Arguably One Of The Best Horror Concepts, A Nightmare On Elm Street Still Scares!

The Good: Wonderful horror moments, Moments of effect, Reasonably smart characters, DVD bonus features
The Bad: Remarkably weak ending, A few horror conceits
The Basics: Conceptually frightening, A Nightmare On Elm Street overcomes its limitations with good DVD bonus features and enough scary moments to make it worthwhile.


I am not, traditionally, a fan of movies in the horror genre. It is, quite simply, not a genre I am into whatwith the prevalence of so many conceits that have become cliche and my general aversion to gore. In fact, among my many film reviews, the only horror movie that comes instantly to mind as a great overall film - the only horror film in my personal collection - is 28 Days Later (reviewed here!). Still, over the years, there have been horror films that I have wanted to see because of the idea and the assumption that if there are so many people who have enjoyed them enough to justify so many sequels that they must be good. At the top of that list is A Nightmare On Elm Street.

A Nightmare On Elm Street had an idea that I was instantly drawn to; the notion that a killer would strike in one's dreams and that such an enemy might use the subconscious to manipulate its victims was actually terrifying. At best, I figured A Nightmare On Elm Street could be dark and psychologically complex. Recently, the local mini-golf course in the village where I live has gotten a pinball machine based upon A Nightmare On Elm Street in and given that it has captivated my partner and I (it is the only game - to date - she has beaten me consistently at!), we decided that we might as well see the source material for the game. That led us to watch A Nightmare On Elm Street and it was a decent combination of the expected and the audacious. Indeed, it is in this movie that writer/director Wes Craven establishes many of the conceits of the horror/slasher genre.

Tina Gray is dreaming of a horribly burned man in a red and black sweater, who has fashioned a glove with knives for fingernails, chasing her around a boiler room when she wakes up in terror. Recounting the dream to her wholesome, innocent friend Nancy, they recall stories of the boogyman and they try to get through their day. However, as night approaches Nancy and Tina learn that their boyfriends Rod and Glen were haunted by similar dreams. Camping out at Tina's house, Tina dreams again of the mysterious fiend and Rod awakens to Tina being bandied violently about their bedroom and he flees into the night after she is cut up.

As the police begin to hunt Rod, Nancy postulates that Rod is innocent and that Tina was actually killed by the deformed man she dreamed. When Rod is killed in his jail cell, after Nancy's father the police lieutenant apprehends him, Nancy fears she might be correct. After pulling the hat off her assailant in her dream and discovering the hat in her bed with her when she awakens, Nancy becomes more convinced that the key to stopping the increasingly gruesome murders is by staying awake. As the body count rises and she learns of the origins of Fred Krueger, the burned man in the shared dreams, she hatches a plan to bring Krueger into the real world where her father might stop him!

A Nightmare On Elm Street is a mixed bag, but deserves a lot of credit for concept and introducing the world to actor Johnny Depp, who plays Glen. Lauded for special effects at the time of its creation, it is generally strong in that regard and viewers ought to be impressed by the make-up special effects, especially of Krueger. The most serious detraction - outside the early 1980's hairdos - is the ending. A Nightmare On Elm Street finishes with a twist that is both conceptually problematic and poor in its execution. The special effect of the final shot mortgages much of the seriousness of the rest of the film and is more laughable than frightening. Moreover, the increased emphasis on Marge Thompson, Nancy's mother, for the resolution is annoying.

In fact, Marge is an all-around problematic character. She is an alcoholic who is full of information which she does not relinquish until plot-convenient moments. Marge is used more for simple plot exposition than actual character development and she acts as an annoying antagonist to Nancy. Conversely, the hardened police detective who is Nancy's father becomes more willing to take a chance on his daughter's wild theory based on the evidence.

