In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

In Scream 4, the film kicks off with spoofs of the fictitious Stab series - the films within the Scream films. Apparently, in the Scream-verse, Stab has chugged along to something like seven or eight installments. Unfortunately, unlike Stab's witty recreation of the events of the first Scream wherein Heather Graham was substituted for Drew Barrymore's character and Tori Spelling for Neve Campbell and the restaged scenes were given a glossy Hollywood horror sheen, the clips of these later-day Stab sequels prove to be soggy spoof material. Mostly they're just there to set up a pair of fake-outs as we think we're watching the opening of Scream 4 with two female friends alone in a house being stalked by Ghostface only to have it revealed that it's a Stab sequel and then the gag is repeated again with another pair of potential victims before Scream 4 properly begins.

The content of these mock Stab sequels is so banal, it made me wish that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson would've tried to have some real fun in imagining where the phony Stab series might have progressed. If only they had seized on the starry precedent set by Hellraiser: Bloodline, Leprechaun 4: In Space, and Jason X and gave their bogus Stab sequel an out-of-this-world setting. Even John Carpenter had once lobbied for a Halloween sequel in which the indestructible Michael Myers would be shot into space (whether he really thought that was a good idea or if he was purposely out to undermine the series, who knows?) so taking a horror franchise out of earthly orbit is enough of a reoccurring theme to warrant spoofing. Yes, it would've meant that the fake-out scares of Scream 4 would've had to go by the wayside but I believe it would have been a worthy sacrifice.

Seeing Ghostface lurking on a space station would've been a wonderfully cheesy way to kick off Scream 4. And honestly, I wouldn't have minded if it had been the real story to Scream 4, either. It would've been ridiculous, yes, but I have to say I miss the days when horror sequels would stray into strange, misguided territory. Back in the day, it frustrated me to see a phony Jason behind the hockey mask or to see the real Jason fighting a telekinetic teen or stalking Times Square or to have the Halloween series derailed by the odd mythology of the Cult of the Thorn (having already been really derailed by the machinations of crazed mask maker Conal Cochran) but in hindsight I appreciate the room for spontaneity that existed then. As inept as some of those sequels were, and as much as they showed a deep misunderstanding of the creative properties involved, I miss the willingness to deviate from the program.

In the '80s and '90s, there wasn't much thought as to whether fans might be affronted or outraged by the direction of a sequel but the keepers of today's franchises always stay on script (with the sole exception being the Child's Play films, but that series has sadly been on hold since 2004's under appreciated Seed of Chucky).

The Saw films never took any zany detours (no Jigsaw Goes To Washington, for example) and likewise, for however long the series lasts you'll never see Paranormal Activity spring any surprises on viewers. At least the Final Destination films can keep ballooning its set-pieces to increasingly absurd levels but in general, the days of horror franchises doing anything to challenge or test their base are over. Walking out of a movie like Jason Goes to Hell, I would've told you that's what I always wanted but I'm not so sure anymore.

Being too cautious is ultimately what gutted Scream 4. I enjoyed it myself but as I said in my review, it's a movie that favors the old guard over the new blood and horror is always about new blood. That's how it's continued to survive. As confounding as some of the horror sequels of the past were, in hindsight I like that they only followed formula to a point. It's true that most of the creative leaps those sequels took didn't pay off but at least the attempts were memorable. It's easy to tell one Friday the 13th from the other - but can anyone other than the most attentive Saw fan tell those sequels apart?

While the box office for Scream 4 on its opening weekend wasn't exactly dismal, it was definitely lackluster compared to its predecessors. The series now ironically finds itself in the same position of the '80s warhorses it used to mock - a once thriving franchise whose audience has shrunk. If another Scream comes around, maybe they'll decide to throw caution to the wind and set their sights a little higher.

Like, maybe as high as the moon even.

Scared Sheetless

By introducing surrealism into the staid n' stagnant slasher formula in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), writer/director Wes Craven put to bed the cycle of copycat cinema that had dominated the horror genre since the success of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). In place of a prosaic, everyday world where overall-clad killers lurked behind shrubbery, hid in closets, and raided kitchen drawers for knives, there was a fantastical new 'rubber' reality.

Freddy Krueger wasn't just some lumbering party crasher, invading our space...

Instead, he forced his way into our world, stretching it out of shape.

Post-Halloween, slasher films had stuck to the same old tricks...


With A Nightmare on Elm Street, the slasher genre dramatically shed its skin, ripping its way free.

It was a call to action...

...For horror filmmakers to wake up and start dreaming again.

