Popcorn Kernels: Mother Of Sighs

Some quick reviews of 2018 movies I've been catching up on, now that I have to wait until discount day to pay money for them instead of just swiping MoviePass like a shopping montage in an 80's movie.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Year: 2018

Director: David Yates

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Johnny Depp
Run Time: 2 hours 14 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Newt Scamander & Co. have a series of adventures while the evil wizard Grindelwald gathers his forces, and maybe they'll do something interesting in the next one.

Now, nobody is pretending that any spinoff franchise could ever be as huge a phenomenon as Harry Potter. Even though the films in that franchise could be pretty patchy, there's no denying their huge cultural impact, pushed into the stratosphere by the world-rending book series they were based on. I'm not asking Fantastic Beasts or its mush-mouth titled sequel to be anything close to that. I am asking for it to have the slightest vestige of quality, however. Unfortunately, you can't always get what you want.

From the title on down, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a miscalculation of biblical proportions. It's visually illegible, constantly plastering plasticky CGI across its choppily edited, mud-colored frame, but that's nothing compared to how illegible the script is. Its incoherent attempts at fan service (they shoehorn in every Harry Potter figure who might conceivably have been alive at the time, but their comings and goings blend in with the sheer mass of new characters we meet who get lost in dead-end plot lines or appear without warning as if they've been here the entire time) tumble over a plot that not only forgets to include very many magical creatures, but also bungles every single lead character from the previous movie, even though it made egregiously major retcons to include two of them in the first place.

The plot gets so unnecessarily complicated that a character literally has to sit us down for ten full minutes to give a flashback-aided presentation about what the hell we've even been watching this whole time, right before a climax that introduces about a half dozen different conflicts that haven't had a scrap of setup.

Rowling can't even resist doubling down on the single worst aspect of the single film: the reveal that the Americans call Muggles No-Maj's. As in, they have no magic. I like the idea that different wizarding communities have different slang terms just like the real world, but it's probably the laziest fake word I've ever heard in a world in which fake words are literally the backbone. Enter Grindelwald, which introduces other terms like the French "non-magique" and the term "can't-spells."  Is she just trolling me at this point? By film 5 in this franchise (yeah, that's the plan, but we'll see if they get there after this trainwreck), are we going to learn that the Australian wizards call them "have-to-throw-shrimp-on-the-barbies-cuz-they-bad-at-wandz"?

Any way you slice it, it's just a mess. Everything good about the first film, which was only OK to begin with, had been left to rot. The fun frolicking with magical creatures is present in small pockets of the film, but it all feels very Looney Tunes and it actively fails to gel with the movie's bizarre choice to focus on the brewing conflict that seems to be leading to Magic World War I. And Eddie Redmayne, who was a charming presence in the first film, is giving a performance that forgets most of his quirks and tics in favor of a stern locked jaw and staring off into space. The plot never really makes a space for him (the plot is much more focused on Dumbledore - who is barely in the film - and Grindelwald - who is in far too much of the film, and spends too much time bragging that he knows something we don't, which when revealed turns out to be a very lame thing), and he's content to just be the wallpaper anyway.

There are quite a few Harry Potter movies that I don't like very much, but I never expected to hate one of these. Well, there's a first time for everything.

Rating: 2/10

Suspiria

Year: 2018
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth
Run Time: 2 hours 32 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

A young woman joins a modern dance school in 1977 Germany that may or may not be definitely run by witches.

One way to put me instantly on your movie's bad side is to split it into chapters. Suspiria announces right away that it's going to have six acts, which means I'll constantly be checking in and going "we're still only on act two? Why isn't this movie over yet!" My impatience aside, Suspiria really revels in how drawn-out the whole process is. Two and a half hours of Suspiria is waaaay too much Suspiria. The original is 92 minutes long, the perfect amount of time to be completely rattled and shaken up before the film dumps you on the cold concrete.

However, horror films often can't sustain tension for much longer than that, not that this Suspiria seems particularly concerned with building tension anyway. It's another exercise in style like the previous film (to that end, I do think Guadagnino was the best choice to fill Argento's shoes), and in these elements it works pretty damn well. The set design is impressively austere and the cinematography wickedly echoes the original film by being its complete aesthetic opposite, entirely on purpose. And my favorite element here is the jagged sound design, which layers dialogue from other scenes over odd shots where it doesn't seem to belong, evoking the ethereal and odd sound dubbing of older Italian filmmaking. But where Argento's Suspiria served form at the expense of function, Guadagnino liberally ladles his style over a six-course meal of plot that makes the table groan under its weight.

