Tag: Robert Englund

The Mangler (1995, Tobe Hooper), the director’s cut

The Mangler is terrible. One hopes the rumor producer Anant Singh replaced director Hooper is true because the film’s bad enough and desperate enough, you occasionally want to cut it some slack. You can’t, because it’s terrible, but you still kind of wish you could.

Here’s the movie. Small town in Maine (it’s a Stephen King adaptation), evil laundry magnate (Robert Englund in a risible performance) runs the town because he has the demonic laundry machine. It needs the occasionally virgin sacrifice or it starts walking around like a Transformer, just with some of the worst of the worst mid–1990s CGI. Seasoned but sad widower cop Ted Levine does not think this is just some laundry machine accident. There’s something afoot with creepy old Robert Englund who mentally and physically abuses a runaway (Lisa Morris) because he can’t mentally and physically abuse his niece (Vanessa Pike). But then Levine’s brother-in-law (maybe, there was kind of mention of it), Daniel Matmor as the lamest hippie occult nerd ever, convinces Levine of the demonic possession. There’s some more, but not really.

It’s dumb. It’s a dumb movie trying to mix metaphors and genres and it fails over and over again. It’s not even like Levine is holding it together. If he were somehow this great noir detective befuddling his way through The Mangler, it might be something. But he’s not. He’s not good, he’s just affable and shows signs he could be good in a far better film.

Unfortunately, none of the other acting is any good at all. Matmor, Pike, Morris, Demetre Phillips, Jeremy Crutchley (a young guy inexplicably cast as an old man and in tons of make-up!), Englund–they’re all terrible. Maybe Ashley Hayden and Vera Blacker are okay. Maybe. They’re not enough it enough to be worse.

Bad music from Barrington Pheloung, really bad photography from Amnon Salomon.

At some point as the second act is finally wrapping it up, it becomes clear somehow really tried with The Mangler. Maybe producer Singh really thought it’d be able to hope on that legitimate Stephen King adaptation bandwagon. At least one of the three screenwriters did. But it can’t, because it’s terrible. It’s terribly acted, directed, photographed, everything. It’s slow. It’s not scary, it’s not gross.

If this movie didn’t have Ted Levine, it would be the equivalent of watching dog poop dry on the sidewalk.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Tobe Hooper; screenplay by Hooper, Stephen David Brooks and Harry Alan Towers, based on the short story by Stephen King; director of photography, Amnon Salomon; edited by David Heitner; music by Barrington Pheloung; production designer, David Barkham; produced by Anant Singh; released by New Line Cinema.

Starring Ted Levine (Officer John Hunton), Robert Englund (Bill Gartley), Daniel Matmor (Mark Jackson), Lisa Morris (Lin Sue), Vanessa Pike (Sherry Ouelette), Demetre Phillips (George Stanner), Ashley Hayden (Annette Gillian), Vera Blacker (Mrs. Adelle Frawley) and Jeremy Crutchley (J.J.J. Pictureman).

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New Nightmare (1994, Wes Craven)

New Nightmare should be a little bit better. The film has this fantastic second act and goes into the third strong but director Craven’s resolution is tone deaf. He’s making a movie about movies he was involved with, incredibly popular movies he was involved with, and he sacrifices the actual good work he’d been doing to further the commercialist ambitions of the film.

After relying on her for almost the entire film, Craven sells out Heather Langenkamp. And he doesn’t sell her out for Robert Englund or the Freddy Kruger character; he sells her out for himself, because Craven’s a character in the film. And Craven plays himself very, very badly. He and Langenkamp have this incredibly awkward scene where he’s revealing the whole concept of the film (the original Nightmare on Elm Street movies entrapped an ancient nightmare demon who’s now free); it’s way too much exposition, Craven can’t do, but Langenkamp manages to make her side of the scene work. It’s a rough sequence, but it gets a pass because immediately following, the film’s working again.

Watching New Nightmare this time–probably my fourth or fifth time (since the theater)–I kept thinking about how it’s not just Craven’s best work as a director, it’s some of his most enthusiastic. He’s doing a moderate budget action movie, not a horror film. Even when the “monster” finally does appear, Craven finds a balance between danger and accessible “horror.” Putting Miko Hughes, who plays Langenkamp’s nightmare plagued son, in danger–the child in danger trope–is a bold move for Nightmare. Craven acknowledges genre conventions just long enough to ignore them.

J. Peter Robinson’s score is another good example of those ignored conventions. It’s big, epical adventure music, never actually scary or unsettling. Well, until the end credits, when it’s self-aggrandizing, which is appropriate given how Craven closes the picture.

