Review: Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Before I start this review, let me address the elephant in the room when it comes to today's trend in horror movies: the remake. I grew up watching the staples of the horror genre: A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Hellraiser, and of course the gaggle of sequels churned out by each franchise. So to have to sit and watch Michael "Make Things Go Boom" Bay gobble up all of the rights to these movies just so he can profit off of the name is pretty heart-wrenching. You know damn well the movies won't be as good as the original, but the name has the power to make us buy a ticket even though we will probably walk away disappointed. And here is where I think Michael Bay has horror fans of my generation by the balls. Being born in 1984, I wasn't even alive for the premiere of most of these movies, and I was way too young to go have my parents take me to the theater to see any of the sequels. So, I had to make do either waiting for them to come out on TV or by renting them on video. I never really got to experience the event of going out, cheerily buying overpriced popcorn, and seeing these icons on the big screen. The remakes coming out today give us a chance to do so.

Now when it comes specifically to remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street, there were a couple of other factors that intrigued me. Firstly, modern special effects would allow for more creativity when playing with the dream sequences in the movie. Even though the effects in the original movie were pretty damn creative for their day, I could see a case for improved visuals with updated technology and I wanted to see if director Samuel Bayer could utilize them well. After watching the movie, I can say that in some ways he did, and in some ways he really, reeeeeeally didn't. When it came to developing a frightening atmosphere, the effects were right on the mark. We see a classroom full of students disintegrate into ash as one of the teens (I really don't feel like remembering who was who) falls asleep during school. We watch blood burst in a torrent from the ceiling (a nod to the blood volcano from the original, perhaps?). And the line between reality and dream is constantly blurring in a way that just wasn't possible when the original movie was produced. However, as often happens in horror movies nowadays, computer-generated imagery (CGI) was very overused. The drawback to CGI is that 9 times out of 10, I can tell that it's CGI. Freddy's make up is the prime example for this movie. I read that they were going for a look that more closely resembled the effects of being badly burned which I supposed they needed to do through CGI, but if you know that's what you're looking at then it's that much harder to pretend it's real and get lost in the movie.

This shit is seamless...as long as I don't move or speak.

Speaking of Freddy, the other thing that interested me about the new Nightmare was the choice of Jackie Earle Haley as the new Freddy Krueger. Now, for most fans of the original movies, casting someone other than Robert Englund as Freddy automatically counts for strikes one, two, and three. But if they were going to recast the role, I really can't think of anyone better than Jackie Earle Haley. I was as surprised as anyone when they cast Kelly Leak from the Bad News Bears as Rorshach for the recent film adaptation of The Watchmen, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone else who could turn a small, skinny redhead into such a believable badass. So why couldn't he do the same for Freddy? Unfortunately, his role was usually just a Robert Englund impression of hammy one-liners. Haley does alright with this but it seems a bit forced. He really shines through, however, when Freddy's rage boils over. Just as with Rorshach, a pissed off Jackie Earle Haley is a terrifying Jackie Earle Haley. But Freddy rarely reaches that point, so Haley's abilities were squandered.

***Spoiler Alert*** The writers also waste what appears to be a good opportunity to make their own unique vision of Freddy Krueger. In the original films, Freddy was a evil child killer before and after he was killed by the parents of Springwood. In the updated version, more emphasis is put on Freddy as a pedophile rather than a murderer, and throughout the movie they toy with the idea that maybe Kruger was innocent and wrongly accused and murdered by overanxious parents. This idea is dropped, however, when we learn that Freddy was indeed guilty and deserved whatever he got. But I can't help wonder if it wouldn't have been more interesting had they made the movie their own by making the human incarnation of Freddy be innocent. Now, the Freddy that haunts our dreams should not be a sympathetic character. We all know and love Freddy as a sadistic demon who will psychologically and physically torture his victims. But what of this demon was created not by the inherent evil of a man, but by the actions of those who thought he was evil. I don't know, it's just a thought. ***End Spoiler***

Now, as remakes go, this one wasn't terrible. The obligatory twenty-something actors playing teenagers were all passable, I had a good time with the various surprise scares, the gore left me satisfied, and honestly I just enjoyed the nostalgic value of bringing back something fun from my childhood (screw you normal people and your Sesame Street). If you can put aside the fact that Michael Bay probably had no business making the movie in the first place, you can probably get some entertainment out of it. If you don't need to make an event out if it like I did, however, you might just want to wait for it to come out on DVD. Grade: C+

Book Review: Breathers, A Zombie's Lament

I recently found a website from up in Canada called CinemaObsessed.com (actually this isn't the first Canadian site that's caught my eye...I'm fascinated by our neighbors from the north). I guess it's a bit ironic that the first recommendation I've taken from a website devoted to cinema is actually for a book. It's called Breathers: A Zombie's Lament, written by S.G. Browne. Granted, the recommendation is kind of roundabout, as I found out about it through their post about a movie being made based on the book, but without their post on the movie I never would have known about the book. That could have been more clear. Whatever, I'm not getting paid for this.

Anyway, I picked up Breathers on my last trip to the library because I really dug the premise. The story centers on Andy, a recently reanimated zombie who has to deal with the ramifications of being undead in a society that treats the undead in a similar fashion as women in the late 1800s, black people in the 1950s-60s, or gay people at around 10 this morning. He spends his days trying to deal with the emotional strain of losing his old life and the physical strain of having a decomposing body that's been mutilated by the car wreck that killed him. The latter he finds can be helped by eating the venison given to him by another zombie (spoiler alert: it's not venison), and the former is dulled by a budding relationship with fellow zombie support group attendee, Rita.