The most obvious misstep here is the inclusion of the political turmoil in 1977 Germany, as if the location and time period of the original actually had a single thing to do with anything. It's a choice that paints Guadagnino into a corner and this material only ever feels clumsily shoehorned in. Less so the stuff about dealing with the lingering specter of the Holocaust, but it still intersects with the main thrust of the movie so little that you only ever feel like you're being dragged away from where the real action is.

As for this action, it does provoke a stirring of horror or two over its time. There's plenty of exquisite match cutting here that utilizes modern dance as an aggressive, muscular framework for some disgusting imagery that owes everything to precise editing and impressive visual effects. And the eventual climax of the film is a colorful orgy of terror that does make sitting through the entire thing worth it, but while you're in the middle of the sitting part, the movie really does do its best to put you right to sleep.

Rating: 5/10

Searching

Year: 2018
Director: Aneesh Chaganty
Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing, Joseph Lee
Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

A desperate father uses his computer to solve the mystery of his daughter's disappearance.

I missed Searching in theaters because of the aforementioned Great MoviePass Implosion of 2018, but I also wasn't feeling too motivated to go check it out because of a pretty petty reason. People were staring awestruck at this movie because it shows a whole story over a computer screen. As if Unfriended wasn't sitting right there, having done the exact same thing four years ago. And that wasn't even the first, because we have The Den, and presumably some other film that The Den was ripping off. Nothing is original, my friends. I'm just rankled that the discourse ignored the teenybopper horror film because that's what discourse likes to do.

And when it comes down to brass tacks, that teenybopper horror film is much more honest with its conceit. Searching is a fun movie with a gripping plot, but it's also a cheater. We cut between multiple screens (including just a straight-up TV), we get video footage of John Cho at all times because he leaves FaceTime open like a crazy person, we have actual non-diegetic music plastered over the big moments, and we get close-ups of all the important material onscreen because audiences can't be trusted to pay attention. Unfriended may be a sillier movie, but it's true to its format and I want to make sure it gets that respect.

That said, it's not like Searching is bad. On the contrary, it's a quite delightful little film. It's a muscular, pared-down thriller that - like most thrillers - stumbles a bit in its third act, but takes you on a wild roller coaster ride just the same. It also utilizes real social media and apps like Venmo, Facebook, Tumblr, and the like in a way that isn't just product placement like a Ralph Breaks the Internet, but rather a reminder that this is the fabric of what a teenager does all day. It highlights just how much of our lives are splayed out across the Internet for any enterprising viewer to piece together, and it's an excellent, chilling reminder of just how public most of our lives have become.

Unfortunately, as a two-hander between John Cho and Debra Messing, it's less than thrilling. Cho is good here, as he is pretty much anywhere, but neither quite has the presence or gravitas to sell the ridiculous twists that come swinging for the fences in the later portions of the film. But at any rate, they're absorbing enough that you do forget entirely that you're just watching a computer screen, and that's a recipe for a fun night on the couch with Redbox, even if it's not going to change your life.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1658
Reviews In This Series
Suspiria (Argento, 1977)
Suspiria (Guadgnino, 2018)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Yates, 2016)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Yates, 2018)

Care Of Magical Creatures

Year: 2016
Director: David Yates
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol
Run Time: 2 hours 13 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Of course the Harry Potter franchise wasn’t dead. Did you think J. K. Rowling would abandon her money geyser to keep writing Robert Galbraith mysteries in quiet cafés forever? I’m just glad the franchise is actually moving in a different direction instead of showing yet another wave of students carve their way through a mountain of Hogwarts homework assignments (The Cursed Child was quite enough, thank you).

I was apprehensive when I learned that the new film would in some way be based on the Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but as a literate human being in my age bracket, I was obligated to check it out.

At least she didn’t pick Quidditch Through the Ages, thank Merlin.

In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, magical creature researcher and advocate Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives in New York City in 1926, carrying a case that contains all the creatures he has been studying (it’s much bigger on the inside). After a mix-up at the bank, Muggle factory worker Kowalski (Dan Fogler) accidentally sets loose a couple of the creatures and gets tangled up in a frantic chase to recapture them with Newt and ex-Auror Tina (Katherine Waterston, and if you don’t know what an Auror is, good luck).

Meanwhile, am mysterious dark force has been wreaking havoc upon the city, causing local No-Maj’s (as the Americans call Muggles – get it?  “no magic” – because apparently Rowling forgot how to name things) to become suspicious about magical activity. With the dark wizard Grindelwald still at large, the Magical Congress of the United States of America (which, when the acronym is pronounced, only sounds like “Yakuza” to my delight) feat that this new Salem movement may provoke an all-out war. President Seraphina Piquery (Carmen Ejogo) and Director of Magical Security Percival Graves (Colin Farrell) suspect that one of Scamander’s beasts is responsible, despite his fervent assertions that they’re harmless. So, he’s also tasked to figure out what actually IS causing this mayhem while he avoids the long arm of the magical law.

