ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE part XXI: "The Terror" and Di Fara Pepperoni Pizza

Roger holds an astounding number of film credits - mostly in the Producing role. At the beginning of his career, he was perhaps the most prolific Director of all time, shooting over two dozen movies between 1955 and 1960; Little Shop of Horrors holds the record for the shortest shooting schedule on a feature film, totaling two days and one night. His drive and resourcefulness and frugality only ever yielded mediocre but profitable results. Eventually this haunted house of cards would collapse.

Immediately after the fast-paced production of The Raven, Corman decided to squeeze one more gothic tale out of the lavish sets that had been built. And so, instead of adapting yet another Poe tale, he had the idea to mimic the author's style with an original story called The Terror (1963). What followed was what he called "the longest production of my career," taking nine months to complete and directing duties being passed from Corman to a literal crowd of otherwise amateur filmmakers: Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Dennis Jakob, Jack Hale, Jack Hill, and the film's star, Jack Nicholson. The chaotic rhythm and convoluted storyline of the finished movie kinda reflects the troubled production, but overall it's a pretty steady, drab Castle Drama with adequate atmosphere and really big rugs. Boris Karloff shot for two days on this and he's peppered throughout the film enough to make you feel like he's actually part of this. Dick Miller is his butler with a Bronx accent, and Sandra Knight is the ghost of his dead wife. Or is she? Who the hell knows, the script/story changes are really too maddening to follow; the movie's easiest parts to understand are when people are just strolling silently through the giant hallways. (Jack Nicholson constantly being thwarted by crafty spirits in a giant empty building conjured up plenty of Shining jokes.) Really the most notable thing is Jack; he may've honed his craft over the decades to come, but really, the charisma has always been right there, front & center. Not that he's entirely convincing as an officer in the French military, but he's totally believable as Jack.

A rating of 9.4 "as reviewed by Dave Portnoy" is advertised on the box. That's the second time this guy's name has come up in our frozen pizza ventures and we still kinda don't know or care who he is -- besides, who needs this stooge when you've got Bennett Media taste testing for you already? And we're here to tell you that Di Fara Pepperoni Pizza isn't quite a 9.4, but it doesn't have some big strengths. Firstly, you can tell by the box that they're trying to appear lighter, fancier, all natural, free of dyes and poisons and all the other popular promises, and on that front they succeeded; there is a noticeable freshness in its crispy crust that isn't always present in the world of ice cube dough. Really the only failure in their faux fanciness is the addition of big basil leaves - two to be exact, so if you're a fan of mouthfuls of leafy garnish, you'd better hope you get one of the designated "basil slices". The one element that definitely veers away from the health food vibe and more into cheap disgusting party food is the pepperoni - as in, the pepperoni cups. That's when the pepperoni slices create little durable concave containers of grease, which is a phenomenon that doesn't occur in every brand of frozen pizza. But when it does, it's pure magic.

The Movie: C-

The Pizza: B

FRENCH FRIES and FULL MOON FEATURES part X: "Arcade" and McCain Spicy Straight Cut Fries

Between 1989 and 1993, Full Moon Entertainment managed to become synonymous with Science Fiction/Fantasy, Gothic Horror, Post Apocalyptic Action, and Small (literally) Creature Features. Added to the fact that most of these movies shared production teams and shooting locations, the company's output managed to generate a sustainable vibe that seemed to be common across its films; a Full Moon feel. 

Though in 1991, Albert Pyun directed a movie with a David S. Goyer screenplay (based on "an idea by Charles Band" of course), and an Alan Howarth music score, about teens being trapped in the virtual world of a video game. Apparently, that "virtual world" was too aesthetically similar to 1982's Tron, and Disney threatened to sue. So, after some time reworking the film's computer effects, Arcade didn't see a U.S. release until 1994. But by that point, the whole atmosphere of the film felt kinda fresh alongside stuff like Subspecies III and Puppet Master 4, and even watching it now, a warm Southern California setting with a story featuring a bunch of kids is a welcome departure from the castles and dungeons and wastelands that are populated with beasts and dolls. The story itself is very much like Tron and probably already a dozen other works of fiction by that point: some kinda haunted video game (actually, Virtual Reality game) is stealing the souls of anyone who plays and is trapping them in its CGI world, and it's up to Megan Ward and Peter Billingsly to do some detective work and then become VR warriors to save their friends from a cartoon environment. People generally savage this movie for the lame computer-simulated scenes, but that raises the question: Compared to what? What exactly were all the really good examples of fictitious virtual reality - particularly in the 1990s? Honestly, outside of the trappings of an intentionally artificial 3D background, the story is gripping enough that is surely all sounded better on the page; it looks and feels and plays out like a soft R-rated Are You Afraid of the Dark? or Goosebumps episode. That's a really fun place to be in.  

