Horror Nerd Cinema Bonus: "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010, Samuel Bayer)

Look, I really wanted to like this movie. Some people have flamed me in the past for saying that I went into Rob Zombie's "Halloween" films with my mind already made up and going into protracted bitching mode, and they wouldn't be wrong, but this was a remake that I genuinely wanted to succeed. You know you're in for an undertaking when I lead off a review with a kinda-sorta apology, huh? I've been debating the various methods that I could attack this review. Reviews, by and large, should be persuasive, and there's really little that I can say about this film that will convince you to think one way or the other about the quality contained in this motion picture. But you don't turn to me for review-writing advice, ever present Horror Nerd reader. Nope, you want hard-hitting analysis. I'll do my best.

This movie wasn't terrible. It's competent, well-shot (and refreshingly free of Michael Bay smash cuts) and has some good acting. It won't piss you off with any "Professor X dying"-style nonsensical plot twists, and it won't flat out insult your intelligence like Zombie's "Halloween 2." Instead, what this movie is may be even WORSE than those things, even though it is technically a way better movie than that legendary cinematic steaming pile "H2" - it's just so incredibly BY-THE-NUMBERS. One of the biggest complaints leveled against Platinum Dunes, the Michael Bay-owned production company that produced not only this but several other maligned horror remakes (the "TCM" reboots, "The Hitcher," "Amityville Horror" version Reynolds, etc.), is that they take classic slasher flicks and effectively suck the soul out of them. They take movies that rose above the horror genre and contained genuine emotion and/or camp value and slickify them; the end result is no doubt a competent product, but one lacking in pretty much any emotional investment or coolness factor.

Fortunately, there is some coolness factor in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" version 2010, as well as a few redeeming qualities. You have to dig for your enjoyment of this film, but it's there. Unfortunately, it's hidden by a whole heap o' tedium.

A quick word to those who normally avoid horror movies because they scare you too much - you've got nothing to worry about with this one, because this movie just isn't scary. At all. Remember that awesome marionette death from "Dream Warriors" that cost you hours of sleep as a kid? This film has zero moments of that caliber. There's nothing that will stick with you after leaving the theater. There's plenty of sound scare stingers (for the uninitiated, think someone smashing cymbals behind your head - it startles you, sure, but it doesn't linger in your head and crop up at all the worst times), but literally nothing you haven't seen before as either a "Nightmare on Elm Street" fan or a horror fan at large.

What this "Nightmare" does, peppered in between many, many nightmare sequences (I don't have any official count, but I'd be willing to bet that this movie has more nightmare scenes than any of the previous movies), is repeat the story of the original film basically point by point. It's not an exact redux; there's differences in the characterizations (not to mention name changes), and some of the specifics are changed, but if you've seen the first movie, you'll be feeling a sense of creepy deja vu more than once.

The screenplay by Wesley Strick wastes little time getting to the point, which is always appreciated. We are almost immediately introduced to our core group of teens - outsider Nancy (Rooney Mara), potential boyfriend Quentin (Kyle Gallner), hot chick Kris (Katie Cassidy), nice guy Jesse (Thomas Dekker) and Kris' current boyfriend Dean (Kellan Lutz). Within five minutes, Dean is dead (SPOILER ALERT ;))...and the other kids soon begin having nightmares of their own featuring a familiar-looking guy in a red-and-black sweater. Anyone who has seen a single "Nightmare" film knows the drill, but for those not in the know, here's the skinny - after the initial tragic death, the teens realize that they are sharing the same nightmare about a hideously burned man with a VERY ill temper threatening to kill them. They begin avoiding sleep, they learn the mystery of their shared dream killer, and they throw some ragtag plan together to kill him.

A quick word on the new man behind the Freddy Krueger make-up. Robert Englund, who portrayed Mr. Krueger in the original movies (and for almost 20 years, no less) was a legitimate horror icon who truly lent the character a menace and a charisma that was virtually unmatched, and I felt for any man that had to step into his shoes. Dealing with these expectations, Jackie Earle Haley does a more than commendable job in the role; he's a character actor through and through, and his turn as the immortal demon of sleep is admittedly a little different than Englund's (mainly in the body language), but no less effective. Haley is a master at diving deep into characters, into their motivations and darkness, and when this guy makes menacing slicy gestures at unsuspecting early-'20s actors and actresses, you believe him.

This film does deviate from the original when it comes to Krueger's back story. In the original film, he was a vicious child murderer who was actually caught by the authorities, and admitted to his crimes, but released on a technicality. In this film, he is immediately killed by an angry mob of parents before any sort of trial begins. For some reason, this change didn't ring correct with me. Firstly, it shows us a Freddy Krueger running away from the mob and panicking (in all other versions of the story, the character is evil and twisted enough to accept his fate). While it's nowhere near the offense that the Platinum Dunes crew committed with Leatherface in the "TCM" remake, it's nonetheless a little emasculating moment for the villain, and the taking of a character who was the ultimate in evil and tearing back the curtain. Still, this change wasn't a deal breaker.