What a day!

In fact, Fantastic Beasts is even better than just a change of pace. It’s a light, fun fantasy adventure that erases the dour tone of the last few Harry Potter films, returning us to a world of whimsy and wonder… Mostly. The central conflict of this film, which is thankfully treated more like a B-plot, is prone to rather sudden shifts in tone that don’t suit the movie one whit. One minute we’re pirouetting in a sanctuary for teleporting ducks, and the next Ezra Miller shows up playing a terminally maudlin child that looks like he stepped off the set of a Tim Burton film, but acts like he was written by Charles Dickens on a bad day.

These sequences range from the bizarrely overwrought (a little girl plays hopscotch while chanting a rhyme about witch murder) to the actively bad (there’s a bit of business about a presidential election that seems to be setting up a despotic villain – topical – but randomly vanishes halfway through), so the marriage of these two tones is fraught with tension. These sections are also marked by the absolute worst of James Newton Howard’s generic score, which quotes Saw in the weirdest way possible. Again, luckily the move seems to recognize that this portion of the plot is junk, so it shoves it offscreen as roughly and as often as possible.

Pay no attention to the subplot behind the curtain.

But if you excise that chunk of the movie from your brain, the rest is –in a word – fantastic. Mostly. OK, it’s not perfect, but it’s a breezy bit of popcorn fun that is much needed in this horrifying time we’re living in.

The creature effects range from solid (an instantly plushy-able niffler) to iffy (they never have been able to get house elves entirely right), but they’re all triumphs of colorful, fantastical design. And, amusingly, the single worst CGI creature in the whole thing is a lion. Like, just a straight-up, real-ass lion fro the Central Park Zoo, which really puts everything else in perspective. Where the effects really shine is in creating a living, breathing 1920’s New York City that serves as the perfect nostalgic backdrop for the overflowing magical mayhem of this timeless tale.

It’s thanks to this setting that Fantastic Beasts thrives. Placing a grand tale of wizardry and mystical creatures smack dab in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world is an ingenious juxtaposition that makes the film pulse with lively, jaunty energy. Although some of the humor tips toward the juvenile (Oh my, a man couldn’t possibly deal with talking about tampons! Gee whiz, that dude is much too fat to fit into a suitcase designed to transport enormous magical creatures! Ho ho! What fun!), it sparkles with a joie de vivre that can’t be denied.

And despite being a transparent marketing plot, there’s not a snowball’s chance in Hell that you won’t exit the theater loving the niffler.

But I’ve been neglecting the human element here, which is uncommonly strong. Redmayne is an excellent addition to Rowling’s wizarding world, providing an exquisitely strange energy to his role. But the real standout here is relative unknown Dan Fogler, whose Muggle bravado (I refuse to call him a No-Maj, because apparently this is how little the Brits think of us) is aced with a sublime cluelessness and whip-smart comic timing. I also couldn’t leave out the Marilyn Monroe-esque beauty Queenie (Alison Sudol), who hides some sharp anarchistic edges beneath her airy façade. Katherine Waterston is the least of our heroes because her role is a bit of a cypher, but she grounds the silliness of her motley crew. It’s a perfect mixture of the funny and the unreal.

So Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has its fair share of flaws (not the least of which is how it makes my fingers cramp up whenever I have to type that full title), but it’s a return to form for spotty Potter director David Yates. It’s not quite at the level of his magnum opus The Half-Blood Prince, but that five-year break certainly put a pep in his step. My advice? Go see Fantastic Beasts. Wipe your slate clean of expectations, and have yourself a plain old-fashioned good time.

TL;DR: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a fun, light fantasy adventure that overcomes its shaky tone.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1107
Reviews In This Series
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Yates, 2016)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Yates, 2018)

Grim Fairy Tales

Year: 2014

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, James Corden

Run Time: 2 hours 5 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

The transition from stage to screen is not an easy one. Musicals rely on the energy of the audience, so pre-packaging a living and breathing live show into one endlessly reusable piece is a tricky endeavor. Sometimes it's a successfully thrilling conversion (Little Shop of Horrors, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), sometimes it's downright repugnant (Bye Bye Birdie, The Phantom of the Opera), and sometimes it's a magnificently slapdash spectacle of glitter and misguided cameos (Rock of Ages, Mamma Mia!). Into the Woods, adapted from Steven Sondheim's 1986 stage show, is a little bit of all three, though it survives on the strength of one of the most effective celebrity casts in recent memory.

I'm definitely not being biased by Chris Pine's hair. Definitely.

