When I was in my teens, I remember starting to rent horror movies. I specifically remember renting the Halloween series (best series ever?) and watching Halloween 5 and it ended on such a cliffhanger that I had to run out and rent the sixth movie (which was kind of lame).
Anyhow, fast forward 20 years later and I still hadn’t gotten around to watching the complete Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street series. I was also trying to start from the beginning and then I would just give up once October 31st passed me by.
I realize that Freddy is burn victim, but how do you explain those really bad teeth?
No longer is that the case! I decided to just dive in where I left off (like any other sane individual) and see what the series had to offer in the later films.
My thoughts on the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise
First movie was awesome, second film was horrible. 3 & 4 picked things up. Then Part 5 and 6 got weird for me. This is probably where everyone else clued into the fact that Freddy had become a caricature of himself and was more funny than scary. I mean, they had him bring a kid into a literal video game where Freddy was playing the controls. COME ON! These films got pretty ridiculous.
AND THEN THEY TOTALLY REDEEMED THEMSELVES WITH A NEW NIGHTMARE!
Wow, this film had it all. I was scared of Freddy again. This was Wes Craven’s attempt at becoming meta…where he referenced the film series and had the film feel like it was in our world. A precursor to the Scream film series where he explored our love for all things horror. I was immediately satisfied with the conclusion of this series being A New Nightmare.
Of course, we all know that nine years later, Freddy Vs. Jason comes out and does a somewhat decent job of bringing the two franchises together, but it had some good laughs. ‘Dude, that goalie is pissed!”
My thoughts on the Friday the 13th series
Speaking about pissed off goalies, let’s talk about the lumbering machete wielding mute called Jason Voorhees! This series is definitely one of my faves…at least the first four films which make a really good story arc.
Then the fifth film comes around and kind of puts a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
Always a classic, easy Halloween costume.
But then they jump back and Part 6 is ok!
Then seven sucks.
The eight sucks even more. My favourite part of Jason Takes Manhattan is that he doesn’t even get to Manhattan until about 10 minutes before the end of the movie. What the hell!
The ninth movie should have been great. It’s the last in the series! Jason Goes to Hell! This sounds like a cool premise! Yeah no, this movie flopped. Wow, Vero was disappointed Friday night when we spent 90 minutes watching this film. Where I thought Nightmare on Elm Street went out on a high, Friday the 13th went out on an all time low. I don’t even think Jason showed up in the film more than 15 minutes! I haven’t even bothered watching Jason X which is basically Jason in space because I hear it’s even worse!
The remake was pretty decent though.
So there you have it…both series started out strong, Nightmare ended awesome and Friday the 13th kind of fizzled out. If I had to recommend to someone the most efficient way to watch both series, I would say just watch the first four films of Friday the 13th and watch Nightmare 1, 3,4 and New Nightmare. You’ll get the point of it all.
Now onto the Halloween series! I ordered that set on bluray the other week and am pretty excited to dive into that again.