Friday the 13th part VII: the New Blood (1988)

Overall rating: 5.5/10

Let me be clear, Friday the 13^th, part VII: The New Blood is not a good movie. That said I think we’ve reached a point where standard slashers with tons of anonymous teenage victims, even with a lame gimmicky psychic whinny final girl, is still better than average.

The bad things about this film are the usual complaints about Friday the 13^th movies, no character development and the fact that plot really only exists in the loosest sense of the word. On the other hand I’ve watched so many of these movies that any film I don’t fast forward through large non-murder related portions of (I’m looking at you Nightmare on Elm Street 6)might as well be Citizen Kane. It’s not just that there are loads more deaths in this film, 16 people die, but there is also a nice variety in the methods used to dispatch “characters” that I am forced to differentiate by hair color because they are so interchangeable. Sure, Jason Voorhees is quite fond of his machete but he’s a modern adaptable reanimated serial killing indestructible zombie guy. He’s not afraid to mix it up, pick up a weed whacker, crush a head with his hands, or tie someone up in a sleeping bag and smash them against a tree.

At the same time this film seemed slightly less extreme than others of the series. There was not a lot of blood in this installment. While there is never much in the way of gore in this series, part seven seemed to have even less blood than usual. And while just about all the teenagers had sex with each other we only saw one set of boobs. In terms of non-whites there were two black teens in this film, which puts it ahead of most of its brethren.

The best part of the movie was when we realized that the shady psychiatrist who popped the color on his tweed jacket was Bernie from Weekend at Bernies. That realization added a little something extra to an otherwise mediocre addition to the franchise.

Continue reading for a list of victims and the final girl.

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

Overall rating: 2/10

General consensus among the people participating in this project is that Nightmare on Elm Street 5, is probably the worst film we’ve watched so far. I might dislike it so much because it’s about babies and there is way too much womb in it, but I think I actually dislike it because it is stupid and boring. I mean yes, the baby thing is horrible and off-putting and seems to have a weirdly pro-life message (unborn babies have souls as soon as they are conceived!), but more than that it’s incredibly lame. Seriously, Freddie is defeated by an unborn baby and a ghost nun? I think at that point I was simply in favor of anything that would put an end to this crapfest of a film.

It’s a shame because there are some cool set pieces in the movie. The opening dream is creepy – the final girl (same as in the last film) gets trapped in Freddie’s boiler room naked. Naked in an uncomfortable place is such a classic scary dream – plus we got to see boobs – that it seemed like a strong opening. Alas, it was all downhill from there. The other cool set piece is at the very end when they give the boiler room the M.C. Esher stairway treatment but like the rest of the special effects in the film it was wasted and unable to salvage the train wreck of a plot.

The biggest problem I had with this film, aside from the fact that there were only three deaths giving it our lowest body count yet, was that they seemed to have completely abandoned scary in favor of gross and zany. The death scenes are long, “ironic”, full of special effects, and too rare. Alice, the final girl, even has a black female friend who also lives though she is attacked and menaced. They’ve taken the idea from part three, if you like something, be it puppets or heroin, Freddie will kill you with it, and made it lame and zany. I just really hate zany. And babies. I think there is a zany Freddie baby in here a few times.

Anyway, the overall on this film is that there is a very low body count (three), lots of gross gore but barely any blood, and one major female black character who lives (there is also a black nun who shows up briefly in one scene).

If you don’t watch one movie from this series, don’t watch Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.

Continue reading for a list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th part 5: A New Beginning (1985)

Overall rating: 6/10

I think that Friday the 13^th part V: A New Beginning gets a bad rap. People dislike it because the end reveals that Jason isn’t the killer but I think that actually makes it more interesting. I wish they had stuck to the new beginning that they claimed in the title and restarted the franchise with Tommy as the new killer. Alas, they revive Jason in part six and part five, like part one, is merely a novelty in the larger scheme of Friday the 13^th films.