The movie's other key change is in its treatment of central character Nancy. Heather Langenkamp's version of Nancy was appealing because she was the embodiment of "normal" - outgoing, well-liked, nice, virginal. In essence, the perfect horror movie heroine. The Nancy of this film has all sorts of angst and father issues; perhaps the movie's biggest single mistake was removing the character of Nancy's policeman father. The dynamic between those two was the highlight of the original film, and what we're left with is just another chick that Hollywood writers dream-girl up (by making Nancy an emo-fied artist).

So let's see if we can tally the pluses on this film. Jackie Earle Haley's turn as Freddy is something to behold despite the monkeying that the script does to his character's dynamic. And while her character isn't written well, Rooney Mara shows a lot of potential in this film. If she picks the right roles from this point forward, this girl has a bright future. I also loved the homages that the film pays to some of the original film's deaths. The bathtub scene and that immortal "dragged across the ceiling" kill are re-touched in modern-day SFX glory, but amazingly, neither death feels as if it only exists to make us stand up and applaud. The fans could appreciate these, and the audience at my screening seemed to dig them, as well.

And now, the negatives. I've already mentioned the changes to the Freddy and Nancy characters, and all of those GODDAMN jump scares that I've come to hate with a psychotic fury. This movie's biggest sin, however, is strangely enough the exact same mistake that the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" made. This isn't a movie with a particularly large cast of victim characters. We're given plenty of time to adjust to them, to learn their names and personalities and to know what makes each of them tick. We're also given the bare bones of a story to get into to make us care about them.

The reason why I was so in favor of a remake of "Nightmare on Elm Street," as I've said many times, is that this is a horror movie with aspirations to be a very important film. If done right, this story can be a very evocative, very powerful metaphor for life, about teenage kids facing their greatest fear - represented oh-so-well by scarred dream killer Freddy Krueger - and overcoming it. At this level, it becomes allegory for facing challenges in life. But in order for us to achieve that, we must see these characters as something other than one-note archetypes, and that is where Wes Craven's original "Nightmare" fails. All of the kids are merely there as window dressing, with the exception of Nancy, and we don't give a damn about any of them when Freddy guts 'em like fishes.

This film suffers that same fate, albeit with slightly different characters. Former lovers Kris and Jesse are the most likable characters in the movie - we are given their backgrounds almost immediately (they used to date, broke up, and are now forced together by the unholy consequences of their current situation), and are the first ones killed. Nancy and Quentin, the movie's central couple, are completely colorless. We know nothing more about them at the end of the movie than we did at the beginning. Thus, the film fails at giving us that emotional depth, the resonance that the best movie in the series - the immortal "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" - achieved with such aplomb. It fails at being a metaphor for conquering your demons, and as such, this remake is a failure, as it does not improve on the biggest faults of the original movie.

It's really quite sad. "Nightmare on Elm Street" has always had a fantastic concept and an amazing villain character, but somehow, some way, all the stars have aligned in this series only ONCE in the "Dream Warriors." It's even more sad that earlier today I watched the two newest chapters in the Japanese "Ju-On" franchise (better known as "The Grudge" here in the States) and was once again floored by the films and the ability of this nine-movie series to constantly churn out quality. Here's a series that can seemingly reinvent itself with every entry and still call itself "Ju-On," while "Nightmare" has been stuck on cruise control for the vast majority of its 25+ year existence.

Ultimately, there's a lot worse flicks out there than "A Nightmare On Elm Street" 2010. There's a new Friedberg and Seltzer movie coming this year, after all. But there's also a lot better, including a couple movies in the original series. There is much to admire in this movie in the form of its wonderfully played villain and genuine reverence for the source material. Ultimately, it's that same reverence that proves to be its undoing, as the movie embraces the very same fallacies that resulted in this being a necessary movie in the first place. In that regard, this is a maddeningly frustrating movie; this could have been SO GOOD if paid the proper care for its characters and story, and at the end of the day, it's just another clinical Platinum Dunes horror remake.

IHR induction #23: "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" (1987, Chuck Russell)

As we continue to get prepared for the release of Platinum Dunes' "Nightmare on Elm Street," it becomes apparent that in order to fully look at the present, we need to look at the past...

You know, people have called me out on something more than once. I seem to give the "Friday the 13th" movies a free pass when it comes to their "quality" as feature films. It's a fair complaint. I'm WAY more forgiving when it comes to things like script, acting, and character development with the F13 franchise than I am with the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films. People have called me a hypocrite for calling movies like "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" and "Sleepaway Camp" masterpieces while nitpicking all of the pesky details of Craven's original "Nightmare" flick like a high-fallutin' film critic picking apart "Citizen Kane", shining a magnifying glass on its static characters, logic bombs, and occasional cheesiness that almost railroad the movie.