A Nightmare On Elm Street is - obviously - not for the weak of heart (though ironically my partner has a weak heart and made it through the movie with only minimal crushing of my hand). The film is not exceptionally gory, but it has a lot (buckets!) of blood. Smartly, the film does not waste any time in getting viewers acquainted with the concept. Unlike something like Jaws (reviewed here!), A Nightmare On Elm Street introduces Fred Krueger, his weaponry, and the concept in the opening frames of the work. The result is a film where the premise is established, known to the viewers and we have a chance to revel in the character's coming to terms with it . . . as the disbelievers and naysayers get slaughtered from their ignorance. A Nightmare On Elm Street is violent and scary as the young people are killed at the time they cannot act to save themselves.

This is where Nancy becomes an almost instantly likable character. Despite being annoyingly wholesome and innocent at the outset, she quickly learns the truth and works to protect herself and her friends. Viewers begin to root for her because she does so much correctly; she tries to stay awake, she educates herself on survival tactics and she tries to find practical, real-world solutions for stopping the bloody murders of her friends.

Writer/director Wes Craven enhances the horror, then, by blending her dreaming horrors with the practical application of teenage fears and insecurities. After Tina is killed, Nancy sees her dead in her dreams several times. One of the permutations on Fred Krueger is that he appears in the dreams with exceptionally long arms while chasing the girl. The effect is less powerful than the concept of the image, which is probably why Craven does not have Krueger reach for the girl with his elongated arms (they simply flap by his sides). The ability to reach the fleeing girl is much more terrifying than the execution.

Because so many of the elements Craven uses in A Nightmare On Elm Street have now become much-imitated (or parodied) conceits of the genre, viewers now will be able to lessen the sense of horror by simply noting when characters are awake and when they are asleep and to his credit, Craven seldom attempts to be clever with bending which is which. Still, there are moments - the claw in the bathtub, being the best example - where Craven is still able to surprise and anyone looking for good jumpy moments will find much to enjoy with A Nightmare On Elm Street.

As for the acting, there is some irony here as well; some of the young performers outshine the adults. Ronee Blakley is terrible as Marge, both in physical presence and the delivery of so much exposition as she is forced to deliver. Johnny Depp is given an auspicious beginning, but he plays a pretty cocky generic boyfriend type here and the only real foreshadowing of his future excellence is in his adequacy in playing a good looking young person. John Saxon and Robert Englund play Lieutenant Thompson and Fred Krueger with both wonderful sensibilities for the real world and over-the-top body movement that can pervade dreams, respectively.

But much of the film rests on the shoulders of Heather Langenkamp, who plays Nancy and here Wes Craven chose perfectly. In the outset, Langenkamp plays Nancy with a sense of wide-eyed (literally!) optimism and wholesomeness. As the movie goes on, she must play her as exhausted and determined and she gets the body language and vocal resolve for both down perfectly. Langenkamp makes it possible for viewers to buy into the extraordinary reality of the "Elm Street" world and her performance sells some of the movie's more potentially-ridiculous moments.

On DVD, A Nightmare On Elm Street comes with the ability to watch either full-screen or wide-screen versions of the movie. There is an informative commentary track which does not repeat too much of the information from the behind-the-scenes featurette. As well, there are deleted scenes and a featurette on the special effects which are informative.

But mostly, the point of A Nightmare On Elm Street is to scare viewers and it works for that. It is good at what it does and if it were not for the very weak ending, it would be worth more enthusiastically recommending.

For other horror films, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Last House On The Left
Open Water
Hide And Seek

7/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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From The Annals Of Just Plain Terrible: V: The Complete Series Is Bad Television/DVD!

The Good: I've got nothing
The Bad: Acting, Character development (or devolvement), Plots, Special effects, Everything!
The Basics: Following the Liberation of Earth, the Visitors return for one of the worst-ever series' on television and now DVD.


V is a classic science fiction mini-series that made an allegory of oppression and dictatorship by introducing apparently benevolent aliens (The Visitors) who come to Earth under the guise of friendship to rape the planet of water and use the people as food. Because of the success of V (click here for that review) they followed up with V: The Final Battle (reviewed here!) which chronicled the Resistance on Earth as they attempted to liberate the planet from the Visitors, who were now mostly exposed as the villains they were.

