Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Long Week On Elm St: Part 6: Freddy's Dead



There are movies that are merely bad, simple run of the mill product put out by an indifferent studio to an apathetic public, and then there are movies which are so bad that they cross the line into startling. Movies that fall so low below the bar of competence, that they don’t even deserve the enjoyable bad movie award bestowed upon the likes of Charles B. Pierce and Ed Wood. The only reaction to these types of films is horror and anger. Its based in the same kind of reaction that made angry Cavemen smash snakes with sticks.

Freddy’s Dead is that kind of movie. A film so bad that it more then justifies the “Maybe if we hit it enough times with this machete it’ll stop twitching.” Hard reboot that led to New Nightmare And Freddy Vs. Jason. It’s the sort of movie so bad that it makes you not just dislike it but forget what you liked about the series in the first place.

It’s opening sums up the problem, starting with one of Nightmare’s trademark high falutin quotes in red, by Nietchze this time, before cutting to a simialarly type faced quote saying “Welcome To Prime Time Bitch”. I know its just a joke but it makes me mad, communicating nothing more then “Ambition iz ghey lulz.” Well fuck you too movie.

Anyway a bunch of Orphans, aw fuck it, I don’t care anymore. The movie doesn’t so why should I. We for some reason get treated to Freddy’s origin story, this despite the fact that he has become at this point such a complete caricature that its like giving a backstory to an “inanimate carbon rod”. Who cares? I mean, does the fact that Freddy has a daughter bring anything to him? Does he act at all different to her then he did to Nancy, Tina and all the other female victims he’s gone after? No? Then why fucking bother? Am I supposed to care about the fact that Alice Cooper was mean to him when he enters the movie doing a Wicked Witch of the West impersonation?

I mean what is there to even talk about here? The “Now You’re Playing With Power?” sequence that’s probably the dream world’s nadir. The embarrassed appearance by Johnny Depp? The embarrassing appearance by Roseaane and Tom Arnold? God every fucking thing in this movie is awful. There is literally nothing redeeming about it. Not one remotely scary shot, or funny joke, or clever idea. Say what you will about Part 2 and 5 but they at least had the ambition to be offensively bad, Freddy’s Dead can’t even muster up that. Its bland. A sad little one trick pony going through the motions for the last time.

This movie killed Freddy alright, and he died of fucking shame.

6 comments:

Elwood Jones said...

Ha ha, great review my friend. I should really get round to watching more of this series, especially seeing how I've only seen part 1, new nightmare and freddy vs jason, which kind of has alot to do with being so set in my friday the 13th loving ways.

AK said...

That's called takin' one for the team-you've worked out some major bad karma with this entry. As for myself, I've never actually finished it. Thanks to your review, I'll never have to! Rob

Marcus said...

You can watch him get blowed up in 3D though. Anyway, at least I thought Amanda was fairly hot

Bryce Wilson said...

@ Elwood: Thanks bud. You're not missing alot, Dream Warriors and Master are fun. Otherwise you're good.

@Rob: Well here's hoping it was good for something. If I've saved one person from watching Freddy's dead then I guess it was.

@Marcus: Yeah... If I want to see hot chicks and 3D effects in 2D I'll watch Friday The 13th Part 3. That won't make me forget why I like movies.

Franco Macabro said...

Damn Bryce, you were harsh with this one!

I dont hate it as much as you do, actually, its one of the ones that I enjoy the most because it dives into Freddy's past, showing us parts of Freddy's life we had previously never seen.

We get to see why Freddy is so fucked in the head. I recently did an article on my blog about "why is Freddy so messed up?" where I explored chronologically how Freddy's life turned out to be such a shit storm.

Thats why I like this one. I also like the deaths, the dream sequences, I do agree, some of them are more funny then scary, but by this time, we had already had all this funny versions of Freddy, Freddy evolved into a wise cracking, one liner spewing, comic boogy man. He makes a joke before he kills you. So this movie just went with the pre-established conceptions of Freddy, set by previous films.

I saw this movie on 3-D in theaters, and it was an exciting moment to see Freddy "duking" it out with his own daughter.

The movie aint perfect of course. I mean, how silly is it that Maggie has to put on those 3-D glasses? In reality, it was just a way to let audiences know that this was the moment to put on your 3-D glasses!

To tell you the truth, the 3-d sucked, and I dont like the way certain things looked during those 3-D sequences, like for example those dream demons! How shitty were those things?

But aside from that, I dont think its a bad sequel. I mean, its nowhere near as awful as part 2. I dont know, I just cant bring myself to hate it, cause its pretty much what we could expect from a Freddy movie at this point.

Part 7 took things in a different direction, as if saying "okay, thats enough with turning Freddy into a joke! Lets get this thing going the way its supposed to!" and so, part seven was born...but that one dissapointed me in other levels. Mainly, we dont get any Freddy for 75% of the film.

Bryce Wilson said...

Sorry FC I've got no remorse about kicking this one in the throat.