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

I recently re-watched the original Nightmare on Elm Street and was very impressed. I hadn't seen it since I was 14 and that was long before I started watching horror movies so I closed my eyes during a lot of it and missed the wonderful effects. I did remember that I enjoyed the second Nightmare film though as it was a unique take on a werewolf or vampire film (instead of turning into one of those monsters the main character is turning into Freddy Krueger). But I never cared to see anymore of a series I perceived as only continuing its existence because Hollywood executives knew how to milk a franchise and market towards teenagers. I thought the clever Psychological (and almost blood and deathless) second entry in the franchise was as good as it got for Freddy films. Then within the last year I started seeing references to the Dream Warriors sequel pop up all over the place. I heard about the song/music video that 80s hair metal band Dokken did for the film and I read all the comments on the youtube upload of the video written by devoted fans who loved the third film the most of the series. I also saw that the site where I buy my horror movie t-shirts made a couple different shirts dedicated to the film. At this point I had to at least look up the film, so I did and I was surprised to find an interesting plot involving the main character from the first film training a new group of teenagers how to control their dreams and fight back against Freddy like a horror movie version of the X-Men. I love the paranormal and movies about psychic phenomena and the like, so after hearing this description and all the praise the film got from all around the corners of the internet (as well as seeing this was Oscar winner Patricia Arquette's film debut, and features a young Lawrence Fishburne) I had to see this for myself. In this film Freddy (essentially

the boogeyman) has once again returned from beyond the grave to kill children in their dreams with his famous finger knives. For starters it was nice to see the franchise finally make a direct sequel to the first film after the second film was kind of more of a reboot than a direct sequel (it completely ignored everything about the story of the first film except for Freddy, his origin story, and the fact that murders happened). It was nice to see Heather Langenkamp return, and since I myself am a fresh out of college aspiring Counseling student, it was nice to see a character from a horror movie I like pursuing what I hope to be my future career. The movie starts with a horrific dream sequence showing that this film is not afraid to get right to the action. That being said the film has a wonderful pace, wonderful cinematography, and arguably the best effects and acting out of the entire series. Freddy personalizes his attacks on the teenagers much moreso in this film than the previous two. A former heroin addict is killed by Freddy with syringe fingers instead of knives. A mute kid has his tongue ripped out and is tied to a bed with it while Freddy quips "Feeling Tongue-tied??" It was also nice to see the franchise finally come into the humor it (like the Child's Play/Chucky series) would become famous for. Freddy has wonderful one-liners like when he kills

a girl who longs to be an actress, he transforms into a TV and tells her "This is your big break in TV Jennifer! Welcome to prime-time bitch!" as he shoves her head through the TV glass electrocuting her. As mentioned before the effects are incredible in this movie, in one scene Freddy turns into a giant worm (while still retaining his face) and attempts to gobble up one of the kids. The film also embellishes on Krueger's origin story now giving him the badass nickname "The bastard son of 1000 maniacs". My only problem with this movie is the ending. I won't give it away but like how Game of Thrones functions, you're going to be upset if you get attached to too many of the characters. The movie is definitely one of the better horror movie sequels of all time. It was so good it makes me sad to hear that none of the series' later films are supposedly anywhere near as good as this one. What I love overall about the Elm Street franchise is that the teenagers in these movies are not the mindless horny teenagers you see in most other horror films. Most of the time the kids in these movies are actually smart, and likable, which makes the villain all the more scarier for killing these kids, it makes the viewer feel like this could almost happen to anyone, even you. Also I have always loved surrealist art music and films, and Nightmare is the surrealist horror franchise, no doubt about it. For someone like myself who has some of the most effed up dreams ever, it's nice to see terrifying dreams in a movie actually reach my level of weird/terrifying.  I give the film a 4.5/5 stars. You can watch the trailer below:

Suburban Sasquatch (2004)

I can honestly say the quality of this cover art is better than the whole film.