I believe that this scrutiny is only appropriate. Why? Because the "Friday the 13th" films, and their early-to-mid '80s slasher ilk, were perfectly happy being just that - exercises in fun, gory popcorn cinema. "Nightmare on Elm Street" is an entirely different animal; it is a series with some VERY grand ambitions. Series creator Wes Craven has stated that his original goal with the very first movie was to present a very heartfelt, long-term view of the world, of the power of the individual's ability to face and overcome ultimate evil, taking the form of dream stalker Freddy Krueger in the film. And while moments in that first movie are deservedly immortal...there is LOADS there that just doesn't ring right or true. Namely, every other teenage character not named Nancy Thompson being a one-note archetype complete with (come on, admit it, horror fans) some pretty damn awful dialogue. Don't get me started on the nonsensical ending scene.

From "Nightmare 1's" simple-yet-complicated (is that an oxymoron? Probably) story of Nancy and her battle with Freddy, we went a RADICALLY different direction with the first sequel, 1985's "Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge" (a truly Oscar-worthy title if there ever was one). And this movie...just flat-out sucked. It messed with the rules of the series in a way that seemed really off-putting, taking Freddy out of the dream world and making him a truly strange villain trying to break - physically - into our world. Coupled with a main plot concerning what is truly one of the weeniest hero characters in the history of film, and it's no wonder that every movie in the series from that point on pretended this one didn't exist.

In retrospect, however, it's a good thing that "Freddy's Revenge" happened. It gave Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont, the creative driving force behind THIS particular film, a template of what NOT to do with the series and the character of Freddy, and seemed to inspire these two gentlemen to create what is not only one of the great horror films of all time, but one of the great MOVIES of all time. To be sure, "Nightmare 3" is one of the COOLEST films ever, a movie where our quotient of "badass villain worship" is actually EQUALLED by our level of sympathy for the victim characters, most of whom are very memorable with actual DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS (gasp!). It's also got unbelievable murder scenes, some great gore, and the first doses of "Freddy humor" that alienates some fans, but in the small shots of it that we get here, a very refreshing series addition to yours truly.

In short, Platinum Dunes, if you weren't looking at "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" as the movie that you most wanted your own film to be like...well, there's plenty of expletives from PD-hating horror nerds around the globe to describe what will transpire on Friday.

See all that above? I think that's my longest introduction ever.

THE MOVIE!!

"Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is a horror sequel, but one that seems truly different within the realm of not only '80s horror sequels but sequels period, and if I say the word "sequel" one more time in this paragraph I'm going to ball up my fist and hit myself in the face. The movie introduces us to several important new characters - Kristen Parker, a teenage girl suffering from the movie's patented "Freddy nightmares" (for those EXTREMELY on the short side of the pop culture stick, the rule of the "Nightmare" series is that Freddy attacks you in your dreams, and if he kills you there, you're dead for real); Kincaid, a cool brother who views his dreams as no serious threat; Joey, whose dreams have actually stressed him out to the point of turning mute; Will, a D&D loving nerdy kid whose suicide attempt may not have actually been a suicide, and, amazingly enough, several more.

While Wes Craven's original screenplay for this film had these kids spread out across the country and finding their way together to fight Freddy, the Russell-Darabont script wisely took the route of bringing them together in a way slightly less pre-ordained - all locked up together in a mental asylum, with the hospital staff (including good-hearted Dr. Neal Gordon and Nurse Ratchet-esque Dr. Carver) seeing their shared nightmare as some sort of "mellow mass hysteria" (to quote one of the doomed characters). What the staff doesn't realize is that these are the last of the "Elm Street children" - a very important fact for any fan of the series, as former child murderer/molester Freddy Krueger has returned from the dead to stalk the children of the parents who burned him alive in a hideous revenge act (run-on sentence). All of our characters are trapped together, having only themselves to turn to as their friends - moreso by fate than by choice - begin falling one by one to the dream demon's wrath...

First, a word on the performances in this movie. In short, they're wonderful. Yes, we get Laurence Fishburne in a bit role, but the highlight of this movie is no doubt Patricia Arquette, in her very first movie performance and playing the AFOREMENTIONED main protagonist, Kristen Parker. She's shy, she's sweet, she's relatable as a result of her own psychotic mother's refusal to believe her daughter's stories of a hdieously burned clawed guy chasing her in her dreams (hey, we've all been there). In a way, she's even Freddy's equal, as the movie gives us some supernatural undertones to work with in the form of Kristen's ability to pull people into her dreams. Despite all the attention focused on her, Arquette never seemed for one minute put off by the importance of her role or her stake in this franchise, and creates what is one of my favorite horror movie heroines.

