Tag Archives: Nightmare on Elm Street 3

01/27/2017 · 12:00 am

3-D’s Nuts

3-D movies employ greatly improved technology today. Previously, they used the same glasses as 3-D comic books did; cardboard with acetate lenses in red and blue.

My personal pair, since 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. (As much as would fit on my scanner.)

3-D comics were unreadable without these glasses. I still have two issues: Gumby 3-D and Transformers in 3-D #3, both from Blackthorne Publishing.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee

Tagged as 1980s, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990s, 1991, 3-D, Atari 2600, Back To The Future, Back To The Future II, Brain May, Casey Siemaszko, corporate crap, Dustin Hoffman, Freddy Krueger, Gremlins, hip hop, Hulk Hogan, Mad Max, movies, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Optimus Prime, Parliament, Steely Dan, The Oscars, Three O'Clock High, Transformers, Tupac Shakur

10/25/2016 · 2:10 pm

Horror icons are sparse in the 21st century for a very simple reason. Horror used to be adults scaring children. Now it’s all about creepy children scaring adults, and adults don’t scare the way kids do. Hence, a decent slasher flick gets forgotten after four or five years, regardless of how many sequels it has (witness the interminable Saw franchise of torture-porn).

Two of the most enduring figures in terror are Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, of the Nightmare on Elm St. and Friday the 13th franchises. Both are bogeymen; mythical killers of young folks, in familiar settings. Therein lies the key to their longevity and appeal. Continue reading →

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, O'Shloktoberfest, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club

Tagged as 2000s, 2003, Angelo Badalamenti, Beast Wars, breasts, Fangoria, Freddy Krueger, Garry Chalk, Heather Langenkamp, horror movies, Jason Voorhees, Katherine Isabelle, Kelly Rowland, Lochlyn Munro, Monica Keena, movies, Nightmare on Elm Street, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Optimus Prime, Patricia Arquette, Robert Englund, Ronny Yu, Sean Cunningham, Wes Craven

04/30/2016 · 7:42 pm

Bad Cinéaste

I have a confession to make. Though I consider myself quite the erudite film scholar, in many ways I have no cause to place myself above the average lumpen moviegoer.

I confuse the name ZaSu Pitts with Zuzu Petals, a minor character from the execrable Andrew Dice Clay comedy The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
I am inexplicably incensed at the sight of the cover of the film Metropia, and Audrey Tautou’s picture on the front of Amélie. To date, I have not seen Amélie, even though it’s from a director I like, thanks to its coy, nauseatingly precious cover shot.
I haven’t seen Precious, except on YouTube, because apparently I laugh at the wrong things.
I can’t stand whispering in movies any more than I can in the theater. A notable exception would be 1982’s Poltergeist. M. Night Shyamalan has abused whispering so much his actors should be forced to use air horns.
I’ve never seen Avatar. Any movie that uses a default computer font for its title isn’t worth a billion dollar budget, let alone my attention.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All

Tagged as 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Angelo Badalamenti, Avatar, Back To The Future II, Christopher Nolan, Clue, corporate crap, Destino, Drew Barrymore, Ennio Morricone, Gaspar Noe, George Lucas, Han Solo, horror movies, Indiana Jones, Irreversible, Joe Pesci, Lars Von Trier, M. Night Shyamalan, Marion Cotillard, Martin Scorcese, movies, musicals, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Peter Greenaway, Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Star Wars, Transformers

07/30/2015 · 5:27 pm

In Praise Of Screaming Women

I used to call myself a horror-movie buff in the 1990s, so I’ve heard all the grievances about “scream queens” and “final girls”. And, you know, those complaints worked; now every female protagonist in movies is an unstoppable “badass”. I saw the recent space drama Gravity, and I was mystified why so many people disliked it. Then I looked into the details; modern audiences rejected a Sandra Bullock who freaks out and cries when things go sour. Never mind that it’s part of a character arc; females must always be steely and in control.

Well, like so many aspects of modern film, that’s boring. Another victim of political correctness in movies is the Girl Who Can Scream. The scolds among us will suggest that men get a perverse satisfaction out of seeing women in jeopardy, but that’s only the perverts. For the rest of us, it’s a human fire alarm, when it’s done right. It signals that things are really, really bad. They even used to put it in the trailers.

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