Yet the passably good V: The Final Battle was not to be the end of the saga. Regrettably, a television show was made of the events that followed V: The Final Battle and it is now on DVD as V: The Television Series. If you wish to save yourself the time on this review, here's the advice: Run! Don't bother getting this DVD set. It's appallingly bad. It makes one wish they had never seen V, never gotten invested in the characters from the mini-series (both of them), makes one wish the '80s would just stay off DVD and die.

Now, I can see how V The TV Series ended up on DVD. I take the blame. There were people like me who loved V, enjoyed V: The Final Battle and were intrigued by the concept of V: The Television Series but did not have cable or bootlegged copies of the series on tape. There were those of us curious enough asking, "How could they possibly make a television series of this after V: The Final Battle?" The short answer: they couldn't. At least, not the way they did.

A year after the liberation of Earth, celebrations are going on around the world and those characters in the V universe that we know are adjusting to their new lives. One might imagine that unemployment is no longer a problem, whatwith the populations of people abducted by the Visitors for use as food. Mike Donovan is muckraking as a reporter once again, working to cover the trial of Visitor leader Diana. Julie Parrish is part of the team working to unlock the secrets of the downed mothership and Robin has gone into hiding with her alien/human hybrid daughter. Elias and Willie have opened a restaurant and Elias is working on being a legitimate businessman.

On her way to her trial, Diana is set free and escapes, alerting Visitor ships that are waiting behind the moon. The Visitors return and the Resistance must start again. There are new complications now, though. The Visitors do not have surprise on their side and humans must compete with each other, most notably businessman Nathan Bates. Nathan is extraordinarily wealthy and is able to negotiate a simple deal with Diana. The Visitors can do what they wish anywhere in the world they want, but Los Angeles is a neutral territory.

Through Nathan, the Visitors devise a new strategy; using humans against each other. They play off ambition, they use humans to enslave other humans in areas that the red dust bacteria still prevents them from moving and they begin a desperate hunt for Elizabeth, Robin's daughter.

V The Television Series starts on shaky ground. V: The Final Battle ended fairly decisively, though with a bit too much science fiction mysticism for my tastes. Restarting the series with the Visitors coming to attempt to take over again after the resources they came for are largely contaminated, is a rocky path. When in the first few minutes of the first episode they reused special effects shots from the original mini-series, it became clear this show did not have the budget to pull off the quality of work the prior movies had done.

Unfortunately, this does not have the writing to pull off the quality of stories that one might expect from this franchise. Lacking entirely in the social and political metaphors of the original V and missing out on the purpose and action of V: The Final Battle, V: The Television Series quickly devolves into the worst, campiest science fiction melodrama I've ever seen. And yes, that includes Blake's 7, which had its moments.

First off, the television series is clearly geared toward a younger audience. Mike Donovan and Julie Parrish - costars of the first two movies - are focused less on than Robin, Elizabeth - who suddenly metamorphosizes into a barely legal young woman - and Nathan Bates' son, Kyle. They develop a silly love triangle. Similarly, on the Visitors' end, Diana is balanced by a poofy-haired blonde commander named Lydia and as the series nears a close, the two compete for the affections of Charles, a close attache to the Leader.

The series features several car chases used to fill time in the weak scripts. It seems every one of them involves a hubcap falling off the car, apparently the mid-80s sign of a vigorous, fast and exciting car chase. So, we have young, supposedly-hot things zipping around in poorly constructed cars trying to save the world. Woo-hoo.

Is it all bad? Just about. Ham Tyler, easily my favorite character from V: The Final Battle soon resurfaces to supply the new Resistance with gadgets and paramilitary expertise. Unfortunately, he is tamed and his character is eventually dropped along with half the cast in the latter half of the season.

Indeed, more than Kyle - who gets quite a bit of airtime -, Nathan Bates has the most potential in the show and he is part of the wholesale cast cut mid-season. Nathan is played by Lane Smith, who seizes the role of the businessman/scientist with gusto, playing the strong-armed negotiator quite well. But, again, he's not a young skinny thing, so he got bounced.

