My Favorite Horror Movie Franchises 2: Streaks of Terror

By Steve Hutchison

Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hellraiser, Child's Play, Scream, Saw, Alien, Predator, Evil Dead, Cube, Night of the Demons, Jaws, Psycho – Film critic Steve Hutchison covers some of his favorite horror movie franchises, providing a synopsis, a review, and ranking all installments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778870606

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

Book preview

StreaksOfTerror2020_MyFavoriteHorrorMovieFranchises_Cover.jpg

INTRODUCTION

Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hellraiser, Child’s Play, Scream, Saw, Alien, Predator, Evil Dead, Cube, Night of the Demons, Jaws, Psycho – Film critic Steve Hutchison covers some of his favorite horror movie franchises, providing a synopsis, a review, and ranking all installments.

Nightmare on Elm Street

#1

1987

Teenagers held in a mental institution become the victims of a mad man who invades nightmares and kills through them.

Fully established now, the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise takes full advantage of the mid-80’s way to do things when it comes to supernatural slashers. This time around, we focus on a group of troubled kids held in a psych ward and not taken seriously when the deadly nightmares kick in. The new setting is a great stepping stone. The fact that the victims are confined adds to the threat.

Until now, in Springwood, personalities weren’t clearly defined and character arcs were privileged over character traits. The different protagonists are now full-on stereotypes. They are sympathetic, nonetheless, and, though their situation is sad, they are an entertaining bunch. Their personas become a critical part of the plot when they learn they can shape their own dreams to survive the night.

The movie is dark, magical, gimmicky. Prosthetic and animatronics play a significant role. Heather Langenkamp’s character returns and Krueger is still played by Robert Englund. The initial mythology lost in the previous entry is shunned and resumes. It’s everything the first sequel should have been. It’s is ambitious, looks great, and pushes fantasy even further than the previous films did.

#2

1988

Haunted by a specter in her nightmares, a teenager discovers she is propagating her death curse among her friends.

This third sequel in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is a gift to the MTV generation. It walks in the footsteps of the previous film but brings its own immature, bratty flavor. Not as dramatic but still tense, it creates ambiance through music as much as lighting and set design. The soundtrack is mostly composed of pop rock, yet the song selection still serves the eeriness.

Freddy is his threatening self but now seems self-aware, camera-conscious and plays it cool. The movie has memorable mind-fuck moments, atmospheric dream sequences and fun characters you can’t help but care for. The third movie was character-centric and so is this one. It is now established that whatever talent or strength you have or wish you had in real life you can use as weapon in nightmares.

The direction is energetic, methodically paced, the dialogue hip, though slightly awkward at times, and there is always something interesting going on. The script is dense and eventually deals with time loops, location warps, and the groundhog day effect. The new eccentricities are a hazy delight. The murders scenes are imaginative, completely over the top, lengthy and gory.

#3

1984

A teenage girl and her friends die one by one after being tricked and tortured by an evil figure that haunts nightmares.

Ultimate nightmare-themed horror movie, this film turns the only bad thing about sleep; nightmares, into some kind of contagious, spiritual disease that tries to kill you before you wake up. It exploits the idea of sleep deprivation in the most creative way imaginable. Like a werewolf curse triggered under a full moon, carnage is inevitable. It hides inside you, waits, and can hardly be delayed .

Not your average villain, Freddy Krueger, the eccentric antagonist, can bend the laws of physics and lives in a surreal world that he disguises as our own. Thanks to brilliant photography, a rigorous sense of pace and ominous suspense, the transitions between reality and dreams are seamless. The camera doesn’t let us in on the illusion so we are as clueless as the victims are.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is nearly perfect. The effects are visionary, the gore striking, the performances more than satisfying, the concept pure genius and the gimmick extremely catchy. Freddy comes with his sonata, his own lighting and a nice, shocking backstory. He joins Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees as one of the most marketable horror icons showing great potential for sequels.

#4

1991

An amnesic teenager who fears sleep is brought to a shelter and is evaluated by mystified specialists.

The sixth Nightmare on Elm Street movie deals with the little damage left to be done in Springwood. Freddy’s goal was to wipe out the whole teenage population in town and he’s almost there. This is the apocalyptic one. The script is evidently setup so to feel like it truly is the end, and while no character is ever joyful, here, Freddy compensates with a humor more witty and eccentric than ever.

The murder scenes are their imaginative self, but they are more slapstick, emotionless. Freddy’s world is now that of a cartoon, or a video game, and is still so very iconic, so atmospheric, that the film manages to be both creepy and mesmerizing at once. Well-orchestrated photography highly contributes to this, as reality blends with dream and set designs gradually distort into an astral prison.

Freddy’s Dead is the best looking film in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but not the most organic. It’s a sequel that comes full circle, referencing the past, reinterpreting scenes from its own franchise, and partially acting as prequel; all this cleverly narrated through a procedural, flashbacks and psychic dreams.

#5

1989

A resuscitated dream demon tracks down the woman who defeated him and tampers with her pregnancy to regain his powers.

For the second time, some surviving characters are carried over to the sequel, cementing this one and the previous two together. Time passes and our protagonists can only be teenagers for so long. Having just graduated from high school, Alice, is now pregnant and rather depressive. She made new friends who do like to party, but it doesn’t make the film fun and innocent. This one is darker.

Exposing themes such as fetus possession, child abortion, dream rape and grieving single parenthood, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5, like his aging audience, deals with more serious and spiritual subject matter. The cast is lovely. The acting isn’t always on the note, but we care for the characters, their skills and interests, presuming they will be glorified or used against them in the dream world.

Sure, the sound is a little weird and it’s not as bubbly as the other sequels, but it holds up