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Victim of The Night

Freddy is bummed out because no one's afraid of him anymore on Elm Street so he can't kill children in their nightmares so he resurrects Jason Voorhees to go ramp up the fear level so he can draw power from it so he can return. So. Lotta "So" in this movie. Jason kills somebody which reintroduces fear to some alleged teenagers who start to fall asleep afraid (?) so Freddy can now invade their dreams and at first just kinda scares 'em until Jason has drummed up enough fear for him to finally be ready to kill someone. But then Jason kills them first. So Now Freddy's pissed.
At least that was what was going on when I gave up on this film.
What an unbelievable piece of **** this movie is.
Look at the quality of the films I have watched thus far this month. And this is the one I simply could not get through. That's how bad it is. Ghoulies was totally doable, this movie stinks on ice.
I saw this in the theater with the woman who would become my wife and then ex-wife and honestly if this is the movie I took her to, no wonder she never trusted me. I remember that I thought it survived being a complete ****-show back then but only by a hair and that I probably should never re-visit it. I was right. On the latter.
This movie sucks in so many ways it almost feels silly naming them. But then again, it also feels like a failure not to call it all out. I will say that there is a kernel of an idea here, at least an idea for how to get these two characters on screen and in conflict. But beyond that kernel it all goes so wrong.
The script is bad, the acting's terrible. I almost feel like those two things just have to be given with this movie so we can get on to the real disappointments.
The studio spent $30M on this movie. Thirty million dollars, in 2003 dollars mind you, and this whole movie looks like DTV. And I don't just mean the CGI that makes you, not far into this movie at all, question whether you can actually even watch this. Before it somehow gets worse. Why is there this much (2003-era) CGI in a horror movie?! This is not $30M worth of FX. But that's almost just a symptom of how low-brow the entire production is. I mean the production is poor. No, it's abysmal. This whole movie looks and feels like an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Except every episode of Buffy was better than this film. It may be 2003 but this looks like a lesser-budget movie from 1993. Like, The Craft, made on half the budget in 1996 actually looks, sounds, and feels much better than this turd.
And just to be clear, this is bad even for a Jason or Freddy movie. I would absolutely, without question, prefer to watch Jason Goes To Hell over this movie 10 out of 10 times.
Anyway, I couldn't finish it. I made it about half way and felt like I should have quit sooner and also couldn't imagine how they were gonna milk another 45 or so minutes out of it.
No one should ever watch this movie under any circumstances. Everything you've seen is better.



Victim of The Night
Freddy vs Jason has always been one of the worst in the franchise, and the fact this isn't common gospel has always been baffling to me. It's worthless.
It's been a long time since I've seen Jason X or any of the Nightmares after The Dream Master but I would say that this film was easily the worst of the 14 Jason/Freddy films that I've seen recently enough to include. Easily.
What a terrible, pitiful movie.



It's been a long time since I've seen Jason X or any of the Nightmares after The Dream Master but I would say that this film was easily the worst of the 14 Jason/Freddy films that I've seen recently enough to include. Easily.
What a terrible, pitiful movie.

I would still probably put it above Nightmare 5 and Jason Goes to Hell. I actively hated those movies. Jason v Freddy I think is just mostly a forgettable nothing (it's own brand of crime), and I only ever think of it when people dare to tell me how its one of the better ones while they are within shouting distance to me.



Victim of The Night
I would still probably put it above Nightmare 5 and Jason Goes to Hell. I actively hated those movies. Jason v Freddy I think is just mostly a forgettable nothing (it's own brand of crime), and I only ever think of it when people dare to tell me how its one of the better ones while they are within shouting distance to me.
I recently saw Jason Goes To Hell and in that case Jason definitely goes above FvJ. Because at least hate is a better emotion than derision and pity which is all I had for FvJ. Like I say, I only turn off a movie without finishing it about once every 3-4 years. And I felt like I stuck with this one far too long, frankly.
Though now I am tempted to watch Nightmare 5.



I recently saw Jason Goes To Hell and in that case Jason definitely goes above FvJ. Because at least hate is a better emotion than derision and pity which is all I had for FvJ. Like I say, I only turn off a movie without finishing it about once every 3-4 years. And I felt like I stuck with this one far too long, frankly.
Though now I am tempted to watch Nightmare 5.

My Nightmare 5 hate is based on me finally seeing one in the theatre when it was released, and it being easily the most boring uneventful one of the franchise (that I've seen, it ended me watching anymore). It's probably not related to it be bad in any noteworthy way beyond a 13 year old squirming impatiently in their seat. But I was angry, considering how amazing I thought part 4 was at the time.