Having seen the V movies, there is nothing but disappointment for the acting in V The Television Series. No one gives a reasonable, or even passable performance. The characters are gutted and this is just plain camp, but in the most unpleasant sense. I could not go back and do Mystery Science Theater to this it was so painful to watch.

And there are big issues as far as the story, etc. goes. The Visitors no longer have their distinctive sounding voices (they vibrate in the movies), Julie and Mike's relationship seems to die a quick death and the voices of experience from prior guerrilla movements are absent from this incarnation.

As for the DVD, there are no bonuses, no extra, nothing to justify this medium other than the opportunity to see this "work."

Save yourself the time, money and energy and enjoy V and V: The Final Battle and allow yourself to believe that nothing comes after that in the saga. I only wish I could.

For other science fiction invasion stories, please check out my reviews of:
Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters
"Operation: Annihilate"
Wizards

1/10

For other television show reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Less Meaning, More Action When V Comes Around For The Final Battle

The Good: Interesting characters, Good acting, Tension, Plots
The Bad: Lack of social messages from V, Very hokey conclusion
The Basics: With Earth under siege by aliens who want to harvest humanity, a small resistance works to liberate the planet.


When V aired in 1983, Kenneth Johnson had created an amazing epic with long reaching social messages. It was the biggest mini-series to air up until that point and it remains as one of the triumphs of television movie making. Given where V (click here for that review!) left off, at an ambiguous point where Earth is under siege by the extraterrestrial Nazis known as the Visitors and the Resistance is looking to the skies for any help that might arrive, a sequel was almost inevitable. Instead of a four hour mini-series, this time, it's six and it is somewhat inappropriately (given that there was a television series that followed this) titled V: The Final Battle.

Mike Donovan wakens from a dream where he tries desperately to rescue his son from the Visitor's mothership to the real nightmare, a botched raid on a human processing plant that fails due to the lack of sophisticated weaponry. The Resistance, as Julie notes, needs a victory and a big one at that. As Robin's pregnancy begins to show - especially in the form of a strange scaly ring around her neck - Julie and Donovan conceive a plan; they are going to hit the Visitors on prime time television. During the airing of an important medical announcement, the Resistance infiltrates the assembly and tears John's face off and the transmission is not stopped!

The price of their stunt is losing Julie, who is captured by Diana, the scientific leader of the Visitor expedition. She is determined to convert Julie, using her mind control chamber of horrors only briefly seen in V. While she is captured, Donovan plans a rescue mission and the Resistance takes on an arm's dealer and technical expert, Ham Tyler. Tyler adds tension to the group and when Julie is rescued, the three do their best to work together to save Earth. Robin gives birth to twins and in them there is the potential for the Resistance to claim Victory!

Gone are the social messages of Kenneth Johnson's V, replaced instead with more characters who are attempting to solve the big problem. Gone too are characters like the ones played by George Morfogen and Bonnie Bartlett, which makes sense because they played cerebral characters who were part of the social messages of V. Perhaps the new writing team that conceived V The Final Battle decided the "persecute the scientist" plot of V was all done and buried and that is why they did not mention it in the sequel. Either way, V The Final Battle ultimately is a story that tries to bring some resolution to the many many problems posed and left in V.

That is not to say that V The Final Battle does not do it well; it does. Well, it does everything right up until the very end, when the piece takes an absurdly abrupt turn toward the metaphysical and spiritual. It's a difficult ending to accept after five and a half hours of gritty reality wherein people live and die in very real ways.

Here, the main characters of V have even more to do and there is a sense that they grow and change, which is ideal. Mike Donovan begins this installment with an obsession about finding and rescuing his son. As a result, he puts Visitor Spokeswoman Christine Walsh in a compromised position and he's forced to make a hostage trade for his son. But after all of the effort, all of the hope Donovan had in rescuing Sean, he is forced to deal with the possibility that his son has been converted and that eats him up.

