a nightmare on elm street - part 3 : dream warriors (1987)

woe is me, im quickly tiring of the task at hand.

the third in the "nightmare on elm street series" comes equiped with a bigger budget, more gruesome death sequences and an arquette (patricia). alas it lacks one thing above all else - dignity. while the effects are much better the soul of the original film seems lost. what really annoys me is that the subtitle; dream warriors, suggests that this entry into the series could have been what james cameron's ''aliens'' was to the original "alien", in the sense that i expected more. i wanted to see a group of "dream warriors" step into freddy's world and cause all manner of excitement, alas i was left with a more depressing "breakfast club"-band of ragtag misfits. theres also lots of patronising hugging and screeching idiots, its like a john hughes directed episode of scooby doo.

a nightmare on elm street - part 2 : freddy's revenge (1985)

part two of the franchise see's freddy krueger inhabiting the body of the teenage son belonging to the new family occupying 1428 elm street. with the exception of a genuinely disturbing opening nightmare, involving a schoolbus seeing the ground beneath it literally disappear, the film is fairly run of the mill in terms of the slasher genre. the brief running time meant that the film wasnt as arduous as its predecessor, but to be honest thats pretty much the only saving grace.

i really cannot wait to be through with the bloody (pun intended) slasher genre.

a nightmare on elm street (1984)

as a child i was always fascinated with the concept of fred krueger, the paedophile janitor and former resident of elm street. im not sure why exactly, but in retrospect thats a tad concerning. my upcoming masters in film theory dictates that i need to know the slasher genre thoroughly, and as i have very little knowledge of the genre, aside from a slight childhood obsession amounting to no more than a film poster on my bedroom wall and the overactive imagination of a ten year old, i decided to check out a few of the key titles. with that in mind i picked up the entire 7 film elm street series, with a view to check out the friday the 13th series and the scream series when finished.

having never sat through an entire "a nightmare on elm street" film in its entirety i entered the first film with the following preconception; the first film is genuinely good, while the rest are pretty awful. post-screening, and taking that in mind i am absolutely dreading the remainder of the series. while wes craven's film wasnt particularly bad it was just deathly dull. there was a point around half way through where i suddenly regretted the task of watching all seven films that i had undertaken. alas for the sake of my studies i will endeaver onwards.

despite climaxing with the most ridiculous ending to a film iv seen in a long time, taking the minute budget at hand into account the film really isnt that bad, especially when compared to the rest of the post-"halloween" slasher counterfitting that was going on at the time.