If you ask me, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is the best werewolf picture mankind has developed so far. But watching THE HOWLING again reminded me there’s at least one giving a little friendly competition, keeping AMERICAN WEREWOLF honest. Even if it’s not as good.
THE HOWLING is directed by Joe “GREMLINS” Dante, so it has his usual Cormanite monster nerd business: Dick Miller in a supporting role, cameos by Roger Corman and Forrey Ackerman, some black humor here and there. But the tone is more serious than AMERICAN WEREWOLF and way more serious than anything else Dante’s ever done. Filmatically I would say it’s his best directing job by far. Instead of AMERICAN WEREWOLF’s contemporary twist on urban gothic THE HOWLING starts out as straight up sleazy urban noir, werewolves in the world of serial killing and bondage porn. At times it feels more like a David Cronenberg than a Joe Dante. (read the rest of this shit…)
So here we are. The VERY LAST time we will ever see Freddy Krueger. Dead forever. Never, ever again will he appear in a movie of any kind, because this at last is the end of him. It says it right there in the title, twice. He is dead, and this is the final one. And what a journey it’s been. But thank God we have this precious last 89 minutes to spend with him.
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this one hyped up on the internet too much. You know how internet people love to be the one who discovered some small time independent movie, so they overdo it in praising the ones they like. At the same time they love their horror mixed with wackiness. Even today, if they read that Bruce Campbell is appearing in a movie, their first thought is that it will be a great movie. And they have seriously considered naming their first child Shaunofthedead. Also they enjoy the hyperbole. And I honestly don’t think it’s because they know they could get quoted on the DVD, I think it’s just their personality to say everything is the BEST. THING. EVER. (or more often worst, but that’s a different topic.)
Okay, let’s say it’s the year 2008, you are a horror fan, and the one thing that would really hit the spot for you in the near future would be a low budget FRIDAY THE 13TH (part 1) rip-off with a unique brand of in-your-face FUCK YOU AND YOUR MOTHER New York attitude. But not SLEEPAWAY CAMP, you already saw that one. Well then November 4th is your lucky day, dickwad, because that’s when original SLEEPAWAY CAMP director Robert Hiltzik returns to Sleepaway Camp with his sophomore directorial effort, RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP.
DARK AGE
Part 5 is one of the less popular Freddy pictures, maybe because it made an admirable attempt to get beyond high school. It continues the story of Dream Master Alice and her boyfriend Dan (still played by the same actors, Lisa Wilcox and Danny Hassel) and their new circle of friends who replaced the dead ones. They are just graduating from high school, Alice and Dan are planning a trip to Paris over the summer, and early on Alice finds out that she’s pregnant. So they’re still teens but they’re dealing with some growing up type shit here.
People are always talking about “jumping the shark,” making fun of tv shows or movie sequels for trying to come up with new gimmicks to mix it up so they don’t just keep repeating themselves. In a horror series you’re gonna start shaking things up pretty quick. In HALLOWEEN they tried getting rid of Michael Meyers by part 3, though they brought him back for part 4. In ELM STREET 3 they added this idea of a group of kids who can dream together and all have different super powers in their dreams, and people liked that so they stuck with it. For FRIDAY THE 13th 4 they added a little kid (Corey Feldman), not to mention they changed who the killer was in part 2. The Chucky series turned into absurdist comedy by part 4.
“Montani semper liberi (Latin, “Mountaineers are Always Free”)”
From the Academy Award winning writer of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and MYSTIC RIVER, and the director of DEEP BLUE SEA, and with a story by the guy who did the novelization of E.T., comes a new old name in terror…
THE MIST is called THE MIST because it’s a cool and refreshing vapor of soothing horror quality in a sea of crappy bombast. Also because it’s about a mysterious mist that surrounds a small town and when they go into it there’s monsters. The small town is Castle Rock, Maine and you know what that means: based on a Stephen King story. The weird thing is the hero, Thomas Punisher Jane, is not an alcoholic writer, he is a guy who paints movie posters exactly like Drew Struzan (he even painted the poster for THE THING, just like Drew Struzan did, and came up with the same poster). So this is real new territory for Stephen King.