I usually review good movies here on my blog but lately I saw gem so horrible it deserves to be as beloved as other horrible films like The Room, Birdemic or Troll 2. This is basically people fooling around with a camcorder with spectacularly horrible results. Every possible error you could ever have in a film is present in this. And every time you think something clever might happen in this film it shatters all hopes and expectations. The movie is about Big Foot causing a ruckus in suburbia. The plot is so poorly constructed though that stuff just sort of happens and there is no real flow to this movie, most of the characters don't even have names. The Sasquatch costume is very clearly a cheap Halloween costume, and all other props were very clearly bought from a Halloween store as well (severed limbs and whatnot). Pretty much whenever there isn't a bat-shit insane sasquatch attack happening there is horrible boring dialogue that makes no sense that sounds like the stupid crap people think sounds super intelligent when they're stoned out of their minds. There are some fantastic lines in this film though like a child's mother trying to reassure him that bigfoot isn't real: "He's not real timmy that's why he's never around, like the Boogeyman or your father." Also the sasquatch somehow has supernatural powers and can teleport anywhere (and apparently he can grow taller for some reason?). The hilariousness of how horrible this film is cannot be underestimated: during driving sequences character very clearly drive around in circles, in certain scenes they reuse the same shot five times, there is a fabulous attack scene 

"I don't believe, I sell!"
actual line from this man.

where the sasquatch attacks a stopped car  and during the scene the editor mixes shots of both the car moving and stopped, the sasquatch's growl sounds like an upset stomach, there are many scenes of the sasquatch goofily flailing his arms around, the "cave" where the sasquatch lives is very clearly someone's garage or basement with a black garbage bag draped on the wall, and the film's racist stereotype of a Native American woman who is supposed to be a mystical archery expert hits the sasquatch fifty times  

throughout the film (sometimes with Nerf arrows, sometimes with horrible CG arrows) and they never have any affect. Also this movie has continuity and editing errors up the wazoo, most of the time you can tell they just used the camera's external microphone. The movie also has atrocious CG effects. The police officers have worse costumes than the cops in Scooby Doo, and most of the time they never drive a cop car, not to mention they talk directly into a fax machine because somehow the makers of this piece of shit couldn't even afford a damn Walkie Talkie! Not to mention the Newspaper office and the Police Office are very clearly shot inside of an elementary school building. The movie does have some amazing death scenes though. There is one scene where the yeti rips out a man's own intestines and feeds them to him!  This is the perfect movie to rip apart and do commentary on with a group of friends. The worst kind of movie is one that is so horrible that there is nothing entertaining or enjoyable about it what so ever, and there are a lot of movies that fall into that category that actually have decent production values and actually follow the rules of cinema 101 very well. There are also movies that are designed to intentionally be horrible. And then there is the best kind of horrible movie, the one that is so bad it is unintentionally hilarious like the play "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers. Suburban sasquatch falls into the latter category and for that reason it cannot be judged or evaluated in the same sense that one uses for "good" movies. Therefore as a "So-bad-it's-good" movie I give Suburban Sasquatch a 5/5, but in a traditional sense I give it a -9001/5. Here is a video review and some clips of the movie's best moments.

They look more like UPS men than Cops.

Delicatessen (1991)

You could call this film a post apocalyptic dystopian Sci-Fi, a Dark Comedy, or a light hearted Romance and you would be correct on all three counts. From the same French director who became most known for the acclaimed and award winning Amelie (also known for City of Lost Children, and Alien: Resurrection) comes this incredibly unique and delightful film.  The film takes place in future France (date unspecified though the costumes and props give the film a 1940s feel) after the world has been ravaged by nuclear warfare and farmers can no longer grow crops of any kind (or at least fertile soil and seeds are incredibly hard to come by). So people have now resorted to eating meat, but due to no crops, animals are also hard to come by, so a French landlord who also happens to own a butcher shop hacks up his tenants and sells them to his customers. Despite that description sounding incredibly dark and bleak, I kid you not this film is one of the most whimsical and light-hearted movies I've seen in a long time, possibly ever. This is director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's first film and it has won many awards, won much praise from critics, and is featured in many "greatest films of all time" lists. Jeunet has a very distinct style to all his films, and they usually come off as visually rich, but distinctly French, dark fantasies; This film is no exception. The actor Dominique Pinon (who is 

featured in all of Jeunet's films) plays the main character, an ex-circus clown looking for a job and a place to live. His character thinks he has found a great deal at the Butcher's tenement, but he will soon realize what danger awaits him. The film takes turns showing off all the tenants in the building and each one of them is somewhat pathetic (though endearing) and funny in their own way. There are two competitive brothers who make novelty toys that make cow sounds, a woman who constantly tries (and fails) to commit suicide in elaborate ways, a down on his luck salesman who designs condoms and sells "rat-calls," and the Butcher's own shy bookish daughter who takes a fancy to the new tenant. The highlights of this film include its great special effects, its bizarre romance between the ex-clown and the Butcher's daughter (they play a musical duet for cello and "singing" saw), its incredible wit (I found myself laughing out loud to this one several times), and the fact it maintains an inspiring "wide-eyed" innocence in a seemingly bleak world. Make no mistake this is a weird one, and quite often some of the laughs come from the sheer weirdness of the film, but I found it thoroughly unique and enjoyable. Delicatessen was to me  refreshingly uplifting drink of water, in the midst of  a sea of dark and gritty films with bleak outlooks on life. Delicatessen shows that there is hope no matter how bad life seems. I give it a 5/5. You can watch the trailer here. 