Into the Woods combines several different fairy tales into one dark, cohesive tapestry about coming of age, parenthood, exploring the world outside one's humdrum life, and learning to accept responsibility. The cast of familiar characters includes Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and Prince Charming (Chris Pine), who meet at a ball under magical circumstances against the wishes of an Evil Stepmother (Christine Baranski); Jack (Daniel Huttlestone of Les Misérables) and his Beanstalk of Opportunity; Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), who encounters a Wolf (Johnny Depp) on the way to her grandmother's house; and Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), trapped up in her tower patiently waiting to let her hair down for the right Prince (Billy Magnussen).

When a childless Baker (James Corden) and his Wife (Emily Blunt) learn of a curse placed upon their household by the Witch (Meryl Streep) next door, they set off on an adventure to find four magical objects to reverse the spell before three nights pass. On their journey, they split up and regroup and encounter various other characters making their merry way through the woods. It's basically one of those chase scenes from Scooby Doo, with characters popping in and out of closets and running into one another all across the forest.

Also like Scooby Doo, there's a creepy live action dog.

As a medium for showcasing the syncopated rhythms and delicate wordplay of Sondheim's compositions with crispness and clarity, Into the Woods is an unequivocal success. Although the cast is star-studded, many of them have previously proven themselves as vocal talents in films or on the Great White Way: Meryl Streep and Christine Baranski in Mamma Mia!, Anna Kendrick in Pitch Perfect, Lilla Crawford in Annie... And Johnny Depp? Well, he really isn't in very much of the film.

And the newcomers are of a piece startlingly suited for the challenge. Emily Blunt has a clear, chirpy voice that isn't tested by overly-challenging pieces, and Chris Pine has a rich, dreamy baritone that really needs to be taken advantage of in larger roles. Or at least televised karaoke pajama parties.

The film shines brightest during its first half, during which the fairy tales are enacted in fairly traditional, but uniquely overlapping nature. The cheerful chaos of the characters' various collisions is upbeat and energetic, mixed with some highly theatrical (and occasionally suspension of disbelief-shattering) lighting, staging, and costume design, especially in the otherwise unprepossessing Wolf sequence.

I mean, it's hard to make the Little Red tale look drab. *coughcoughAmandaSeyfried*

The actors feel most comfortable when they're embracing the "Whee! It's a musical!" aspect of these scenes. Not that any of them are untalented in other registers, but fairy tale characters rely on broad stereotypes and tonally the performers can find their match with ease. Chris Pine is dashing, Anna Kendrick is woebegone, Lilla Crawford is brash and outgoing. Wham bam, thank you ma'am. 

The sheer amount of fun they must be having just pours from the screen. Every one of the film's best sequences comes from this pure joy: the sprawling and fantastical opening number, Cinderella's spritely dash from the Prince, Little Red's encounter with the Baker, and the dashing, hilarious, campy idiocy of "Agony," the Princes' duet and the unimpeachable high-water mark of the entire show.

I suppose I would be remiss if I neglected to mention Meryl Streep's Oscar-nominated performance as the Witch, but there's not much there to talk about. Streep is a treasure, of course, but her old crone is not much more than an over-the-top, crack-addled spinster. To be fair, that's what the role calls for, but she's not exactly punishing herself to find the core of her character. But she has a superb belt and knocks all of her songs out of the park and that's more than I could ever ask for.

A superb belt, yes, but a superb dress and wig, too.

However, once the film makes a drastic tonal shift into the darker side of the fairy tale universe, the film loses its mooring. The performers strain to find purpose and the music dries up, becoming both less frequent and more self-serious. It is here that the Disneyfication of the show takes full effect as the film shies away from the original show's more morbid plot points.

The third act drags like an anchor as the company tones down the death, sex, and violence, removes some key scenes entirely, and plods on through to its now unmotivated conclusion. Frankly, the final third is an unholy mess, pushing a stone over the film's well of lively buoyancy and letting it die an ignominious subterranean death.

The film strains to reach the finish line and sputters, coughs, and dies three feet from the ribbon. The finale song, cut down to a wanly fading overdubbed monstrosity, is more like a funeral knell than a full-circle denouement. 

But all in all, the film ain't half bad. If you can stomach the unappetizing finale, Into the Woods is worth your time, especially if you've never expereinced the joy of seeing the show staged live. Despite its watered-down ambitions, it really is the next best thing. The cast is remarkably game to bring the songs to life, the setting is charmingly serene, and the music will be playing in your head all week. Maybe just take a nap when you hit the 90-minute mark.