This movie picks up ten years or so after the previous installment. It would be interesting to try and figure out what year these movies are supposed to take place because while years are supposed to pass in the film universe they pretty much made one a year in real life and the hilarious clothes pretty clearly identifies the mid-1980s. We met now teenage Tommy Jarvis, Corey Feldmen’s characters from the last movie, who is sent to a teenager mental institution rehab halfway house farm (yeah, that part wasn’t very clear). The good news is that fake Corey Feldman grew up to be way more attractive than real Corey Feldman. Plus, he busts out with some hilarious surprise karate moves. There are also some really funny surprise boobs. It was like they realized they didn’t have enough nudity and so had a waitress flash herself in the bathroom mirror. Awesome.

There is a pretty insane number of deaths in this film (22) which I think makes it our highest death count yet. There are also four black characters; a sassy pre-teen, his grandfather, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend. The kid even survives. The older brother has a brilliant death scene that takes place in an outhouse. It is one of the most stupidest and funniest things I’ve seen since this project started.

This movie is a mess, but it’s a kind of enjoyable mess. There is this ridiculous hick mother and son, a new wave girl who does an amazing solo dance number, and tons of random victims. We’ve left Crystal Lake and while most of the victims here are still teenagers we get more variety than just the standard parcel of camp councilors. I think there is the usual amount of blood for a Friday the 13^th movie but some more inventive death methods than we’ve seen previously from this series.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Overall rating 4.5/10

I have a confession to make: I am way, way behind in my write-ups for this blog. I have watched a bunch of the movies but whenever I sit down at my computer I end up doing actual work, or looking at pictures of kittens in costumes.

Anyway, I watched Halloween 5 a few weeks ago and it was one that I remember watching a few times in my pre-teen years. For the record, I don’t think it really holds up. The “plot” of the film picks up a year after the previous installment. Jamie (Laurie’s daughter and Michael’s niece) is now mute and traumatized in an kiddie mental institution. Her cousin, the last final girl, dies pretty quickly and Jamie is the sole final girl here – the first time we’ve seen a solo child final girl. She has an okay final girl scene. It has some tense moments; especially when she’s trying to escape in a laundry chute, but she doesn’t really try to fight back like the best final girls. It has also become clear that the teenagers who live in Haddonfield, Illinois make all other teenagers seem like geniuses.

Dr. Loomis is back being the world’s worst psychologist but one of the funniest “you’re all doomed” guys. I cannot express enough how horrible Loomis is at his chosen profession.  The funniest scenes in the film are when he is tormenting this poor traumatized mute 10 year old girl. By the end of the movie Loomis has convinced the police to use her as bait for Michael. I don’t think the cops would be willing to use a child as bait for an unkillable serial murderer, but what do I know. If I were really that smart I wouldn’t be watching all these horrible films.  In the end Loomis “kills” Michael and then has a heart attack and dies on top of him. Comedy gold, made funnier by the fact that they both come back for Halloween 6.

There is a fair amount of blood but no real gore in this film. It’s all blood splatter but no brains or guts. Which is kind of a good analogy for the film. There is no new ground here, except this weird sub-plot about a man in black who has the same mysterious tattoo as Michael and in the final scene blows up a police station and kidnaps Jamie. This seems less like a new and interesting addition to the Michael Myers mythos and more like a half-baked attempt to needlessly complicate what can be a simple and effective plot line.

Regardless, a bunch of people die (the Halloween films seem to kill more authority figures than any other franchise – there’s a lot of cop death here and in the last film). There is only one non-white in the whole film, an Asian nurse (Yay! Our first Asian character!), who has lines and everything.

Continue reading for a list of victims and the final girl.

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

Overall rating 8.5/10

This film and the original Halloween are my favorite slasher films of all time. This movie has an interesting plot, decent character development (for a slasher), and some really cool special effects. The film brings back Nancy, the final girl from the first Nightmare on Elm Street. She’s now an adult and trying to help the last of the Elm Street children who have all been locked in an institution because of various mental problems and sleep disorders.

This film doesn’t really follow the basic structure of a slasher. Nancy and Kristen (played by a young and appropriately haggard looking Patricia Arquette in her first role) share the duties of the final girl. And at the end of the movie three of the core group of kids survive so we never really get the long intense final girl sequence. There are also a fair amount of adults who are willing to help the kids and don’t conform to the usual slasher genre trope of adults are useless. Nancy, and another male doctor, and an orderly played by a young Lawrence Fishburne are not the usual clueless authority figures. Of course there are some who refuse to see what’s really happening, but hey, you have to advance the plot somehow, right?

