31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Warrior Trilogy part 1: Dream Warriors

Nightmare on Elm Street movie releases were event films in the 80's. The original's heady combination of slasher flick and dark fantasy had proven a hit for New Line Cinema and they were quick to build a franchise. The sequel, Freddy's Revenge, had done okay box office, but for many - including myself - it didn't really feel like an Elm Street movie. Freddy and the rules of the nightmares all seemed drastically different and, while an interesting movie in its own way, it just wasn't much fun.

That changed with the release of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, which once again put the focus on Freddy and the Elm Street kids. It also ramped up the special effects and gave Freddy a lot more screen time. It was really the start of the more over-the-top, Freddy-centric nature of the later films. This proved to be box office gold, but it led the series down a path that ended up in self-parody and emphasized spectacle and one-liners over characters and story.

First step on said path.

The Medium

Some time ago I purchased the Nightmare on Elm Street blu-ray collection. This is actually the first time I've dug it out to watch these entries in the series, though! They're excellent, if not quite as good in either the quality or extras department as the first and last films. It's much better than the old DVDs, though, and can usually be found at a decent price.

The Movie

Dream Warriors. Admit it - the theme song is already in your head. This was probably the first of the Nightmare films I got to see in the actual theater and for a long time was my favorite of the bunch. Time has dampened my enthusiasm somewhat - the first and the seventh are my favorites nowadays - but it's still an enjoyable entry in the series and manages a better balance between story and spectacle than the later entries.

That song really does get in your head, though.

Nice to see Wes Craven's name on the screenplay, and I'd forgotten that Frank Darabont had also worked on it.

Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) is sent to the Westin Hills psychiatric hospital after an apparent suicide attempt. There she meets several other patients who are experiencing the same issues she is - namely persistent and terrifying nightmares featuring a disfigured killer sporting knives on one hand. The kindly Dr. Gordon is sympathetic, but disbelieving and it's not until a new therapist - Nancy Thompson - arrives that anyone will listen to the kids, and even with her arrival it'll be too late for some.

I'd forgotten Patricia Arquette was in this, and the guy from Body Double. And Laurence Fishburne as an orderly (and billed in the credits as 'Larry' Fishburne)! It was also a great idea to bring back both Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon to reprise their roles from the first film.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'd be doing too.

This is probably the last of the main Nightmare films where I'm really invested in the characters. They're broadly drawn and more defined by their character quirks (so that Freddy can more easily terrorize them), but they're still sympathetic and interesting. I also like the venue change - putting the kids in a psychiatric hospital rather than a high school affords a more contained setting and forces them to interact with each other in different ways. Less "he-ing and she-ing" (in the words of my old acting teacher) and more friendship and support.

Or support group, anyway.

I'm less enthused about the 'origin story' for Freddy. A nun raped in a tower,  the 'bastard child of a hundred maniacs' feels like something out of a much earlier (and cheaper) sort of film.

The big twist for this movie is that Kristen actually has the ability to pull people into her dreams, an ability that allows for the kids to (eventually) work together in an effort to defeat Freddy. The scene where she first does this - hauling Nancy into a nightmare version of the old house on Elm Street - is a nicely horrifying set piece. Freddy appears as an enormous snake and begins to swallow Kristen alive. Nancy is pulled in to the dream and stabs the Freddy-snake in the eye. He turns and, upon seeing his old nemesis, growls "you..." before disappearing. It's a good effect and the moment of recognition is creepy as hell.

Do you really want THIS guy to recognize you?

None of the supervisors at the hospital believes any of the kids, of course. That's part of what makes it a true Elm Street film, when the adults are essentially obstacles to the kids rather than helpers. After a few deaths Kristen ends up sedated and Nancy leads the survivors into Kristen's dreams to try and save her and another kid, Joey. At the same time, Dr. Gordon forces Nancy's father (Saxon) to lead him to where Freddy's bones are buried in a bid to lay Freddy to rest for good.

It proves more difficult than expected.

I'm always a little bothered when the rules of a series are broken, and the Elm Street rules - Freddy can kill you for real in your dreams, but only your dreams - are broken constantly here. Jennifer ends up head first in a TV set with no visible way for her to have gotten there by sleep walking (without a trampoline that is), another character being controlled by Freddy by his veins (like puppet strings) simply walks through a set of locked doors. Most egregiously, Freddy's bones rise up like he was in a Harryhausen movie and kills Nancy's dad. There's always been a little bit of that - Nancy dragging Freddy's hat out of her dream in the first movie comes to mind - but it's the blurring of a line that makes the stakes seem less important somehow. If he can get you in the real world, what's the point of trying to stay awake in the first place?

Avoiding this. Right. Forgot.

This is picky, though, and asking a lot of what's essentially a jumped up slasher series. And to be fair - some of that real world crossover is pretty cool (all the cars going berserk in the junkyard, for instance).

This could have been a nice end to the series, with heroic sacrifices, last minute defeats and resurrections, and the feeling like more than one spirit has been laid to rest. Alas, box office returns and studio bottom lines dictated otherwise.