Victim of The Night
My Nightmare 5 hate is based on me finally seeing one in the theatre when it was released, and it being easily the most boring uneventful one of the franchise (that I've seen, it ended me watching anymore). It's probably not related to it be bad in any noteworthy way beyond a 13 year old squirming impatiently in their seat. But I was angry, considering how amazing I thought part 4 was at the time.
Well, honestly, I thought they gave up the ghost with Dream Warriors (which many people seem to love), so I dunno...



Well, honestly, I thought they gave up the ghost with Dream Warriors (which many people seem to love), so I dunno...
What about New Nightmare, though?



Victim of The Night
What about New Nightmare, though?
I mean, I thought it was better than the series had been for a while but was it actually good? I honestly don't remember, I know I've never really felt like going back to it.



I mean, I thought it was better than the series had been for a while but was it actually good? I honestly don't remember, I know I've never really felt like going back to it.
I think that it is actively fine, and I really like Englund's performance in it.



Well, honestly, I thought they gave up the ghost with Dream Warriors (which many people seem to love), so I dunno...

I think how one takes the way they revamp the series with 3 depends on how one views the original. I think its far from immaculate, even though it's fine. It has a lot of great ideas, a handful of great moments and a great central performance, but Craven has such a muddy hand at directing, he never brings me into the world it creates outside of fits and starts. And I think for that movie to work for me, I have to believe in its nightmare vision. It never gets there for me. If this had been some movie I had just stumbled on, without any fanfare surrounding it, I would probably have viewed it as an undiscovered gem. But considering its seminal status, I rank it pretty low on the classic scale.



Dream Warriors takes the same elements, and while it abandons most of the dread Craven went for in the original, they turn it into some kind of kitschy 80's nightmare, with Freddy as some kind of disfigured action hero. It's bound to annoy devotees of the original, because it is nothing like that. In fact, it undoes the mystique of the Krueger character. But I'm fine with that. For me Dream Warriors is a seminal 80's classic, even if it fails as an actual horror movie.



The Dream Master just takes those same elements and ratchets up the absurdity of them, which is saying a lot because Warriors was already teetering pretty close to ridiculous as is. Is it a particularly good movies? I don't know, maybe, maybe not. But I don't think it deserves the bad rep it seems to get from both sides of the Elm Street divide. I think it is a perfectly fitting sequel to the revamping part three does. Of course its not nearly as good as that one, but I think there is a lot of fun to be had if you just view it as a template for a director and his effects department to mess around with a bunch of goofy concepts.



Part 5 is just like 3 or 4, with all of the fun and imagination taken out. It gives us a good idea how bad those movies would have been without the playful factor. It's extremely underwhelming (even though I haven't seen it since its theatrical run, and so maybe I'm being harsh on it due to the expecations I had)



Victim of The Night
I think how one takes the way they revamp the series with 3 depends on how one views the original. I think its far from immaculate, even though it's fine. It has a lot of great ideas, a handful of great moments and a great central performance, but Craven has such a muddy hand at directing, he never brings me into the world it creates outside of fits and starts. And I think for that movie to work for me, I have to believe in its nightmare vision. It never gets there for me. If this had been some movie I had just stumbled on, without any fanfare surrounding it, I would probably have viewed it as an undiscovered gem. But considering its seminal status, I rank it pretty low on the classic scale.



Dream Warriors takes the same elements, and while it abandons most of the dread Craven went for in the original, they turn it into some kind of kitschy 80's nightmare, with Freddy as some kind of disfigured action hero. It's bound to annoy devotees of the original, because it is nothing like that. In fact, it undoes the mystique of the Krueger character. But I'm fine with that. For me Dream Warriors is a seminal 80's classic, even if it fails as an actual horror movie.



The Dream Master just takes those same elements and ratchets up the absurdity of them, which is saying a lot because Warriors was already teetering pretty close to ridiculous as is. Is it a particularly good movies? I don't know, maybe, maybe not. But I don't think it deserves the bad rep it seems to get from both sides of the Elm Street divide. I think it is a perfectly fitting sequel to the revamping part three does. Of course its not nearly as good as that one, but I think there is a lot of fun to be had if you just view it as a template for a director and his effects department to mess around with a bunch of goofy concepts.



