House on Sorority Row is about a group of senior sorority sisters of Theta Pi who decide to schedule a year-end graduation party in June, after the house usually closes. Their house-mother, Mrs. Slater, waving her cane and generally seeming a bit unhinged, vetoes the idea and insists that that they leave on the usual date. Afterward, Mrs. Slater finds Vicki (the fabulously slutty and impetuous house member) and her boyfriend tussling on Vicki’s waterbed and is so disgusted she punctures the bed with the head of her cane (which, of course, will come into play later as a useful weapon for impaling). From earlier, puzzling scenes in the movie, we see that Mrs. Slater has some mental disorder, but the opening scenes leave the exact nature of her problems a mystery until later in the film.

Vicki’s humiliation leads to her idea of playing a practical joke on Mrs. Slater involving her boyfriend’s gun (loaded with blanks) and the scummy sorority house pool, which Mrs. Slater is to cheap to keep up. All of the sorority sisters besides Katherine, the sweet and virginal one, agree immediately. Of course, as jokes involving guns often do, things go terribly wrong, Slater ends up dead, and the girls decide to hide the body and continue with their graduation party plans anyway.

What makes House on Sorority Row different from most movies of this genre is that it manages to be funny, tense, and scary all at the same time. In early scenes after Mrs. Slater’s death, the girls all nervously attend their party, afraid that somebody will find out their secret as frat boys dive into the pool and ask about Slater’s absence. After the murders begin, the movie cleverly misdirects the the viewer regarding the identity of the killer and the reasons for them.

The acting here is decent overall. Kate McNeil is dull and timid as the prim Katherine and Eileen Davidson steals the show as the aggressive, impetuous, and sexually-charged Vicki. Jodi Dragie as Morgan delivers her lines with a cluelessness that makes them hilarious. Try to watch her deliver the line how do we know if she’s still alive ?halfway through the film without laughing. Unsurprisingly, this was her first and only film, according to IMDb.

House on Sorority row doesn’t have depth or great acting, but it’s fun, lighthearted (as lighthearted as a movie that features a severed head in a toilet can be) and a great early example of the genre.

The film takes place on the night before Easter and opens with a robbery where a masked gunman mercilessly kills a liquor store clerk. We’re then introduced to a single Mother, Mindy Peters, and her handicapped son, Nicholas, who is obsessed with the holiday – we later find out that his father died on Easter. Mindy has a date with her new boyfriend, Remington, who, unbeknownst to her, is the criminal who committed the robbery and plans on moving in with her despite Nicholas’ objections. When Mindy has to work a double shift and can’t get a babysitter, Remington offers to help but has more sinister plans to party. Unfortunately for him and his friends, a masked killer is on the loose and begins to pick them off one by one.

So what separates Easter Bunny, Kill! Kill! from other recent slasher movies? Firstly, it’s not a remake and even though it’s about a masked killer who chooses to kill during a particular time of the year, I think this is more in homage to classic slashers than an attempt to bring something entirely new to the table. I would have liked it to look a little more authentic (like last year’s The House of the Devil) but this may have been impossible due to budgetary constraints or simply because Director Chad Ferrin wants this to be remembered as an unpretentious modern-day slasher.

There are some gory death scenes which include a drill to the head, plastic wrap suffocation and even a broom to the throat (not the brush end). Muskatell manages to walk a fine line in his portrayal of Remington who’s simply vile but strangely likable (the handlebar mustache and chops complement his pear-shaped body and maniacal laugh for comic effect).

I’m a little uncertain about the direction as the photography is dodgy throughout and certain shots don’t appear to be framed properly – if this was for effect, I don’t know if it always worked. I thought the ending was a little weak and felt rushed but it tied things up nicely.

In the end, though, this isn’t looking to break any new ground; it’s a straightforward exploitation film in the style of the ultraviolent slashers from the 70s and 80s, with unwholesome characters, a thin plot and questionable morals (all of which is good).

May is a young woman that leads a fairly interesting but yet non-eventful life.  She has a full-time job as a vet assistant, she goes home everyday to greet her best friend, of whom is a porcelain doll, and she spends most of her free time sowing her own clothes.  Does that draw you in?  No?!?…well, while May is very lovable, she is also PAINFULLY shy and more than just a little awkward.  In social settings she is a complete wreck, yet her fellow patrons excuse this and tend to see her as a very sweet and sensible young woman.  Bettis displays all of May’s traits brilliantly and never fails to make every conversational frame the most awkward and unnerving segments of the film.  To the films advantage, these segments are welcomed and at often times funny and entertaining.  These qualities are amounted by Bettis’s performance.  It will draw you in, guaranteed, and you will be biting your nails the whole way through.