Shoulda taken the blue pill is all I'm sayin'

The Bottom Line

Dream Warriors a fun movie overall, with great set pieces, decent characters, fun Freddy bits and it even manages some occasional scary moments. Something that would get harder to come by in later installments.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Swamp Thing

 This is me still doing catch up - any references to October Gaming Weekend actually refer to the 10th/11th!

Swamp Thing

 So, this is my annual October Gaming weekend, which often sees a sharp decline in the quality of the movies AND writeups. So far, this year is no exception - despite the majority of actual gaming going on this Sunday instead of both days. My brother Jeff showed up last night and felt in the mood for some silly horror action, which is what led us to watching Swamp Thing.

It's not that Swamp Thing is bad, really - I mean, it's not GOOD, but it's better than a lot of films - it's just that it's not really a horror film. Yes, it's a film about a scientist who catches on fire, runs into the swamp and rises as a muck-encrusted monstrosity. Yes, the climactic scene involves two monsters battling each other (with a sword!) in the depths of a swamp. But... but there's no scare there. There's too many guys in camo shooting automatic weapons, too many goofy sidekicks (well, one, but that's still too many for a horror film), too many alternating kick-ass/helpless damsels. It's too, well, comic-booky. Which would be fine, but it's way more comic-booky than even the comic book was!

I do have a soft spot for this film, based in part on my enjoyment of the comic (from the original Len Wein/Berni Wrightson run on). Wes Craven gamely tries to give us the visuals that Wrightson set forth - moody swamps, twisted creatures, a hulking, green swamp beast with roots running through his body - but it never manages to rise above the fact that the titular character is a guy in an (obvious) rubber suit.

The thing is, it's a fun movie. Craven shows a decent enough hand at action sequences, stunts and special effects here. There's humor, character and some pathos. Louis Jordan hams up a storm. It's just hard to take too seriously - especially if you're hanging out with my brother, who insists on giving Swamp Thing the voice of Yoda. "Judge me by my size, do you?"

The action sequences are very 80's in their staging and tendency for things to blow up when hit. In fact, if you replaced the Swamp Thing with Hannibal, Face, Murdock and B. A., you'd have a fairly good two-parter of the A-Team, missing only the inevitable sequence where they built some cockamamie contraption to attack Arcane with.

I'm hard on this film, because it's shortcomings in both budget, production and execution are so obvious, but I still like it a lot more than The Hills Have Eyes. There's a sense of fun and heart to it - though it's a heart clogged with cheese. The suit in the sequel was better made - though that movie stunk. The TV show was actually fairly decent, though, and worth a look - though still not horror.

It's too bad, because I'd love to see someone take a shot at a film or series based on the Alan Moore run of the comic. There was some dark stuff in that series.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies - 2015: The Hills Have Eyes

I'm behind on getting these posted, but I AM doing 31 Days, 31 Horror Movies again this year. I'll try and post a couple of these a day until I'm caught up. Work has been a bit crazy, so the quality of the writeups may be a bit suspect...

We lost two horror movie icons this year - Christopher Lee and Wes Craven. It seemed appropriate that I start off the viewing this year with one of their films. I had a hard time deciding what that initial film should be, though. Should I start off with Christopher Lee, as he was the older man with the larger body of work (and who had also passed first)? Should I start with Wes Craven, who I'm more familiar with and who's more recent passing was fresh in my mind? Beyond that, what, out of each man's oeuvre, should I choose?

I really struggled with this last bit - should I choose a movie that was representative, or a movie that I particularly liked? Something familiar, or a forgotten classic? Harder with Wes Craven, as I had already reviewed some of the obvious choices for previous versions of this thread - Nightmare on Elm Street, for instance. For Lee it was easier in that I haven't reviewed a lot of his work, but then the sheer volume of his films is intimidating.

Long story short(er)(ish), I finally narrowed the choices down to one film for each. Both from the 1970's (a favorite decade of mine for horror films) and both films I haven't seen since I was a teenager. For Lee it was The Wicker Man and for Craven it was The Hills Have Eyes. I figured I'd just watch both of them, one for today, the other for tomorrow. Still couldn't decide which to watch first, however, so I flipped a coin. And the winner was...

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

I didn't enjoy The Hills Have Eyes when I first saw it. It was one of the earliest videotape rentals I made, I'm fairly sure. Seeing the torn poster in the basement of the cabin in Evil Dead certainly piqued my interest. I've got no clear memory of that viewing, however, just the vague sense that I didn't like it very much and that Michael Berryman was one creepy looking mofo.

If I watched it soon after renting Evil Dead for the first time I can see why I was disappointed - the gore in Hills is minimal, the production quality uniformly low, the acting generally amateurish, and the story as bare-bones as it gets. I'm not saying Evil Dead is a paragon of cinema, but in all those areas it beats Hills fairly handily (and that's saying something with the acting).