Part 5 is just like 3 or 4, with all of the fun and imagination taken out. It gives us a good idea how bad those movies would have been without the playful factor. It's extremely underwhelming (even though I haven't seen it since its theatrical run, and so maybe I'm being harsh on it due to the expecations I had)
I believed the original's nightmare vision after about 20 seconds. To me, the opening of ANoES is one of the scariest in cinematic history, actually better than his 13-minute opening of Scream (which I watched last night, the opening, not the whole film). It reminds me of an actual nightmare and a really, really scary one. The scene in the alleyway and the back of the house only further elevates the film to absolutely terrifying. When I think of the scariest scenes I've ever seen, the first time I saw Freddy stretch his arms all the way across the alley and drag his claws on the metal... I basically **** myself.
I believe I've told the story before on previous forums about my brother, who was considered a tough and genuinely dangerous kid. Like, people were afraid of him, not like he was some weirdo, but afraid for their safety if they crossed him, even at 15 years old. He went to see A Nightmare On Elm Street in the theater and he could not sleep for days. My mother had to talk him down, basically. That's how scary it actually was in the context of its time.
I put the original Nightmare on a very high pedestal and I believe that its first two acts are among the best in Horror history (though I can admit that the third is a typical Craven slip-up, not bad enough to sink the film, though), it's so inventive compared to everything else that was being done at the time, Freddy is terrifying and iconic, and the whole thing is just one of my favorite horror experiences ever.
Then the second film, while obviously not as good, still has quite an edge to it. It's Real Horror, not Camp Horror as its successor would jarringly jump to. I didn't love the direction they decided to take to not be redundant, but I think they should have just made a slightly higher-budget version of the first one. It may not be a good movie, but it is bloody and mean and Krueger is a vicious, merciless, remorseless killer. Which is how he should be.
When I saw the Dream Warriors I was, to put it simply, disgusted. Appalled and infuriated. I thought, "Oh, so we're throwing the whole thing out the window in favor of 80s cheese-camp. The iconic character, as we knew him, is gone and this game-show host version of him is what we're doing. Great." I hated the movie with a passion. I've gone back and re-watched it several times trying to be open-minded, and I've been able to get over my deep, deep disappointment about the direction they took the character... but the movie's constant quipping and just silly/stupid kills (not to mention the late-80s cheese dripping from every frame and every note of the soundtrack, though I like Dokken's song) take any sense of it actually being scary completely out of the film (I don't remember the film being scary for a single frame) and keep me from being able to enjoy it in any way.
I actually prefer The Dream Master to Dream Warriors because it has kinda let go of any association with the original by that point and is so all-in on its ridiculousness and also has that cool time-loop bit. For some reason, I was able to let it all go with this movie and accept that this was the New Freddy and that the Real Freddy died at the end of Freddy's Revenge.
I saw the fifth one at some point but don't remember it. Really. Not at all.
I am only just discovering as I read for this response, that there was a SIXTH one before New Nightmare.
We've talked about NN, I think I agree with Takoma's take, it was "fine", perhaps slightly elevated by England.
I've told you what I think of Fvs.J above, just a pathetic film. That's the word I meant, not pitiful, which would suggest that it deserves pity, but pathetic.
Now Michael Bay's remake is truly one of the worst remakes of all time and one of the worst horror movies I've ever seen, but that was going around at the time. I actually think, as bad as the remake was, I probably liked it more than Freddy vs. Jason.



Victim of The Night
I think if I were going to watch them again, I would only watch ANoES, Freddy's Revenge, The Dream Master, and A New Nightmare.
And lament what might have been.



Victim of The Night
Posting stalled by Imgur failure.
Will be back as soon as I get it sorted out.



