EvilWhiteMale said:

I love that this one is often referred to as the "gay Freddie" movie.

God, its been so long since I've seen these sequels, that I lost track of what happened in each one. For a while there, Nightmare and Police Academy were giving eachother a run for their money as to who could knock out the most sequels.

I do recall the death scenes getting REALLY stupid. Peoples faces start showing up on pepperoni pizzas?! The worst was that comic book death scene. It was like an Ah Ha video.

They were fun flicks to showcase the special effects (Screaming Mad George did some nice work), but the overall storyline and acting were neglected.

Nonetheless, I always got shivers every time they started singing that song...

EvilWhiteMale said:

The Roseanne and Tom Arnold scene (Rosie first...show some respect!) was just pivitol in the fact that it made that movie go from just a bad Freddy movie to just a bad movie! When I think of "Final Nightmare" and just that one scene...My God was it bad!

RipHer2Shreds said:

See my comments above. "A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Flaming Revenge"! BTW, anohter thing that bothers me is just the senselesness of the killing. "You are all my children now"? Um, no! Kill the original Elm Street kids, THEN you get more (like in 4). It went far too off the story!
[Edited 3/19/05 22:06pm]

VinnyM27 said:

Why wait when there are a bunch more kids to kill? That's what I would have done.

EvilWhiteMale said:

It's uneventful and not even scary! It's also not Freddy! I don't know what the movie was, but it wasn't "Elm Street"!

VinnyM27 said:

What exactly were you expecting from it?


.
[Edited 3/20/05 14:48pm]

EvilWhiteMale said:

For it to try and follow the first movie and for it to be entertaining. It had way too many problems. That movie was messy....but not as bad as Six! Every movie has at least some redemming value to it. The bad ones where so bad...yep, they were good! I also got more of a chuckle or tear (I didn't literarlly cry, but felt bad when some characters died) from "Elm Street" than a scare, so again, I might be expecting something different.

VinnyM27 said:

Well I still think Freddy was in good shape in part 2. He was kept in the dark, no jokes were cracked, and he was pretty brutal. His character should have stayed just like that.

OK here's a little corny Elm St. trivia for y'all. Remember that short-lived ABC show "Just the Ten of Us?" It was a Growing Pains spin-off with Coach Lubbock and company.

Well three of the "Kids" starred in Elm st movies....Heather Langenkamp "Marie Lubbock" (1,3), Brooke THiess "Wendy Lubbock" (4-she was the roach motel victim) and "Connie Lubbock" (I don't remember her real name but she was in part 2 - one of the two girls who got killed in the opening bus scene)

I used to be a "Just the ten of us" fan and was so fascinated that this Elm Street crossover existed.

purplegypsy said:

I remember when I say "Nightmare 1 and 3" and even "New Nightmare" years later I kept thinking that's the drooky chick from "Just the Ten of Us" but didn't know about the others. The "roach" girl did also look vaguley familar. Interesting.

VinnyM27 said:

Brooke Theiss had red hair in NOES 4 and had blond hair on the show.

purplegypsy said:

You mean she was the cute bubbly blonde on the show? I was thinking she was the bulky redhead....Hmmmm.....So the girl that got killed on the bus in 2 was the redheaded girl in the show?

purplegypsy said:

Also, the young boy in the show used to wear Freddy T-shirts once in a while.

EvilWhiteMale said:

That's some crossover, Mr. B!

VinnyM27 said:

ok i just put on no. 2 DVD - the blond girl on the bus played "connie lubbock" - she was sort of a brainiac and had brown hair on JTTOU. Looked nothing like she did in Elm st. 2-she was actually frumpy looking with straight brown hair on the TV show. Wish I had a pic of the cast from the TV show to point her out-i'll find one.

purplegypsy said:

Here you go. A surprising amount of JJTOU material out there. The girl from number 2 is the one sitting on his lap. The blonde played a redhead in four and poor Heather L (the nerdy looking one) stands in the shadows. I'd hate to say this, but the redhead on the show (the only older girl not to appear in a NOES movie, I guess) kind of reminds me of the big drag queen in "Girls Will Be Girls". I not trying to say that to be mean about her size or appearance or anything, but there is no nice way to say you look like a 200+ guy in a dress is there?

A Nightmare On Elm St- classic horror flick. Sure, it was done with no budget, and the acting left a whole lot to be desired, but its still one cool, scary flick. The only film where Freddy is truly frightening for the entire movie.