In addition to Arquette, we get the return of the two most popular non-Freddy characters from the original film. Nancy Thompson and her hard-drinking father come back in this movie, and amazingly enough, the screenwriters don't simply rehash their roles from the first movie. Nancy (once again played by Heather Langenkamp, who while not quite as effective as she was in the first movie is still aces) is now a dream psychotherapist specializing in pattern nightmares, while her dad (the amazing John Saxon) is absent for most of the movie - but as Nancy becomes firmly entrenched as the kids' new therapist, his role in this movie exponentially increases as the stakes and body count rise.

Much of "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is the proverbial build to the last trimester, as the kids build themselves up for the final showdown with Freddy. Along the way, though, we get several outstanding scenes with Krueger and the victim characters. There's the TV death, the poor marionette kid, "Come and get him, bitch..." The knot draws tighter and tighter as the classic death scenes (and there are plenty of them - just watch the flick to find out) balance out the moments where we're given the Homeric journey of the Elm Street kids, who, one-by-one, begin plucking up their courage and achieving solidarity against the ultimate menace that threatens their existence.

I've held off on it for long enough, but I must now talk about him. The man, the myth, Freddy. Freddy Krueger is a villain that deserves his status among the Mount Rushmore of horror icons, and while Robert Englund was awesome every time he donned the sweater and fedora, I still believe this to be his BEST performance as the world's most infamous janitor. A character actor by trade, Englund digs deep down within the place in himself that exists in us all to be unspeakably nasty and embraces it wholeheartedly; compared to the earlier films, there is a true sense of just how much Freddy ENJOYS his deadly job in this film. The signature body language was already well in place, but with a script giving him more lines to say and more memorable quotes to plant in people's memories, Englund delivers and steals the show every time in he is in front of the camera. There's no sympathy factor, there's no sense of remorse, and the only additional back story we get on him makes Freddy even MORE of an evil son of a bitch. Absolute menace personified, and one of the most perfect villains in any movie.

While every horror movie needs a great villain, eventually, we have to ask ourselves the most important question. Longtime readers of these manifestos know that I judge movies on what I refer to as the Emotional Scale, and that question is the following: did this movie get me to care about the characters and root for them in what they were trying to accomplish? More than almost every other horror movie I have seen, the answer is a ringing, defining "yes." The ending moments consist of some very thrilling stuff, and even though there are a couple suspect and dated special effects, it doesn't matter in the least. These are people that I'm emotionally invested in, and when they're in jeopardy, I'm in jeopardy.

It should be noted that I've reviewed this movie on two separate occasions already; every time, I seem to have the same problem. This is a movie with a lot going on; there's perhaps a dozen major characters, and a few subplots that serve as good diversions to the main Elm Street Kids vs. Freddy arc (a dream suppressant drug, Dr. Gordon's struggle to save his rapidly shrinking patient base, etc.), and expounding on all of these things in lengthy detail would probably make this seem like a very confusing movie. Rest assurred, "Nightmare 3" is anything but confusing. It's written and paced so well that all of the parts, characters, and stories seem to match seamlessly and achieve the goal that the first movie only dreamed of achieving - a fascinating, evocative metaphor for overcoming adversity in life, of facing your demons and conquering them. It ranks comfortably at #2 on my list of all-time favorite horror films (beaten only by Carpenter's original "Halloween"), and, to date, is the only movie in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series to realize the full potential that the premise and theme of the story had.

Having said that, once again, we look forward to the remake. Will it take this movie's lesson - that actors who fit characters like a glove, a good balance between dark and humorous Freddy, and stylish, snappy direction are the hallmarks of a great "Nightmare on Elm Street" film - or will it go the usual Platinum Dunes route of bland characters and actors, clinical (and lifeless) direction, and the strange need to add sympathy factor to its villains? Time will tell, but I sincerely hope that the former is true, and that PD has this movie's - and, by extension, the series' - lofty goals at its heart.

Freddy Krueger's long and bloody road back to relevance

You'd have to be working pretty hard to avoid it, but in case you missed the firestorm and seemingly endless bombardment of television ads recently, there's a remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" coming out in exactly one week's time. What the ads don't tell you, however, is that the remake is being produced by Platinum Dunes - a production company owned by Michael Bay and lorded over by Andrew Form and Brad Fuller. To put it lightly, these three gentlemen are seen with dubious distinction in the horror community, and the fact that the much-beloved, hugely successful "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise lies in their possession is a very hot-blooded topic within the internet horror community.