One creepy looking mofo

The Hills Have Eyes is, perhaps, more fairly compared with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - they both feature a travelling group who run afoul of cannibalistic outsiders - but Hills also fails in this comparison, coming close only in the characters the villains. Papa Jupiter and his clan are no real match for Leatherface and his, however.

Whatever the reason, The Hills Have Eyes ranks fairly low on my mental list of horror movies that I've seen, so it was fair to say I had low expectations going into this viewing. I haven't seen it since the 1980's, however, and I've had to re-evaluate a lot of films that I watched back then.

The Medium

I watched this on Amazon Streaming. The quality was fairly poor, but I don't know if that was my connection or the film.

The Movie

After a nicely creepy intro - titles over silhouetted desert hilltops - I ran into my first disconnect with memory. In my head the movie started with the Carter family just showing up at the desert gas station. I'd forgotten the whole bit with Ruby and the old guy. I also don't remember her wearing normal clothes. Later events suddenly make a lot more sense to me.

 So, basic premise, the Carter family - ex-cop Bob , matriarchal mom Ethel, married couple Lynne and Doug with their baby Katie, and younger siblings Bobby and Brenda. They also have two German shepherds, Beauty and Beast.

Prototypical annoying American family

I'm just going to put this out there - Beast is the real hero of this movie. I'm still pissed about the poodle in Florida, but that's on your owners. Other than that, you're a good boy, Beast! Given enough time I think you'd have taken all of them out.

Who's a good murderous killer? You are! You are!

 Anyway, the Carters are on a cross-country trip to California. Bob has gotten it into his head to find an abandoned silver mine on the way and - ignoring warnings from family and stranger alike - drives the family and their camper/trailer out into the middle of nowhere, where he promptly wrecks the car. And blames it on his wife.

Bob and Doug head out to find help - Bob back to the gas station and Doug to a military base indicated on their maps. The rest of the family squabbles and annoys each other (and me) for a while, before Beauty escapes her leash and runs off into the desert, with Bobby close behind. Eventually he finds her - but someone or something has disemboweled the dog. Something moving nearby frightens Bobby and he flees, eventually falling and knocking himself out.

"Should we really have put this poster in the baby's room?"

Night falls. The family seems strangely sanguine about Bobby being missing in the dark in the desert.

Bob finally reaches the gas station where he finds the owner busily hanging himself. Bob seems less than sympathetic, but I'm sure that's just his gruff exterior. Eventually he gets the story about the man's son Jupiter, a malignant horror that he eventually ran off (by hitting him in the face with a tire iron). Now Jupiter lives in the desert with his family, a group of degenerate cannibals that feed on the unwary or unlucky traveler that wanders into their patch of the desert.

Then Jupiter - in the first truly cool, scary moment - pulls his father out through a window and beats the old man to death. With a tire iron. Bob flees, but is eventually captured by Jupiter (after what appears to be a heart attack).

Meanwhile, the rest of Jupiter's clan - particularly the monstrous Mars and Pluto - are busily stalking the rest of the Carters. Bobby finally shows up, but doesn't mention anything about hearing noises or something killing Beauty. Because, you know, reasons.

Things get spectacularly bad for the Carters pretty damn quickly. Bob is crucified on a set on fire within site of the trailer, Lynne is killed, Ethel gut-shot, Barbara raped, and the baby stolen  - all within roughly five minutes. Mars even takes the time to kill the pet parakeet. 

Nobody is getting 'children of the year' awards for their actions in this movie, FYI.

I must admit, I was finally hooked at this point. Usually a siege film like this spends a good chunk of time picking off people one by one - not here. The family is suddenly halved, with a baby missing. It was brutal and unexpected, even though I'd seen it before.

Things are a bit more typical Craven from this point on, with the survivors forced to become just as vicious and violent as their opponents in order to survive and protect their own. There are some excellent set pieces involving a corpse used as bait and a bald guy being stalked by a dog. (Good boy, Beast!) Some dark humor as well, as when Pluto tricks Bobby into disclosing information about their defenses.

The ending is a bit abrupt, but the good guys seem to win. Of course how far did they have to go to do so?

Bottom Line

You know, I still don't really like this film. It's... it's okay. It has moments. That first attack. Jupiter's assault and Bobby and Barbara's defense. There's some nice framing of the vast, uncaring desert and the tiny Carter encampment. Michael Berryman is still one creepy looking dude. 

Creepy, I'm telling you.

In the end, however, it's feels threadbare and slapped together. The pacing is either so slow as to make you yawn or so frenetic you find yourself wondering what just happened. What little gore there is is almost laughably bad. And the acting is - well, it's not the worst I've seen, but it made me want to slap a lot of people.

I'm actually pretty impressed with the jump in Wes Craven's skills between this and Swamp Thing, the next film of his that I've seen (still haven't watched Deadly Blessing).

Just thinking about it in this moment, I think I actually enjoyed it more while I was watching it than I do looking back on it, if that makes sense. It was a decent enough ride, but all the things that bothered me look even worse in the light of the next day.