One, two, tabloids are coming for you

You might have seen in the news recently that a young chap got into trouble for attacking someone using a replica of a Freddy Krueger style glove that he'd made himself as a result of his obsession with NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Being the tasteful guy that I am, I figured that's as good an excuse as any to dedicate a blog entry to a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET marathon.

Yes, I know, it seems rather facetious but nobody was killed, the guy got life in prison, his victim had relatively minor injuries and booze was involved - nevertheless, the tabloid newspapers will now stir up some nonsense about how these films should be banned, and a policeman has already used the incident as an excuse to condemn horror films. I imagine we'll be getting John Beyer's opinion shortly. The idea that blaming such things on films frees the offenders of all responsibility doesn't seem to hold much weight with them.

I first began my marathon as a result of my love of 80s slasher movies and the fact that I'd only ever seen the original ELM STREET (and none of its sequels), and that was many years ago. I figured it would be the same old story - classic original, but rubbish sequels, constantly being trotted out to make a quick buck.

I wasn't entirely correct. It turns out that, actually, even the original movie is a load of guff. Seriously, have you watched it recently? Oh dear.

I realise a lot of 80s horror movies were bad - in fact, a lot of 80s movies in general were really bad. But I love them for it. I even watched ST ELMO'S FIRE for the first time just a few days ago and gained a bizarre sense of pleasure from it. But NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET? Jings, it's really awful.

The story, for the two or three of you who might not be familiar with it, is simple. Years ago, a bunch of concerned adults had a good old fashioned witch hunt which resulted in the death (via horrible burning and what have you) of kiddie-menace Freddy Krueger. Now he's back to kill the kids of all the adults who killed him (hideously scarred, naturally). Slight problem though - he can only appear in dreams. So he wanders through the kids' dreams, killing them all one by one - and of course, if you die in the dream you die in real life.

These days the film is notable only for it being an early appearance of screen icon Johnny Depp. Now I like the guy - he's got a bit of sincerity and integrity about him, he's a good actor and he doesn't really do the whole prima donna movie star thing. But Johnny, I'm sorry; even you were crap in this. (I'm also sorry that the last sentence might have got a really bad Fine Young Cannibals song stuck in your head... as if there's actually such a thing as a good Fine Young Cannibals song.)

The acting all round is terrible, even by 80s teen movie standards, and the same can be said for the dialogue and, well, pretty much every aspect of the film actually. This is a film that has dated really badly.

It's not entirely without pleasure, and a scene involving a bed and a lot of blood still entertains today. It does, however, remind me of the time I bought a video in HMV (the Blues Brothers Band live in Montreaux - it's still burned in my memory) and cut myself trying to take that stupid metal security thing off it. This too resulted in my bed being showered with my blood, though admittedly in smaller quantities than being massacred in my sleep by Freddy Krueger.

The acting actually slightly improves for the first sequel, PART II: FREDDY'S REVENGE. In case you don't know the plot of this one, jump back a sentence and read the title of the film again. While the acting improves though, everything else gets much, much worse - most noticeably the truly awful script.

I'm serious here; the film makes no sense at all. And not in an ironic, it's-a-dream-so-it-doesn't-have-to kind of way either - even the real world stuff makes no sense. Although now inhabited by a different family, it appears that Freddy has some kind of attachment to the house in which the heroine from the first movie lived. It's never explained why. Perhaps he was merely taking an interest in the property market and was just misunderstood by its new inhabitants. Then again, trying to murder them in their sleep maybe suggests otherwise.

So, we've established that there's no reason for this attachment. Just like there's no reason for him to suddenly start stalking the young boy who lives there. Equally bemusing is the sudden ability he's developed to manifest himself in the real world. Why? How? We're never told, and this ability was to be ignored in future sequels. Of course the other sequels were also terrible but at least they tried to stick to the rules.