Julie continues to grow as a leader, which opens V The Final Battle quite well. Her experience in the conversion chamber leaves her deeply shaken and troubled. She has a pretty legitimate fear that she has actually been converted and she does everything she can to attempt to prove her suspicions wrong and distance herself from the Resistance. Hers is an almost tragic tale of how much she has lost of her security in the war against the Visitors.

Robin becomes an even more important character this time around as she gives birth the the first human/alien hybrid and the results are reasonably terrifying. Fortunately, actress Blair Tefkin is a professional. She has incredible range of facial expressions and emotes wonderfully through her body language and eyes in a way that is easily convincing to the viewer that everything Robin experiences is real. When Robin becomes empowered, the results are terrific and Tefkin delivers astounding quality then.

Similarly, David Packer once more brings the treacherous Daniel Bernstein to life as a realistic youth obsessed with power. Packer keeps Daniel edgy and creepy and there is an air of unpredictability around the performance that makes the character seem truly dangerous in every scene he is in. Bernstein reminds us that even when the villains are obvious, individuals will act in what they feel is their own best interest; Packer reminds the viewer how fun such a character can be to watch.

There are other notable actors and performances in V The Final Battle: Jane Badler gets a whole lot more screentime in this outing and uses it quite well as the menacing Diana, Neva Patterson plays Donovan's nefarious mother with horrifying coldness and Jason Bernard brings Caleb to life with irritability and inner strength. Indeed, this is one of the best ensemble casts, though much of the series comes down to the performances of Marc Singer and Faye Grant who play Donovan and Julie.

The wonderful thing about Grant and Singer is that they each have a wealth of charisma that they infuse in their characters. There's never a moment the audience fails to believe in either one as a viable individual. And even better, Grant and Singer have wonderful on-screen chemistry that only serves to enhance their blooming relationship as characters.

So, will V: The Final Battle be remembered in the same vein as the socially important, expertly executed V? Not likely. But it is certainly a worthy follow-up and entertaining. And for those who watched V, there is a need for some resolution. V The Final Battle, at the very least does that. At best, it tells a decent story with style.

For other invasion or invasion-like stories, please check out my reviews of:
Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters
Zombieland
Watchmen

8/10

For other television and movie reviews, please check out my index page.

© 2010, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Extraterrestrial Nazis Invade the 1980s: V Is Smart Science Fiction!

The Good: Excellent use of ensemble cast, Wonderful characters, Great plot, Messages and themes.
The Bad: Nothing serious, though some aspects may seem dated.
The Basics: In the epic drama V, aliens come to Earth to exploit our resources until humanity gets wise of them and tries to combat their tyranny.


One of the complaints a lot of people have with science fiction is that it never seems real enough to them. People growing up on science fiction today have a good point. But in previous times, there were science fiction epics that were worthwhile, that bordered on drama because they were about people and compelling issues that were more related to every person than making movies filled with special effects. V is the perfect example of one such science fiction/drama outing. And thankfully it is now preserved on DVD.

Set in a 1980s that never quite happened, V finds reporter Mike Donovan covering a story of resistance fighters in South America when a huge extraterrestrial ship appears. It is one of fifty that appear over major cities worldwide causing a panic. The panic is stopped when the Visitors reveal themselves as human-shaped individuals who have come to Earth for a compound that exists here that they need for the survival of their planet and race. The Visitors offer to share their wealth of knowledge in exchange and are, for the most part, embraced by the people of Earth.

But some of the humans are suspicious, including Mike Donovan. Mike's assistant Tony soon finds cause; when the Visitors begin persecuting the scientific community, Tony reveals that a Nobel Prize winner has been somehow altered and is now signing paperwork with his opposite hand. This seeming innocuous tell seems to be the only definitive link to the strange behavior of several prominent scientists who reveal a conspiracy against the Visitors in the scientific community.

