Can the ground-breaking Nightmare on Elm Street series sustain its second sequel, or do things start to fall apart in dreamland? A better question might be: How slavishly will Lucas fawn over his favorite horror movie?
Cards on the table for anyone who’s just looking to get a cursory go/no go decision on this film: I love it and I don’t think the horror genre has ever been done better. Don’t get me wrong, there are objectively better movies that happen to be in the horror genre: The Thing, Jaws and Alien, for example. What I mean is that this movie is the best at being a horror movie, or at least the best at being what I want out of a horror movie. When the Flip Flop Slap Fight overlords agreed to let me take part in this annual horror review series, I nervously checked the site’s back catalogue, hoping that I wouldn’t see Elm Street 3. I hadn’t watched it in a while, but I was really looking forward to examining why I loved it so much. So today I’m going to break with the more straight-forward review format and list out the five elements that make this my ultimate scary movie.
An iconic villain – For my money, Freddy Krueger is the best. I recall being terrified of him long before I ever watched one of his movies. He was popular enough in the late 80’s that I knew his whole concept, not just what could be gleaned from VHS boxes at the local video store. I vividly recall specific nightmares from that time in my life featuring Freddy, and they were particularly insidious considering that even if you realize you are dreaming, it offers no relief because that’s when he gets you! Dream Warriors is probably Krueger at his best. He was still very much a shadowy and silent figure in the first two movies, so this was his coming-out party in terms of showcasing his twisted personality and sense of humor. He was still incredibly menacing, though. He had some one-liners, but they were much more mean-spirited than funny. Of course in the coming years he would become a tiresome quip machine, which robbed him of some essential quality of terror that he still maintained to this point in the series. We also got some new mythology to deepen Freddy’s back story. It wasn’t much, really, but enough to capture the imagination and add to an already fascinating character.
The bladed glove is certainly among horrors’ greatest weapons, right alongside Leatherface’s chainsaw or Jason’s machete, but it was really Freddy’s mastery over the dream world that made him so dangerous. If you found yourself asleep and dreaming, an inevitability no matter how much instant coffee you washed down with soda or how many cigarette burns you suffered to stay awake, you were not only stalked by this killer but you were a prisoner in a reality of his making. I always loved how Freddy would psyche his victims out with weeks of nightmares before he finally struck. Even in their final nightmare, he took his time, parading them through whatever horrors he was able to conjure before making his appearance. That relentless campaign of psychological torture is what truly sets him apart in the supernatural mass murderer power rankings.
Creative deployment of practical effects – Look, I’m not one of those people who thinks CGI is ruining every movie. I’m fully confident that CG effects will one day be cheaper and more convincing than even the most simple of props, but the fact remains that they currently have their limitations. Which is why I adore horror movies with well-done practical effects. Wes Craven set the standard for the series with some creative set pieces in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (Johnny Depp blood fountain, anyone?), but Dream Warriors takes things to a whole new level. There is no way you could replicate the viscera of this movie with CGI. Everything is just so wet and glistening, and it’s kind of grossing me out even typing this sentence, which is what makes these effects so awesome! Every nightmare sequence has some incredible prop work going on: Giant snake Freddy, Robot TV Freddy, etc. The only place where the seams really show is a sequence where Freddy animates his remains for some stop-motion skeleton action, but even that functions as a loving throw-back to horror movies of the past.
Victims that you actually care about – So many horror movies throw wave after wave of pretty, vacant cannon fodder at their antagonist with thoughts towards padding the body count rather than generating an emotional response. A lot of them go so far as to populate their films with victims that embody some crucial flaw that “deserves” to be punished (narcissism, stupidity, promiscuity). I won’t pretend that the kids that comprise the Elm Street arm of the local mental institution are fully fleshed out and 3-dimensional, but they are all treated with sympathy by the script. The film gets a lot of mileage from establishing the patients’ archetypes, and either letting them overcome their limitations or having Freddy use their limitations against them. So, for example, Kincaid is a rage-filled loner who is always isolated. That means he gets to overcome his anti-social tendencies and find redemption by becoming a selfless partner to the other teens. It’s simple, but it’s an arc nonetheless, and it makes you care whether he gets to complete it or not. Taryn is a former junkie that struggles with her addiction. She turns down the opportunity to get high halfway through the film, which makes it devastating when Freddy turns his knives into needles and administers a deadly dose to her in the third act. Like I said, this isn’t deep, but it’s enough to make us care.
We are also treated to the return of Nancy Thompson, survivor of the original Nightmare on Elm Street. She is back as a counselor to the troubled teens, and the first adult that actually understands why they are so troubled: “Suicide attempts” are really murder attempts that the kids have survived. She is able to recruit one of the psychologists to help her teach the kids how to join together and fight back. By shifting the mentality from victim to attacker (or at least to actively defending themselves), she also gives the characters some agency, oftentimes sorely missing from horror movies until the very end.
Ligament marionette – A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 contains a scene in which a character is manipulated like a marionette by his ligaments. I want you to think of your favorite horror movie, and whether or not a character is manipulated like a marionette by his ligaments, and then reflect on the choices you’ve made in life.
It’s actually damn scary – There are plenty of gory kills in Elm Street 3, and I do mean gory (see #4). The real reason why it holds the power to terrify, however, is its atmosphere. The film’s dreamscapes generally occupy only one of two places: The mental hospital and Nancy’s old house. It’s the latter which provides the most imaginative and spooky settings, including the cellar which holds the furnace where Krueger used to burn the bodies of his young victims (wait, is it Freddy’s old house… doesn’t matter – dream logic.) The scenes where the characters explore the macabre premises sew a sense of queasy anticipation. In one scene a tricycle slowly creaks into view, single stream of blood trailing each wheel. The trike then contorts and cracks, as if being exposed to great heat. Evocative tableaus like that prove more chilling than yet another eviscerated teen would have. Chuck Russell, in his directorial debut, manages to create a unique world just out of frame that invades the static and mundane real world as soon as someone falls asleep. Just look at the still at the top of the review; it’s scary, otherworldly and weirdly beautiful all at the same time.
The central concept is also set up so that there is never a moment of relief that our protagonists could be safe. Locked away in an institution with few advocates, and the constant threat of sedation, the teens face seemingly insurmountable odds. It makes perfect sense that they would band together as best they can to survive, but that bond also deepens the feelings of dread and hopelessness each time one of them is dispatched.
Having re-watched the film for the first time in several years for this review, I remain just as enthralled as I was in middle school when I finally had the guts to rent it. This will always belong atop my personal horror pantheon, but it deserves to at least be in the conversation wherever the greatest horror movies are discussed.
Comentarios