This is our fourth recorded experience with McCain fries, which isn't a shock; they're "the largest manufacturer of frozen potato products, with 1 in 4 french fries in the world being a McCain fry." But we found a way to make that exciting (sorta): these are their "New Flavor" Spicy Straight Cut Fries. However, it's really hard to believe that McCain has never employed this specific flavor to anything before; if you've ever had anything in the neighborhood of "seasoned fries" then you know exactly how these taste. Who knows, maybe they added an extra milligram of paprika or onion powder to justify the label, but we're pretty sure McCain has dabbled in the "spicy" realms before. And they're not bad - obviously they're great! We just don't appreciate the ruse. 

The Movie: B-

The Fries: A-

ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE part XX: "Eat My Dust" and Taste of Inspirations Four Meat Brewery Crust Pizza

Roger Corman movies will forever be synonymous with the phrase "Exploitation Cinema" - which was never accidental, nor derogatory. And under that umbrella he explored many (if not most) of the major and minor subgenres: Creature Feature, Sexploitation, Women in Prison, Psychedelic, Teen Deviance, Bikers, and that most indicative of the 1970s, Carsploitation. 

1976 marked the beginning of Corman's relationship with Ron Howard when Roger sent him the script for Eat My Dust. Ron agreed to star in it with the hopes of eventually getting the opportunity to direct a feature for Corman (which ended up being 1977's Grand Theft Auto), but otherwise thought it sounded "terrible;" and described it as a "zany car chase comedy with weak jokes and cardboard characters." In hindsight, that is the literal premise of the picture, and also an unwaveringly objective review. Ron plays Hoover, the son of the town sheriff, who steals a Chevy Camaro from the town's racetrack to impress superficial floozy Darlene. The two of them lead the town on a two-day car chase full of rural California backroads and hick humor and fiddle music. Most of the car stunts are fun and sometimes impressive, and really that's all we're here for. And while none of the jokes are actually funny, it's a much funner hangout to watch a Chase Film that does everything it can to let you know that it won't end in bloodshed; nothing is spoiled by letting you know that they didn't drive Richie Cunningham off a cliff as an analogy for some sociopolitical commentary. Actually, it has a decidedly happy ending that's almost thought-provoking (and for big bonus points takes place on Halloween).

The point of pairing these movies with frozen pizza was always meant to be an obvious metaphor for high quality in low places. But that parallel kinda fizzles when the pizza tries so hard to be classy, which is clearly the case with Taste of Inspirations Four Meat Brewery Crust Pizza. (You get all that?) Sure the pretentious name is off-putting, but the even more unappetizing thing is the bland box it came in; the mandatory closeup of the pizza texture is excusable, but the diminutive serif typeface looks like nutrition facts. To balance out the froofiness we reached down for the lowbrow Four Meat selection, topped with Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, Hamburger, and Bacon. As usual they're all a bit indiscernible when you mash 'em together like that, but the results were actually quite good - and a lotta that had to do with their fancy ass "malted barley crust" they're pushing. (We couldn't organically work in an "Eat My Crust" pun anywhere so consider this that.) But the most remarkable thing is how the actual cooked pizza is identical to the picture on the box. That's a truth in advertising that was almost nonexistent when it came to posters for Roger Corman movies. 

The Movie: C

The Pizza: B

TRADING CARDS :: That's a BINGO!

A few months back I tried out a new flea market in Londonderry, New Hampshire -- ever since my favorite one folded a few years back I've been on the hunt for a worthy successor. This was not that, but I still managed to walk away with a loot that justified the trip. And within that loot was a serendipitous assortment of mixed media that managed to bring about its own theme. 

Every flea market is populated with tables of junk, and most of those tables have no rhyme or reason within the boundaries of that specific junk. At the Londonderry Flea Market, one man was selling what had to be at least 100 swords of every kind (samurai, medieval, pirate, machete, and whatever other kinds there are) and also a plastic bin containing roughly 100 packs of Pacific Bingo! Trading Cards based on the 1991 TriStar movie. I noted the ironic unevenness of the stuff this guy was selling and I moved on down the aisle - about fifty feet, when I checked out another table that had its own odd assortment: military fatigues, history books (about the military), and an array of VHS tapes - many of which were documentaries (about the military) and one of which was the 1991 movie Bingo!.

I'd never seen Bingo!. (Yes, the exclamation point is part of the title.) All I remembered about its existence was from when I used to watch the Prevue Guide channel for hours at a time and they'd loop the same twelve trailers for the movies premiering on cable that week over and over again - and for a while Bingo! was one of those trailers. Even still, all I remember from that is that at one point someone holds a gun to the dog's head, and that Bingo is also served a subpoena. Needless to say I didn't seek out the actual feature on whatever channel it was airing during its run, and I don't think I've ever heard it brought up in any Pop Culture arenas in the past 35 years. But what I found at the flea market that day in the span of just a couple minutes felt like an opportunity to experience a movie in a fashion similar to the way I experienced them as a kid: see the film, collect the cards. So, I bought the video, then went back to the sword man and bought 6 packs of Bingo! trading cards. 