The key to this film is how May’s friends and coworkers relate to her.  Some are turned on by her innocents, some think she’s a freak, and some feel she’s just too “weird”.  May also wants nothing more than for her piers to see her for who she really is.  Who does May think she REALLY is?  Or better yet, what kind of person  is she capable of becoming???

Throughout the film, it’s as if May is feeling love and friendship for the first time, and throughout most of her personal encounters with other wonderful characters, she reacts to her complete ignorance in the most frustrating and violent ways.  It soon becomes more than May can take, and that is exactly where the film turns into a common slasher, but only at a first glance.  While May seems to take part in a rather tiresome plot switch to slasherhood, our director, Lucky McKee, has an even grander trick up his sleeve.  It isn’t until the films final moments that the pieces literally fall into place.  What we’re left with is a horror film that is incredibly original as a slasher, a drama, and a dark comedy.  More importantly, it is highly entertaining and very thought provoking.

See this film.  It has climbed into the ways of my top ten.

The young lady who is the subject of Judith is the unfortunate sister of everyone’s favorite masked psychopath, Michael Myers. In the original Halloween, her role is rather limited.  She is the victim, the object of the very young Michael Myers’ rage. As creepy music blares in the background, the camera follows Michael’s point of view as he sneaks up on his sibling as she sits, naked, unaware, brushing her hair in preparation for a Halloween party. In the new tribute film, the stylized camera angle remains the same, but the writer and director try to breathe new life into the cliched character, fleshing out her personality a bit and giving her an identity beyond hacked up pretty corpse.

The idea is an excellent one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out quite as well on screen as it does in theory. Due to the small scale of the film, many of the actors, including Sarah Stephenson who plays the title role, are a far cry from their predecessors.  The acting is at times flat and at others, overly melodramatic. Glimmers of personality occasionally shine through, but not enough to make the viewer really care about Judith as an individual. Judith’s party preparations with her friend D’arcy (Ana Gilmore) add little to her already minimal character. The chance to develop Judith’s character is sadly squandered, lost in their rather mundane conversation about boys and Halloween decorations.

On the positive side, one stylistic departure from the original works well in Judith’s favor.  The background music, both during the credits and throughout the film itself, is excellently edited.  The choice of songs adds an eerie, contemporary feel that fits in well with the over-all atmosphere. Judith’s opening credits do a good job setting up the scene of small-town folks preparing for Halloween celebrations.  The choice of the Beach Boy’s serene, oddly haunting melody “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” lends a strange sense of foreboding to the opening shots of Judith. The meticulous attention to detail in set design not only contributes to the dark tone, but is truly a homage to the original.

If only the detail that went into creating an atmospheric setting carried over to the characters. Since the film is meant to add dimension to some minor characters, it would have been interesting to also get more of a glimpse into Michael’s story. True, this tale is meant to belong to Judith, but plenty of tantalizing hints about Michael’s madness are scattered throughout the script and the set. We see his attic room where he locks himself away, listening to loud music, scribbling dark poetry on the rafters and playing with his pet tarantula. Here, liberties are taken with the Michael Myers mythos. He seems like more of an angry, sullen teenager than a deeply disturbed child when his killing spree begins.

For a film intended to offer viewers a fresh perspective on a well-known story, Judith winds up raising more questions than offering insight about the characters and their motivation. The concept is there, but the execution is lacking. And as any Halloween fan knows, in this genre, execution is everything.

There is of course an uncomplicated story that is nothing out of the ordinary for such films, but its simplicity makes it all the more intriguing. Essentially the narrative begins with an escaped killer-Ross Thorn; he is on the loose and begins to stalk a group of teenage girls. One of the girls, Trish, her family goes away so she decides to have a slumber party with a few choice friends, excluding the boys (who are hiding there anyway) and the new girl who has just moved in next door. As darkness falls the killer sees his chance and decides to dispatch as many young bodies that are available. This of course is with the use of a slasher favourite, the power tool, in this case a large drill. With the help of the next-door neighbours, Trish survives and they band together and slay the madman, pretty simple, but what the plot does is add an adequate amount of suspense and just enough gory moments that appeases the horror appetite and creates plenty of tension.