That nothing like that happened and that - rather than leading to adventurous films out to follow their own individuality - A Nightmare on Elm Street simply inspired imitations, shouldn't be a surprise. Horror has eternally been a genre cursed by sleeping potential...and lulled by borrowed dreams.

Golden Slumbers

Due on DVD May 4th, riding on the heels of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, is the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. The box art for the DVD has recently been revealed and, as drawn by original Elm Street poster artist Matthew Joseph Peak, it looks awfully sweet. I'm actually more excited to see this franchise-spanning doc (produced by the same team responsible for My Name Is Jason) than I am to see the remake.

Unlike Halloween or Friday the 13th - series that I had to catch up with on TV because I was too young when the early entries of each series came out - I hit the ground running with Nightmare and saw the 1984 original in theaters. Being able to watch the Nightmare movies from the beginning gave me both a fondness for the series but also a little contempt towards it as well. I suspect it's a common reaction among fans to feel that, with rare exception, once they're old enough to see horror movies on the big screen unsupervised the movies don't seem as cool as the ones that came before their time.

The original A Nightmare on Elm Street, however, definitely lived up to the minor maelstrom of hype that accompanied it (hype was harder to generate in those pre-internet days). Every sequel after that, though, was an exercise in disappointment. Even the much-admired Dream Warriors seemed jarring to me at the time as that's where the Freddy one-liners started to take on a life of their own (although, admittedly, the one-liners in Dream Warriors are classic).

Still, time has made me fonder of The Gloved One and the carefree era that he reigned over. At the height of the Nightmare series' popularity, it seemed galling to this serious-minded fan to have horror's flagship character be all about buffoonery and MTV-style razzmatazz. Now I wish horror could have some of that love of pure entertainment back. Even the most moronic genre films today - such as The Unborn or Daybreakers - have a dunderheaded earnestness to them that's just boring. Freddy, on the other hand, was always ready with a quip and a cackle. Freddy may have been seldom scary but in retrospect, I realize that it was always a kick to have him around.

Freddy Mania

Now that a Nightmare on Elm Street remake is officially set to be filmed next year, courtesy of Platinum Dunes - the producers of the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the new Friday the 13th - I'd like to say upfront that I'm all for it. As with Texas and Friday, my thought isn't one of "how can this ever be as good as the original?" but rather "how could it be worse than the sequels?". Sure, I wish that Hollywood would spend more time creating new nightmares instead of recycling old ones but good luck waiting for that to happen. Personally, I'm less sick of remakes at this point than I am of hearing people whining about them. As far as relaunching the Elm Street franchise goes, even with seven films to the old series' credit, the concept of a killer that stalks you in your dreams still has plenty of potential and if nothing else, the promise of seeing Freddy Krueger restored to the scary presence he was in Craven's original is appealing to me.

I can't say that the Elm Street films were always favorites of mine but Freddy's cult hero status was part of what made '80s horror fun. There's a whole generation of now-twentysomething horror fans who bought their first issues of FANGORIA because Freddy was on the cover. Sure, the character quickly became corny but looking back, I'll take his one-liners and cruel heckling of dysfunctional teens over the stultifying philosophising of Jigsaw in the Saw movies any day.

For some, it might be an automatic deal-killer that Robert Englund won't be playing Freddy but I think it's time to pass the sweater and glove onto someone else. I mean, they change James Bonds, and Draculas, and Dr. Whos, and Batmans all the time - just because Englund has been the only Freddy to date doesn't mean the role has to stay with him until he's in a nursing home. At least he got to be in 2003's Freddy vs. Jason, which was as good a way for him to take a bow and kiss the role goodbye as possible. The dude's in his 60s now, let's let him retire gracefully and keep our memories intact - not like when Sean Connery went back to being Bond for Never Say Never Again. Or when Roger Moore hung around one damn film too long with A View To A Kill.

But even though I think Englund is better off not returning, it does make me a little sad to know that whoever they get to play Freddy in the new film won't be as consumed with the role as Englund was. Part of what I liked about Englund was that he was Freddy. Sure, he had a few other roles - mostly TV work - during the hey-day of Elm Street but essentially his job then was to be Freddy. He guest hosted hosted MTV as Freddy, he appeared in the TV spin-off Freddy's Nightmares - he worked his Freddy shtick wherever they needed him to. And I liked that. I liked the fact that Englund was a character actor who fell into unexpected popularity late in the game, got the kind of stardom that actors like him rarely find, and he ran with it.

For Englund, that role wasn't a matter of being trapped, it was a windfall. Like the popularity of the series itself, which made the fledgling New Line into The House That Freddy Built, it was the kind of success that dreams are made of.