I let however many weeks go by before I committed an early evening to this whole immersive Bingo! adventure - but I may've been three and a half decades too late. I don't know how much I would've enjoyed this movie when it came out, but that's an almost impossible assessment; on the surface, I could say that I didn't really like these kindsa movies at any age, but now that I've seen it, I can say that there aren't really a lotta movies like Bingo!. Everything considered, I was expecting a tone along the lines of Homeward Bound or Beethoven, or maybe even Free Willy or Flipper, and it's pretty probable that that's what they were aiming for, but the whole thing is also an attempt to satirize that subgenre with a lotta weird and sometimes gross humor, generating an awkwardness that places it closer to something like Mac & Me or maybe even the Garbage Pail Kids Movie; when it tries to be funny it's distressing, and when it tries to be touching it's unnerving. 

Not surprisingly, the overall mood of the movie didn't really translate into the trading cards; opening up all six packs presented an attitude that more closely resembled the one I thought the movie was selling before I saw it: a daring journey, childhood nostalgia, lighthearted hijinks. But now I knew better as I was hip to the sordid subtext of each card. Obviously I didn't accumulate the entire set, but from these packs I pulled five singles that we can use to sorta outline some of the main events of the film - because if you've read this far, why the hell not?

- Paul

#26 "CPR Jump start"

Chuckie lies face down in a river after his older brother has left him there to die. Fortunately runaway circus dog Bingo shows up, pulls Chuckie out of the river, and manages to perform chest compressions until he regains consciousness. Bingo then strips the boy nude to dry his clothes before a bear sends them up a tree where they spend the night. Meanwhile, Chuckie's parents intentionally disregard his absence from home to teach him a lesson about being too attention-starved. 

#54 "The Duke of Franks"

Part of the setup is that Chuckie and his family are moving from Colorado to Wisconsin but they've left Bingo behind, so Bingo is following their trail across states by the scent of Chuckie's urine. En route, the family visits a truck stop restaurant where it's discovered that the chef (Glenn Shadix) is making his hotdogs out of actual dogs. Of course, Bingo eventually shows up and frees all the canines, and then drives a truck into the restaurant with a decidedly unspectacular crash. 

#66 "Saved By The Summons"

Bingo is taken in by a new family after he rescues them from a hostage situation. Because of his involvement, the dog is subpoenaed to testify in court against the kidnappers. I really just had to include this one because it's that one part I remember most from the trailer. I feel like a circle's been closed. 

#73 "Here Comes The Guard"

During the trial, the defense lawyer finds a loophole that incriminates Bingo, and so he's sent to jail. People jail. He has a little prison uniform and everything. This isn't just a quick visual gag, this actually ends up being a main trajectory in the scope of the whole plot. Typically I would applaud such a mix of bravery and madness, but it just comes across as dumb and dull.

#105 "Hoping For The Best"

This is a moment from the last scene of the movie, so spoiler I guess. Every character from the entire film is gathered in a hospital room in a dazed, gleeful anticipation for the reunion of Chuckie and Bingo. It plays out like either a dream sequence, or this is heaven and they're all dead. At any rate, we end on an announcement from Dad that Bingo is to be neutered, because this movie is entirely preoccupied with anything below the waist. 

ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE part XIX: "Watchers II" and Dave Portnoy's One Bite Five Cheese Pizza

Of all the "formulas" (some real, some rumored) utilized by Roger Corman, they're all meant to land on the same conclusion: profitability. Sure he expected quality as well, so when his company put out a good movie made for cheap that managed to be profitable, he would put another formula into play: The Sequel. 

The first Watchers movie (which we saw very recently so expect comparisons) was released in theaters in 1988 and did very little business. However (and predictably) it prospered as a video rental. And so, directly onto tape came Watchers II in 1990, recycling basically the same story as the first one, which isn't weird since they're both based off the same singular novel by Dean Koontz. We thought the biggest strength of the first movie was its charming domestic core of a boy and his mom trying to rescue the family pet from bad guys. The sequel (which supposedly is more faithful to the book) leans heavy into the science/military perspective, and our two main characters are literally a solider (Marc Singer as Guile from Street Fighter II) and a scientist (Tracy Scoggins as Laura Palmer's cousin Maddy). Their chemistry is forced but pleasant; they never get annoying, but we never get invested. But truly unlike the first movie, the monster (called The Outsider) actually gets screen time - a ton of it (which might not be a good thing). In appearance it looks like an updated colorized version of so many rubber monsters that haunted so many black & white B-Movies of the past (many of them from Corman), but more specifically a combination of the transformed Dr. Z in Zaat and the Gargoyle from The Terror Within. It's adequately icky, but it's completely undermined by the stuntman's performance: he stumbles and waves his arms around comically and constantly like the robot from Lost in Space (or, more appropriately, a B-Movie monster with a rubber suit). Stuff like that makes us appreciate performances like Kevin Peter Hall as the Predator and how some menacing choreography can make all the difference.