Victim of The Night

Inspired by our recent discussion, I decided to take a look at one of the cartoon-Freddy-era films that I either had never seen or hadn't seen in a very long time and had mostly or completely forgotten about.
Since I kinda loathe Dream Warriors and have seen The Dream Master within the last few years, I thought I'd take a flyer (taking a lotta flyers this month) on The Dream Child.
I mean, considering what else I've watched this month... how bad could it be?
And, while those may sound like Famous Last Words, honestly... I've seen worse.
The story here leans on the previous film in which one of Freddy's would-be victims turns out, in the end, to be better at manipulating dreams than he is. Or something like that. And I think there's a kind of karate-fight or something. Maybe in a church? I can't remember. It was after that one girl (since these 20-somethings are supposed to be in high school) was lifting weights and then turned into a cockroach.
Anyway, in this one, the girl who kicked Freddy's ass in the previous film gets pregnant and because embryos dream (?) Freddy is able to get back into the world or something and of course this time is even more powerful or something. Because he can kill people when they're not asleep, I guess? At least this one guy on a motorcycle, who the motorcycle, possessed by Freddy, assimilates into a sort of dying borg thingy, seemed to be awake when he died. I dunno. Anyway, Freddy's back and he's killing high school kids again but then also something with the unborn child something something, an abandoned insane asylum, oh!, and there's a nun who got gang-raped by inmates of the asylum who is Freddy's mom (?!). And, obviously, she's the key to the whole thing.
Obviously, there was the works of Shakespeare and then there was The Dream Child.
And yet... there's something about this that really isn't that bad. Dare I say, this one actually had things about it that were... good?
Really, the design of the film really looks and feels like what The Dream Warriors was kinda going for but missed. It's super-Dutch Angly, and colorful like Beetlejuice, and there's asylums and churches and huge cracks in walls and stuff like that. I mean, it's low-budget, but on the budget, you've definitely seen a lot less imaginative design.
I'm really gonna harp on the design here because I can't tell you that this story is actually good. I can tell you that the acting is terrible. Like, really terrible. I said this in an earlier post but I'll reiterate it here:
If there are so many people trying to become actors, why can't studio-budgeted productions get actors who are at least minimally competent? Minimally. Like they have any business acting at all and aren't worse than when that guy from the football team (who couldn't act) had to be in a play to improve his extra-curriculars so he could get that scholarship and play more football?
I mean, there's this one guy, Mark, who is played by an "actor" name of Joe Seely. Yes, I am calling out an actor. This guy may be the worst I've seen in a feature film. He should never have even tried acting at the high school level so what the **** was he doing in a film that ostensibly ****-tons of people answered a casting call for? How did Joe Seely get this role in this movie?! How did Joe Seely get any role in any movie?! Wooley wants to know.
Anyway, despite all this badness, and I wanna be clear, there's plenty from the story in general (what happened to that whole side-plot about the the main character's deceased boyfriend's parents' threatening to take legal action to take the baby away from her?), to cringe-inducing dialogue - and by the way, I didn't realize that Freddy Krueger actually ended all his quips with "bitch", I thought that was just a parody thing Rick and Morty were doing - to the terrible acting... and yet... I finished it.
Which is more than we can say for Freddy vs. Jason.
And I'm actually not sorry I did.



I mean, I thought it was better than the series had been for a while but was it actually good? I honestly don't remember, I know I've never really felt like going back to it.
I mean, it's not great, mostly because of how awful the kid is in it, but it's got some neat moments and I gotta respect Craven for trying to take back control of his creation and make it scary again.


I probably should sit my ass down and watch 4/5/6 eventually. I've seen the first 3 and New Nightmare, and while the original is the only stone cold classic in the lot (Crumbsroom quibbles with Craven's direction, but I think some of the roughness makes it feel dreamier than if he went overtly for a dreamlike feel; plus, Nancy rules), but I don't dislike any of them (not even 2).



Victim of The Night
I mean, it's not great, mostly because of how awful the kid is in it, but it's got some neat moments and I gotta respect Craven for trying to take back control of his creation and make it scary again.


I probably should sit my ass down and watch 4/5/6 eventually. I've seen the first 3 and New Nightmare, and while the original is the only stone cold classic in the lot (Crumbsroom quibbles with Craven's direction, but I think some of the roughness makes it feel dreamier than if he went overtly for a dreamlike feel; plus, Nancy rules), but I don't dislike any of them (not even 2).
We are of one mind on this.
I agree whole-heartedly about Craven's direction, I love Nancy, and I have a certain affection for 2 that is not just nostalgia. I like that it's mean.
I would say that if you enjoyed the camp silliness of Dream Warriors then, while The Dream Master is a step down in some ways, it is a step up in others and while The Dream Child is not a good movie, in some specific ways it's probably better than 3 or 4. In others, maybe not. But really, if you're aware going in that you're going to get ridiculous, like Freddy on a beach in Wayfarers ridiculous, then 4 and 5 are possibly a thing.
I saw a few minutes of 6, like in the middle, and was just like, "nope".



I didn't realize that Freddy Krueger actually ended all his quips with "bitch"
He welcomed us to Prime Time in Part 3, and we never left.



I haven't seen anything beyond Dream Warriors in probably more than 15 years, but I always remember Freddy's Dead as the worst from the bunch. Dream Master and Dream Child are just a blur to me. I don't remember anything other than them trying to explore the background of Freddy's mother.
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Victim of The Night
I haven't seen anything beyond Dream Warriors in probably more than 15 years, but I always remember Freddy's Dead as the worst from the bunch. Dream Master and Dream Child are just a blur to me. I don't remember anything other than them trying to explore the background of Freddy's mother.
Yeah, they really feel, especially since they have the same protagonist, like two chapters of the same movie.