There is a lot going on in this book, and that winds up being a bit of a setback. Browne can't seem to make up his mind on whether he's shooting for a black comedy, a quirky zom-rom-com, or an allegory about societal intolerance. He may very well have been going for all of the above, but it makes the story a bit too schizophrenic. Plus, the allegory is a little too forced. Browne actually references the history that he alludes to, which is kind of insulting to me as the reader since he wasn't exactly being subtle about it in the first place. The zombies have no rights, no possessions, and are often lynched by fraternity members (aka upper-middle class white guys). I think we can all guess where he's going with this.

Now, while the book isn't perfect, it does have some good things going for it, both for horror fans and rom-com fans. I love a story that puts some time and effort into creating its own mythology, and even working with the familiar territory of zombies, Browne does a really good job adding to the physiological workings of being a member of the living dead. This is interesting both because it adds depth to the story, and it provides for some really disgusting imagery.

And I'm going to be honest, I dug the love story between Andy and Rita. I liked the way he played with Andy's guilt over moving on from his dead wife Rachel, who died in the same car accident that killed him (but obviously was not reanimated), while coming to terms with the new feelings he's having for Rita. Unfortunately, this seemed to be rushed through in the last act, where the allegorical theme kicks into high gear and kind of ruins things, but until then it's a neat little romance.

I think the best news about this book that it seems to lend itself well to film. Some of the areas that dragged in the book, such as the repetitive descriptions of Andy being pelted with food and insulted by passers by, would actually work better as quick segue shots in a movie. Plus, as a gorehound, I'd like to see how some of these visuals pan out on the big screen. And, as I said before, the whole reason I found out about Breathers is that they're making a movie out of it, so it looks like I won't be waiting too long to find out if it does make for a good watch out of a book with some unrealized potential.

Grade: B-

Book Review: Rot And Ruin

Well it's another winter storm here in Philadelphia, and I find myself "working from home." In other words: SNOW DAY! Both my wife and I decided it would be safer (a.k.a. more convenient) to not drive in this frightful weather, so I have some time to write the book review I've been meaning to get to for a little over a week.

The book is called Rot and Ruin, and it's another novel from one of my favorite authors, Jonathan Maberry. Originally a short story called "The Family Business," Rot and Ruin tells the tale of brothers Benny and Tom Imura. They live in Mountainside, one of the few walled towns that serve as a safe haven from zombies, who have taken over much of the world after they first started to appear 14 years before the beginning of the story.

While zombies obviously play a large role in the plot, I think the story concentrates more on the ways in which people cope with the catastrophe as opposed to the catastrophe itself. This is nothing new, as we see this approach in a lot of zombie stories, even as recently as the TV show The Walking Dead. Since it's not fresh territory, a story like this lives or dies based on whether or not you actually care for the characters enough to give a crap about how they are coping.

As usual, Maberry succeeds to this end. I enjoyed reading the developing relationship between Benny, the story's narrator, and his brother Tom. I do need to note that Benny is only fifteen years old, which is important because you're constantly reminded through his opinions and actions that he is a teenager, and that teenagers are sometimes really stupid. Even though the story is told through his eyes, you figure out pretty quickly that he has a somewhat skewed image of his brother Tom, a well-known zombie hunter for the town.

According to Benny, Tom is weak and even something of a coward. His first "memory" is of Tom running away with Benny and leaving their mother to the zombies. And even as a zombie hunter, Benny doesn't see in Tom the cocky swagger of other zombie hunters like "Pink-Eye" Charlie Matthias, Benny's idol in the beginning of the book. Pink-Eye is a large albino who regales the town with stories of his conquests out in the unprotected area outside the city. But let's face it. As a large, ugly albino, there was little chance that he was ever going to be the good guy of the story. As a matter of face, like in any good zombie story, he turns out to be more of a villain than the zombies themselves.

But this is the type of message that you have to write on a shovel and hit Benny in the head with to make it sink in. As the reader, we can figure out rather quickly that Tom's philosophical approach to his work hides a natural ability to kick ass. The indications of said ass-kicking ability aren't really subtle at all, but I think that stems from the fact that this book is geared towards teenagers. I actually found it in the "Teen" section of the library. Before anyone starts giving me shit, I should remind you that there were plenty of adults waiting in line for the midnight release of the last Harry Potter book. My point is that in a story narrated by and, presumably, read by a teenager, sometimes subtlety is passed up for melodrama.

Realism, unfortunately, has to take a backseat at times as well. Much of the language, for example, has been sanitized for the sake of the book's younger audience. And I don't mean to say that a book is bad if you don't curse as much as possible. But at the same time, if you're a 15-year-old being chased by zombies, I can't help but think that you might say the word "fuck" a couple of times.

But don't worry, while the language might be a tad watered-down, the fun zombie gore is still intact. With Tom's weapon-of-choice being a katana, you get all kinds of hacked limbs and blood splatter. Not to mention that it's hard to even describe a zombie without some macabre imagery. And what's important is that all of this gory gravy covers the meat and potatoes of a story about characters that I did in fact care about, even if they weren't terribly nuanced.

Grade: B