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


Directed by Chuck Russell
Written by Wes Craven, Bruce Wagner, Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell
IMDB

Compared to A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, this movie is a lot more plot driven. Plus it features a theme song by Dokken. You cannot get more 80s than A Nightmare on Elm Street film with a Dokken theme. Maybe if you made a Noid animated series with a Rick Astly theme song, but that's pushing. Rick Astly would never do the theme song to an animated TV program.
Patricia Arquette stars as a teen who is thought to be going insane because of her intense nightmares. Obviously, these are being induced by Freddy Krueger. She is put into a mental institution by her mother, here she meets others who are having the same experience as her. The doctors skirt around the issue and look down on the kids instead of helping them (this is a very anti-doctor movie). Then a new doctor shows up, and it just happens that she is the girl from the first A Nightmare on Elmstreet movie. She tries to help the kids.
This movie is a little light on violence and heavy on plot, but there are a few really great scenes. The best death in the movie is when Freddy is using somebody's veins as puppet strings. It's so gross! There's also a really geeky kid, who becomes a wizard when they are together in the dream world. Overall, this was a pretty good film. I am a sucker for A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, so I enjoyed it.

7.5/10

Last House on the Left (1972)

Directed by Wes Craven
Written by Wes Craven
IMDB

There are some spoilers in this review, just a heads up, not an alert.
An ultra low-budget film (made for $90,000) that launched Wes Craven's career and changed horror movies forever. I think one could make the argument that without this film we wouldn't have Texas Chainsaw Massacre and all of the other awful "crazy family" movies that were so huge in the 70s and early 80s.
Three men escape from prison with the help of a woman. When two young ladies approach one about buying some weed, they are abducted and brutally raped and eventually murdered. Then the group manages somehow to end up at one of the girl's houses. Her parents realize that these are the people who murdered their daughter and terrorize and kill them. The dad even takes one out with a chainsaw (to further solidify the influence this movie had on Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
This movie is brutal, especially if you haven't seen any of the even more brutal and digusting rip-off like I Spit on Your Grave (the most offensive movie ever made, in my opinion). Much of the exceptionally harsh actions happen just offscreen, but not all of them do. Plus, the tone really makes some of the actions the group takes even more disturbing. There is some comic relief and the group shows remorse at times, which make their choices and actions all the more effective.
This movie has a pretty bad wrap, and I can see why somebody wouldn't like it. It's dark and disturbing. It will stay with you for a long time. It's gross, grainy, realistic and the music is oddly happy (and clearly written for the movie). My only problem with it, and it's very minor, is the ending is a little against the rest of the movie. It is sort of commercial, almost. While you do need to see the group get murdered, it is just a bit far-fetched that they would end up at the house of one of the girls. Even one of them comments on it.



You can tell how effecting this movie is by how long this review has become. This is a movie you can end up discussing for a while. Calling this movie "torture porn" as some people are apt to call everything nowadays, would be fairly accurate. I do not think that is the intended purpose and I feel like it doesn't come across as overly exploitative. It is just a very blunt movie. It does not take pleasure in ripping the clothes off of the girls or carving them up with a knife. It is some shit that just happens.
Should you watch it? It is all up to you. If you think you can handle it (and some might even say it is tame, these people are psychopaths, of course) then it is in its way a masterpiece of terror. It is claustrophobic and vile. You may feel as helpless as the girls in the movie.

9/10