Ask 411 Movies for 8.15.07: Freddy’s Dead and so is Disco
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 10.15.2007
A look at the Nightmare on Elm Street Series, the new Friday the 13th and Wolfman films, why remakes suck, Mark Harmon football star and Jim Carrey blows a raspberry to us all!
I made it back from Cinema Wasteland in one piece, but a lot lighter in the wallet. No, not because I bought a lot of cool swag, but because I got busted for a speeding ticket. I was five minutes from the convention too. I make no excuses for myself. I tried not to let it damper the rest of the weekend. Mostly I worked the Creepy Classics table, but I did like the overall feel and mood of the convention. It was comparable to the Monster Bash, but not as family friendly and with more of a focus on modern horror. It just had a similar flavor. I'll probably be back for the April one.
I picked up from K-Mart a three pack of low rent horror films under the banner of Ghost Killers. The movies are Nightmare Castle, The Spirit Hunter and Tormented. I got it mostly for Tormented as that is the film I will be hosting for the Monster Bash this year. To learn more about the Monster Bash and to fulfill all your classic horror DVD needs this Halloween, be sure to check out www.CreepyClassics.com
At Cinema Wasteland I met a few horror hosts. One of which was the legendary Count Gore De Vol. As you can imagine he was an interesting and weird cat. From YouTube this week we get a look at Count Gore De Vol's dungeon.
Q: Leonard:
I'm enjoying the Small Wonder recaps very much. I actually loved the show back when I was a kid, but it was more due to the concept of having a female child robot. I hope you have mor episodes, because (in retrospect) they get even dumber.
I mean you haven't gotten to the episode where they have to adopt Vicki, and forge documents to prove that her family was killed by a train that crashed into a plane, or something. Or the episode where Joan gets her homeschool teaching certificate to teach Vicki, and within a year she's hired by the local school and starts taking Vicki to class. Oh and Ted invents a system where Vicki and eat and drink and go to the bathroom. Or maybe the one where Vicki drowns in Brindle's pool and Brindle actually takes her to the hospital, where Ted and Joan have to intercept them and Brindle walks in on seeing Vicki's behind of robot gears -- but he just passes out in shock and then wakes up forgetting what he saw.
In a latter season Ted invents, Veronica - the emotional robot - who unplugs Vicki and reeks havoc on the Lawsons. Then there was the episode where Jamie accidently reveals Vicki is a robot to a newspaper, and Vicki actually goes to Ted and asks "Am I a robot?" Although I think there was another lame plot device where Ted activated something to make Vicki more human -- and then they proceed to dress Jamie, Reggie, Vicki, etc.. in Vicki's dress and pretend they're all robots only to fake out the reporter -- who then retracts to story.
In retrospect, I must of had a bad childhood to enjoy such crap. Then again I thought Santa With Muscles was a great black comedy!
Thank You,
Forest George
www.forestgeorge.net
A: I have the entire series on bootleg DVD and plan to review all of it, unless I commit suicide with a toaster in a bathtub. Or what Vicki would call foreplay. Thank you for previewing the pain I have to come.
Q: I was watching an old Stanford game on ESPN Classic the other day and their punter was Mark Harmon. Is this the Mark Harmon from NCIS?"
-Brian
A:Mark Harmon did play college football, but he was not the guy you saw. Harmon was a quarterback at Los Angeles Pierce College before transferring to UCLA. He was their starting quarterback in the 1972 and 1973 seasons. He was awarded the National Football Foundation Award for Excellence in '73. Mark is the son of Tom Harmon, who was a Heisman trophy winning halfback in 1940 for Michigan. There was another Mark Harmon who was a placekicker and punter for Stanford from 1981-1984.
Ironically the kicker Mark Harmon is probably a pool boy now.
Q: Got a question for you. Apparently some of Lindy's students were asked this question by their soccer coach. They asked her, she asked me, and now I'm asking you.
In what movie does one of the characters make the peace sign (or Winston Churchill's "V" for victory sign) then turn their hand upside down to make an inverted peace sign while making a sound that's difficult to describe via e-mail - sort of a mock flatulence or "raspberry" sound?
I thought this was a very difficult question without more context, but I figured that if anybody would know it, it would be you.
Craig
A: This is from my friend Craig. According to George Sirois and Rod Oracheski of here on 411 Jim Carrey does this in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. I also remember an episode of "Are You Being Served?" where the staff does this with the feel that it is the equivalent of giving the middle finger. It might be a British thing. I know there are some readers from the UK out there, so please clarify if you can.
Q: Leo you da man
Thanks for clarifying those questions about Halloween, I haven't seen the 2nd one since I was like 10 & that was awhile ago. Now I read that they are going to "remake" Friday the 13th and have Jason in this film. Are they going to grab every horror franchise and try to start over. They better not touch Nightmare on Elm St. This sounds like a question that you may have been asked but what are some horror movies that you would like to see remade or revisioned. The best one to date was Dawn of the Dead & Texas Chainsaw Massacre but what do expect those were straight remakes of 2 awesome movies.
Peace
-Lisa
A: Due to the success of the new Halloween several other horror franchises are looking to re-launch or be recreated. Paramount and New Line, who both have claims to the Friday the 13th series, have finally come together on doing a new film. Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes will produce. The film should start production in February for release next fall. Producer Brad Fuller has promised that this revamp won't be as backstory heavy as the new Halloween, but instead go back to the roots of the series with Jason running around and killing campers.
