After the massive success of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET in 1984, you’d think Wes Craven would’ve been sitting comfortably atop the horror director pyramid. Yet his directational followups were just the ’85 TV movie CHILLER, the ’86 silly robot movie DEADLY FRIEND, and a couple episodes of the new Twilight Zone. It wasn’t until ’88 that he did something he seemed passionate about, the pretty respected voodoo thriller THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW. By ’89, only five years after the birth of Freddy, he was already at that sad “time to come up with the next Freddy” stage you’d expect him to go through eventually. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posts Tagged ‘Wes Craven’
Shocker
Monday, October 28th, 2013Scream 4
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
The SCREAM movies had their day in the sun. They arrived at the end of 1996, during what seemed like a horror drought. “Horror” was so out of sorts that the characters just call it “scary movies.” The actors, while promoting it on talk shows, called it a “thriller.”
We all remember that, but I thought it would be interesting to look up the specifics. According to my research there were only six other scary movie thrillers released theatrically that year: CANDYMAN: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH, THE DENTIST, THE FRIGHTENERS, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE* and THINNER. DTV releases included TREMORS 2: AFTERSHOCKS, CARNOSAUR 3: PRIMAL SPECIES and CHILDREN OF THE CORN IV: THE GATHERING.
(read the rest of this shit…)
My Soul To Take
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
I don’t know if “good” is an adjective I would apply to Wes Craven’s little-seen latest horror movie (his first writing/directing joint since NEW NIGHTMARE). Other than the synonyms for “strange” there aren’t many adjectives that really do the job here. So it’s hard to explain what this movie is like, exactly, but I’ll try.
MY SOUL TO TAKE looks like a pretty typical glossy teen horror movie, with characters that could be in FREDDY VS. JASON or a FINAL DESTINATION, plus your standard Marco Beltrami score infused with an occasional rock song. Although it’s not a remake, a sequel, a prequel or a prequmake it does fit your modern mainstream horror mold by being released in last-minute-post-production-3D (LMPP3).
Yeah, it looks normal from a distance, but when you get up close it’s clear that something’s off here. (read the rest of this shit…)
A Nightmare On Elm Street (remake)
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
Look man, I’m not completely racist against remakes. I hate the blatant wholesale creative bankruptcy of modern Hollywood as much as the next guy. But I gotta admit there are some remakes that are upstanding movies in their own right, that have richly contributed to our culture and society as a whole. Or that at least don’t suck. Two of the better modern horror remakes in my opinion are from Wes Craven movies: THE HILLS HAVE EYES and LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Both have their problems, but they’re a good balance of disturbing and entertaining, they have some respect for the original themes and ideas of the movies but also put some new spins on them. Both were produced by Craven himself, by directors he handpicked. (well, I don’t know if he used his hands specifically, he probly just had seen their work and called em up.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
I’m not sure why I’m okay with the title WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE. It’s one of those dated titles, because it’s not new anymore. And is the actual title supposed to be “New Nightmare” and it’s presented by Wes Craven? Because I always think of Wes Craven as being part of the actual title, that it’s about his nightmare. I don’t know. Anyway, it fits.
WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE by Wes Craven is easily the smartest Freddy sequel and the one that most sounds like it could never work. I guess maybe some people might consider the premise ridiculous, but I always just went with it, it works like a charm on me (a very effective charm – I don’t actually know how charms usually work but this one works real good is what I mean). It’s the story of original NIGHMARE ON ELM STREET star Heather Langenkamp (uncannily portrayed by Heather Langenkamp) trying to stay sane in the face of some harassing phone calls, a series of earthquakes, some strange dreams and increasingly creepy happenings with her son. She and others keep having strange dreams – Freddy dreams. Meanwhile, Robert Shaye (Robert Shaye) and Wes Craven (Wes Craven) want her and Robert Englund (V’s Robert Englund) to return for a new Freddy sequel that Craven is writing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Vern sees LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (remake [not CHAOS])!
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
SPOILER ALERT !!
LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT REMAKE
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT original, VIRGIN SPRING, CHAOS, THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake, and URBAN LEGEND.
