Horror - Director: Wes Craven, Jack Sholder, Charles Russell, Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins, Rachel Talalay - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over more
The films, An abundance of extras, Everything really !
Disadvantages:
Nightmare 2 !
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Despite the fact that I actually own the American (region 1) version of this boxset due to the unavailability of it in this country at the time I got it, I will make sure my review is geared towards anybody thinking of buying the region 2 version.
I will also split this review into sections, in order to make it easier to navigate. Obviously there will be some people just wanting to know what the boxset itself contains, and others who have never seen the films, for whom I will provide reviews of each.
The original, and many will say, the best of the 'Freddy' movies. The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise began here, written and directed masterfully by Wes Craven, and starring some little-known actors, including a rather young and cute Johnny Depp.
Nancy Thompson and her friends are having nightmares, all about the same frightening man who has a razor fingered glove on his right hand. When one of her friends dies violently in their sleep, Nancy realises that these are more than just dreams, and that she must stay awake until she can figure out a way to stop this murderous monster.
Wes Craven, when discussing the reasons behind his initial concept for this film, talks about a man who used to scare him as a kid, which is who he based Freddy Krueger's look on, although Freddy is named after a bully at Craven's school. He also says that he was thinking about what could be the most scary thing in the world, and came to the conclusion that the most scary thing would be something that kills you in your dreams, since there's no way of getting away from that - you can't NOT sleep. Absolutely right. This could be why this franchise has been such a huge success, because, as is shown by Nancy in the film, as hard as you try, you can't stay awake forever, and would have to face the nightmare sooner or later, which is what Nancy does.
Using an elaborate set of boobie traps, Nancy goes into her dream to try to bring Freddy out into the real world, where he should be less powerful. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work that way. That's all the information you'll be getting on the actual story, because you're much better off watching it for yourself.
As any fan will tell you about the Nightmare series, part one started the series with a genuinely scary film. The further on in the series we go, the more satirical they become, with Freddy taking on more of his own personality, often making tasteless jokes as he torments his victims. For me, this doesn't detract from the series too much, although it does slightly, but for others, I can see how this would almost spoil it. The good news is, Wes Craven does manage to bring it back around to its initial horror status with the spectacular creation that is New Nightmare (part 7), but that's for another review.
Robert Englund's portrayal of Freddy Krueger is impeccable, all throughout the series. I'm thankful that Freddy didn't go the way of Jason Voorhees (From Friday 13th), where a different actor played him each time, because it is largely down to Englund's style that this series has the flair that it does. Englund, as Freddy , manages to be menacing in one instance, and comical in another, easily being able to go from one to the other realistically, as though it was in his nature to find it funny to torture people. I don't think many actors would be able to pull this off with the same ease as Englund does.
If you watch this first part and love it, please do carry on to the next, ignoring part two along the way. It does get better, I promise. Many will argue that there can never be a series where any other part is as good as, or better than, part one, but I would beg to differ. If you do give it a chance past number 2, you'll get to the third installment and all will be forgiven, because part three (although not directed) is once again written by Wes Craven, and is back on top form, using some of the characters we met in part one.
---A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)---
The second installment has nothing to do with the characters from the first movie, although it is no Halloween 3 (I'll do a review on this at some point!), which leaves the story entirely.
Freddy Krueger is still the star of the show here, but our young hero is now Jesse Walsh, who has just moved into Elm Street with his family, and is now living in the same house once occupied by the Thompson family. The teenagers of Springwood are soon having nightmares again, only this time, Freddy's MO has changed. Instead of sticking to the world of dreams, Freddy this time tries to posess young Jesse, using him to carry out his will in the 'real world'. Can Jesse stop Freddy before he kills all of his own friends?
Despite the fact that (obviously!) this film was made after part one, albeit only a year, somehow Freddy's Revenge has not withstood the test of time like the original has. It LOOKS like an 80s film, very dated, and with the pale colours that signify a film from that decade. I don't know the technical reasons behind it, but the first film managed to avoid this problem.
The storyline of this second film is questionable, to say the least. Freddy never tries posessing somebody again in this way, and there is probably a good reason for that - it just doesn't work. The acting in this film is also not fantastic, although not dreadful. More than anything, it is just a weak storyline, with the character of Freddy acting in a completely different manner to the way he is in every other film.
Of course, there is the possibility that this film suffers simply from 'sequel syndrome', that universal rule that a sequel will always fall down against its fantastic predecessor, although if this were the case, you would not get films like Terminator 2, which many agree to be better than the original (Of course not everybody will agree with this, but you get the point that there are films out there that have equal or better sequels).