We didn't know who Dave Portnoy was. We kinda continue to not know who he is - a quick search proved to be just boring enough to be almost sedative; despite our role in this medium, "Internet Personalities" aren't really our thing. But the one relevant phrase that popped up was the concept of "one bite", in which you're meant to provide a rating of a pizza's quality after just one bite. Coincidentally (or is it ironically) the first bite of this One Bite Five Cheese Frozen Pizza isn't particularly pleasant. Think of how many frozen pizzas advertise "Three Cheese" or "Four Cheese" or "Five Cheese" or "Every Cheese Ever" and in the end, it just tastes like one singular nondescript cheese. But in the case of this recipe, the mix comes across as aggressively salty/sour, and there's a ton of it; it combines Provolone, Asiago, Parmesan, Romano, and "low moisture" Mozzarella, and it makes for a beautiful color & texture that most closely resembles a Ninja Turtles cartoon, but the flavor is, at best, just okay. Actually, the closer you get to the crust as the cheese ratio begins to regulate itself, the closer it comes to nearly excellent pizza. But dude, you're gonna need way more than one bite to get there. 

The Movie: C+

The Pizza: B

ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE part XVIII: "Slumber Party Massacre II" and Red Baron Brick Oven Supreme

"Wildly Original" is never a phrase that's given to a movie produced by Roger Corman, and that's okay (and kinda the point); the movies that were funded and/or released through his companies were built on familiarity. "Sure bets." Genre pictures designed/disguised as homages, spinoffs, and sometimes legitimate remakes. He'd produce half a dozen Women's Prison Pictures that were all basically the same, but on paper had nothing to do with each other. So whenever he initiated an honest-to-god sequel, you knew it was special. 

Then again, the idea of a "sequel" was, in and of itself, an homage to the 80s Slasher wave. That wave included 1982's The Slumber Party Massacre, which earned Corman & Co. $3.6 million (on a $220,000 budget). And since there was nothing passé about tacking a numeral onto the end of a recycled title, why not drill the same hole? Slumber Party Massacre II was conceived, advertised, sold, written, shot, and released in 1987 (and in that order). Per usual, apart from the supposed Roger Corman "mandates" (nudity/violence) Roger gave free creative reign to writer/director Deborah Brock, and hot damn! did she take advantage of that freedom. The first movie was a generalized satire of Slashers and the assigned gender roles in Horror - campy, but still aimed to scare. Nothing is "generalized" about the satire here: this is a full-blown Comedy Horror Musical (in that order) that pulls way less from Halloween and way more from Elm Street, while still being its own thing entirely. Slasher Flicks typically have long lulls of nothing as a phony means of creating "suspense" -- in place of that, this movie has original songs performed on camera by the whole cast. Even without comparing it to any other movie or category, it has a reckless energy that actually almost feels experimental. When we hear "1980s Cult VHS Exploitation" we're only ever hoping for something exactly like this. 

Also, whenever we hear "frozen pizza" we're really hoping for something like Red Baron - it's basically the standard that all the others have to live up to. And sometimes it's just too damn stressful to "fuck around and find out" and just stick to what you already know best - and this is best. Actually, this specific variety of toppings is new to us, but with a name like Red Baron Supreme, how could one go wrong? Obviously in 'za terms, "Supreme" just means lotsa stuff on it, and in this case is means sausage, green & red peppers, pepperoni, and onions. It's a true testament to its quality that none of these ingredients actually compromise the pizza in any way, but instead they magnify it. By some miracle of culinary arts & sciences, the peppers and onions on this frozen ass pizza taste completely fresh -- some wizardry that most definitely utilized some not-so-fresh methods to create that illusion. Whatever, this activity was never about nutrition, it's about total sensory gratification, and all those requirements were met. 

The Movie: A

The Pizza: A

Midnight, Baseball Bats, and Boogeymen

Freddy Krueger has haunted me my whole life. Well, not my whole life - maybe till I was about 20, at which point we became good friends and have stayed that way ever since. But as a child of the 80s, oh man, it was a very different relationship. But not entirely different...

I'll try not to belabor the fact that, yes, Freddy Krueger appeared on all kindsa merchandise during his tenure as a Box Office draw, and just about all of that merch was aimed at kids -- seriously, after the t-shirts, video game, school supplies, sticker albums, and bubblegum, I don't know how we didn't get a breakfast cereal. 

