How many malevolent pumpkins out of ten will I award to each installment of Freddy's saga? Time to find out!
A Nightmare on Elm St (1984) : The original, the necessity, the perennial. This first installment to the classic horror franchise introduces Freddy amidst some truly shocking and disturbing death scenes. Robert Englund actually seemed scary at this point (in later films, he was mostly just funny), and though Freddy is hammy, he has genuine menace and his shenanigans have horrific heft.
Nancy is clearly the best final girl of the whole series, and she's at her trembling-yet-resilient best here. We also get Nancy's Dad, the creepy/intriguing Nancy's Mom backstory, and a surprise switch-up ending that is possibly even better than the ending of Friday the 13th. And of course, Depp.
10 malevolent pumpkins out of ten.
A Nightmare on Elm St 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) : This one seems to get a lot of undeserved flack from the fanbase, most likely, as far as I can tell, due to not being as memorably amazing as 1 and 3, and not as memorably terrible as Freddy's Dead. It reminds me of how Star Trek fans often act about The Search for Spock: there's nothing to complain about, but its transitional nature irks some people to no end.
It's just kind of there, but while it's there, it does have some seriously cute, likable teens, a decent overall plotline, and a fun feel. Underrated!
8 malevolent pumpkins out of ten.
A Nightmare on Elm St 3: Dream Warriors (1987) : Well-known to be effing amazing in every way, this is more of a direct sequel to the first film than Part 2 was. Nancy returns, and we see Heather Langenkamp join up with Patricia Arquette in one of the strongest young casts of the franchise. The crew of Dream Warriors are brave kids who take Freddy on with intelligence and guts. This makes the various suspense sequences and death scenes hit home more than they do in most installments.
Special Soundtrack Award: "Dream Warriors" by Dokken. Astoundingly brilliant.
10 malevolent pumpkins out of ten.
A Nightmare on Elm St 4: The Dream Master (1988) : I know it's controversial of me, but I like this one just as much as 1 and 3. Sure, the character of Kristen is recast from Patricia Arquette to Tuesday Knight, but I mean - who doesn't love Tuesday Knight?! Okay, well, I do. She did a great job of taking over the character, mainly because -Special Soundtrack Award! -
- she sings "Running from this Nightmare," which is clearly amazing. I also love the character of Alice, who is introduced here, and Part 4 as a whole is very intriguing, 80s-tastic, and delightful.
Special Soundtrack Award redux!
I mean, Good Lord! If Part 4 was only a soundtrack, it would still be one of the best!
10 malevolent pumpkins out of ten.A Nightmare on Elm St 5: The Dream Child (1989) Yeaaahhh....this is clearly where things started to go downhill, but luckily twas a slow downward descent, as Part 5 has its merits. It's a steep drop from Part 4, but not in any way comparable to the dreck of Part 6.
What Part 5 has going for it: Alice returns! Freddy's backstory! Freddy versus an unborn child! One of the most outstandingly inappropriate confrontations between a teen mom-to-be and the grandparents of the unborn child, ever! And my personal favorite: unborn super-dream-baby v.s. baby Freddy on Freddy's turf!
This all sounds fantastic, and frankly, it is, but unfortunately there are some very slow bits in between. I guess we can forgive Freddy's backstory (about his Mom) being so incredibly unrealistic in every way, because this is a NOES movie, after all. Less forgivable are the somewhat less interesting teen characters (fun teen characters are what buoy these movies. Aside from Freddy, obviously. But the point is, we need to care a little bit when these teenagers die.). The momentum in 5 is a bit sluggish, but it's still cool.
8 malevolent pumpkins out of ten.
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) : It can't be a coincidence that almost as soon as the 90's hit, a terrible NOES movie came out. In the horror genre, I call the '90s the Age of Uncertainly. Outside of the Age of Excess, the '80's, Freddy didn't know how to function (or clearly, at least, the writers didn't). Freddy's Dead is an exercise in badness on all fronts. It's just terrible. It doesn't have the merit of being so-bad-it's-good, because it can't even muster that much effort or care for itself, which is just insulting to the viewer and to its predecessors' fine legacy. This also has the worst cast out of the whole franchise.
I suppose it deserves a Special Soundtrack Award junior for the early GooGoo Dolls songs, which actually are kind of neat.
2 malevolent pumpkins out of ten, which is being generous.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994): From one of the worst to one of the best! New Nightmare is a burst of welcome creativity and fascinating, fourth-wall-breaking charisma. This movie has it all: Langenkamp is back, as herself, the line between our world and the movie world / Freddy's possible real existence is rendered blurry in surprisingly believable ways - plus we get awesome scenes of Wes Craven as himself, Englund as himself, and Dude that plays Nancy's Dad and Rashid Ahmed on Dynastyas himself.
This is basically a horror version of The Neverending Story, and it's just as superb as that makes it sound.
10 malevolent pumpkins out of ten.
Freddy v.s. Jason (2003) : It may lack the teeth of New Nightmare and mark a return to unabashed silliness, but FVJ is a fabulous modern horror classic.
I guess there are some people out there who need more than just the fact that this isFreddy versus Jason (!!!) to make them love this movie. Okay, well how about Ginger Snaps in a backwards baseball cap? How about some of the best dialogue everrrr?
Examples: "Babe, come on. You know I don't like to be touched after."
"Dude, that goalie was pissed."
"Welcome to my world, bitch!"
After a sad debacle in Freddy's Dead (shudder - worst female lead actress ever!), we finally have a new female heroine worthy of taking on not only Freddy, but Jason, too! Monica Keena is terrific in this film. Plus, you also get a sassy, red-highlights-tastic Kelly Rowland. So great. So epic.
9 malevolent pumpkins out of ten.
A Nightmare on Elm St Remake (2010)
What an annoying waste of a great cast and a fun new opportunity. This is awful. It's probably sucky in equal parts due to being a supposed remake of a movie that should never have been remade, due to Rooney Mara's disdain of the project being telecast across her face in every scene, and due to the presence of Beaver from Veronica Mars. But we have Rorschach as Freddy here! We have Katie Cassidy! How did this go so wrong?Someone needs to save this franchise from its current status in limbo, and someone needs to save the entire horror genre in general from its strange overall limbo state, ASAP!
1 malevolent pumpkin out of ten, the entire pumpkin of which is earned by Katie Cassidy.