Another point in favor of this film, there are several important black characters – and they all live! My favorite is the sassy black patient. In his dreams he’s strong. And dresses kind of like Mr. T. And has some amazing red high tops. He’s awesome. Lawrence Fishburne’s character also lives and there is a black nurse in there somewhere for a minute.

Like all Nightmare films this movie has more special effects than blood and guts. There are some really good scenes in here, and some silly ones. The bloodiest is the infamous tendon-marionette death scene which is one of the most skincrawling deaths ever (it’s also super long). I have a really hard time watching it, it creeps me out that badly.

It’s really nice that they brought Nancy back from the first film. She’s supposed to be a grad student in this, even though in real time only three years have passed. She’s got a pretty awesome mid-1980’s glamorous wardrobe in this and they gave her a total 80’s mom haircut to make her look older. It doesn’t really work but she looks good. She dies but we’ll see her again in New Nightmare. There is also some set up here for the next film – Freddy’s nun ghost mom appears – which I remember being really bad but I’ll try to come at it with fresh eyes.

If you’re going to watch one slasher film, well, watch Halloween. But if you’ve already seen that then watch Nightmare 3.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

Overall rating: 4/10

It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t watched a lot of slasher film exactly why this movie seems so very homoerotic. The standard plot of a slasher film: deranged killer with some sort of Freudian sexual dysfunction hacks up a bunch of white teenagers with a phallic object until the final girl appropriates a phallic weapon of her own and, after being terrorized, manages to overcome her adversary. When you make the final girl a guy things seem very. . . odd. The formula is off and once you start looking for gay innuendo in horror movies you see it everywhere.

Add to this the fact that there is more male nudity and deaths in this film than female and a downright bizarre s&m loving male gym teacher who dies naked in the shower after being attacked by a room full of various balls, and you are suddenly left with the homoerotic adventures of Freddy. Which, incidentally, is what I think the subtitle of this film should be. Freddy spends his time trying to take over the body of the boy who moved into the final girl’s house from the first film. The boy, Jesse, runs around freaking out and telling people that Freddy is trying to get inside him. He’s the classic final girl. He also has a girlfriend, who he leaves half naked during a make-out session to have a sleep over with his shirtless friend Grady.

Gayness aside, there are some genuinely creepy things that happen in the movie and some good special effects. Overall there are only six deaths in the film and not a lot of blood. The Nightmare movies seem to go more for special effects, Freddy ripping off the top of his head to show his brain, Freddy’s finger knives growing out of Jesse’s hand, than for gushing blood. Really, the only remarkable thing about this movie is the amount of male nudity and homoeroticism, the rest of it is pretty silly.

This movie has a few black people in the background at the high school and one cop, but they aren’t characters and have no lines.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th part 2 (1981)

Overall rating: 5/10

So far the Friday the 13th franchise has, by far, the largest body count. This series, more than any other, seems to be about blood and boobs. The characters are interchangeable and they have a lot of sex. This film is fairly stupid and would have probably been boring if not for this project. Like the first film this plays out like a series of death scenes without being particularly scary.

There are some changes between Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th part 2. The biggest difference is that Jason, the son of Mrs. Voorhees the killer in the first movie, has now taken up his mother’s grudge against camp councilors. They did away with the mystery and just embraced Jason as the killer. It is interesting that this early in the series he has yet to don his iconic hockey mask, instead he wears a scarecrow like bag on his head with only one eye-hole. He also only occasionally used a machete, which I always thought of as his signature weapon. Another big change in this film is that, because we know who is the killer, all the deaths are from the third person perspective, whereas most murders in the first film were from the killer’s point of view.

This movie has more blood and gore than its predecessor. You see the violence take place, rather than it happening off-screen and then revealed to the audience. It has good continuity with the previous film. Seven years have supposedly passed and a new camp is being opened, not Camp Crystal Lake but located adjacent, on the same lake. Jason has become an urban legend – a scary story the councilors tell each other around the campfire. The viewers, however, know that he’s back, we’ve already seen him kill the final girl from the first film, Alice. They also bought back the best part of the first film, the old guy who yells, “You’re all doomed,” at the new councilors. (I love that guy!)