Nightmare’s frustrating; Craven couldn’t make the film–even with his strong direction, particularly of actors–without Langenkamp and he abandons her at the end. It doesn’t seem to be malicious, but it does do disservice to her excellent work in the film. She turns a candyland caricature of “herself” into a person.

Good support from Robert Englund (more as himself than the monster), Tracy Middendorf, Fran Bennett. New Line Cinema executive Robert Shaye’s pretty bad too. John Saxon’s fun though. And Hughes is pretty good, especially given the character arc.

Mark Irwin’s photography is strong. He maintains Craven’s accessibility, but with ominous presence.

The film’s more than worthwhile for Langenkamp’s performance and Craven’s direction. His storytelling choices are what knock over the cards.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991, Rachel Talalay), the home video version

For the first third of Freddy’s Dead, I blamed Lisa Zane’s bad performance on Talalay’s truly awful direction and Michael De Luca’s lame, if enthusiastic, screenplay. During the middle third, when the film flips between exposition and poorly done dream sequences, I started to change my mind. Not in the positive; Zane never connects with the character’s place in the film. When Zane’s shooting Robert Englund’s Freddy with a crossbow, it’s supposed to be funny. But Talalay can’t direct absurdist humor, De Luca’s absurdist humor isn’t actually funny, and Zane isn’t playing for the joke. It’s a lame joke, but it’s a joke. And no one gets it. Unless the point of Freddy’s Dead is to be a complete misfire, in which case, mission accomplished.

After watching the film–for something like the fourth or fifth time, I saw it in the theater–I discovered I was watching a home video version, approximately ten minutes shorter than the original release. I assume they cut out character development. It probably would’ve been bad character development, but it might have at least made the film seemed like it was trying. Talalay can’t do anything. She’s not good at anything, at least not when it comes to presenting it to the audience. The sets are cool–C.J. Strawn’s production design, if one considers the absurdism of the script, should work a lot better than it does.

Englund’s bad, but he’s clearly aping for the camera. De Luca moronically does a character arc for Englund–the boogyman explained, over and over–and Englund visibly doesn’t know how to play some of those scenes.

Yaphet Kotto is okay for a couple of his early moments, when it seems like he might go all Parker on Freddy Kruger. By the end of the movie he’s bad, but because he’s still around and De Luca and Talalay don’t have anything for him to do.

I wonder if the original version is better or worse. It’s not like more time with any of the characters seems like a good thing. Though Shon Greenblatt at least improves throughout. He’s awful at the beginning and almost likable by the middle. Almost.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare’s bad. It’s often amusing in its badness–until the finale, when Zane puts on her 3D glasses (as does the viewer) and it just gets protracted. Englund and Zane don’t have any chemistry. He’s trying desperately, she’s not trying at all. A better performance by Zane in the last act would have helped a lot.

Maybe it is more appropriate for it to fail on all levels, over and over again.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989, Stephen Hopkins)

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child is inept. Some of the ineptness isn’t too damaging–director Hopkins can’t make anything scary, even though he’s got his cast in these scary looking sets and so on. He handles it too matter-of-factly. But, after the first couple times, that ineptness stops surprising. By then, the film’s other failings have a chance to show up.

The problem with Dream Child is its got one gimmick. It’s got one surprise for the viewer and it’s fairly obvious, especially if the viewer is thinking about it. Yet Leslie Bohem’s script puts it off for at least the first act, instead establishing Lisa Wilcox–who ended the previous film a dream warrior bad-ass–as something of a milksop. It’s a terrible part; there’s nothing for Wilcox to do.

Bohem’s gimmick also means–for better or worse–Robert Englund isn’t going to have much to do for a while. He’s supposed to be dead, after all. The film’s logic for bringing him back could work–and be really creepy (Wilcox willing him back into existence)–but it doesn’t because Bohem’s script is awful.

Hopkins does all right with some of the direction. Unfortunately, it’s mostly the high school stuff, which he gives a somewhat goofy undertone. It’s wasted competence. While Wilcox remains sympathetic (especially if you’ve seen the previous entry and can mourn her character arc here), there’s not any good acting in the film from the haunted teens. Kelly Jo Minter and Danny Hassel aren’t bad, but neither have much to do. Joe Seely and Erika Anderson do get more to do and they’re lousy.

The film’s also strange in how little it apes from Nightmare entries but how much it gets from other popular films of the time. There’s a Beetlejuice lift, there’s a huge Hellraiser (or Labyrinth) lift. Bohem’s script is tone deaf not just to the franchise, but to itself.