Because such classic slasher films as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (USA 1974; Tobe Hooper), Halloween ( USA 1978; John Carpenter) and Friday the 13^th (1980; Sean S. Cunningham) preceded The Slumber Party Massacre it is easy to relegate this film to a lowlier place on the slasher chain. Indeed, the above films are exceptional in the fact they spearheaded the genre but most have all the same ingredients and allude to the same outcome. This brings me to the only outstanding differences, which are its female writer and director. It is perhaps acceptable to state that is where the differences end. From the outset nudity is high on the agenda, more specifically female nudity, voyeuristic in its execution as we see groups of teenage girls in communal school showers, getting dressed in locker rooms, changing into their pyjamas etc. Perhaps Holden Jones was creating female bonding scenarios and nudity, and expression of that does not necessarily have to be seen as sexual? But the contradiction regarding this premise is that these films are designed for young males, whom I’d imagine would watch this film for the nudity. There are no major feminist undertones or messages in this film, but there is a substantial amount subtext which alludes to young female apprehension regarding sex and more specifically men’s sexual organs.

There are however quite a few humorous and witty moments and as Rita Mae Brown had originally written the screenplay as a parody of the mass teenage sex slasher films that were in abundance around this time, the jokes are certainly aimed at the consumers of these films as they really play on the genres conventions which fans will easily get. However, the film was made straight. Despite this there are genuine comical scenes that reflect some of Brown’s intentions, most notably a superb scene which comes towards the end of the film. Trapped in a cellar, Valerie the next-door neighbour sees a medley of DIY tools, which would suffice, as possible weapons to eradicate the crazed killer. After perusing the tools she finally settles on an electric drill. Charging up the stairs weapon in hand she gets yanked back down the cellar by the electrical cord that is still plugged in. This is a fantastic piece of parody, mocking the yet to be established ‘Final Girl’ theory. This scene is also parodied in Eli Roth’s Hostel Part 2 (2007), another nod to his obvious fandom and influences.

Although the film is littered with funny moments it is well balanced with skilfully placed tension. The second half of the film, which essentially takes place in and around Trish and Valerie’s houses, is where the horror element of this slasher really kicks in. The stalking of the oblivious teenagers switches to all out panic as they discover, courtesy of a dead pizza delivery guy, they are at the mercy of a lunatic.

The performances of the cast are credible. The only weak areas are the buffoon-like boys, who really are weak willed when it comes to women and the prospect of death. This I’m sure is an intentional character trait as similar films of this era Friday the 13^th , The Burning (USA 1981; Tony Maylam) and The Funhouse (USA 1981; Tobe Hooper) all show teenage boys on the verge of their first sexual conquest yet still very much little boys when faced with danger. Robin Stille, who played Valerie, is a really interesting character. She is pitched against Trish played by Michele Michaels who surprisingly is a sweet natured teenager. Val unlike Trish is an outcast, and has an interesting demeanour that is imperturbable yet vulnerable. Trish is popular yet compassionate; these are the qualities that make an audience root for their survival. Their relationship is based upon mutual intelligence and a strong sense of self which seems to attract them to each other. The killer, played with frenzied enthusiasm by Michael Villella does not hide behind masks or have any background information that helps understand his psyche; this is slightly unusual for this genre yet helps take the emphasis off him as human being; creating more of an inhuman quality about him. He is a plain and simple psychopath wielding an extra long drill (bit) who just couldn’t resist killing a gaggle of nubile female teenagers.

The drill does get employed as a phallic symbol in quite a few of the killing scenes, in particular one scene where he stands in front of a young girl who is on the floor backed up and helpless. The camera is low, and is shot behind his open legs as the drill falls in between his stance; we see the young girl scream as the drill comes to life. This use of metaphorical rape is well contrasted with the metaphorical castration that helps destroy the killer, as his drill gets chopped off leaving him powerless and open for ridicule in death.

The Slumber Party Massacre does not offer anything different in the sub genre of the slasher, but because it was written and directed by women it does beg the question why and how would it differ? What this film does provide is a thoroughly good ride through a well paced suspenseful, slightly gory slasher film. Whilst there is a substantial amount of bloodshed, and pointless female nudity it actually is a surprisingly exciting horror film. At 77 minutes long the ride is swift, there really is no time to question the usual mistakes characters make in these films ie don’t go into the dark garage alone etc, so it travels along with enough surprises and wit that complies with convention yet does not offend nor bore.