To me, this was both a blessing and a problem. A problem because, unlike some of my peers who were close in age, all of this candy colored crap that reached as far as the toy aisle was not my first exposure to The Springwood Slasher - it was the actual movies themselves. Before I'd reached the age of 3, my sister (who is 12½ years my elder) watched the original Nightmare on Elm Street around the time of its premiere on HBO and at some point actually taped it off of TV, so a lotta that blood & terror lurked in the periphery of my very early life. Then, shortly after the Home Video debut of Elm Street 2, my sister and a bunch of her friends rented the movie, and I must've been in her care that evening, because for some reason I watched it with them, right there in the living room. (There are a lotta cool and different ways to experience Cinema, but watching a Nightmare on Elm Street videotape with a room full of teenage girls in 1986 is an event that you nor I could ever relive.) 

While I was too young to grasp any sense of plot or conflict or resolution, I was certainly old enough to recognize scary images and what made them so scary. So yes, not being able to walk through Kmart without seeing Freddy's face on ten different products was, in its own way, a problem. As I got older, the character apparently began to get softer and "funnier" in the films, and that afforded his likeness to grace more and more goods and services - but I'd only left off at Part 2, so I wasn't aware of any change in tone; all I knew was that all of a sudden Freddy's introducing Beastie Boys videos on MTV at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and now my day is ruined. 

And yet, I preserve the idea that the Freddy omnipresence in the culture of my childhood was just as equally a blessing, because as human nature dictates, this monster that scared me so severely was always just as fascinating, and the more frightened I got vs. the more movies they made that I was missing only continued to compound the mystique. That mystique would amplify with every trip down the Horror aisle at the video store and I'd see those colorful tapes with that goddamn son of a hundred maniacs leering out at me through his various artistic interpretations. On my braver days I'd physically touch these cursed objects and look at the back covers, hoping for clues to the plots and backstories and origins and motivations and all of the things that kept me up at night wondering and worrying. 

But really, it was Freddy himself who wouldn't let me sleep, because apart from my faded memories from when I was 3 years old, his powers and malevolence and what he was capable of was mostly a product of my own imagination. And my imagination was fucking dark - I'd envisioned these films as having a flavor that I would nowadays equate to stuff like Audition or Human Centipede: a completely humorless endurance test. By the time I faithfully began reading Fangoria Magazine, they began promoting the buzz around Elm Street 7, with a supposed real life Freddy Krueger terrorizing the real world! I was dead. 

The curiosity never left me, and at some point in my mid teens I revisited Part One on video. It was amazing how much I'd actually remembered from an age when I was barely old enough to remember, while at the same time realizing that it wasn't nearly as terrifying (or informative) as I'd thought (and hoped) it was; I cautiously approached it to quench my thirst for the exposition I'd always been so curious about, only to get a flat line reading from Ronee Blakley.

Cut to that Summer of 2003 when I was steadily accumulating all the headlining Horror franchises on DVD, simply so that I could see most of them for the first time. But with elm street I went all in and bought the New Line Platinum Nightmare on Elm Street Collection: an 8-disc box set that was just as beautiful as it was a cumbersome clunky mess of plastic and cardboard. I devoured it from the inside out, first watching them in the order of the ones I was most curious about (I started with Freddy's Dead) and then tirelessly revisiting the ones I liked the most. I watched and rewatched all the special features: every interview, every photo gallery, every production note - nothing was uninteresting. While not much of the franchise managed to be as scary or even as engrossing as I thought it was, it captured my spirit with its barrage of humor and color and music and inventiveness and nostalgia. The obsession was always there, and finally being able to explore these films as freely and frequently as I wanted both satisfied and magnified my devotion. Obviously (as you damn well know) I found some of the movies in the series to be more to my liking than the others, while observing that they all stand on very different merits. Here are my intellectual musings about a movie franchise where a guy can turn into a hall monitor or a motorcycle at the drop of a fedora. Bon appétit, bitch. 

- Paul

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

I can say I've been extra hard on this movie over the years, but it's often been a defense mechanism against the criticisms of the sequels that I prefer. But really, its atmosphere is undeniable - much of which comes from the vivid cinematography from Jacques Haitkin (who also shot Part 2) and the enduring Charles Berstien music score. And not to call too much attention to the obvious, but a Horror Movie Monster with an identifiable image and personality is still as fresh and exciting today as it was in '84.

Grade: B

After more than four decades of borderline Freddy Krueger fatigue, when I think of this movie, I think of Heather Langenkamp; I don't know if it's the general consensus, but she 100% carries this whole film, and she does it with more character and grace than most other "Final Girls" in the genre. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 - Freddy's Revenge (1985)

For the full review you can read this. For the short, short version, I'll reiterate this point: Elm Street movies' most exciting moments are when they're in "nightmare mode", and because Freddy's Revenge is largely a Possession Movie, we're in that mode for the duration. Every dreadful scene abides by the rules of dream logic, and so we're never not in danger. That's the tone, and it makes for An Exceptional Horror Film.