TL;DR: Into the Woods is a lively fun musical that is brought down by a tampered-with finale.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1058

Sweet And Sour

Year: 2000

Director: Lasse Hallström

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina

Run Time: 2 hours 1 minute

MPAA Rating: PG-13

If you're a fan of my non-horror reviews, you're lucky I have myself a Sergio. If he wasn't around making me watch whimsical and/or hard-hitting dramas, I certainly wouldn't be watching them on my own, making me quite the one-sided film historian. 

Today's entry in the "movies you're surprised to see on this blog" front is Chocolat, a 2000 quasi-romance film and nominee for that year's Best Picture award. There's no doubt why it lost. Gladiator, that year's winner, certainly appeals more to the Academy's sensibilities than this delicate fable, but it's certainly a light and enjoyable viewing experience.

Perhaps best known for being mentioned and overly pronounced in that scene in I Love You, Man, Chocolat is in fact the kind of movie that Paul Rudd would have secretly enjoyed but felt embarrassed about after the fact. It's tender, heartfelt, faux-French flavor makes it a good snuggle movie. Even if it does evaporate from the tongue soon after it's finished, it's a sweet treat.

Juliette Binoche - pictured 14 years before being devoured by Godzilla.

Chocolat spins the tale of Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol), who arrive one day in a picturesque French village to open up a chocolate shop on the first day of Lent. They are met with disparagement and derision from the hyper-religious mayor of the town, Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), who is perfectly content living life as his forefathers did, rigidly regimented and devoid of temptation or (what he perceives as) sin.

The stick up his ass is enormous, but not quite large enough to reach the entire town, some of whom make fast friends with the warm-hearted Vianne in spite of their leader's protestations. Among their number are Armande Voizin (Judi Dench), the estranged mother of the mayor's secretary, Josephine Muscat (Lena Olin), a mousy woman trapped in an abusive relationship with the local barkeep Serge (Peter Stormare), and Roux (Johnny Depp), a member of a tribe of river dwellers who travel from town to town but meet the scorn of the villagers.

As she befriends the town's outcasts (if this were a Ryan Murphy movie, they'd already be touring the continent singing cover songs), the villagers slowly learn to trust this easygoing visitor. But Serge and Le Comte are prepared to make life very difficult for her and her daughter, intent on preserving the sanctity of their town (and Serge's woebegone marriage).

Hold on, maybe Ryan Murphy DID get his sticky little fingers on this.

Perhaps Chocolat's most striking design element is its use of color. It's unsubtle and hits with the force of the chorus to "Wrecking Ball," but lo and behold is it ever appealing to my tastes. The villagers dress in muted grey and brown tones until one by one their lives are altered by this woman bedecked in red. As her warmth reaches them, their costuming begins to brighten and color enters their lives once more.

It's obvious but effective, and honestly who needs all these films tiptoeing their way around their thematic material, daintily sidestepping their narrative purpose? There's certainly a place for that, especially in the corners of cinema that act as High Art. But I say if you're making a statement, there's no harm in being bold and going for broke, waving your banner high.

In this film, this fable filled with broad characters and timeless themes about indulgence, love, and temptation, a bombastic color scheme can certainly find a home. I'd argue that this American-British co-production could have fared slightly better if it were actually a French film, unafraid to truly push the boundaries. But I admire a work of cinema that - not to mince words - indulges itself.

It's like a rainbow stomped on a Dracula movie.

Chocolat is a bit twee and about twenty minutes too long. And Johnny Depp is oversold in a brief appearance as the least interesting counterpart to Binoche. But the film knows how to wallop and takes on an intriguing, kinetic darkness in some of the more dramatic scenes, especially those between Josephine and her violent hubby.

All in all I enjoyed the experience and for those in the mood for some lighter fare this chilly Halloween season, maybe you should dig through the back catalogs and enjoy some hot Chocolat.

TL;DR: Chocolat is a light fable with bold use of color.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 754

Census Bloodbath: Night Terrors

If you're new to Census Bloodbath, click here.

Year: 1984

Director: Wes Craven

Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

This entry was due to come up much later in my Census Bloodbath series, but I've been cravin' some Craven. Also I'm writing an essay in my horror class about him (!!!) so I've been screening his movies all week.

So before we get into this film, let me take this opportunity gush for a little bit, please. Wes Craven is my favorite director of all time, not just of horror. The man started off as an English teacher, made the wildly depraved The Last House on the Left (Could you even imagine? I want you to picture your high school English teacher directing a grindhouse flick where a criminal gets his penis bitten off. Things just got very un-Pride and Prejudice.), reinvented the slasher genre twice with A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, and is the only 74-year-old alive who is actually good at Instagram.

He even made a Game of Thrones reference! I can't even with this guy...