 

The Original Sweeney Todd aka The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936)

The story of Sweeney Todd goes all the way back to 1847 when it first appeared as a serial in British penny dreadful's (an early form of campy or melodramatic pulp fiction) but it has arguably never been as famous or popular as it has been in the last 30 years or so. The most well known portrayals of this classic story of "the demon barber" are the tony award winning Stephen Soundheim musical version, and the Tim Burton Johnny Depp (2007) film version of said musical . But before either of those versions there was a film version made in 1936. If you are not familiar with the story, Sweeney Todd is the name of an English Barber in London who murders his customers and gives them to the little lady next door, who butchers them and makes them into her famous meat pies. It's gruesome to be sure, but its the story's ghastliness that has made it stick in pop culture for so long. Back in the 1930s Hollywood's biggest leading men in Horror were the Hungarian Bela Lugosi, and the British Boris Karloff. While Karloff was the most famous English man in Horror at the time, there was another man of the day who was just as big as Karloff in the UK; Tod Slaughter. Slaughter made many horror films in England back in the 30s and 40s, but his fame didn't quite transfer across the Atlantic he remained and remains still, largely unknown. He was famous for playing over the top madmen in Victorian melodramas,

his most famous of which was Sweeney Todd. He did influence many future famous names in horror such as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, both most famous for the many gothic British melodramatic films they made with Hammer Studios. Overall the film is decent. Slaughter is brilliantly chilling in the title role and reminds me a bit of Mark Hamil's interpretation of The Joker in Batman: the animated series. Unlike the famous musical and film version, Todd is not an empathetic character in the story here and is only the villain, not the kind of antihero portrayed in later versions with a much more complex story-line. The movie never goes into the background of Todd or why he murders these people, and that mystery makes the character all the more chilling. Overall it's a purely entertaining film with nothing too deep to it, but who says it has to be anything more? Obviously the production values of the film are more than a little dated being almost 80 years old, but Slaughter's portrayal of the character is still somewhat frightening even by today's standards. I give the film a 4/5. You can watch entire film on youtube here.

Peeping Tom (1960)

 

   On the special features of the DVD for this film, there is a documentary entitled "A Very British Psycho," and there is almost no better way to sum up this film than by saying just that. Peeping Tom was the last big film made by renowned and celebrated English director Michael Powell, who was most famous for visually stunning classics like Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and The Thief of Bagdad. All those films by Powell mentioned plus several others are featured as a part of the prestigious Criterion Collection, including Peeping Tom. Peeping Tom is one of the best psychological character studies in film, not just horror films, but all film. The title character is an antisocial photographer who struggles with his voyeuristic urges and ends up killing several models of the course of the film, but does so while filming them. This film was very shocking when it was first released and it definitely had the potential to turn into a Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer-esque film, in that it could have shown us a merciless sociopathic unfeeling killer. Instead of doing that however Peeping Tom is wonderfully sympathetic of its main character, making the audience feel for him and whatever psychological illness he struggles with. The film also differs from most serial-killer films because the main character does seek out treatment and does seem to progress at points throughout the film, even though (trying not to give any spoilers here) the film does end with a rather tragic tone. The film is very Freudian showing how childhood traumas can cause behaviors or disorders that can last the rest of the child's lifetime. Other notable things about the movie are one: that the cinematography is gorgeous and there are a lot of unique and interesting POV shots, two: the acting is fantastic, and three: Powell cast himself as the main characters cold scientific seemingly inhuman father who photographed the main character's every move when he was a child. A role that Powell actually slightly resembled in real life through the fact that he always carried a camera with him and filmed everything, and that he cast his own son to play the main character as a child. The film received terrible reviews initially and 