Grade: A+

For whatever atmosphere the first movie established, this was the only sequel that managed to improve upon it in the least cartoonish way. Despite its fashions and pop songs and other dated elements, this film could fit right into the Psychological Thrillers of the 1960s, sharing company with Carnival of Souls and Repulsion. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 - Dream Warriors (1987)

Here's the thing: whenever I decide to rank the Elm Street movies to my liking, I'll run down the list from best to worst, and nearly every time I'll realize that I totally forget to include Dream Warriors. Obviously that means I don't completely love it, but it also means that I don't necessarily hate it either. I think the problem (if you can call it that) is that this is the only really plot-heavy installment, featuring the most speaking parts and the strongest attempt at continuity. I'm assuming it's these aspects that make it the fan favorite, but apparently I'm in the market for something different. 

Grade: B-

Yes, this is where the humor and the hokeyness started, but it's also where the money started, and I think we lost some grit and grime with the bigger budgets. Still, at the end of the day, the whole premise of this movie and all its set pieces are really fun and clever, and they're executed awesomely. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 - The Dream Master (1988)

I still hold onto the idea that this is what I'd show to someone who wanted to know what a Nightmare on Elm Street movie was like. That's because it has no real plot of its own - instead, it pulls components from the first three movies to make one noisy, colorful, stylistically erratic Mega Nightmare. It's Freddy's Force Awakens. That kinda patchwork performs just fine for me, but its overall lack of surprise and originality will always kinda hinder it. (And I just hate when characters are played by a different actor in a sequel.)

Grade: B+

And yet I actually prefer Tuesday Knight. (And I mean that in general.) Fat Boys notwithstanding, this has the best soundtrack in the series, and also just one of my favorite movie soundtracks of all time. After all, this is the one that features Freddy on the beach wearing sunglasses. You either dig that or you don't. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 - The Dream Child (1989)

Take the hodgepodge of Part 4, try to sequelize it in a consistent way, and we get one wild mess of a Monster Movie. Actually, its stretched premise and silly inconsistencies are the strengths of this film; again, like a STAR WARS sequel, the rushed production manages to make a very tired scenario into an almost abstract stream-of-consciousness experiment. Sadly they forgot to include any interesting characters or even slightly scary moments. 

Grade : C

Lisa Wilcox easily sheds the label of Final Girl and is just a straightforward Heroine by this point, and I very much would've liked to see her in more and better installments. And I don't mean to minimize her screen presence by pointing out that this is Freddy Krueger's most boring rendition. My least favorite movie of the original franchise. 

Freddy's Dead - The Final Nightmare (1991)

This is the first one I remember seeing a lotta trailers and TV spots for, which jangled my nerves as much as it piqued my interests; compared to my ideas of an Elm Street movie, it looked weird and different and twisted and modern by comparison. And for the most part, that's all true - I just wasn't counting on all the buffoonery. At this point in the culture, Freddy hadn't been scary for a long time, and turning him more into a meddlesome prankster put him more in line with The Joker. I'm not mad! 

Grade: C+

Just because it was "funny" doesn't mean all the jokes landed - a lot of it was stupid. But I was always most curious to see this one because it supposedly dove into the Krueger backstory (in 3-D no less) and that's the angle that I've been most interested in forever. Did they adequately pull it off? Really, I base my letter grade almost exclusively on that segment. 

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

Never has there been a better or more clever device to revisit a tired (and supposedly concluded) franchise (especially in Horror). Somewhere between Fellini and Charlie Kaufman, this is as intellectual as Elm Street would ever get (after Part 2 of course); and like I said, the premise alone was enough to horrify anyone who was actually still afraid of Freddy (like 11-year-old me). 

Grade: B+

Apart from its neat setup, we get another Heather-driven vehicle, and she understood the assignment so good. Also "real life" Freddy is a super sleek upgrade - though I champion any attempts to give him a new look (more on that to come).

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

So this is like my fifth time publishing my opinions of this movie, so I'll try to give it a different context. It's incredibly notable (and fortunate) that this was released during the very same summer that I had familiarized myself (and became obsessed with) Freddy and Jason -- truly there has been no better example of "great timing" in my life. It might also be the best example of "Fan Service" and how there's a very graceful and correct way to do it, and through the lens of this mega fan at the height of his fandom, they did pretty well.

Grade: B

Ok, so it's ugly as fuck, and the VFX and the soundtrack are trash, but as I pointed out in my Friday the 13th list, this is probably our last Robert Englund Freddy movie, and his decades of experience as the character is totally exploited here to its fullest potential. It's like watching Heath in The Dark Knight: This is all we'll ever get, so enjoy it!

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Great cast, seasoned subject matter, and a heavy lean on the Origin Story crap that I'm so into. So, what happened? ...No, seriously, what happened? Nearly every detail of this remake escaped me immediately after its release (as well as immediately after two subsequent attempts since then). It makes it hard to identify the things that didn't work for me, but "boring and forgettable" never work for me. 