Part 2: Freddy's Revenge- I'm glad Vinny pointed out the homo-erotic angle of this film, because I've been saying it for years. This lame piece of shit flick is awful, through and through. The hero is a whiny little wimp, who is obviously stuggling with his homosexuality. C'mon, just look at the film! How often is he running around in really gay outfits? How many shots of him doing push-ups with his "friend"? Oh, and in one sequence he heads out in the middle of the night and GOES TO A LEATHER BAR!!! There, he finds his gym coach, DECKED OUT IN GAY BIKER ATTIRE! The coach (for no good reason at all) takes him back to the school to make him run laps (?????). Freddy then kills the guy, but not until after he's TIED HIM UP AND STRIPPED HIM LIKE A GAY S&M PORN MOVIE!!! The whole movie he's struggling to repress the thing inside him, but it will not be denied (I'm sure gays the world over were thrilled that Freddy was being used as an metaphor for homosexuality)!!! Just to show the movie had a very 80s view of homosexuals, the whole thing ends with the LOVE OF A WOMAN DEFEATING THE EVIL BEAST INSIDE HIM!!!

Aside from the whole "queer eye for the dead guy" angle, the film is bad on so many other levels. The plot is a mess, the effects are cheap, and the acting makes the first film look like Oscar fodder. The script completely ignores the rules set out in the first one (somehow, Freddy is able to manifest in the real world, and still mantain his dream powers). This film is also guilty of two bad moves that would forever alter the series: they show numerous close-ups of Freddy's face (the original had him in shadow almost perpetually, and only had one or two shots where we could see just how badly burned he was. Far scarier that way). It also introduced the one-liner ("you've got the body, I've got the brain"). The only way this even works as a part of the series is if you just assume the whole thing was a dream.

Part 3: The Dream Warriors:- Probably the best of the sequels. This one is notable for the return of Nancy, and for Wes Craven's participation on the script. It has one-liners galore, and the comedy is definitely still a major part of it, but Freddy is still a somewhat menacing figure. The dream sequences were much more elaborate, and Freddy's nightmare world seemed fully realised. Oh, and let's not forget that Dokken song (with its incredibly hilarious video where the band takes on Freddy!!!). The acting in this one is also a bit above the level of other entries in the series. Gotta love Lawrence Fishburne in this one!

Part 4: The Dream Master- The 80s were in full effect with this one, and the silliness abounds. At this point, Freddy is little more than a cartoon character. Its entertaining for its death sequences, but little more. I mean really, they undo the "consecrated ground" solution in 3 by having a dog piss on it????

Part 5: The Dream Child- Virtually indistinguishable from the fourth installment, but it did have a cool idea behind it. Unfortunately, the execution of the plot was sorely lacking. The ghost of Freddy's mother made a great adversary for him, and its a shame they didn't do more with that in the series.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare- The only reason this film was to be the "final" film for Freddy was because New Line had just aquired the rights to the Jason character from the Friday The 13th series, and planned on doing a crossover (Jason would "die" in a film the next year) where the two fought in hell. It would take many years for that film to get out of pre-production hell, so it was kinda pointless. Like part 2, this one ignores rules left and right that had previously been laid down in the series (and, like 2, only works if you assume that the whole thing is just a dream). Freddy is now just a homicidal comedian, and has no teeth whatsoever. Apparently, he had a wife and kid back when he was murdering children! He needs her for something or other, Roseanne and Tom, along with Johnny Depp, make cameos, and then 3-d glasses actually get written into the story as an excuse to make a portion of the film 3-d! No, really! I'm not making this crap up! Oh, and Freddy plays with a nightmare version of the Nintendo Power Glove!

Wes Craven's New Nightmare- Existing outside of the continuity of the series, this one ALMOST works. The idea is a great one: the actors from the first film (along with Craven) play themselves, all being plauged by dreams of Freddy. Craven discovers that there is an ancient demonic entity that has always been stopped by mankind by being "trapped" in a story. Freddy is the latest incarnation of this entity, and once the filmmakers "killed" him, they set him free. Now, he plots to enter our world, using those who created his modern form. Craven used actual events in the actors' lives (most notably, Langenkamp's stalker), and wove a clever movie that always had an awareness about it that it was a film. Unfortunately, the film collapses under its own weight. The ending is incredibly cheesy, featuring way too many of the elements that had made Freddy a joke. This film nearly restored Freddy to the level of a true menace, but ultimately fell short of the mark. Also, Heather Langenkamp's bad acting was charming in the original, but its just annoying when she's an adult. She's not even convincing when she's playing herself.