---A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)---
The third film in the series is my personal favourite. Partly because it brings us back to the original portrayal of the 'scary' Freddy that we met in the original film, and partly because it becomes part of an ongoing storyline, moving away from what the second film tried to do, which was to make a series comprising of individual stories (each with new characters), with one linking element (the bad guy).
Dream Warriors brings back Nancy, our heroine from the first film. Nancy is now a grown woman, and is now a psychiatrist who specialises is dream therapy.
Nancy is called in to Westin Hills, a hospital that houses young people suffering from nightmare-related illnesses. At Westin Hills, Nancy meets a group of people who are once again dreaming about Freddy Krueger. It seems he is back, but nobody except Nancy believes that the nightmares can be real. It is up to her to work with the youngsters to find a way of destroying Krueger for good.
Back to it's dark and terrifying roots, Dream Warriors takes us into a world even darker than the original film, and more gruesome to boot. As you are drawn into this film, you soon forget that number two came in between.
This film introduces us to Kristen, Kincaid and Joey, three young people with special telents, which they use to try to combat Freddy. These characters stay with us through to the next film, giving it a sense of cohesion, and linking us right through to the fourth film from the first.
Although primarily centred on the kids involved in the action, this film begins to take us deeper into the psyche of Freddy Krueger himself. In the original film, we learn that he was a child murderer in life, and was burned to death by the angry parents of Springwood. Dream Warriors takes us a little further than that when we meet his mother and learn a little about him from her.
Just as the first film introduced us to young Johnny Depp, Dream Warriors also brought us some stars in the making, perhaps showing what good casting can do (I've never seen anyone from part 2 in anything since). In this film, we have Patricia Arquette as Kristen, and Laurence Fishburne (Yes, THAT Laurence Fishburne), although he's credited as 'Larry', playing Max, a worker at the hospital.
With some nice special effects (particularly for the time), Dream Warriors is another film that dates well, and will be a favourite of mine for years to come.
---A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)---
Directed by: Renny Harlin
The Dream Master of the title is Kristen, who we met in the previous film. Kristen and her friends once again are up against Freddy Krueger when he is resurrected yet again.
Once again, Wes Craven was not in on this one (He is credited in writing, but only for characters), so it falls a little way short of its predecessor again. Renny Harlin's directing style is quite different to that of Wes Craven, or even that of Chuck Russell, who did a fine job of directing the third. I'm not sure if it was down to the writing or to the directing, or even some other factor, but it is here that Freddy begins to find his sense of humour. This is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, it IS necessarily a bad thing. Although I still like all of the films, and will continue to sing their praises, there really should have been a decision made somewhere down the line that Freddy should not be a funny character. Let's not forget that he's a murdering, chil-molesting psychopath - which really isn't inherently funny!
Despite the added comedy - I should really say satire - this film is still a worthy player. This is probably largely to do with the continuing characters (although a different actress plays Kristen this time), but the new characters we meet here are not dreadful either.
The unfortunate thing about this film is that it initially shows a lot of promise, with the return of previous characters for one thing, but the storyline really lacks substance. There are some interesting parts, but it really isn't ever explained in a plausible fashion a) why Freddy comes back in the first place, or b) Why he dies in the way that he does in the end.
An entertaining film in its own right, but lacking some of the quality of parts 1 and 3.
---A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)---
Alice, having survived the previous movie, is back for The Dream Child. Once again, this 'continuing characters' lends the series some cohesion, which can't be sniffed at.
When Alice begins to have the nightmares again, she finds out that she is pregnant, and that the murdering Freddy Krueger is trying to get to her through he unborn baby.
This is a good premise, and could have had great potential in the right hands and with a decent amount of time taken over it. Unfortunately, it seems that The Dream Child was rushed out for some reason. I don't know why this was, and I was too young at the time to know it was out, but it seems as if the series was doing well, and the production company just wanted to get the next one made quickly before the demand waned, and hence this film was out less than a year after the previous one. This is very much a 'slasher' flick. It lacks substance (I know I've said this before, but it's true!), and the deaths seem gruesome for the sake of gruesome. There are some fairly good special effects though and some imaginitive deaths, although gruesome. The other element that I feel lets this film down is, yet again, the humour. This for me continues to be a problem into part 6, which I'll now move on to, and doesn't redeem itself until part 7.
---Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare (part 6) (1991)---
Directed by: Rachel Talalay
Despite being called 'The Final Nightmare', it's not. But maybe it should have been. I hated this movie, and only Wes Craven could have done what he did to bring it back from the dead with the genius of his New Nightmare.