Grade: D

I do remember the flashback stuff being equal parts compelling (Jackie Earle's performance) and ridiculous (so Freddy only ever wore stripes?). Robert Englund's been pushing for a prequel for decades (with or without him) and this is actually (and unfortunately) the best they've given us (up to and including the Freddy's Nightmares TV Show episode, "No More Mr. Nice Guy").

Despite the incessant complaining, people seem to want remakes and reboots and sequels and crossovers and multiverses of everything they've ever seen, and they want it all to be the same as it ever was - including Freddy Krueger and A Nightmare on Elm Street. That 2010 remake has only ever been vastly unpopular, but people's complaints have only ever been along the lines of "it's not exactly like the Robert Englund movies." Heck, that was the one thing I gave it credit for; if you dare to call your movie a "reboot" because you're too pussy to say "remake" then you'd better bring in some new elements. I still stand by my position that I'm totally down with ditching the dumb hat & sweater ensemble in favor of anything else; every visual depiction of Dracula looked roughly the same for over 50 years until the Coppola movie changed it up, and now the old one is just that - old. 

As I'm writing this, Paramount has purchased the rights to Elm Street and The Internet is brazenly excited and optimistic (and they're never wrong). Thus begins the superficial speculations and AI renderings of which actor can do their best Robert Englund impersonation. What a buncha dumb shit. Obviously I have curiosity, but I do with nearly every movie, until I don't (usually around when the trailer drops). Seriously, I welcome any kinda continuation/reinvention of this franchise -- after 9 movies I can't really be precious about "ruining" some dumbass "legacy". Still, there will be the copy & paste protests of "no one can replace Robert!" More dumb shit; again, who's still hanging onto Lugosi (or Max Schreck) as the final word on a fictional icon? 

My son has grown up around Freddy Krueger because his image has graced much of the decor that covers the home he's gown up in, but I've only just recently started introducing him to the feature films (because clearly he has no limits when it comes to this stuff). His attention span is already questionable at best, but obviously he's most interested whenever Freddy is on the screen  - and really, who could blame him? And again, like every other thing from childhood, this material will supposedly soon bleed back into the culture with another installment, and the facsimile of the world I grew up in will just be my kid's current reality. It's kinda stupid, but it's also kinda ok -- as long as it means that we get more merchandise!

FRENCH FRIES and FULL MOON FEATURES part IX: "The Creeps" and Ore-Ida Star Tater Tots

From the very beginning (1988) Full Moon maintained a distribution partnership with Paramount Pictures. In '95, Paramount backed off as the Direct-to-Video market started to become noticeably less lucrative. And yet, for a moment in the middle of that relationship, there were serious talks about the possibility of Full Moon theatrical releases. (Obviously Paramount backed out of that too.)

However, during the Halloween Season of 1997, Full Moon unleashed The Creeps into a "limited" amount of theaters before its Home Video release that December. This wasn't on a whim - the movie was shot in 2.35 widescreen, and was presented in theaters in 3-D. Every Home Video iteration has been 2-D, and hoo boy does it make for some uncomfortably awkward compositions; long, clumsily blocked takes with no cuts or camera movements make the whole thing feel like you're watching a play. Nevertheless, with Charles Band in the director's chair, it still feels like very much like Full Moon. The plot is weird and demands tons of expository dialogue: after obtaining the original manuscripts of old Horror Novels, a mad scientist is able to bring Count Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy into reality. The scientist kidnaps librarian Anna (Rhonda Griffin) because he apparently needs a virgin to make his monster-making machine work -- but she manages to escape in the middle of the process, and so the monsters all materialize as dwarves. And so, we get a kinda Monster Squad premise, but the gimmick is that they're little people (because Full Moon). This does afford studio regular Phil Fondacaro to totally steal the show as Count Dracula, but really it's the draggy actionless scenes that manage to make it more tedious than most of their other productions. However, there are a few moments that take place in a legit video store, and so we get to have extended, uninterrupted views of posters and tapes of all the popular rentals of 1997 (with some expertly placed Full Moon promotions mixed in). 

It's America's 250th Birthday, and predictably, it's the junk food that won't let us forget it. (That is until they figure out how to make air conditioning "Freedom Scented".) Stars and Stripes adorn pretty much everything at the moment, and some modifications are more effective than others - case in point: Ore-Ida Star Tater Tots. Yes, they're just regular tater tots shaped like stars, and no, there's nothing "extra" about them -- at least not in the sense of flavor. But in terms of size and shape and overall impact, I don't see how we can ever go back to the regular cylinder-shaped tots ever again; these are full and robust and, if cooked correctly, crunchy all over. Like seriously, imagine a McDonald's Hash Brown condescend into a compact five-cornered form, and then multiply that into a generous pile of potato paradise. If this is how America tastes, we may be willing to overlook all those other pesky bygone blemishes. 