But you'll get more and more Wes Craven history as we go along. For now, our concern is his first foray in changing an entire film genre as we knew it. Slashers, which had been going strong since Friday the 13th opened the floodgates in 1980, had begun to run out of steam. The well of ideas had already run dry by the first whispers of "Part 2" and increasing opposition by the MPAA (and the horrors of diminishing returns) meant that the slice-and-dicers were considering closing up shop permanently.

In fact, Paramount had already put a stake in their tentpole franchise, announcing that the next Friday the 13th film would be their last (it was not). But just after Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street blew in like a hurricane, sweeping up the desiccated husks of slasher cinema (Splatter University and Murder Rock: Dancing Death also came out that year) into its whirlwind of dazzling imagery and twisted,  quasi-European sensibilities.

Craven's first masterpiece, A Nightmare on Elm Street is an aggregate of influences as far and wide as the cinema of Dario Argento, newspaper articles about a mysterious dream disease, a study on primal fears, Val Lewton, and a childhood experience with a menacing vagrant. With his literary background and vast intelligence, Craven did what others could not: create Freddy Krueger, arguably the single most iconic villain in horror history.

The rush of creativity and the introduction of paranormal elements to the slasher formula initiated the second wave. Suddenly the supernatural was in vogue, and cheapie filmmakers traded in their machetes for high concept brain-throbbers. Late-to-the-game sequels like Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II and The Slumber Party Massacre II saw massive restructuring and even Jason and Michael got in on the fun, the former by becoming an undead behemoth resurrected by lighting and the latter by something something druid curse.

But let's not think too hard about that, here's a sheep.

People remember Freddy as the cackling prankster of the later films, but most forget what a menacing presence he has in the original. He might get more hoots than hollers these days, but the first Nightmare is still utterly terrifying.

The story goes like this: Plucky teen Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp, who'll return to Census Bloodbath in several other Wes Craven flicks) and her three friends - jock boyfriend Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp, in his first ever film role), best friend Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss), and her juviebait boyfriend Rod Lane (Nick Corri). 

The fact that there are so few characters - and that each of them have last names - reveals the essence of Nightmare's horror: Nobody is disposable. Each of these characters has a distinct personality, worldview, set of life goals, and relationship with each other member of the group. This is not merely a body count movie where the only draw is watching teens get killed in outré manners. Yes, the kills are exceptionally awesome in this film, but each one of them packs a punch.

These are characters we don't want to see die, and I don't know why more filmmakers haven't realized how scary that concept is.

Anyway, these four have all been having the same nightmare - being stalked through a boiler room by a man with a burned face, a battered fedora, a dirty red and green sweater, and a glove with razor blades for fingers. It doesn't take Nancy long to realize that they're in danger. Unfortunately she realizes this too late to save Tina, who is sliced open during her postcoital slumber in her parents' bed (Why do teenagers in 80's movies have such a fascination with the parents' bedrooms? If I were trying to sneak around and boink my dreamboat boyfriend, I couldn't think of a worse place.).

Tina's death scene is, in a word, glorious. It encapsulates everything Nightmare is about as the wounds she receives in her dream manifest themselves in reality. She is clawed open, dragged up her bedroom wall, and pulled onto the ceiling in a crescendo of blood, shrieks, and despair. It is brutal and affecting no matter how many times you watch it, visceral and powerful yet at the same time ethereally beautiful.

I could talk about Italian influence here but come on, just look how cool this is.

The lines between dream and reality begin to blur as Nancy attempts to discover the secret behind Freddy's rampage and save her friends - and herself - from a rendezvous with the business end of a manicure gone bad. What follows is a surreal phantasmagoria in which it is never absolutely clear what is or isn't a dream. 

Craven's masterfully delicate handling of imagery keeps one immersed in the dreamworld better than Inception ever could (I went there). With scenes pulled directly from the audience's own nightmares, centipedes and snakes pour out of a corpse, the staircase turns to gelatin, and claws stretch through a plaster ceiling. The longer Nancy goes without sleeping, the more danger she puts herself in, both in the real world and the dream world.

Nancy fights her way through Freddy's taunting, more beautiful and awe-inspiring murders, the supernova of heartburn she must have gotten from all that coffee she's been drinking, and the resistance of her policeman father (John Saxon) and her alcoholic mother (Ronee Blakley), who just don't understand why she refuses to even take a nap. What can she say? She's into survival.

Also featured: The medium from Insidious (Lin Shaye) as a schoolteacher.

and glorious glorious Johnny Depp midriff.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is beautiful because it is a slasher movie. It has everything - the (mostly) silent killer, teen victims, inept cops, a terrible 80's score, sex = death, the murders occuring as revenge for some long ago crime, and a virginal Final Girl. The fact that it manages to work within these well-established parameters and still be the elegant and surreal masterpiece of horror that it is is nothing less than a triumph.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is scary because it hits close to home. Our nightmares might all be different, but we have one thing in common: We all sleep. And in that sleep of death, what dreams may come must give us pause. 

Sleep is necessary for survival. We can only stay awake for so long before we expire. Just straight up death. And the longer we go without it, the easier it is to fall asleep. But with that sleep comes certain death. It's a lose-lose situation and the ticking of the clock makes for immense tension, even during the non-scary scenes. 

Not to mention that, during sleep, we are totally defenseless. That's bad enough in the physical world of violence and murder, but if the murderer is in your head? Chilling.

It's even worse when he's in your mouth.

I've already raved about the gorgeous savagery (call me a gorehound, but when you need over 50 gallons of blood onscreen for a single person's death scene, I am sold) that almost entirely holds up today despite a few effects that show their seams, but nearly every aspect of Nightmare works at full steam.

The sound design is superb, but it's altogether impossible to describe the immeasurable way that this enhances the film's dreamlike qualities. Just trust me on this one. Same with the production design. Yeah, all that stuff.

What I really want to talk about is the cast. For once the cast all look like actual teenagers, a rare accomplishment in a film like this. Although I'm still on the fence about whether Langenkamp's acting is charmingly incompetent or believable for her over-the-top predicament, the cast brings their characters to life in a totally believable way.

They're believable, they're likable, and they all have realistic reactions to the deaths of their friends. What is this? It's almost like we're watching a movie or something. One of the things I love the most is that Nancy isn't played by some teen starlet in a low cut top (cough cough Rooney Mara in the remake COUGH). She's just a kid, and that enhances the impact even more than everything else already had. 

I'd also like to do a dance of gratitude to the Casting Gods for picking an actual actor to play Freddy as opposed to an anonymous stuntman. Robert Englund is Freddy Krueger and without him at the wheel, this movie would have been nothing. That wicked glimmer in his eye as he hunts down his prey is as unsettling as his diminutive stature.

It's weirdly terrifying to watch a short man tear somebody apart.

Although the film does have flaws (it was created by a human man, after all), none of them are fatal or even mildly damaging. In fact most of my complaints are highly personal and miniscule, like the fact that I think the poster is weird or that I'm annoyed by how many fade-outs there are.

The two biggest flaws are the studio mandated ending, which is just plain peculiar and Ronne Blakley as Nancy's mother. With her caked-on pancake make-up and line delivery so stilted that it seems like she's reading off of a Russian teleprompter, she seems like she's a soap opera star who was on a break and just happened to wander into the Thompson household and get lost.

Aside from that, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a rousing success. And as if the whole concept wasn't showing off enough, Craven displays his intellectual vigor and filmmaking prowess in moments big and small, my favorites of which are the incorporation of a rose trellis to suggest an intermediate stage of Nancy waking up from a dream (you'll just have to watch it, but it's incredible), and the fact that at one point she hits Freddy in the face with a coffee pot, which is metaphorically what she's been doing the whole time - defending herself with caffeine.

OK, maybe those moments are just for me. But Nightmare is the work of an egregiously underappreciated auteur who would soon go on to become one of the most important figures in horror cinema. A showstopping practical effects extravaganza, this franchise starting film is one of the best slashers of the decade, one of the scariest horror films ever released, and one of the most creative American films on the market.

And that's good enough for me.

Killer: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund)

Final Girl: Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp)

Best Kill: No contest: Fountain of Blood.

Sign of the Times: Johnny Depp is an itty bitty baby; the soundtrack would have been dismissed by Duran Duran as "too cheesy."

Scariest Moment: This. Nope Nope Nope.

Weirdest Moment: Nancy rejects the advances of Johnny Depp. I bet she regretted that later.

Champion Dialogue: "He's dead, honey, because mommy killed him."

Body Count: 4; proving you don't have to have a slew of corpses to be a great slasher film.

1. Tina is slashed with the glove and pulled onto the ceiling.
2. Rod is strangled and hanged by his bedsheets.
3. Glen is dragged into his bed and explodes into a fountain of blood. 
4. Mrs. Thompson is burned in her sleep. 

TL;DR: A Nightmare on Elm Street is an eerie masterpiece that teeters delicately on the precipice of reality and singlehandedly resurrected the moribund slasher genre.

Rating: 10/10

Word Count: 2074

Reviews In This Series

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Sholder, 1985)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Harlin, 1988)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Hopkins, 1989)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991)

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Craven, 1994)

Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Bayer, 2010)

Archive: November 17, 2012

10 Famous Actors You Didn’t Know Were in Slasher Movies

Crispin Glover

Famous for: Back to the Future, River’s Edge, Charlie’s Angels

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

That’s right, Marty McFly’s father was a victim in Jason’s third (and definitely not final) bloodbath. Released but one year before Back to the Future, F13 4 featured Crispin Glover as Jimmy Mortimer, the virginal nerd who suffers from a relatively unique party foul - death by corkscrew.

Also check out this scene from the movie in which he proves firmly that this movie is set in the 80’s.

Corey Feldman 

Famous for: Stand By Me, The Goonies, The Lost Boys

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984)

This was one star-studded movie. Corey Feldman, one of the 80’s biggest child stars originated the role of Tommy Jarvis, the only character to defeat Jason three consecutive times - this kid’s a big deal. After witnessing Jason’s latest murder spree, Tommy pulls a Britney, shaving his head, and going after the big man with his own machete.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Famous for: (500) Days of Summer, Inception, Looper, The Dark Night Rises

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Filmed during the height of his 3rd Rock From the Sun fame, indie darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt had a stint as bad boy hockey player (I know, right?) Jimmy Howell in this sequel to Halloween II (nevermind the fact that there were four installments to the series in between the two films). I don’t want to post a picture and run the risk of causing this blog to become R-rated, but let’s just say he has an ice skate rather unceremoniously jammed into his face.

Kevin Bacon

Famous for: Mystic River, Apollo 13, Footloose, Animal House

Skeleton in the Closet: Friday the 13th (1980)

Kevin Bacon’s character, Jeff the horndog camp counselor was one of the first people to learn that the health insurance plan at Camp Crystal Lake doesn’t cover being impaled with an arrow.

Laurence Fishburne

Famous for: The Matrix Trilogy

Skeleton in the Closet: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors(1987)

Before Morpheus was committed to his quest to find The One who could defeat the Matrix, he was a sassy orderly at the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital in Springwood Ohio, caring for the last of the Elm Street children. It was a very challenging position that involved delivering medication, enforcing lights out policy, and trying to protect the kids from being carved up by a clownishly wisecracking Freddy Krueger.

Jason Alexander

Famous for: Seinfeld

Skeleton in the Closet: The Burning (1981)

HAIR. BASEBALL. In 1981’s little-known slasher gem, The Burning, our friend best know as George Costanza could be seen as the resident cool guy at Camp Stonewater before the teenage populace was hunted down one by one (and occasionally by the raftful) by the Cropsy killer.

Paul Rudd

Famous for: Clueless, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Role Models, I Love You, Man

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Oh, the things I would do for this man. Paul Rudd starred as a grown up Tommy Doyle, the babysittee from 1978’s Halloween. This was the last movie in the series before installments 3 to 6 were retconned by Halloween H20. Side note: Evidently the key to surviving a horror movie if you’re male is to be named Tommy. Take notes.

Johnny Depp

Famous for: 21 Jump Street, Pirates of the Caribbean, all Tim Burton movies, Sexiest Man Alive 2003 & 2009

Skeleton in the Closet: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Also starring: Glorious Depp Midriff. Before his fame began by wearing pale makeup and funny hats, Johnny Depp played the sexually frustrated jock boyfriend of the main character, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp). I bet she’s really regretting the fact that her character turned down his advances. Even though sex=death in these kind of movies, it’d probably be worth it.

Brad Pitt

Famous for: Thelma & Louise, Seven, Interview with the Vampire, Ocean’s 11, Fight Club, Sexiest Man Alive 1995 & 2000

Skeleton in the Closet: Cutting Class (1989)

Don’t watch this movie. Seriously, I tried. The light filtering is all off and it all looks grubby and terrible. However, it’s a fun slasher romp for any Brad Pitt completist.

George Clooney

Famous for: ER, Batman & Robin, Leatherheads, Up in the Air, The Descendants, Sexiest Man Alive 1997 & 2006

Skeleton in the Closet: Return to Horror High (1987)

It is probably worth noting that the only three men to have ever been voted People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive twice are all on this list.

Make of that what you will.

George has a small role as the actor hired for his looks who leaves the movie set, only to be brutally murdered in an abandoned classroom.

Bonus Actress: Vanna White

Famous for: Wheel of Fortune

Skeleton in the Closet: Graduation Day (1981)

Vanna White had a minor role in Troma’s slasher snoozefest Graduation Day. Although this movie has one of the more bizarre endings of any film of the time period, it drags due to an 8-minute long rockabilly/roller disco break, awkward pacing, and weak kill scenes. Not to mention that in nearly every shot she is seen in, Vanna White is facing AWAY from the camera.

The funniest part of the movie is actually the DVD intro on the anniversary edition in which Troma executive Lloyd Kaufman says that his hat probably fell off because “[his] head is too big from giving so much head.”

This actually happened.

Word Count: 963