His Name was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13^th (released this month on DVD in the U.K.), chronicles the legacy of the series with actors, producers, directors, screenwriters and journalists explaining why these simple slasher films have become such a phenomenon. Personally, it was something about the combination of a hockey mask and a machete that helped Jason seem so much cooler than Freddy Kreuger or Michael Myers.

Pretty much everything a casual fan might want to know is discussed in the documentary, from gripes about breaks in continuity to the best kills and how the early releases were loathed by the MPAA and parent groups for their unadulterated violence. Tom Savini serves as host and guides the viewer through a mock-up horror movie set.

While the documentary itself is great, the extra features are where this DVD really shines with four hours of additional footage. People who preferred certain films can watch extended interviews with every director (with the exception of Steve Miner, who was behind parts two and three) or the screenwriters, who all explain their vision for their particular movie.

Sean Cunningham (producer and director of the original Friday the 13^th) notes that the franchise owes a large part of its success to Paramount Pictures who got behind the movie with the necessary promotion, giving it a wide release much like a major motion picture. Cunningham said his goal was to make a simple, low-budget scary movie and, surprisingly, he hadn’t seen any of the classic giallo films of the 60s and 70s, which supposedly influenced the film.

The various actors that played Jason offer some insightful commentary into what they brought to the table. For example, you find out what a sweet old man Ted White is (in contrast to his menacing on-screen presence in The Final Chapter) and that he didn’t get along with director Joseph Zito, whom he felt was being too hard on the young actors. Judie Aronson (who played Samantha) said that she got hypothermia after filming her death scene and White was the only person who stood up for her, demanding that Zito get the shot so that she could get out of the freezing lake.

We’re also told that the memorable theme music was actually made up of the sounds “ki” and “ma”. Composer Harry Manfredini said he got the idea after watching a scene where Mrs. Voorhees is mouthing the words “Kill Mommy” and decided to use the consonants, which were fed through an echoplex.

The fan videos are good but there’s an outstanding spoof of antidepressant commercials that features Jason as the subject who’s experiencing “overwhelming feelings of sadness, disinterest, loneliness, fatigue”, all of which are getting him laughed away from potential murders – he’s ok after being prescribed “Voorexia”.

This is what all DVDs should be like: plenty of bonus features, interviews, Easter eggs and stuff you can’t get anywhere else. Hardcore fans may not find much new stuff here but it’s essential viewing for any Friday the 13^th or Jason fan.

Cornered is essentially about a group of half a dozen convenience store workers that are trapped in their store/apartment with a killer that is hell-bent on murdering convenience clerks throughout the city of Los Angeles.  One by one they realize that they are locked in the store with this brutal serial killer, and they each have their own personal encounters with him, as short and as bloody as those encounters may be.  The killer does have a motive, but it is weak and hardly justifiable.  You’ll spend most of your time waiting for the kills to begin, and as the story progresses, the kills become more and more frequent.  Can everyone last until dawn when the store is scheduled to open its doors?  Absolutely not.  Will the only likeable character make it too the end of the film?  Probably not.   Will you enjoy Cornered???  I’m guessing…not…

Most of Cornered’s ideas run completely flat.  Our six “innocent” characters each read about the convenience store killer and verbally tell each other how they themselves would kill the killer if they were to ever encounter him.  Well, they each have their own time with him, but the killer finds it humorous to actually slay each character in the ways in which they, jokingly, wanted to originally kill him.  Sounds interesting, but it also makes the action sequences become much too predictable.  This, and many other plot devices will surely keep you scratching your head while you wonder why the writers increasingly throw in and uncover so many underwhelming mysteries.

Cornered contributes nothing new to the genre, but it does give us a welcomed amount of character development.  Yes, the characters are a bit trite and overplayed, but they each carry out themes that relate very well to everyday living, as sleazy as it may be, and eventually their deaths mimic their qualities in the most ironic ways.  Still, it would help to have a killer that had more of a sinister presents.  This guy doesn’t even get enough camera time for you to even notice most of his qualities.   As a result, a few thrilling sequences offer some well placed jump scares, but for a horror film, Cornered offers little else.