Jay Ferguson’s terrible music doesn’t help things either; it’s always going and always bad.

I suppose some of Peter Levy’s photography is decent. More the real world stuff than the dream stuff, which is boring.

A big part of the Nightmare franchise is the filmmakers realizing how to engage with their target audience. Hopkins is indifferent, but Bohem simply can’t do it. Without an inventively exploitative screenplay–and story structure–there’s no way for Dream Child to work. At all.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988, Renny Harlin)

The Dream Master has a really lame final scene, which is too bad since the second half of the film actually gets rather good. The script–from Brian Helgeland, Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat–is impressive for a couple reasons. First, it gives Lisa Wilcox a great hero arc across the traditional gender lines–she’s the nerd crushing on Danny Hassel’s hunk, but she ends up saving him. Sure, all of their mutual friends and her brother had to die for her to magically inherit their individuality and let it fuel her own, but she does use the power for good.

Wilcox is enthusiastic and sincere, which makes up for her performance being a tad light.

The story arc doesn’t really need Robert Englund or Freddy Krueger, but he’s a decent enough addition as far as the villain of that piece. It’s just not the only thing going on in Dream Master, which opens with continuation of the previous film. The film starts with the previous entry’s three survivors–Tuesday Knight, Rodney Eastman and Ken Sagoes–making a new life for themselves (in high school). Knight (taking over for Patricia Arquette) is dating Andras Jones, who’s Wilcox’s sister. Brooke Theiss and Toy Newkirk are also part of the group. And even though this group is somewhat aware of Knight and company’s previous troubles, they don’t experience it. Not until about halfway into the picture, because Dream Master takes the very awkward–but thoughtful–approach of handing the film off between sets of characters.

Knight’s okay, so are Hassel and Jones. Everyone’s likable enough, which seems to be intentional (Theiss, the jock, and Newkirk, the nerd, tease each other but are still besties).

Bad music from Craig Safan. Decent photography from Steven Fierberg. He shoots it a little dark, but once an effects sequence gets going, he’s careful to make sure to show enough. The effects sequences are fantastic, whether they’re large scale set pieces or just the gross-out stuff.

As for Harlin’s direction–it’s a mixed bag. Some of it’s really good. The dream sequences he can play like action scenes, those scenes do well. The ones he does for horror? Not so much. He tends more towards the sci-fi handling, wanting to make sure the audience understands exactly what’s going on. It works out well enough–there’s not much horror in the screenplay, which instead relies on neat narrative tricks and devices.

Dream Master takes a while to get going, but once it does, it works out quite well. Until that moronic last scene, where it cheats the audience out of seeing Wilcox as a “regular” hero, not just a dream one.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, Chuck Russell)

Dream Warriors is masterful in its manipulation; it’s the very definition of franchise building. Screenwriters Wes Craven, Bruce Wagner, Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell wrap what appears to be particular kind of narrative–after a film away, Heather Langenkamp–the original’s protagonist–is going to be the focus. Only she’s not. Then it’s like the character who opened the movie–Patricia Arquette–is the actual focus. Only she’s not.

And no one’s going to think Craig Wasson’s the focus, even though he at least gets to participate in it–the focus is building a mythology around Freddy Krueger, a mythology with nothing to do with the actual narrative and entirely self-contained. According to the IMDb trivia page, Craven had it just the opposite; so either Russell or Darabont went in and separated things out. The screenplay is admirably constructed. It’s bad and dumb, but it’s well-constructed for what it’s trying to do.

But Dream Warriors isn’t just masterful in that type of manipulation. Whether it’s getting away with tons of fantasy special effects in a mainstream horror movie or turning the audience’s passive dislike for a character into a tacit approval of Robert Englund’s terrorizing of them, the whole thing is an expert package.

Mood is very important here because, as a director, Russell never wants to show his hand. There’s a certain respectability Dream Warriors is going for, what with having Dick Cavett and Zsa Zsa Gabor in the opening titles, which are a very classy sequence of arts and crafts from Arquette, set to Angelo Badalamenti’s (initially) way too good–for the movie–score. Roy H. Wagner’s photography reminds of giallo, with its shadows against the strong colors of the sets. Except Russell’s rarely ambitious in his direction. Editors Terry Stokes and Chuck Weiss have some effective cuts with Badalamenti’s music, but none of them have to do with Englund’s villain or even the sensational dreamscape where most of the big action takes place. Instead, they’re for the setup, when Dream Warriors is trying to appear sincere.

