![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Okay, so the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series reviews are finally complete. Or at least, as complete as my reviews for "Friday the 13th" were. "Freddy Vs Jason" still remains and I'll get around to that one as soon as I can (trust me!). However, asides from that here are reviews for the last two "A Nightmare On Elm Street" movies prior to the aforementioned team-up and the 2010 remake.
Part 1 here
Part 2 here
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
I suppose this was the logical next step for the series. From the very first film there were a few somewhat jokey elements to Freddy Kreuger. While it was toned down a lot in the second one, we still had the "I've got the brains" line. From the third film onwards the amount of cheesy Freddy lines has only gone up and so with the sixth film we finally have an out-and-out comedy. The question is: Is it a GOOD comedy movie?
( Read more... )
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
After part 6 had made Freddy into a goofy comedian and the horror was seemingly entirely lost from the series, Wes Craven comes along and promises a totally fresh approach. While Craven had been involved in writing Part 3 a lot of his ideas had been ignored and much of the writing can be credited to Frank Darabont (who also had writing credits for the eighties remake of "The Blob" and "The Fly II", as well as later writing and directing "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Mist" and the tv series "The Walking Dead"). So really this was the first time Wes Craven had proper creative control on the series since part one. Fans were very excited.
( Read more... )
Ranking the franchise
I'm putting part 4 and the remake both in the top spot because while I felt the Remake worked best as a horror film, Part 4 was the one of the fun Freddy movies that appealed to me most.
( Read more... )
Briefly comparing the two franchises...
I'm still looking forward to "Freddy Vs Jason" where the two figures get to face each other head-to-head, however it's not the characters competing here but the franchises as a whole. There's an odd sort of balance between the two here since out of the seven Freddy movies I've seen I have enjoyed four of them, while out of the eleven Jason movies I've seen I have enjoyed just four and a half. (I count the first Friday the 13th film as just a half-like because it was only the final act that I really enjoyed.)
However, while I thought several Freddy movies were very good and felt the quality of the franchise was more consistent, I didn't really enjoy any of them as much as "Jason Lives" or "Jason Goes To Hell". These choices from the Friday the 13th franchise perhaps betray my fondness for horror comedy, but considering that Freddy is accused of being "funny Freddy" in most sequels you'd expect some of them to have a similar impact on me.
I'd also note, however, that while I might not think the Nightmare on Elm Street movies hit the same heights as a few of the Friday the 13th films, I don't think it hits such lows either. While I gave "New Nightmare" and the "Friday the 13th" remake similarly low scores and consider both to be very personal insults to their respective franchises, I still think that "Friday the 13th" is the more offensively awful of the two.
Friday the 13th has a wider spectrum of quality, including some absolute personal favourites, but A Nightmare On Elm Street has a more consistent level of quality. Overall that seems to put the two franchises on a similar level for me and I can see how the two figures ended up being matched up as a result. I just hope this final elusive entry in both series ends up living up to the hype!
Part 1 here
Part 2 here
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
I suppose this was the logical next step for the series. From the very first film there were a few somewhat jokey elements to Freddy Kreuger. While it was toned down a lot in the second one, we still had the "I've got the brains" line. From the third film onwards the amount of cheesy Freddy lines has only gone up and so with the sixth film we finally have an out-and-out comedy. The question is: Is it a GOOD comedy movie?
( Read more... )
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
After part 6 had made Freddy into a goofy comedian and the horror was seemingly entirely lost from the series, Wes Craven comes along and promises a totally fresh approach. While Craven had been involved in writing Part 3 a lot of his ideas had been ignored and much of the writing can be credited to Frank Darabont (who also had writing credits for the eighties remake of "The Blob" and "The Fly II", as well as later writing and directing "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Mist" and the tv series "The Walking Dead"). So really this was the first time Wes Craven had proper creative control on the series since part one. Fans were very excited.
( Read more... )
Ranking the franchise
I'm putting part 4 and the remake both in the top spot because while I felt the Remake worked best as a horror film, Part 4 was the one of the fun Freddy movies that appealed to me most.
( Read more... )
Briefly comparing the two franchises...
I'm still looking forward to "Freddy Vs Jason" where the two figures get to face each other head-to-head, however it's not the characters competing here but the franchises as a whole. There's an odd sort of balance between the two here since out of the seven Freddy movies I've seen I have enjoyed four of them, while out of the eleven Jason movies I've seen I have enjoyed just four and a half. (I count the first Friday the 13th film as just a half-like because it was only the final act that I really enjoyed.)
However, while I thought several Freddy movies were very good and felt the quality of the franchise was more consistent, I didn't really enjoy any of them as much as "Jason Lives" or "Jason Goes To Hell". These choices from the Friday the 13th franchise perhaps betray my fondness for horror comedy, but considering that Freddy is accused of being "funny Freddy" in most sequels you'd expect some of them to have a similar impact on me.
I'd also note, however, that while I might not think the Nightmare on Elm Street movies hit the same heights as a few of the Friday the 13th films, I don't think it hits such lows either. While I gave "New Nightmare" and the "Friday the 13th" remake similarly low scores and consider both to be very personal insults to their respective franchises, I still think that "Friday the 13th" is the more offensively awful of the two.
Friday the 13th has a wider spectrum of quality, including some absolute personal favourites, but A Nightmare On Elm Street has a more consistent level of quality. Overall that seems to put the two franchises on a similar level for me and I can see how the two figures ended up being matched up as a result. I just hope this final elusive entry in both series ends up living up to the hype!