Freddy vs Jason- Several decades after its initial conception, the two villians finally meet. I have to say, I liked this film. At this point, both characters were not scary anymore, and it would be truly futile to try to make them so. There's simply too much baggage for both characters. Instead of going that route, the director just decided to have fun with it. The whole thing is a hoot, through and through. The film is very self-aware of the ludicrous nature of it's premise, and completely plays off of it. The plot was also quite clever. Its no masterpiece, and its really not scary at all, but it is a helluva lot of fun.

JediMaster said:[quote]

Part 2: Freddy's Revenge- I'm glad Vinny pointed out the homo-erotic angle of this film, because I've been saying it for years. This lame piece of shit flick is awful, through and through. The hero is a whiny little wimp, who is obviously stuggling with his homosexuality. C'mon, just look at the film! How often is he running around in really gay outfits? How many shots of him doing push-ups with his "friend"? Oh, and in one sequence he heads out in the middle of the night and GOES TO A LEATHER BAR!!! There, he finds his gym coach, DECKED OUT IN GAY BIKER ATTIRE! The coach (for no good reason at all) takes him back to the school to make him run laps (?????). Freddy then kills the guy, but not until after he's TIED HIM UP AND STRIPPED HIM LIKE A GAY S&M PORN MOVIE!!! The whole movie he's struggling to repress the thing inside him, but it will not be denied (I'm sure gays the world over were thrilled that Freddy was being used as an metaphor for homosexuality)!!! Just to show the movie had a very 80s view of homosexuals, the whole thing ends with the LOVE OF A WOMAN DEFEATING THE EVIL BEAST INSIDE HIM!!!

Aside from the whole "queer eye for the dead guy" angle, the film is bad on so many other levels. The plot is a mess, the effects are cheap, and the acting makes the first film look like Oscar fodder. The script completely ignores the rules set out in the first one (somehow, Freddy is able to manifest in the real world, and still mantain his dream powers). This film is also guilty of two bad moves that would forever alter the series: they show numerous close-ups of Freddy's face (the original had him in shadow almost perpetually, and only had one or two shots where we could see just how badly burned he was. Far scarier that way). It also introduced the one-liner ("you've got the body, I've got the brain"). The only way this even works as a part of the series is if you just assume the whole thing was a dream.

[quote]

I forgot about the gay leather bar! How about the fact that the "friend" really couldn't stand the guy and yet he goes over there when he realizes Freddy is taking him over...and then spends the night....and then cries when he pentrates him? Gaysest movie ever and again, I'm sure homosexuals did not like it either, considering it white washes him being in the closet clean so that he can hook up with his homily girlfriend? If they were going to have a real gay charather or gay drama in the movie, they could have and should have done it well.

VinnyM27 said:

About a year ago I watched the entire series over a couple of weekends with my niece, her husband and some of their friends. Before we got to that one, I stated my case about the homosexual metaphor. All of them but my niece thought I was nuts....until we watched it! I could hear them chuckling at various gay bits in the film, and when it was over they all confessed that I was right. None of them had seen it for years, and most were too young to pick up on it back then (I know I didn't until a couple years after I first saw it).

Thing is, the director swears up and down that he wasn't meaning to have any gay subtext to that film. Maybe it was subconscious? To me, that movie couldn't have been gayer if it'd had Boy George anally violating every member of The Village People, but whatever. Still, considering that it pretty much shows homosexuality being analagous with dream-dwelling child murderers, I'm sure most gays were quite happy that they didn't just go ahead and have Jesse be openly gay!

JediMaster said:

Not to out the actor but his only other memorable role in a movie was what....playing the "In the Closet" or possibly gay guy that knocked up Sandy Dennis in "Come Back to the Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean..."

VinnyM27 said:

I did not know that! Too funny!

purplegypsy said:

BTW, thanks a lot because I was damn near singing the JTTOU theme song this morning....Actually, I don't mean that with disdain...I like the song!

VinnyM27 said:

"Doin' it the best I can! Nothing comes easy!" (That's all I remember of the theme song)