Anyway, FREDDY'S REVENGE finishes with a sickening ending. I'd love to say sickening as in "the hero gets murdered by Freddy in an unimaginably gruesome way" but no, it's sickening as in "love conquers all". Sorry if I've spoiled your enjoyment of the film by ruining the ending but I'm afraid nothing can spoil the enjoyment of this film more than actually watching it.

On to PART III: DREAM WARRIORS. Now I realise that I said the sequels would ignore the bizarre real-world properties displayed in FREDDY'S REVENGE, but that doesn't mean they make sense.

Freddy returns from the dead. Again. How? No idea. Nancy, the heroine from the first movie, is neither dead (as the original ending might have suggested) nor insane ("A STRIPEY-JERSEYED BURNS VICTIM STALKS ME IN MY SLEEP! How was your day?"). Nope, instead she's a doctor who helps out in an asylum - because right enough, I'm sure loony bins are really quick to hire doctors who are clearly mental themselves.

Top of the "Are you kidding me?" moments of plot-shattering madness is the revelation that the kids in the loony bin all have a "dream power". No explanation is given for why children suddenly have dream powers, or why they are limited to only one power. Or indeed why the powers they have are so lame. How will we defeat Freddy - what special abilities do we have? "I can cross the road safely!" "I can polish shoes really well!"

Well, okay, so I just made those powers up but believe me, the ones in the film aren't much more impressive. The only good points are that Freddy finally gets an origin story regarding why he is so evil, albeit an exceptionally tasteless and totally nuts one; and there's a quaint battle with some stop-motion skeletons that is real old-school special effects stuff. Lovely. Awful film though.

This was followed by PART IV: THE DREAM MASTER, when once again Freddy returns for no apparent reason (what's the point in even killing him?) and this time we're treated to the latest stunning story development... by which I mean the latest aspect of the story that the writers have decided to make-up on the spot. It now turns out that when the kids are killed, their "dream powers" (I can't even write those words with a straight face) are passed on to the one surviving kid. Not that there's much point, because this film features the most ludicrously stupid (not to mention the easiest) method of killing Freddy yet.

Except obviously he didn't really die, or he wouldn't have turned up in PART V: THE DREAM CHILD. The convoluted nature of Freddy's return in this one is indicative of the generally contrived nature of the film in general. Another absolute turkey (at least the series is consistent) that is lightened up only by the make-up and death scenes.

That of course didn't stop them churning out another one. PART VI: FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE attempts to add more depth to the whole Freddy Krueger mythology but ends up just screwing up the continuity (what little there was) of the existing story. The film is an enormous mess and when the best part of the film is Freddy mocking a deaf kid you have to wonder about the morals of the person who wrote it. And also the morals of people like me who found it funny, but enough about that.

There's also a psychedelic dream sequence which is one of the silliest scenes ever committed to celluloid but one of the biggest failings of this film is actually one that you might not notice if you didn't know about it already. This film was originally shot for a 3D theatrical release. All well and good - I like gimmicks, I like 3D films - but when it is then shown in plain old colour 2D on your TV at home it stops being a 3D spectacle of excitement and wonder, and becomes merely a lot of scenes of people pointing things at the camera with strange regularity.

If you know anything about long-running horror film series, you'll know that any film promising to be "THE FINAL [whatever]" is never final. However, I won't be bringing you my opinion of the post-modern PART VII because, although I've heard it's an improvement, I couldn't bring myself to watch any more films in this awful, awful series. I suppose I did see FREDDY VS JASON, but I'd feel like I was cheating by writing about that one before I cover a similar FRIDAY THE 13TH marathon. That won't happen yet though, because I've "only" watched the first eight films in that series. Yes, there really are more than that. At least most of them are actually good though.

The chap that I spoke about when I opened today's entry claimed to have seen the original movie around 20 times. Suddenly I understand why he'd try to kill someone. I had the same reaction after this marathon; only my wrath was directed at play.com for selling me the box set in the first place. Damn their summer sale.