It's been a long time coming for a series that, for the better part of six years, was my favorite horror franchise. The last time we saw Freddy Krueger on the big screen was way back in 2003 in "Freddy vs. Jason," in and of itself a motion picture fifteen years in the making, and in this reporter's opinion everything that it had been hyped as and more. "Freddy vs. Jason" delivered the goods when it came to the grit, the gore, and the slasher flick staples that both the "Nightmare" and "Friday the 13th" series had become known for, and as Robert Englund's swan song in the Freddy role, it couldn't come any better than this.

And since then...nothing, until now. Only the "Nightmare on Elm Street" that we will all witness on April 30th is a very different animal from what we've been used to...well, ever. Firstly, this marks the first time that Englund will not be behind the red-and-black sweater, fedora, and signature burn makeup in the iconic role of Freddy. Nope - this movie's demonic dream stalker is none other than Jackie Earle Haley, a name that you likely don't know, but a face that you likely recognize. Or maybe not. Haley is the very definition of the term "character actor," a man able to seemingly vanish within roles and become characters with unbelievable precision. You may know him from "Semi-Pro," as Rorschach in the "Watchmen" feature film, or as Guerrero on the Fox TV show "Human Target." One thing he never is, however, is boring. Nonetheless, it's not Mr. Krueger that I'm worried about.

About two years ago, I had a revelation. Horror fans, by and large, consider Wes Craven's original 1984 film that launched the franchise to be a masterpiece. Having no new horror DVD's to watch on this particular June night, I dug out the Craven flick for another go and, on that night, something just leapt out at me. I was very underwhelmed by it. I'd always gone along with everyone else's assumption that it's this unparalleled classic of the horror genre, but the truth is that this is a movie that could USE a remake. Englund is awesome in his first-go as the mostly silent Krueger, and scream queen Heather Langenkamp owns as good girl Nancy Thompson, but other than that...we get static, one-dimensional characters, some very questionable dialogue, more than a few plot holes, the oft-used plot device of police officers who don't believe teenagers no matter WHAT they say, and a VERY suspect ending, even by horror movie standards.

In short, I saw loads of room for improvement, and this realization really shattered my belief system. Before that, I'd been one of the most vehement voices against remaking the slasher flicks of the '80s that were so near and dear to my heart. Since then, I've become an ardent supporter of remakes, and am much more apt to see the positive aspects of re-imagining these classic campfire scary stories for the modern generation. For starters, they always lead to a special-edition DVD of the older film.

Over the course of that summer, I grew obsessed with the prospect of a "Nightmare" remake that not only took that original movie and regurgitated the story in a modern setting, but made it its goal to treat its characters and story with as much love and respect as Craven had paid (and, in my opinion, failed at doing). I envisioned a "Nightmare on Elm Street" with a Nancy Thompson even more likable and engaging than Langenkamp's version, a cast of teens with clear, distinct personalities (as opposed to the vanilla wafers featured in the original movie), a true sense of desperation in regards to the situation that the characters in peril face, and perhaps most importantly, a truly sick, evil, irredeemable Freddy Krueger, perhaps more talky than he was in Craven's original, but nowhere NEAR the one-liner machine and antihero he became in later sequels.

Much like a serial killer, fantasizing wasn't enough, and I took a stab (pun completely intended) at writing my own screenplay for a "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake. It came out in a burst - the whole thing was completed in just six days. Since then, it's gotten some praise from online fans, and even a former film professor, it's been savaged to high heaven on simplyscripts.com, and it now sits collecting virtual dust on my computer hard drive.

God, that was almost two years ago already?

My "Nightmare" fan script was written in August of 2008, before the announcement came that Platinum Dunes had acquired the rights to the name and decided to pursue a remake. That announcement came a short time later, and since then, I've been one of the most vocal supporters of this concept, despite some of the information that has spiralled out from the set during the course of its development, writing, and production. I've been supportive because, in my opinion, this series reached its zenith with "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors," one of the most perfect horror films of all time, quickly began hitting speed bumps, and has never come CLOSE to matching that immortal third film in the series. In other words, you got the rights, PD boys, so go for it, bro.

Regardless of the movie's quality, here's hoping we get one thing out of this movie - a true horror superstar to surpass the vastly overplayed Jigsaw of the "Saw" series. Maybe I'm creating something out of nothing, but it seems like it's become this very uncool thing to be a fan of horror movies. We've become creatures who increasingly have to look either backward or overseas for our horror fixes, thus only making us seem more nerdy to the ordinary folk who populate their DVD shelves with romantic comedies and Michael Bay's actual directorial efforts.

