birds burst into flames and gym teachers are stripped naked and towel-whipped before being brutally murdered. Where the whole thing could be read as homosexual subtext and love wins in the end. It's a mess. It sucks. And yet... it's so goddamn watchable. I had a lot of fun with this one, as bad as it was. Oh, and the opening and outro were terrible. 4/10
3Elvis Costello
Brutal Youth

A Nightmare on Elm St. 3: Dream Warriors
Yeah, this was just a joyous celebration of all things 80s. Genuine care seems to be placed in the story and characters here, and it surprisingly builds off of the original in a faithful way. While it's far more of an action/adventure outing in a lot of ways, there are some truly horrifying moments here that border on disgusting, but without them this could've been borderline PG. Some great insight is made into Freddy's background, and the protagonist from the first is emphasized in a cool and exciting way. Actual effort was put into the style and look of the film, turning it into a great looking and fun film overall that rivals the original. 8/10
4Foxing
Nearer My God

A Nightmare on Elm St. 4: The Dream Master
This kind of spits on the grave of the franchise in a lot of ways, and yet I was strangely compelled by it. Story-wise it's ass. It's cruel, masochistic, and presents a perverted look at grief and guilt and everything in between. Yet still, the look and style of this film is blown off it's hinges. It's as if they just gave the story to the VFX department, with it, the cinematography, and production design running on all cylinders. It's as if no one stopped to ask if they should before doing it. This results in some disgusting, horrifying, and morally rancid scenes (like the bug-kill, wtf), and some genuinely memorable over-the-top scenes like the climax. It's insane, in the best and worst ways possible. And I guess it's just my ultimate guilty pleasure. 6/10
5Agent Orange
Living in Darkness

A Nightmare on Elm St. 5: The Dream Child
This was like if the visual prowess of the last film had actually been put to good use through a good story. I love the fact that this franchise has some actual continuity, building on each other (sometimes more than others) and the mythology of Freddy established, even following the same characters across different movies. The story here was intriguing, both the Freddy aspects, and in the fact that the protagonist's plight was even goddamn moving at times... who woulda thunk it? Match that with the insanely cool kills and visceral style filled to the brim with gothic influences and bright colors and man, we've got another winner here, even if things really felt like they settled into a formula this time around (more now than ever.) 7/10
6Deep Purple
Machine Head

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Honestly I only watched this a few days ago but I don't remember much of it; a testament to the film's faults. While there were some cool plot points, such as the lead having been Freddy's daughter (and using it to give Freddy a bit more of a motivation), most of them were lost in just lazy storytelling and a lack of interesting stuff going on. The leads were shit at acting, except for the blonde girl who was surprisingly good, even if she didn't add much to the film storywise. Overall there was a lot of dumb fun to be had, but I can't remember one bit why. 4/10
7Peter Gabriel
Us

Wes Craven's New Nightmare
When the movie wasn't too busy being so pleased with itself, it was a really damn good film. It spent a lot of time on the drama and mystery of Freddy's return, which lent itself very well to the meta aspects of the film. It's a really goddamn clever story when you think of it, but the film's greatest fault is it constantly reminding you of that. Wes Craven almost reaches a Shyamalan amount of ego when he paints hismelf as the accidental true painter of evil, awaken the most true monster in Freddy Kruger ever. The script-within-a-script aspect was also neat, but was beat on the head a bit. The film was at its best when it was being just dramatic or frightening, treating its characters like real people (meta jokes aside) and the deaths as having real emotion. At its worst, it felt like a dry-run for the (much better) Scream movies. 7/10
8Jay-Z and Linkin Park
Collision Course

Freddy vs. Jason
I'm sure I'm overrating it, but I had so much fun with this. It was a satisfying culmination in almost 20 movies worth of horror, and it treated the characters with true respect. Jason was a big dumb oaf that was still invincible and terrifying for it, and Freddy was a cackling madman with far more clever and visually interesting scares up his sleeve. The script of course was ass, but the story was really clever in parts (shitty weaknesses aside), painting a pretty accurate portrayal of how we hoped a fight between them would go down. Me and my roommate had different favorites (I prefer Freddy, he prefers Jason), so it was really fun to be rooting for them like that. Also, it was interesting in that Jason almost acts as the protagonist and Freddy the antagonist, as it really is more of a Friday movie than a Nightmare one story-wise, though the visual style of Nightmare thankfully takes hold pretty solidl. Idk. I just had so much fun with this so fuck it. 7/10
9Black Sabbath
Born Again

A Nightmare on Elm St. (2010)
Yeah I forgot to add this before but I pretty much hated this. 3/10
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