The acting is mostly bad. Often because of the script’s silliness. Expert construction or not, it’s silly. Langenkamp suffers the worst, except for maybe Priscilla Pointer, who plays the head psychiatrist of the Dream Warriors–a bunch of teens Englund is haunting. Pointer’s character isn’t just played as mean, she doesn’t even get anything to do with it. Arquette’s a little better than Langenkamp but not much. Craig Wasson plays another psychiatrist and even roughs up John Saxon at one point. Saxon’s so out of it he doesn’t look embarrassed in that roughing up scene. John Saxon was in Enter the Dragon. Craig Wasson shouldn’t be able to rough him up.

The rest of the supporting cast is a low mediocre. Except for Larry Fishburne. Larry Fishburne’s excellent. Movie should’ve been about him.

But it’s not made to be excellent, it’s made to further a franchise–and it succeeds. It even gives Englund some occasional good moments amid his otherwise one-note, sensationalist routine.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985, Jack Sholder)

Why is Freddy’s Revenge so bad? It shouldn’t be so bad. No mistake–it’s terrible and it’s terrible mostly because of director Sholder and lead Mark Patton.

While Patton’s awful, it’d be wrong to blame it entirely on him. He doesn’t get any help whatsoever from director Sholder. But then Sholder doesn’t direct any of his actors. It’s painfully obvious with Clu Gulager and Hope Lange, who are both game to try in this waste of their time, but Shoulder never gives them anything. The movie’s so weird because it’s like the actors are doing their own version of the script and Sholder’s doing his version of it.

But the movie’s also weird because, like I said, it should be better. Whoever decided to put an emphasis on having Robert Englund (in an eighty percent bad, twenty percent good) performance made the film worse. It’s hard to believe it would have been screenwriter David Chaskin because he writes all of the dialogue for the supporting cast when Englund’s around as though he’s not the character who’s supposed to be there. It seemingly unintentionally makes Englund’s Freddy Krueger into a bland monster. I say seemingly because if director Sholder had gotten that approach, in observing it, he would have changed it. Freddy’s Revenge isn’t a comedy. Sholder’s got no sense of humor. Of course, editor Bob Brady has no sense of timing so it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Freddy’s Revenge fails on multiple cylinders, but they all seem unaware of one another. The visual effects and Christopher Young’s score weather the film the best, even if Sholder doesn’t know how to shoot the effects sequences. Brady wouldn’t be able to cut them anyway.

You know, maybe another big problem is bad (and uncredited) production design from Gregg Fonseca. It’s entirely possible Sholder wouldn’t have been able to shoot it properly but there’s just something off about Freddy’s Revenge.

Chaskin’s script isn’t good, but it’s got signs of ambition. Sholder’s actively trying to avoid ambition. For instance–the infamous gay subtext. It should have made the movie. Instead it’s just another one of the film’s failures because Sholder’s not cognizant of what he has to direct. And Patton’s desperately in need of direction, unable to figure out the bad–but ambitious–script.

Anything titled A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge should be bad, but nowhere near this bad.

Freddy vs. Jason (2003, Ronny Yu)

Freddy vs. Jason is terrible, no doubt about it. It’s poorly directed, it’s poorly written, it’s poorly acted. Not even composer Graeme Revell–who’s actually worked on good movies–tries. His most ambitious part of the score is the generic mixing (consecutively cut together) the two separate franchises’s familiar themes. It’s real lazy.

One cannot accuse director Yu of being lazy, however. He, photographer Fred Murphy and editor Mark Stevens rush through every shot in the film. With the exception of two or three crane shots, there’s nothing well-directed in the film. Yu’s a lousy director; the film looks awful and the actors clearly weren’t getting any direction.

As the primary damsel in distress, Monica Keena is awful. Kelly Rowland is awful as her friend, Jason Ritter is awful as her boyfriend. The film’s best performance is probably Brendan Fletcher but only for half of his performance. Really bad acting from Kyle Labine.

Like most franchise pairings, Freddy vs. Jason doesn’t have much in the way of artistic potential; it might’ve been nice to have an iota of intelligence from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift’s script.

Not even the film’s fight scenes work out. Robert Englund looks silly battling his hulking adversary. Well, Yu wouldn’t know what to do with the footage anyway. He can’t construct a scary sequence and he’s even worse at trying to do a fight sequence.