There are nine deaths in this film, one less than the first Friday the 13th. There is one black guy in the movie – he’s a councilor. He doesn’t die but he’s also only shown once or twice and doesn’t have any lines. This movie is not as good as the first installment and I honestly don’t think that these films are going to get any better.

Continue on for list of victims and final girl.

Halloween II (1981)

Overall rating 7/10

In Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s meta-horror sequel Scream 2 they have a character outline the rules of the horror sequel. The film nerd character explains that, “1. the body count is always bigger, 2. the death scenes are always much more elaborate – more blood, more gore; carnage candy, (your core audience just expects it) 3. if you want your movie to become a franchise never, ever. . .” and then he is interrupted by another character and never finishes sequel the rules. I’ll speculate on what the final rule is later but for now, at least, in Halloween 2 the first two rules definitely hold true.

While this sequel is not nearly as good a movie as the original it is still a pretty good slasher film. There are a lot more deaths 11, and more blood, but still not a lot of gore. The goriest things happen off screen and then are shown, rather than the audience seeing them happen, for example a syringe to the eyeball or a huge pool of blood.

Despite the fact that there were too many off screen deaths and the worst sexy poetry ever, the acting was pretty good and the overall look of the movie wasn’t too dated. The interesting thing about this film, from the sequel standpoint, was the fact that it takes place the same night as the first one, it really serves as a continuation of the first film. It also varies away from the standard slasher formula in that most of the people killed are adults, not teenagers. Also, there is a black woman in the film! And she’s got a speaking role! She does die, of course, but not early and she’s probably the most competent adult in the whole thing.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

Friday the 13th (1980)

Overall rating: 6/10

The basic problem with Friday the 13th is that there is absolutely no character development. The trope of a group of people getting picked off one by one can be very effective, suspenseful, and scary. In this film it just reads like a movie with no plot, set up like a series of death scenes strung together for an hour and a half. With the lack of character development it’s easy to root for the killer. Plus almost every death scene is shot from the killer’s point of view. This was to hide the identity of the murderer but really serves to allow the audience to identify with the unknown killer and cheer as they hack up their seemingly endless supply of teenage camp councilors. The victims in this film are so anonymous that we had a hard time identifying many of them by name.

At the same time the film can be sort of enjoyable for what it is. The high point for me was the music, which I really enjoyed. It’s very Psycho inspired and, I think, the best thing about the film. Though I did also really like the old guy who kept yelling “You’re all doomed!” at the teens. That’s gonna be my new catch phrase.

The best part about this movie is the twist at the end. It turns out that Mrs. Voorhees, a middle aged women, was the killer the whole time. Mrs. Voorhees has more personality than any other character in the film and I found myself rooting for her over the final girl, Alice, who might as well have been played by a water-balloon in a wig.

This movie has a high body count, 10 deaths, and a moderate amount of blood but no guts. I have a feeling this series gets a lot gorier as it continues. There are also no people of color anywhere in the film. I guess summer camp is only for white people. You can also check out super young Kevin Bacon in one of his first movies.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.

Halloween (1978)

Overall rating 9.5/10

In my mind the original Halloween film is the best slasher movie ever made. In many ways it defined the genre at the same time it is a really effective scary and suspenseful film.

This movie really created all the hallmarks of the slasher film that would be copied endlessly throughout the 1980’s. Teenage victims, sex and drugs, useless adults, death scenes from the killer’s point of view, someone actually saying “I’ll be right back” and then getting killed, and of course, the final girl. Halloween has it all!

At the same time director John Carpenter creates a very effective film using all these cliches, which weren’t really cliches yet. The music is super good and creepy, it is, like the film, minimalist, stark, and really adds to the overall tone of the movie. The film is shot in a very dark way, I recommend watching one of the newer DVD, like the 25 anniversary edition because at times the movie is so dark it’s hard to see what’s happening. The whole movie takes place in one day, with the exception of an opening scene flashback to 15 years ago. The clothing and hair is dated, obviously, but not bad – nothing too trendy or outrageous.

There is actually very little blood in this film and only 5 deaths (and 2 dog deaths). The death scenes are also pretty quick and while Michael Myers iconic weapon is a butcher knife, in this movie he strangles most of his victims. There are also no people of color anywhere in the film. Haddenfield is a very, very, white town.

Continue reading for list of victims and final girl.