As the world turns on scientists, Dr. Julie Parrish realizes that the Visitors have something to hide and she becomes determined to figure out what their secret is. As scientists begin to disappear and the public persecution of them grows, Julie and her friend Ben Taylor team up to form an active resistance. As Mike Donovan becomes a wanted man, a whole town disappears, his mother becomes a collaborator and the world wakes up in a state of alien-imposed martial law where those who resist are killed. Or worse.

V has one fairly minor flaw and that is it's easy to look at the mini-series and say that it is dated. In one way, it certainly is. The characters - and there are many - are walking around in tight 80s jeans with poofy 80s hair. It's the 1980s. They make no attempt to disguise that. So, then, V becomes a piece of historical fiction as well as science fiction/drama. Anyone who can open their mind to that will be opening their mind to something quite extraordinary indeed, because this is a worthwhile film.

Outside that, the reason V endures is because it has messages that will always be relevant. V is about not surrendering our civil liberties, it is about the importance of the people and their responsibility to rise up and stop tyranny wherever it exists, no matter how sweet or kind the packaging may sell it as. These are lessons many of us could use refreshing on with the current political climate. The Visitors are tyrants and the resistance that rises throughout the film rightly observes that the Visitors cannot destroy humanity unless humanity gives up and allows them to. V is about fighting absolute power, even at the expense of one's own life. In V, the cause is the survival of humanity and the characters risk everything for the greater good.

The reason the Visitors fear the scientific community, of course, is because they are lying to the people of Earth. They are not what they appear to be in terms of appearance or motives. The Visitors, as Donovan learns, are actually reptiles hiding underneath suits of latex that allow them to appear human. This is a wonderful metaphor for their deceptive motives, as the way they sneak and eliminate their threats quietly, in the shadows, is very reptilian and equally concealed. And that's how true power maintains itself; killing the competition in the dark and quietly.

V has a huge cast because it has a wide variety of characters. They range from the rogue reporter Mike Donovan to the anthropologist Robert Maxwell. They encompass a thief on the streets named Elias Taylor to a Holocaust survivor named Abraham Bernstein and his family. And they are not all nice people: Daniel Bernstein is an ambitious youth who joins the Visitor's youth league and becomes a part of their military force, Eleanor Dupres - Mike's mother - is a wealthy socialite who sees the Visitors as a way to gain power in the world and Kristine Walsh rapidly becomes the mouthpiece for the Visitor's anti-scientist agenda and propaganda.

The highlights of the cast are Michael Durrell, George Morfogen, Faye Grant and Marc Singer. Durrell plays Robert Maxwell and the role gives him the chance to explore his range in portraying Maxwell as a cold scientist and a loving father. Durrell has a complex character and his acting is filled with a depth to support that character. Similarly, George Morfogen appears as a father who simply does not want to get involved. He realizes how deeply he is involved when he discovers he cannot speak freely in his own house. Morfogen uses subtle facial expressions and eye movements to capture the character's growing sense of wariness in a way that makes him seem very realistic.

But much of the acting comes down to the strength of Marc Singer, who plays Donovan, and Faye Grant, who plays Julie, by simple virtue that these two have the most airtime. Singer is charismatic and built in a way that makes us believe in the various physical acts he endures in the film. Grant does an excellent job portraying Julie as an intelligent, charismatic individual on the threshold of being a great leader. Her command of body language is particularly impressive throughout the piece and sells the viewer on her character in the various stages of development.

One of the beautiful things about V is that it is long. Writer/Director Kenneth Johnson rather wisely decided not to dumb down this story, instead opening it up and trying to encompass as many different perspectives and characters as possible in the four hours. V is a triumph of how good science fiction can be when it has a message and is not afraid to tell a story with strong characters instead of state-of-the-art special effects.

On DVD, V comes with a commentary track and a huge behind-the-scenes documentary which investigates just how ambitious the project was. It's informative and it pushes the programming up into perfect territory.

For other worthwhile science fiction television, please check out my reviews of:
VR.5
Star Trek
Lost

10/10

For other television reviews, please take a look at the organized listing on my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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