The film’s mean, misogynistic, homophobic and a little racist. Freddy vs. Jason’s only achievement is being entirely worthless.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven)

The best thing about A Nightmare on Elm Street is the font in the opening titles. It’s something sans serif and it’s slightly off and it looks good. To be fair to the movie’s reputation, I did jump twice, both times at the end; maybe because it was waking me up. As opposed to encouraging me never to sleep again A Nightmare on Elm Street made me wish I was comatose for its running time.

It’s not hard to pinpoint what’s wrong with the movie. Wes Craven’s script is atrocious and his direction is worse. His actors–with the exception of Johnny Depp–are awful. Ronee Blakley might give one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen. John Saxon’s not as bad as the rest, but he’s bad. Heather Langenkamp is terrible as the lead. She and Blakley are never once believable as mother and daughter.

I’ve seen this one before and I remember it being poorly made. I can’t understand why it has a good reputation. The number of Halloween lifts are few, but visible enough to remind of a far better film.

Craven’s ineptness as a director doesn’t get any help from editor Rick Shaine, who’s unspeakably bad. I think some of the problem might be lack of coverage, which would be Craven’s fault, but come on. People move five yards between cuts.

Charles Bernstein’s music is silly.

It’s a crappy movie and it’s disheartening it launched a franchise. I guess audiences weren’t any better read then either.

Red (2008, Trygve Allister Diesen and Lucky McKee)

Red‘s a really safe movie. I’ve seen Noel Fisher play a young creep multiple times on television–just a few weeks ago even–and I’ve seen Kyle Gallner play the sensitive kid who hangs out with the creep. Twice for him. And casting Brian Cox as a loner who loses his dog and relentlessly pursues justice… well, it’s Brian Cox. It’s the kind of thing Cox has been doing for years. He’s really good, but he’s really good because he’s Brian Cox, not because the role has much depth to it.

The script’s very confused when it comes to that depth. Cox has a long, devastating back story. It comes out in various scenes with Cox reluctantly revealing himself to Kim Dickens. But the film starts so fast–the third scene is the big one, Fisher killing Cox’s dog–it makes all that eventual fill-in unnecessary. Worse, for a film with an utterly predictable conclusion, Red manages not to tie any of Cox’s character’s strings together. Sure, if his back story weren’t so tragic and so terrible, it’d be natural not to have the pieces together, but the film makes such a point about them. It seems to be an oversight.

The film’s actually pretty hard to watch. It’s one of those “rich people with influence escape justice” pictures, but with the crime here (and Cox’s good performance) so cruel and senseless, it’s a constantly unpleasant experience. Directors Diesen and McKee–there are no hints at who directed what or why the film needed two directors, it hardly appears to be a difficult prospect–take the unpleasantness one step further with some of the conversation pieces. Cox’s house is horrifyingly decorated, like the wall paper is supposed to make the viewer’s stomach turn, and the scenes with he and Dickens set there are difficult to endure.

The direction does have some high points. It feels very British at times, like a Masterpiece Theatre entry sensationalized and set in America. I think Diesen’s Norwegian, which is–cinematically speaking–close enough.

While Dickens has the film’s second or third biggest role, she frequently disappears and it always seems like she’s off in a better movie. It’s not really her fault, it’s the script. The script, at the end, both acknowledges her muted attraction to Cox… and his fear of aging (which had never been brought up before). The oversights mount up, especially as the film barrels through the third act, knocking down false ending after false ending.

The rest of the supporting cast is excellent–particularly Richard Riehle and Robert Englund. Tom Sizemore’s got a decent-sized role, but his character makes absolutely no sense after his first scene. Sizemore’s hair is dyed blonde, which looks bad, but he’s got a solid energy to him when he needs it. His writing isn’t good.

If one were to think about Red too long, the entire film would collapse. Not because of the Cox stuff, though. Cox is golden here, except he’s perfectly safe. There’s no risk and, subsequently, no reward.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Trygve Allister Diesen and Lucky McKee; screenplay by Stephen Susco, based on a novel by Jack Ketchum; director of photography, Harald Gunnar Paalgard; edited by Jon Endre Mørk; music by Søren Hyldgaard; production designers, Leslie Keel and Tiffany Zappulla; produced by Steve Blair, Diesen and Norman Dreyfuss; released by Magnolia Pictures.

Starring Brian Cox (Avery Ludlow), Kim Dickens (Carrie Donnel), Noel Fisher (Danny), Tom Sizemore (Michael McCormack), Kyle Gallner (Harold), Shiloh Fernandez (Pete Doust), Richard Riehle (Sam Berry), Amanda Plummer (Mrs. Doust) and Robert Englund (Willie Doust).

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