The Movie: C-

The Fries: A+

ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE part XVII: "Watchers" and Jack's Pull-Apart Pizza Sticks Pepperoni

At some point in his career, it became a known fact that Roger Corman "demanded" that some form of violence or nudity should take place on every 15 pages of the script. When eventually asked about this, Roger laughed it off, admitting that it might have been the case on a few specific productions but that it's not his consistent work ethic. And of course, that's entirely obvious to anyone who's seen only just a handful of his films. 

Case in point: 1988's Watchers, an Action Adventure yarn about a boy and his dog on the run from bad guys and a big hairy monster. If that sounds fun and charming, that's because it really kinda is. Based off a Dean Koontz book, it rehashes that familiar midpoint between Short Circuit and Man's Best Friend, in which a kid (Corey Haim) befriends a stray dog with genetically modified intelligence, and Michael Ironside as the ruthless government guy trying to get the dog back. Oh and there's also some genetically modified ape beast also after the dog, and unlike the old black & white Corman creatures of yesteryear, the filmmakers were obviously just too damn embarrassed to ever really show it to us; at best, we get some glimpses of a murky combination of the goblins of Nilbog, the troll from Ernest Scared Stupid, and Fluffy from Creepshow. But it doesn't really matter, it's the carnage that the monster leaves in its path that's the real fx spectacle; beyond making the point that obviously not all Roger Corman movies were packed with Exploitation hallmarks, the gore in this film is sparse, but very notable. Real life Corey Haim girlfriend Lala plays his movie girlfriend, but she sits out most of the game, so instead we get Barbara Williams as Corey's cool mom / a female lead, resulting is what almost accidentally becomes a really sweet dysfunctional family fable. 

 

Keeping with the theme of "genetically modified", here's another specimen that does not occur naturally in the universe: Jack's Pull-Apart Pizza Sticks. Ideally, they're sorta long slender pizza rolls, all kinda fused together, allowing you to pull them apart. On paper it's all a very wonderful idea, but in reality something clearly went wrong. It's really hard to determine as to whether they were going for "crispy" or "doughy" with the outer crust, leaving us with something that more closely resembles "chalky". Ultimately that creates something that can be best described as a "rolled up Ellio's Pizza" - which really isn't a bad thing in any scenario... Still though, the thought of "cheese and sauce and pepperoni filled breadsticks" is something that someone's gotta perfect in the future. Somebody get Michael Ironside on this ASAP. 

The Movie: B+

The Pizza: C-

FRENCH FRIES and FULL MOON FEATURES part VIII: "Doctor Mordrid" and Ore-Ida Zesty Twirls

Charles Band's father, Albert Band, had an equally long and colorful career producing cheap genre movies, starting with Spaghetti Westerns and Hercules movies in the 50s and 60s, and eventually (and inevitably) producing pictures for Empire (Troll, TerrorVision) and then Full Moon (Remote, Castle Freak). He even managed to lend a hand on Honey I Blew Up the Kid (which was either a cause or effect of Stuart Gordon's involvement in the franchise). And, like his son Charles, he sometimes directed a feature. 

Doctor Mordrid (1992) was codirected by the father and son team of Albert and Charlie. Like just about every Full Moon Feature, it's "based on an idea by Charles Band", but it's been long believed (and contended) that it began its life as a direct screen adaptation of Marvel's Doctor Strange, but then underwent some "modifications" when the publishing rights expired. At any rate, what little we at Bennett Media know about Doctor Strange (psychic guy wears a cape over his Banana Republic threads) made it seem like there was some truth to that. Right off the bat, it feels like good casting: Jeffery Combs as an eccentric scientist/philosopher/historian/clairvoyant who communes with some interdimensional celestial god to get his work itinerary. But then gradually throughout the otherwise very confusing movie, a sorta romance begins to blossom between the Doctor and his neighbor Samantha (Yvette Nipar); we adore Jeffrey, but watching him balance flirtatious and mysterious without the armor of irony is actually really uncomfortable. Brian Thompson, on the other hand, is a reliably menacing and showy bad guy and maybe the best part of this whole Highlander/He-Man/Buffy mashup. The climax employs a good amount of stop motion animation that more firmly secures it into the Full Moon aesthetic. 

Why yes, these are Zesty Twirls -- not to be confused with Crispy Twirls, Golden Twirls, Zesty Curly, Bold & Crispy Zesty Twirls, or Bold & Crispy Zesty Seasoned Curly Fries: all courtesy of Ore-Ida. We're not sure if this is just a rebranding journey or if all these options are happening at the same time, but we do feel validated by the reiteration that "curly fries" have an incorrigible personality: three or four really long, voluptuous, tightly curled fries, and then a pile of burnt toenail clippings. Yum. And though that may sound like a complaint, there is a sorta mild entertainment in navigating your potato pile for the best ones / playing with your food. We can't really nail down what constitutes "zest" though - synonyms of "bold" and "seasoned" no doubt, but whatever modifier they use, it almost always guarantees an absence of blandness. Not as good as the Arby's ones, but good. 

The Movie: C

The Fries: B+