its theatrical run in the UK only lasted 2 weeks. Later that year Hitchcock released his similar film Psycho (which of course has become an immortal classic) and he surprised the press by telling them he wouldn't have a special pre-release screening for the film (a film industry standard that is still practiced today even). When asked why he wouldn't have the screening Hitchcock had this to say: "You saw what happened to Mickey's film (referring to Powell), therefore I'm serious when I say there will be no press screening. They may hate my film even more!" Peeping Tom essentially ruined Powell's career for the remainder of his life until shortly before his death the film earned praise by "New-Hollywood" directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. The film has regained the praise it missed initially, throughout the years becoming a cult classic as well as universally loved by critics, regarded as both a classic and an art film, and by many one of the greatest films of all time. Though the film can be tense at times (even though no graphic violence is ever shown on camera) it is worth watching all the way through, and I give it a 5/5. Instead of posting the trailer like I normally do, I've decided to include the film's opening scene below. The movie is also featured in Rue Morgue's 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need to See. 

Puppet Master (1989) Original

I'll just start right off the bat by saying I have no idea how this spawned so many sequels or became as famous/successful as it did. I found it incredibly mediocre and repulsing at times. I love the idea of the killer puppets, but the execution was awful. It takes like two thirds of the movie to explain what is actually going on in the film long after the puppets have already started killing people. And there is just so much about this movie that makes no sense, for example supposedly the original creator of the puppets did not intend them to be used as dangerous weapons, but if that's the case why make them with knives for hands and drill bits for heads? Plus like many movies made during the 80s the characters (the puppets) have catchy nicknames like Blade, Pinhead and Tunneler, as if these characters were designed with the purpose of selling toys based off of the film, but this is a very violent film and not a kids movie (an illogical but common trend in the 80s).  Also the twist didn't make a whole lot of sense to me (Spoiler Alert) how did the bad guy come back after he died? The answer was he used the ancient Egyptian spell he the puppet master used to bring the dolls to life sure, but how could say the spell to revive himself once he was dead? Unless he said it before he died which shouldn't work cause he wasn't inanimate at the time. Also I noticed several continuity errors and such in the film, and I can understand some people may like these movies for being "so bad they're good" but this first one didn't 

even reach that level of bad for me. It just sat at the level between good and bad reserved for the horribly mediocre film which tries to take itself seriously and be good but misses the mark. That being said I didn't hate it, but it wasn't good enough for me to like it either, though I must admit at first the plot with the psychics being in search of these puppets and psychically linked to each other did intrigue me, but it didn't develop or explain itself enough. My favorite thing about the movie was seeing veteran character actor William Hickey (MouseHunt, The Producers, Little Big Man, Prizi's Honor) cast as the Puppet Master. So I give it a 2.5/5. The full movie is available to stream (as well as all of it's 8 sequels) free on Hulu, and you can watch the trailer below:

House of the Devil (2009)

I usually stay away from anything demonic or of the like, but this is a really great psychological retro-themed horror film definitely worth a watch for any horror fan. On one level the film has a bunch of similarities to Rosemary's Baby, but at the same time it also feels like a mini version of The Shining (both in location size and film length) or a haunted house film. The plot centers around a college student hard-up for cash answering a flyer that advertised needing a baby sitter, but upon arrival to the babysitting job she finds out the couple who put out the ad are actually childless. The film is dialogue-less for most of the movie and there's a small cast of about five characters in total or so. The film is stylized after movies from the late 70s and early 80s and is set in the 80s. The fashion and cars are vintage as well as the 80s walkman the main character carries and the music she dances to while "babysitting", and the film's synth soundtrack. The film's feel is reminiscent of some of Poanski's films like The Tenant, as well as some of Dario Argento's 70s films too. All in all this movie was a great psychological thriller with some unexpected scares and it was also surprisingly fun, I found myself dancing in my seat and drumming along to the film's dance sequence set to the 80s one hit wonder The Fixx's One Thing Leads to Another. It can also get surprisingly violent  The film has a cameo by horror veteran Dee Wallce (The Howling, Critters, Cujo, The Frighteners, E.T.) and has character actor great Tom Noonan (Heat, Manhunter, Last Action Hero, Monster Squad) in a creepy role as well. This film was director Ti West's big break, he then went on to make more successful horror films like V/H/S, The Innkeepers, and his newest film produced by Eli Roth called The Sacrament which is available to stream on Netflix and was heavily promoted by them upon the film's release. House of the devil is featured in Rue Morgue Magazine's 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need to See book, and is available to stream on Netflix as well. I give the movie a 4.5/5 and you can watch the trailer below: