Lisa and the Devil (1973)

Posted on October 25, 2013 | 1 comment

lisa and the devil

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Where is the plot?

Lisa (Elke Sommer) is a tourist in Spain who gets lost and finds shelter inside a large mansion run by a butler Leandro (Telly Savalas) and a Countess (Alida Valli). Soon Lisa begins to experience strange occurrences and visions. People turn up dead and then alive again. When she tries to escape she finds that she can’t and is now stuck in a surreal world with no exit.

I am use to watching Italian horror films being strong on the visual end and weak with the plot, logic and character development especially when they attached to either Mario Bava or Dario Argento, but this one goes to the extreme. Nothing makes sense and scenes are thrown in haphazardly and go nowhere. The basic premise is too general and unfocused and the entire production seems to be an exercise in interesting camera work and nothing more. Yes there are a few atmospheric moments, but it all adds up to very little.

Had the special effects been gory or impressive I might have forgiven it, but for Bava standards they are lacking as well. For one thing there is very little gore to begin with and what we do see looks amateurish. The scene where a man gets run over by a car clearly looks like a mannequin and as the driver backs up and runs him over several more times it becomes even more obvious.

Sommer makes for a weak heroine. Her character is as vague and mysterious as all the others, so the viewer never gains any empathy or concern for her fate. Her short shoulder length haircut makes her look middle-aged and dowdy. Also, Sylvia Koscina her costar has facial features that are too similar to Elke’s and for a while I thought she was Elke with a brunette wig. Her best moment is actually her nude scene of which she looks great although I noticed her eye lids constantly fluttering when her character was supposedly asleep.

Normally I love Telly Savalas and he can be effectively menacing, but here he is sorely underused. The character pops in and out sporadically, but really doesn’t do much. I did like that he is constantly sucking on lollipops, which later became his trademark during his run on the ‘Kojak’ TV-series.

I was hoping for some grand over-the-top finale to make up for having to sit through all this, but it never came. The climax, which takes place inside a jet airliner no less, is as underwhelming as everything else. Not surprisingly this film was edited into a completely different story and reissued as The House of Exorcism, which will be reviewed tomorrow.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 9, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mario Bava

Studio: Leone International

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, Netflix streaming

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Italian Films, Movies with Nudity, Surreal/Fantasy

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Nightmares (1983)

Posted on October 24, 2013 | 1 comment

nightmares

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: These stories aren’t scary.

This film is made up of an anthology of horror tales that were originally made for the ‘Darkroom’ TV-show that ran from 1981 to ’82 on ABC and was hosted by James Coburn.  The network deemed these stories to be ‘too intense’ for television so Universal decided to make it into a feature film. Unlike the series there is no actor or host that ties the stories together, which is unfortunate as Coburn’s presence could have given it a little personality. The biggest reason I was interested to watch this was to see what was considered ‘too intense’ for television back in the early 80’s and after viewing it the answer is ‘not much’.

The first story is entitled “Terror in Topanga” and features a mental patient on the loose in a suburban town and a housewife named Lisa (Cristina Raines) who has run out of cigarettes and feels compelled to go out late at night to get some. The segment is predictable and pedestrian with a twist ending that is a big letdown. Christophe Crowe who wrote the story is married to Raines in real-life and the two teamed up a few years later for an episode entitled “Prisoners”, which aired on the 80’s version of ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ and is much, much better than this one and well worth seeking out.

“Bishop of Battle” makes up the second story and features Emilio Estevez as a teen obsessed with beating a video arcade game. This segment features the best visuals. I found the graphics that were used for the game were actually kind of impressive and fun to watch. Estevez is enjoyable as the tightly wound character and this segment also features Moon Zappa in a small part as well as Billy Jacoby (Jayne) who is the younger brother of famous child actor Scott Jacoby and looks just like him.

Lance Henriksen stars in the third story “The Benediction” as a priest who is grappling with his faith and thus decides to leave the ministry. As he starts out in his car on his journey to get away he finds himself being menaced by a black pick-up truck whose driver he cannot see and the two start to play a game of cat-and-mouse with their vehicles on a lonely stretch of desert highway. The scene where the pick-up bursts through the ground is the only interesting moment in what is otherwise a weak, uninspired rip-off of Duel.

The fourth and final story “Night of the Rat” is by far the worst. It pertains to a suburban family whose house becomes invaded by a giant demon-like rat. The special effects used to create the giant sized rodent are awful and would be almost comical if it weren’t so thoroughly botched and ridiculous. Veronica Cartwright who plays the perpetually nervous, high-strung mother gets a bit one-dimensional and irritating, but it is nice to see Bridgette Anderson as the daughter who later went on to star in Savannah Smiles before dying of a drug overdose at age 23.

The stories are flatly photographed with dull looking sets that have no cinematic quality to them and no business being on the big screen. This thing was given an R rating even though there is no swearing, or nudity and just the minimal of violence. I realize that the PG-13 rating was still a year away at the time, but this still should have been given a PG.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: September 2, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated R

Director: Joseph Sargent

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Made-for-TV, Obscure Movies

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Nightmare (1981)

Posted on October 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

nightmare 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: This one gets grisly.

George Tatum (Baird Stafford) is a middle-aged man tormented by strange nightmares where he sees himself as a young child decapitating with an ax an older man and his female lover. The dreams have had such an adverse effect on him that it has sent him to the mental hospital, but now the doctors consider him cured and send him back out into the real world, but the dreams continue pushing him into a psychotic state where he murders a woman that he meets and then eventually starts menacing a family.

This film while not being a particularly good movie and still straddled with a lot of the expected low budget limitations has managed to achieve a strong cult following as well as a limited Blue Underground 30th Anniversary release due mainly to its explicit violence. While the body count isn’t high the gore is nasty and effective. One scene involves George knifing a woman and the camera cutting in real close to her slashed neck and we hear her literally gurgling on her own blood and then watch as he licks her blood off his hands in an aroused manner. The scene where the boy cuts the head off another woman is also well handled despite the fact that it looks too much like an empty mannequin’s head. Writer/director Romano Scavolini approaches it with an artistic flair and it works. Watching the boy, who couldn’t be much older than 10, drenched in blood and looking menacingly into a mirror is the film’s creepiest moment.

The wide array of locales also helps and takes this a step above most other films of this genre and time period. Scenes are shot on-location all the way from New York to South Carolina, Georgia, and even Florida where there is a nifty segment inside an abandoned house. I found George’s trip to an old-fashioned New York adult theater to be the most captivating. I liked the part where the male customers put a quarter in a slot, which raised a small yellow door that allowed the men to peer through a window at a stripper dancing, but instead of seeing it from the male point-of-view we see it from the stripper’s. I got a kick out of seeing several of these guys looking all wide-eyed at this naked woman through their little windows and as their time ran out and the little yellow door began to slide down over their peep holes they would strained their necks as far as they could through with what little opening was left to continue to gaze at her as long as possible.

The dialogue and characterizations were less cardboard than the usual slasher film. However, outside of the gore it is not very suspenseful. The scares are derivative and too much time is spent on the bratty C.J. trying to spook his babysitter and mother.

Although the film keeps things plausible for the most part I was a bit confused why the doctors at the hospital didn’t know about George’s violent past or why he was menacing the certain family that he was. They were able to track down his whereabouts and car, so why were they not able to do the same with his criminal and family background? Having this loophole hurts the film as it ends up seeming poorly thought out.

nightmare 1

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 23, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Romano Scavolini

Studio: 21st Century Film Corporation

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Exploitation, Horror, Low Budget, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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

Posted on October 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

nightmare on elm street 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Can’t get enough Freddy.

The last of the Elm Street children find themselves plagued by the same terrible nightmares and are now put into an institution where a grown-up Nancy (Heather Langen kamp) works as a dream therapist. It is found that Kristen (Patricia Arquette) has the ability to invite other people into her dreams, so the entire group goes into her nightmare and takes on Freddy (Robert Englund) as a team.

This third entry into the series proves to be one of the best. It makes the most creative use of the dream idea and shows a nice mix between horror and comedy. I enjoyed the camaraderie between the characters and how they seem to genuinely care and look out for each other. Freddy gets more screen time and has some  great lines. I wasn’t so sure how someone can invite others into her dreams, but for the most part it’s fun.

The special effects are imaginative. I liked the scene where Freddy lifts his shirt and exposes the crying faces of all the spirits of the dead children pushing out of his stomach. I also liked the shot showing the needle marks on the arm of a former heroin addict suddenly coming to life and going through the sucking motion like they are little mouths.

The best moment though is when Dick Cavett is seen on TV interviewing Zsa Zsa Gabor only to suddenly turn into Krueger while making the statement “Who gives a fuck what you think”.  The only negative is that the camera cuts away before we see Freddy slash her with his glove, which would have been icing on the cake.

I stated in my review of the first film in this series that Langenkamp is the best victim in a horror movie, which I think is still true, but Arquette, who makes her film debut here, has to come in as a close second. She has an appealing face and seems very much like a real teenager and you really got to admire her feistiness.  Jennifer Rubin as Taryn also makes her film debut and has one of the prettiest pair of blue eyes you will ever see.

Langenkamp for whatever reason seems a little stiff and awkward in her role although she improves as the film progresses and gets more into the dream sequences. I also didn’t like the streak of white hair that seems to hang down on the right side of her face. I wasn’t sure if this was added in to make her appear ‘more mature’, but it seemed out-of-place, unnecessary and even a bit distracting.

Craig Wasson who is a terrible actor and whose presence seriously hurt Body Double is cast as Neil one of the doctors in the clinic. Here I found him to be a little more tolerable simply for his perpetual looks of either confusion or concern that I think are the only two expressions that he is able to show.

I remember back in 1987 this was THE movie to see and be seen at amongst the teen crowd and how on opening night there was a line of teenagers going around the block to get in and me being the self-proclaimed film connoisseur was right at the front of it. I enjoyed the film very much at the time, but found upon second viewing that it didn’t grab me quite as much.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 27, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated R

Director: Chuck Russell

Studio: New Line Cinema

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Horror, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Sequels, Slasher/Gore

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Strait-Jacket (1964)

Posted on October 20, 2013 | 1 comment

strait jacket

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Giving them the ax.

Lucy Harbin (Joan Crawford) comes home early one night from a trip only to find her husband Frank (Lee Majors in his film debut) in bed with another woman. This enrages her so much that she grabs an ax and chops off both of their heads all while in front of her young daughter.  After being institutionalized for 20 years she is released and sent home to live with her now grown daughter Carol (Diane Baker). Unfortunately the ax murders begin happening again and all signs seem to point to Lucy having a bad relapse.

Director William Castle keeps the proceedings compact enough to be entertaining, but borrows too many elements from Psycho and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? while also adding a few to many gimmicks. Having the setting take place on a rural hog farm gives it a little extra atmosphere. The wrap-up is nice, but halfway through the film I had already figured out the twist ending and thus making the final revelation not as shocking or interesting as I think the filmmakers intended.

I realize the gore factor here is quite sanitized when compared to today’s horror movies and yet the scene where Lucy axes her hubby is actually quite effective. We see the shadow of the husband’s body with his head popping off like a cork coming out of a wine bottle. Instead of cutting away like most other films do it cuts back to Joan’s face where she continues to whack and whack and whack while her eyes get wilder with rage, which in many ways makes this far better and more fun than most other ax wielding movie scenes.

The film also brings out an interesting loophole. Namely the fact that can a woman be considered crazy for wanting to chop off her husband’s head after finding out he is unfaithful or is she simply giving the two-timing cad his just desserts.

Baker is good in support and her face is adorable. Her restrained performance nicely compliments Crawford’s more hammy and histrionic one. In fact some may consider Crawford’s acting to be over-the-top and unintentionally funny, but on a camp level it is fun. I realize both her wig and clacking bracelets become a major plot point, but I disliked both. The wig makes her look too much like an old, haggard version of her famous Mildred Pierce character and the constant clacking from the bracelets becomes annoying.

It was interesting to see Leif Erickson cast as a family friend who tries to work with Lucy and her emotional instability as he was at one time the husband of Frances Farmer an actress who also suffered from mental illness and I kept one wondering the whole time whether he was channeling those experiences into his character here. George Kennedy can also be spotted, but his almost unrecognizable as he has jet black hair here, a much thinner frame, and a pair of buck teeth.

Probably the film’s best gimmick comes at the very end where the famous torch carrying lady on Columbia Pictures logo is seen with her head cut off and having it lying on the ground beside her feet.

Capture 334

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 19, 1964

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Not Rated

Director: William Castle

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, Black & White, Movies with a rural setting, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Dear Dead Delilah (1972)

Posted on October 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

dear dead delilah

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Greedy family gets hacked.

Delilah (Agnes Moorehead) is the matriarch of a large southern family who brings together the other members to tell them that her deceased husband’s gambling earnings of $600,000 is hidden somewhere on the premises. Desperate and greedy everyone goes on the hunt for it, but find they are being slaughtered one-by-one by an ax-wielding maniac.

As low budget horror movies go this one is about as poorly produced as you can get. This was John Farris’s first and so far last foray behind the camera. He is most famous for authoring ‘The Fury’, which was later made into a hit movie, but as a director he shows no visual ability. The scenes are poorly staged and the sets are illuminated by a bright unfiltered light that makes the center of every room in every scene look like it is under a spotlight. The scenes drone on with over-the-top characterizations of greedy family members and one-dimensional monotonous talk about money. The southern setting seems hooky almost like an amateurish attempt at Tennessee Williams. The scares and tension are non-existent and the film is an embarrassment to anyone having anything to do with it, which includes Bill Justis and his terrible music score.

It doesn’t help matters that the 1986 Embassy VHS issue of this film, which is as of this date the only source where this film can be seen, is terrible. The negative has a lot of scratches and the color is dark and faded making it look almost like someone’s forgotten home movie.

Moorehead, whose last film this was, is the one gem. She wears a brown wig and the only cast member who speaks in a Southern accent that sounds genuine. Her constant frowning facial expression is entertaining and helps enliven this otherwise poor excuse of a film with every scene that she is in.  She shares several scenes with Will Geer who plays her estate attorney. The two co-starred earlier that same year in an episode of ‘Bewitched’ where Geer played George Washington brought back to life by Esmerelda.

The film does boast some graphic murders that seem well ahead of its time in the grisly department. One of the best ones is when a female sitting in a wheelchair gets decapitated and the viewer sees her head lying on the ground next to her still quivering, blood spurting body. The opening sequence has a daughter speaking with her mother while the old lady has an ax sticking out of her head and her severed arm lying on the floor, which the daughter nonchalantly steps over like it is no big deal. The part near the end where a man gets shot through the back of his head and the bullet come out through his right eye socket is impressive as well.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: June 16, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Farris

Studio: Southern Star Entertainment

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies that take place in the South, Obscure Movies, Slasher/Gore

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My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Posted on October 17, 2013 | 1 comment

my bloody valentine

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: A Killer with heart.

After 20 years a small Canadian mining town of Valentine Bluffs has decided to hold another Valentine’s Day Dance. The previous ones were canceled due to one ending in bloodshed by a psychotic mine worker named Harold Warden. Now he is locked away so they think it is safe except the killings start happening again and this time the killer tears the hearts out of the victims and delivers them in heart shaped boxes to their relatives.

This movie has a cool looking poster and a deliciously macabre concept and has also attained a strong cult following including Quinton Tarantino, but I unfortunately was not impressed with it. I found it to be excruciatingly boring and a major strain just to sit through. The direction and writing are uninspired creating predictable scenarios and delivering all the expected teen slasher movie clichés with a monotonous regularity.  Nothing is distinctive or scary and it fails to deliver any suspense or tension. It can’t even make effective use of its unique mine shaft setting. The final sequence takes place there, but it is nothing spectacular. The constant delivering of human hearts in candy style boxes soon loses its effect and eventually becomes stupid especially with the corny poems written on the attached note cards.

The young victims are dull and stereotypical. They look like caricatures from all the other slasher horror films except here they speak with thick Canadian accents. One of them looks like an overweight version of Meathead from ‘All in the Family’. There is also a ‘class clown’ type of character that resembles very closely the ‘class clown’ character from Friday the 13th . Here he does nothing but crack dumb jokes and watching him eventually get decapitated is the film’s single most gratifying moment.

The sheriff character is a real loser. He wears a big belt buckle and dopey haircut that makes him appear to be some middle-aged buffoon who has just stepped out of the 60’s. His logic is also flawed. He decides not to warn the town that a killer is on the loose even after he has killed a couple of people as he is afraid it will create too much of a panic, so instead he waits until seven more people die and the citizens all go into a panic anyways.

Usually in even the poorest of horror films the killings and gore can at least keep things entertaining on a tacky level and yet here they are as dull as everything else. Also, since when has going into a dark and dingy cave been considered a great place to have sex? To me it seems absurd and yet several of the teen couples go into the mine for distinctly that purpose.

Remade in 2009.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released:  February 11, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated R

Director: George Mihalka

Studio: Paramount

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Low Budget, Movies from Canada, Movies with a rural setting, Slasher/Gore

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Mausoleum (1983)

Posted on October 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

mausoleum 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Beautiful lady is possessed.

At her mother’s gravesite a young Susan feels compelled to go inside a Mausoleum and there she comes into contact with evil spirits who possess her and allow her the ability to destroy those around her that she does not like. She becomes an adult and marries, but her husband Oliver (Marjoe Gortner) begins to suspect that something isn’t right with her and tells Simon her psychiatrist (Norman Burton) who reads up on a book of ancient rituals to rid her of the spirits before it is too late.

This film is a tired rip-off of not only The Exorcist, but all the rip-offs that came after it. The special effects are cheesy and the mechanical direction fails to add anything new to the genre. The brief bursts of horror are intercut with long, drawn out dramatic segments that go nowhere. The heavy-handed musical score is annoying and the budget is well on the cheap side. Susan’s transformations and murders quickly become mundane and redundant.

The acting is especially bad and in some ways the worst part about the movie. All the performers deliver their lines in a hollow sounding, robotic way. Gortner makes for a weak ‘good-guy’. I might be able to handle him as a psycho, but as a lead he is terrible. I was glad to see his character get killed and just wished it had been sooner. LaWanda Page best known as Aunt Esther from ‘Sanford and Son’ TV-Show adds some levity as the couple’s maid and even says a few very choice four-letter words.

This would be a good candidate for Mystery Science Theater 3000, but hard to take seriously on its own. Even lovers of tacky cinema will be challenged to get through it. This is the type of bad movie that gives other bad movies a bad name.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 3, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Dugan

Studio: MPM

Available: VHS, DVD (Region 1 & 2)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Slasher/Gore

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Chopping Mall (1986)

Posted on October 15, 2013 | 1 comment

chopping mall

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer robots on prowl.

A new high-tech shopping mall installs robots as their night security team. They are programmed to apprehend and subdue any intruders, or anyone not showing them their security badge. A bunch of teenagers who work at the mall during the day decide to hang out and party there at night, but find that the robots have run amuck and are now trying to kill them. Locked into the place for the whole night the teens try fighting them off while desperately looking for a way out.

This was writer/director Jim Wynorski’s second feature and the beginning of an almost assembly line string of direct-to-video/B-movie features that of this writing now equals 94 and many of them done under a pseudonym. Wynorski shows some flair by injecting comedy into the proceedings including an engaging opening sequence done over the credits that includes a lot of sight gags and a good up-tempo synthesized score that fits the mood and action. There are also some fun cameos including Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov who appear at the beginning and recreate their roles from the hilarious cult hit Eating Raoul. You can also spot Mel Welles from Little Shop of Horrors fame as well as perennial B-movie favorites Dick Miller as a janitor and Gerrit Graham as a technician.

It was filmed at an actual mall in Sherman Oaks, California, which makes for an interesting backdrop and good authenticity. I also liked how the teens, both the men and women, are very resourceful and come up with different and elaborate ways to combat the robots. The female cast is attractive with a decent amount of nudity. The special effects aren’t bad either. I was impressed with the exploding head sequence as well as the burning body moment. My only quibble in this area is that they were able to break the glass of the storefront windows, which happens several times during the course of the film, much, much too easily.

The biggest problem with the film is that it just isn’t scary or suspenseful enough. The only time there was any real tension is towards the end when the Kelli Maroney character hides underneath some shelves at a pet store and is forced to keep quiet from the lurking robot while a  snake and spiders crawl all over her. Despite some interesting directorial touches it still comes off as mechanical and formulaic and even though the running time is short I still found myself getting quite bored with it. There is also never any explanation for why the robots go haywire, which I felt was a major oversight.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 21, 1986

Runtime: 1Hour 17Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jim Wynorski

Studio: Concorde Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Dry Humor, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

Posted on October 14, 2013 | 1 comment

nightmare on elm street 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: More dreams more Freddy.

A new family has moved into the house on Elm Street where Nancy from the first film once lived and who is now locked away in a mental institution. The family’s son Jesse (Mark Patton) starts to have the same reoccurring nightmares dealing with child murderer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), but this time Freddy wants to overtake Mark’s entire body and use it as a killing machine to the other youths in the area.

As sequels go this one is okay. I liked the idea that it is a continuation from the first one and not just a reworking of it. Trying to evolve the idea to the next level by having Krueger actually possessing the kid is interesting and the scene where Kruger’s head pushes out of Jesse’s stomach is good. However, it also gets away from the whole dream element that made the first one unique and turns the thing into just another slasher formula. Freddy only appears for 13 minutes during the 84 minute runtime, which isn’t enough as the pace and tension starts to ebb towards the middle. A little too much focus is put on Jesse and his emotional quandary at knowing what this evil spirit is trying to do, which turns it into more of a drama than a horror film. The climatic sequence that takes place in the boiler room where Freddy used to work when he was still alive becomes a bit too melodramatic and not that scary.

I would have liked some flashbacks showing what Freddy was like when he was alive and before he got burned and some history showing what might have lead him into becoming a child murderer in the first place. I also couldn’t help but wonder why Freddy only seems to torment the dreams of the teen characters. Why not Jesse’s parents as well? One could argue that as a child murderer Freddy was only interested in terrorizing young people, but then why not get into the dreams of Jesse’s younger sister Christie (Angela Walsh), which he never does.

Spoiler Alert!

This film also has one of the biggest plot holes I have ever seen and far more glaring than the ones you usually see in most other films of this genre. It all has to do with a party sequence in which Jesse turns into Freddy and starts killing off the other teen attendees. This was not dream, but reality, which was witnessed by many other people including Lisa’s parents. Yet at the end when Jesse somehow returns to ‘normal’ he boards the school bus where his friends make statements to the effect that he should just ‘forget about’ the party incident and everyone is ready to move on, but how does that happen? With the amount of carnage seen by the viewer the police and media would certainly have to investigate and the parents of the victims would want answers. Just ‘forgetting about’ something like that would not be a realistic option and the filmmakers attempts to gloss over what ends up being the movie’s biggest event is patently ridiculous.

End of Spoiler Alert!

Director Jack Sholder spends a lot of time focusing in on Krueger’s glove with its finger-like blades, but the more I saw them the less scary they became. The blades look awfully thin and flimsy and have no ridges or teeth on them. They look so dull that they would barely be able to cut through butter let alone human skin.

I did like that the lead victim was a male this time and it was nice seeing a teen character with sophisticated tastes as I spotted Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ novel laying on his bedside table. The scenes inside the high school and some of his conversations with his friends seemed less cardboard than usual. I also liked that Jesse manages to make friends with Grady (Robert Rusler) who initially comes-off as a stereotypical bully, but the scene where Grady speaks with his mouth full of food during a cafeteria sequence is a bit gross.

Jesse’s dealings with his harsh baseball coach (Marshall Bell) gets a bit over-the-top and forcing the boys to do pushups for hours underneath the hot sun would most likely get him fired especially these days. However, watching him get tied up and stripped naked and then whipped by towels in a sort of S & M death sequence is a highlight.

The story and special effects is still creative enough to raise this above the average 80’s slasher film although not all of them are effective. David Chaskin’s screenplay has some intriguing elements, but ends up biting-off-more-than-it-can-chew and creates too many loopholes to be satisfying.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 1, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 24Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jack Sholder

Studio: New Line Cinema

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Horror, Movies with Nudity, Sequels, Slasher/Gore

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