In the '80s, it was a different story, largely due to the guy who will be a villain again a few days from now. Freddy Krueger was a pop culture icon who appeared on everything from t-shirts to bedsheets. The horror genre is in desperate need of that sort of thing at the moment - an instantly identifiable figure to attach itself to, one that is more active and tangible than Tobin Bell's smarmy and philosophical Jigsaw character (who has been DEAD SINCE THE THIRD MOVIE IN THE FRANCHISE, for Christ's sake). In essence, a star. Haley possesses the acting chops and the charisma to make Freddy Krueger a star, and by extension, make horror cool again. And if that happens, huzzah for this movie.

I've spent a lot of time in the last 20 months thinking about what I would want a remake of "Nightmare on Elm Street" to be, not only in writing that silly fan script, but since some of the more off-key possibilities about the PD film have filtered in. Possibilities that include a sympathetic portrayal of Freddy Krueger, a Nancy with severe angst issues, and the usual PD speed bump - disposable, CW-type actors and actresses. There's been a whole boatload of questions and concerns among the horror fanboys on the net as the film has progressed, mainly boiling down to one question - will this movie make an honest attempt at not only being good, but being better than its source film, or will it be just another PD yawnfest?

I'll see you all next Friday for the answer.

IHR induction #22: "Event Horizon" (1997, Paul W.S. Anderson)

Here's an interesting one for many reasons, including but not limited to:

(1) It's a HORROR FILM IN SPACE, practically a genre unto itself.

(2) It's got a fantastic score by Michael Kamen, and is one of the few horror movie soundtracks that I can replay in my head without the aid of the DVD.

(3) Captain Awesome himself Sam Neill is your starring actor. Even better, he's the villain. People remember Neill for a lot of different things - okay, that's a complete lie. Most people ONLY know him as the dude from "Jurassic Park," but in my warped world he's a horror movie deity akin to Jehovah and Ghandi combined. Or something. Long story short, if Sam "Best Thespian Ever" Neill is in a movie, I'm interested.

(4) Paul W.S. Anderson, one of the internet movie community's punching bags, is your director...and this movie doesn't suck.

That should about do it for an introduction.

*takes breath*

So despite this being a horror movie in space directed by Paul "I'm the most shameless wife pimper since Tim Burton" Anderson, it's damn near flawless, and ranks as one of my favorite scary flicks of the '90s. The acting is outstanding, the look of the film is memorable, the story is the kind of "keep it simple stupid" epic that I've grown especially fond of in this era of unnecessarily complicated action pics...and it's got Sam Neill.

What more introduction do you need? Let's go right into THE MOVIE!!

The year is 2047. A distress signal from the vessel Event Horizon has just been received, and a rescue ship - named the Lewis and Clark - is dispatched to salvage the ship and any remaining crew. One of the very cool things about this movie is that I can remember all of the characters by name - there's Miller (Laurence Fishburne), the kind-hearted leader of the team with a tragic past; there's Peters (Kathleen Quinlan), the med tech who has one of the most heartbreaking death scenes I've seen in any movie; there's Starck (Joely Richardson), the requisite blonde hottie, and, amazingly enough, several more. "Event Horizon," for a horror film (IN SPACE!), has a terrific cast as noted by those names above. Incredibly, it also has a script that does a good job endearing the characters those actors play to the audience - they're given nuances, scenes of dialogue in between the scenes of tension-building that really give us reason to care when we see these genuinely good-hearted people getting offed.

Soon enough, we're able to distinguish what exactly our antagonist in this film is supposed to be. Some people have described "Event Horizon" as a kind of strange hybrid between "Hellraiser" and "Alien," and while that's a fairly accurate statement, the thing that makes "Event Horizon" a good movie is that it takes the best parts of both of those movies and - while it doesn't quite have the glorious highs of those two universal classics - manages to to carve out its own identity. Rather than demons from hell or an external force, the villain in "Event Horizon" is never really spelled out for us. Dr. Weir (that's Sam the Man Neill for those keeping score), who has tagged along on the rescue mission, was the designer of the ship which seemed to disappear seven years before the movie's events begin. It was a major breakthrough in space travel, giving travelers the ability to go from point A to point B by traveling through a kind of alternate dimension, hence the name of the ship. There's only one thing that Weir failed to consider - what exactly is in said alternate dimension?

The middle sections of "Event Horizon," where its true greatness lies, are made up of several fascinating sections. Almost every character is given back story and a few scenes of alone time. It's here where we learn that Quinlan's med tech had a child who died, where we learn about Sam Neill's wife committing suicide, where we get what's actually one of screendom's better soliloquys from Fishburne about the ill-fated rescue mission he took part in years prior to the events depicted in "Event Horizon." Its notable that all of the characters in this horror film are adults, and that many of them are older than 40. While the Horror Nerd loves him some slasher films, it's quite refreshing seeing this tactic played out in films of this nature from time to time. More specifically, in a day and age where almost all horror films employ the tactic of "every character is a gigantic douchebag with the exception of one" to nonperfection, this movie makes the step of making EVERY character likable, even the one who will turn into its eventual villain.