For A Nightmare on Elm Street there has been talks of a doing a prequel called First Kills chronicling Freddy Kreuger's demented, early years. John McNaughton was in talks to direct. There have also been talks of doing another Freddy vs. film with Ashe of Evil Dead and Michael Myers of Halloween being rejected opponents. Pinhead from Hellraiser is still viable. Another remake in the works is The Wolf Man off of the original 1941 Universal film. Benicio Del Toro was in talks to star with Anthony Hopkins as his father. Yeah, that makes sense.
Remakes I can handle. I generally prefer remakes of films that aren't iconic, but have some good elements to them in the plot and characters. I really want to see 3:10 to Yuma, which I believe would be a good example of what I like on the remake front. To say a film is ‘reimagined' or ‘reinvisioned' is just bull crap Hollywood speak for a director whose ego led them to remake one of their favorite films with the false assumption that they could do it better. If you want to do a straight remake, fine. If you want to do a loose remake, fine. If you want to do a prequel, fine. But don't take the basic film, filter it through your own ‘genius,' add a bunch of a new elements that don't jive with the established elements and act like you did us all a favor. Now, I'm not saying this either which way on the new Halloween because I haven't seen it yet, and probably won't until it hits DVD. It sounds like it might fit that criteria, but I want to see it first. I can't think of really any major horror film off the top of my head I want to see remade, or I think would be better than the original if remade today. Maybe that makes me a snob, maybe I'm just a pragmatist.
Since Nightmare on Elm Street got mentioned we'll take a look at that film series.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): The film was based on a news article read by creator Wes Craven. A group of Samoans had horrific nightmares and refused to sleep. When they finally did fall asleep of exhaustion they would wake up screaming and die of a heart attack. In the film, a group of teens that live on Elm Street are having nightmares about a burned man wearing a glove with razor sharp fingertips. They soon realize that this is more than a dream when one of them dies and they determine that if this Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) kills them in the dream, they die in real life. Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) uncovers the truth that Krueger was a child molester and murderer who was killed by the parents on Elm Street and he is seeking revenge through their children, a farfetched idea not believed by Nancy's father cop (pimpmaster John Saxon). Johnny Depp has a memorable film debut by getting sucked into his bed and gallons of blood shoot out of it.
A Night on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985): A new family has moved into Nancy's house on Elm Street. Teenager Jesse (Mark Patton) starts having nightmares about Freddy Krueger. Krueger attempts to possess Jesse in order to wreak havoc in the real, awake world. Jesse's girlfriend (Kim Myers) seeks to save him. Freddy's one liners and macabre sense of humor became more prevalent in this installment and would only grow to campier levels from here.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987): Nancy from the first film is now an adult psychiatrist. She works with children who show special abilities and therefore have many mental and social hang-ups. Kristen (Patricia Arquette) has the power to pull other people into her dreams and is plagued by Freddy Krueger. Nancy has Kristen pull her and other kids into a single dream so that they can harness their special powers in order to defeat Freddy on his own turf. Laurence Fishburne plays an orderly.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988): Freddy returns from his supposed ‘end' in the last film to kill those from the previous movie. Kristen (Tuesday Knight) transfers her power to draw others into her dream to her friend Alice (Lisa Wilcox). Alice discovers that Freddy is tapping into this ability to kill other kids and she must stop him.
"Freddy's Nightmares" (1988-1990): Freddy Krueger (still Englund) plays Crypt Keeper as the host of a horror anthology series. Most of the stories are about those who live on Elm Street somewhere in America.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989): Alice from the last film is with child. The nightmares about Freddy Krueger start again and she realizes that they are originating form the unborn child in her womb. Freddy is trying to possess the fetus so he can be reborn anew into the world. To stop him, Alice must free the spirit of Freddy's mother (Beatrice Boepple) from hell to quell his murderous desire.
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991): Believe it or not, but Freddy has finally accomplished killing not just all the children on Elm Street, but all those in his hometown. Freddy looks to broaden the scope of his terror by tapping into the dreams of his daughter (never previously mentioned and played by Lisa Zane). She researches into her father's past and we learn more of his origins (including seeing Alice Cooper as Freddy's pimp father). She learns that to kill Freddy for good she must drag him into the real world where he can be hurt like any mortal.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994): My personal favorite of the series. Heather Langenkamp plays herself, a struggling actress who is happy just to be a wife and mother and have some small modicum of fame from the Elm Street series. I am so disappointed that there were no references to "Just the Ten of Us." Heather is plagued by a stalker and many mysterious events including the death of her husband (David Newsome) when he fell asleep at the wheel and her young son Dylan (Miko Hughes) suffering psychotic episodes. She believes that somehow the character of Freddy Krueger is behind it all. Wes Craven informs her that she's not crazy. While Freddy Krueger was a made up character, the ‘spirit' that embodied him was an ancient evil that had been contained in stories of one form or another for centuries. With the Elm Street series over and no new story present to contain it, the spirit is trying to manifest itself in the real world under the Freddy guise through those connected to the character, also including John Saxon and Robert Englund. Langenkamp resumes her role of ‘Nancy' to fight Freddy one more time and save her son.
Freddy vs. Jason (2003): Freddy Krueger is rotting in hell. He can't return through the dreams of the children of Elm Street in Springwood, because their parents are using a sleep suppressant drug and covering up all evidence of his prior existence. He springs Jason Vorhees from his own hell and sends him to Elm Street to kill. He knows that people will assume it was him and placing him back in people's conscious will give him the power to return. However, Jason won't stop killing Freddy's ‘children' and that enrages him. When Jason finds that Freddy has been using him that enrages him. A trio of kids (Jason Ritter, Monica Keena and Kelly Rowland) lure Jason back to Camp Crystal Lake while trying to pull Freddy into the real world like his daughter once did so the two horrible demons can kill each other.
Don't Die.
"If I'm not back in five minutes…just wait longer."