Well well well, what do we have here? Looks like a remake of a Wes Craven movie, already unofficially remade as a Demon Dave DeFalco movie, itself based on an Ingmar Bergman movie based on a 13th century ballad based on a legend of why a particular Swedish church was built. I’m not sure the modern moviegoer is concerned with the origin story of the Kärna church, so we gotta wonder what exactly the reason is for this remake. The answer, of course, is that the original movie was first called KRUG AND COMPANY, they didn’t call it LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT until it had been traveling around for a while. They made it up after the fact, it didn’t really mean anything, so in the movie they never mentioned the location of the house. I saw the trailer for the remake where somebody’s driving down a road and says “it’s the last house on the left.” This is the reason to remake it, you can finally go back and establish that! (read the rest of this shit…)
Scream
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Producers of violent horror movies like to claim their movies are “controversial.” Here’s a more mainstream-acceptable horror movie that actually is controversial among movie fans. It was hugely popular at the time, but it seems to me like most horror fans today look down on it or sent it. Like it or not, SCREAM was an important landmark in the ongoing history of the horror. It singlehandedly resuscitated the rotting corpse of the slasher movie (at least in its whodunit form inspired by FRIDAY THE 13TH, SLEEPAWAY CAMP, PROM NIGHT, TERROR TRAIN, etc.) It made horror big business again, paving the way for an onslaught of low (and medium) budget horror that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. But alot of horror fans see themselves as outsiders, so it bugs them when a horror movie is popular with people who aren’t as into stabbing and monsters as they are. And in my opinion there is a certain amount of sexism there, because they get mad about teenage girls liking the same movies as them. (Don’t tell them that HALLOWEEN is about teenage girls, they might cry.) (read the rest of this shit…)
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Sunday, February 10th, 2008
Well, Michael Bay is going down the list of everything he can do to ruin the quality of my life. Destroy the language of action cinema – check. Produce a horrible remake of one of my all time favorite movies – check. Make one of the most moronic event movies ever imagined and convince most of America that’s the best you can expect from a “summer popcorn movie” – check. He also personally re-elected Bush, in my opinion, and invited all the yelling party kids to hang out outside my apartment every night after the bars close. So he’s pretty much set everything on fire already but just to add insult to injury he’s circling back to pee on my rose garden by having his rat fucking, no-account production company Platinum Dunes “relaunch” both Jason AND Freddy. And maybe I’m in a small faction here but I was patiently awaiting the JASON VS. FREDDY 2 they’ve been trying to get off the ground for a while and was not aware that those two troublemakers had been sent back to the docks yet.
So as much as I believe in forgiveness and second chances, I’m pretty sure I will hate this soul-less cokehead asswipe for all his days, even if he prevents world war 3 (unlikely) or gives all his Lamborghinis to charity (way more unlikely). But on the positive side he has so far failed to erase the existence of the movies he is working hard to destroy the legacy of. So to celebrate the silver lining on this toxic cloud I think I’m gonna go back and watch and review all the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies. Take that, Michael Bay. Game, set and match, motherfucker. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Hills Have Eyes II (2007)
Monday, March 26th, 2007
THE HILLS HAVE EYES REMAKE II
First, a review of my review of THE HILLS HAVE YES REMAKE I: not so hot. I had so much I wanted to say about that movie that I couldn’t figure out what was actually worth saying. Just skip to the end where I ask, “Are you asking for a movie about mutant cannibals who steal a baby and then raise it in a safe and loving environment? Because I don’t think I would like that movie as much. (I’d watch it, though.)” Somebody oughta do a remake of that review. Sorry, everybody.
Second, a review of the advertising for THE HILLS HAVE EYES REMAKE II: top-notch. The teaser trailer was one single shot of two weird mutants dragging bodies through the desert, then the title of the movie. Because what more needs to be said? A masterpiece of simplicity. I also enjoyed the TV commercial narrator who said, “Last year, critics said THE HILLS HAVE EYES went too far. Now, get ready to go even further…” I am not a fan of advertising in general, so I gotta give credit when credit is due. You did it, fellas. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Sunday, March 26th, 2006
As you may remember, I fucking DESPISED the Texas Chain Saw remake, but I thought the Dawn of the Dead one was fun. I can definitely be a purist at times but not always. I just calls it like I sees it. For me THE HILLS HAVE EYES is a remake with alot of potential because the original is a movie that I like alot, but I know it’s flawed. It’s got these great archetypal type themes, a perfect setup, lots of great horrible gruesome fun, but it’s pretty sloppy and cheap looking, and not always in a good way.
The remake, by the same frenchmen who made HIGH TENSION, had a couple things here and there that bothered me, but I think it goes in the pantheon of the good remakes. It stays very true to most of what I like about the original, and in some areas it even improves. TEXAS CHAINSAW I felt like was made by people who had no fuckin clue what was great about the original; DAWN OF THE DEAD was a good action movie but had none of the substance of the original; also please note I used two semi-colons in this sentence, which I think is pretty god damned professional in my opinion. To me, THE HILLS HAVE EYES feels like a new production of the old classic, because it stays very close to the original story for the first half, and when it veers off in a different direction it still stays true to the themes of the original. Shit, I’ll say it: THE HILLS HAVE EYES = Shakespeare. Hopefully we’ll have many different versions of THE HILLS HAVE EYES – we’ll have it modernized, we’ll have it set during WWII, or in space, we’ll have it done entirely by puppets or animals or children. (read the rest of this shit…)
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