This is also quite the scary film. In returning from the alternate reality, the ship has brought back a presence - demons, ghosts, even the nature of evil itself seems to be contained on the ship. Like some sort of space-age Freddy Krueger, this presence also recognizes each victim's personal worst fears, and uses this strategy to (1) psyche out the characters, and (2) murder them at their peak of vulnerability. The ship's energy seems to overtake Weir, the most shattered and vulnerable of the characters. This decision isn't an accident, as it affords Neill to give us one of his trademark crazy characters, and in the movie's gore-laden finale Weir is one bad S.O.B.

In short, this is a pretty damn good movie. Without exaggeration, I've seen at least a dozen "rescue crew in space meets deadly entity" movies, and with the exception of the first two "Alien" films, this is the best, mainly due to the treatment that it gives its characters and the script (which reportedly received a re-punch from Andrew Kevin Walker, the scribe behind the 1995 classic "Se7en"). When I first saw this movie in 1997 (at the age of 14, at the first party I ever attended where actual, live human females my own age were also present) it really stuck out in my mind as something special, and as a teen first starting to get into this horror thing pretty hardcore, I took note of the director's name. I would go see his next movie, "Soldier" with Kurt Russell, and consider it a temporary setback. Then I saw "Resident Evil," the movie that took the most terrifying video game of all time - immersive, eerie and claustrophibic just like all the "Night of the Living Dead" clones badly wished they could be - and turned it into just another asskicking chick vehicle. And then came "AvP," which took the Alien and Predator film franchises and effectively ruined the mythologies of both. Paul, once upon a time you were a kickass horror guy who picked a good script and shot it damn well. Ever thought about going back to your roots?

IHR induction #21: "Carrie" (1976, Brian De Palma)

I knew that this movie would pop up in my little pea-brain sooner or later. Right now, it's springtime in Minnesota (not to be confused with Springtime for Hitler), and for some stupid reason this fact always makes me think back to high school. You know, those days when I would walk home from Worthington High (because yes, I lived within walking distance of the place) to an often empty home, throw my neglected bookbag on my bed, and pop on some horror flicks. The kids at school were getting ready for prom, but I was having none of it (or just wasn't cool enough to get asked by anybody, 'cus you know I wasn't the one doing the asking). So get ready to come full circle, kids - spring always reminds me of high school prom season, and there's no more memorable prom then the one in this particular movie...

I've heard from a few people that enjoyment of Brian De Palma's unbelievable classic "Carrie" is dependent on two things: (1) your age when you first see it, and (2) how many horror films you've seen before it. While this is true for many other movies ("Texas Chain Saw Massacre" most primarily), I hereby call B.S. on the theory as it goes for "Carrie." My first viewing of this film occurred in (of course) the spring of 1998, when I was in eighth grade. As is the case with many other horror films, I saw it first via Joe Bob Briggs and MonsterVision, with my beer-drinking uncle on TV making the tension infinitely more bearable via his never-ending parade of hilarious antics and fascinating backstage stuff in between the commercial breaks. I was fascinated by the movie then, as it was one of the first high-school related films I'd seen that actually dealt with the experience in a realistic way (despite all that pesky stuff about psychokinesis) instead of the gushy romantic Hollywoodized way that I'd become accustomed to seeing on Fox TV shows. Put more simply, it was also scary as hell, and continues to be to this day.

"Carrie" is based on the first nationally published novel by horror master Stephen King, and was also the first film adaptation (or "adaption," as a lot of people are now fond of saying) of his novels. Brian De Palma, the man responsible for this movie, was already a pretty experienced guy when it came to horror. Two of his earlier movies, "Sisters" and "Phantom of the Paradise," are now widely considered early-'70s horror classics, and by the time this beast hit theaters in 1976 he had already perfected his signature techniques that would grant the guy pretty hefty paydays in the future. Most notably, De Palma has a huge hard-on for Alfred Hitchcock. Like, a huge one. Watching his movies can send you through fits of deja vu, because a LOT of the camerawork is eerily reminiscent of the Master's. This movie in particular has some doozies, but we'll get to them later. Suffice to say, De Palma is a guy who makes horror movies who is ALSO genuinely a fan of the genre, so mazel tov to him.

This is also one of the most faithful translations from book to screen in the entire Stephen King catalogue, so a full plot recap isn't really necessary, but here we go anyway just to annoy you.

THE MOVIE!!

The movie wastes little time introducing us to Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), an ostracized, bullied teenage girl, and the immensely cruel and superficial world of girls depicted in this film. While showering after gym class, Carrie has her first period, and doesn't know what is happening to her. The other girls throw tampons and rags at her, and begin laughing hysterically at how terrified Carrie is of all the blood on the ground.