In part 6, Freddy has returned once again to find fresh prey, now that all the teenagers of his hometown have been wiped out (by him). We are introduced to his (previously unmentioned) daughter, and suprise suprise, it turns out that only she can kill him. The only thing this film has going for it is the little bit more we get to see of Freddy as he was before he died, which is interesting.
The humour (as previously mentioned) continues, and in fact is magnified to ridiculous proportions, and in all honesty is all this film relies on. It's gimmicky. It was originally released (as many will remember) as a hyped up film featuring a 3-D scene, for which you needed to wear those silly one-eye-blue-one-eye-red glasses (kindly provided by the cinema staff, and also in my version of the boxset).
---Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)---
Wes Craven's New Nightmare really did the job of taking Freddy back to his roots, and is probably the most imaginative film I've ever seen. New Nightmare is set in the 'real world', where many of the original stars of the series are playing 'themselves', and they're making a new Freddy movie. The action centres around Heather Langenkamp, who plays 'herself' this time, but who played Nancy in the original movie. Heather is now happily married to husband Chase and they have a young son named Dylan, but Heather's quiet lifestyle is soon to be turned on its head when she starts being stalked by someone who sounds just like Freddy Krueger. Meanwhile, Wes Craven (who plays himself) is having nightmares and being inspired to write the latest installment in the Nightmare series, this one darker than ever before.
When people are killed and her son begins to act strangely, Heather soon begins to think that Freddy may be real this time, and that he's out to get her.
The synopsis for this film doesn't do it justice at all, unfortunately. The way it is described, it is just one of those stories that could so easily be mediocre, but this couldn't be further from the truth if it tried. Wes Craven is on top form this time, better than ever, and this film is as dark and chilling as they come. Gone is 'humorous Freddy', and he has been replaced with a Freddy that makes Freddy from the original film look kind and polite. This Freddy is much more menacing and is pure evil.
The actors do an excellent job of playing themselves - sounds easy, I know, but don't forget, they're playing themselves as they are not really. One thing that sums up the dificulty of this task is something Heather Langenkamp says in one feature. She talks about how she's playing Heather, whose young son is acting in a strange manner and frightened all the time. Heather really does have a son around the same age, and said it was difficult to play that role, thinking about her own son being frightened that way.
---The Boxset---
There appear to be a few different versions of a Nightmare boxset out there, so I would be careful to make sure you're buying the one you set out for, first of all.
The one that I'm writing a review under the heading of here, is a 7-disc boxset, region 2 (that's England). This boxset includes all the movies (1-7, obviously not including Freddy vs Jason), plus a booklet. Not owning this particular version myself, I can't vouch for what's on there personally, but looking into the information, it seems that each disc has the standard extras on, which consists of a rather cool "Jump to a Nightmare" scene selection, trailers and cast information. The booklet it comes with includes artwork from each movie, details from behind the scenes and interviews from Wes Craven and Robert Shaye (producer), and interesting Freddy facts.
I would advise anyone thinking of buying this to shop around, to make sure they get the best version they can of it, and even to look into getting the Region 1 version if you have the means to play it (ie. a region-free DVD player, or Region free software on your PC), because comparing what's on offer on Region 2, and the Region 1 boxset that I have, mine appears to have a lot more extras. The region 1 boxset has all 7 films, just like the region 2 version, it also has the booklet. In addition to this, each DVD has (as well as all the stuff listed for region 2) the option to read the screenplay while watching, or you can print the screenplay out, either scene-by-scene, or all at once. They also have the 'Dream World Game', which is a trivia game, with 20 questions on each film. This game, if you pass the trivia, gives you codes to 'unlock' the main game, but BE WARNED that this dosn't work properly unless you're in America; however, the trivia is still entertaining on its own. There is also an eighth DVD with the Region 1 set, entitled "The Nightmare Series Encyclopedia", which includes lots more extras, mainly interviews and other interesting tidbits. Oh, there's also the two sets of 3D glasses mentioned previously!
So, as I say, if you're going to buy this, I really would shop around.
The Region 2 7-Disc Boxset is available on Play.com for £23.99.
The Region 1 8-Disc Boxset is available in playusa.com for £49.99 - to view this in GBP, just click on the icon in the left hand menu to convert the currency.
Meanwhile her high-school friends who are having the very same dreams are being slaughtered in their sleep by the hideous fiend of their shared nightmares. When the polic...
Horror - Director: Dominique Othenin-Girard, Jorge Montesi, Don Taylor, John Moore, Richard Donner - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over