Carrie's world is a sad one. Her only friend seems to be Miss Collins (Betty Buckley), her gym teacher and a kind soul who takes Carrie under her wing. Her mother Margaret (Piper Laurie, and wow what a performance she gives) is a religious nutjob who believes all human beings, and all women especially, to be evil, nasty creatures. When Carrie tells her about her period, Margaret's reaction is that Carrie has sinned, as the coming of blood is a representation of inner evil. These scenes pack a genuine punch; as someone who didn't have the greatest experiences in junior high, I related to Carrie on a very emotional level when I first saw the film, but at least I had home as a solace. Carrie White doesn't even have that level of support, and in a stirring and scary early scene, she is given Margaret's preferred form of punishment - locked in a closet with a huge, menacing Crucifix for hours on end.

The film's alternate characters are no less fleshed out. The most memorable is Chris (Nancy Allen, who would later appear in De Palma's magnum opus "Dressed to Kill"), the most evil and cruel of all Carrie's tormentors, who seems to hate Carrie in a very virulent way. Her boyfriend, by the way, is played by John Travolta in an early pre-"Grease" performance. It's easy to see how he became a big star, as he melts right in to the smug, self-important character seamlessly and makes you forget you're seeing someone who is now a super-duper big deal. There's also Sue Snell (Amy Irving), a nice girl who takes pity on Carrie and asks her own boyfriend (William Katt) to take Carrie to the prom as a sort of atonement for her own guilty conscience in taking part in the prolonged torture of Carrie.

If you're a casual cinephile, you likely know some of those names in parentheses above. Thus, this goes without saying, but "Carrie" is a movie with fantastic acting across the board. Every principal cast member absolutely nails their character, but none more than Spacek, which is quite amazing considering that she was 29 when she filmed this movie. In the hands of the wrong actress, the character of Carrie White could even be dislikable. Some audience members could find the character annoying or whiny, but Spacek is able to reach right through the screen and captivate us. She is meek, but not in a grating or beat-you-over-the-head way. We can tell that her yearnings are both fantastical and realistic, and that she is, at heart, a good person. It's no wonder that she would go on to win an Academy Award for best actress a few years later for "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Throughout the movie, there are interludes that show us the menace underneath Carrie's very meek exterior, however. Carrie has telekinetic ability (read: the ability to move objects with her mind). She experiments with this ability in the privacy of her own home, and there are a few incidents where her power comes into play in the company of others (in the opening shower scene, for example, she blows up a light bulb with the force of her mind). Her mother discovers this, and tells her that it is something that she must lock away and never use, believing it (as everything else) to be the product of Satan. For her own part, Carrie seems to view the ability with a quiet restraint, even slightly scared of the things that she could do.

This being a horror film, however, there are other characters who set the wheels of this movie's horrific third act in motion. When Chris finds out that Carrie is going to the prom with a handsome guy, she decides to ruin the experience, dumping a bucket full of pig's blood on Carrie during her moment of redemption in front of the school. And if you're a horror fan, you know what happens next. They're all gonna laugh at you, Carrie...

No doubt, there are several modern horror fans who likely consider this film boring or dated. It's not a scary flick for those with short attention spans. Nope, what "Carrie" is is yet another example of the slow burn, perhaps the BEST one ever played out on film. For the vast majority of "Carrie," we experience the high school heartbreak and drama right along with Carrie White, the telekinetic power she possesses lurking underneath the surface of the film as a kind of tea kettle gathering steam. It builds and builds and builds, as Spacek and Katt enjoy their time together at the prom. These scenes go on for FAR longer than we would have expected, including one very dizzying (and Hitchcock RIPOFF) dance scene where the camera spins around them in very disconcerting fashion.

And then that bucket of blood falls, and the real movie begins.

These closing chapters of "Carrie" take up perhaps fifteen minutes of screen time, but they are without a doubt some of the most riveting passages of any horror film you will ever see. It's a closing section of a film that is nothing short of absolute perfection, taking in everything in the movie that had occurred before it and shoving it right back in our faces. This movie had the balls to have a heroine who also, in a way, turned out to be the villain, although when Carrie gets her revenge at the prom, we are revolted but also in a way grateful. In this way, this is really a textbook three-act screenplay structure played out before us. It builds up things that we want to see, and then pays them off in a very satisfying fashion.

In the annals of Stephen King-based horror films, "Carrie" is right up there with the greats (it's arguably the equal of "Pet Sematary" and, in my opinion, better than the Kubrick version of "The Shining"), and in the annals of high school films there are few equals. It's well-acted, well-directed, well-written, very heartfelt, and a very scary film that plays your emotions like Hitchcock's proverbial piano played audiences, and a movie that feels just as fresh and relevant today as it did almost thirty-five years ago. An essential for horror fans and movie fans at large.