Cornered isn’t even a “good try”.  It’s just a cheap and lazy slasher film, and nothing else.  In some regards it is worth a watch for its few decent qualities, but I wouldn’t go too far out of your way to find out what those qualities are.

If you choose to watch Mr. Jingles, you will be strongly tempted to shut it off – and that’s just before the opening credits finish, which list what must be the equivalent of an entire small town, lingering on each name for enough time that you’ve re-read it five times over before it fades away. Half the crew is the same two or so people (who also appear to be related) and their names are repeated so frequently that by the time the credits finish, the director assumes you know them on a first-name basis and drops the last names. And sadly, you do.  After close to four minutes (which is quite a while if you think about it – near a tenth of the brief runtime), the credits finally come to a close and the film gets slightly more interesting from here on. I stress slightly.

Shot on a consumer camera with what appears to be a wonky focus button and recorded with what sounds like a tape recorder (good luck understanding a single word without the subtitles), Mr. Jingles begins with the titular Mr. Jingles invading a house and slaughtering a family. The scene is a good indication of what’s to come. Mr. Jingles slashes the dad’s front shirt and rips a sausage, doubling as intestine, out. He then bops the mom’s head to the floor with all the force of a cranky five-year-old. Meanwhile, the couple’s ten-year-old daughter, Angie, cowers upstairs in her closet. This ten-year-old is inexplicably played by a twenty-three-year-old woman, which remains a puzzling choice until the film flashes forward “Ten Years Later” and you realize they just decided to use the same actress who played Angie as an adult. They were apparently unable to find a real ten-year-old girl who could substitue for the brief prologue. Right before Mr. Jingles finds Angie and is about to do her in, two policemen burst in. One moves a toy plastic gun up and down and you hear some sort of popping sound, similar to the sound “Pop Rocks” make when dissolving.

The opening sequence effectively establishes what’s to come: along with the terrible effects work (i.e. sausage as intestine) and pure incompetence (a full-grown woman playing the ten-year-old girl), there’s the utterly irritating clown, Mr. Jingles, who spouts out stupid one-liners for the remainder of his screen time. In the opening scenes it’s – and I’ll paraphrase to avoid having to re-watch – “You have to be punished for twinkling your panties!” Later on, his lines degenerate to the point where he simply begins calling his victims “douchebags” and “fuckos”. Imagine if Michael Myers, before killing a victim, called out “Hello fuckos! How’s it hanging?”. It effectively kills any potential scares, not that there were any to begin with here, but you catch the drift.

You’ve seen the movies Mr. Jingles cribs from countless times before: it’s a combination of every bad slasher film you’ve seen and every bad demonic posession film you’ve seen, except the villain is initially an innocent clown falsely imprisoned on charges of pedophilia. While incarcerated, this Mr. Jingles vows to get revenge on those who have wronged him and dabbles in the occult, as one character explains in the tired cliché of “he sold his soul to the devil”. After acquiring supernatural powers and escaping from jail (which of course we only hear about in drawn-out exposition), he sets out to kill the relatives of those responsible, in this case young Angie, and a killer-clown variation on Halloween ensues. Eventually, after leaving an assortment of dead bodies littered around town, he ends up at a teenage party, where he hacks through the partygoers one by one as he tries to get to Angie.

The entire movie is primarily a lead-up to the party sequence finale and until then it’s essentially out-of-focus, inaudible filler. There are a few subplots thrown in to keep it interesting, including one that involves an elaborate prank orchestrated by some Goth kids that goes absolutely nowhere and one involving a grave keeper who knows how to kill Mr. Jingles that goes absolutely nowhere. By the time of the big finale, in which Mr. Jingles finally reaches the party and wreaks havoc, you’ll likely be bored beyond imagination and welcome the change of pace despite the ensuing stupidity. Some of it crosses the line into the unintentionally hilarious, but most remains simply bad. How can two girls run into the middle of a vast field, with no one around, only to have Mr. Jingles pop out and grab them? Where the hell did he come from?  How the heck does he manage to collect and assemble the bodies of everyone he has killed during the course of the night, roughly ten people, around a dinner table in approximately thirty seconds? How and why is a man who was hacked repeatedly with an axe and presumed dead now back with only a small knick on his cheek?

Then, after over 70 minutes of absolute idiotic tedium (although I can assure it will have felt about twenty times longer), Mr. Jingles manages to deliver one truly frightening final sequence, that is up there alongside the best moments of The Exorcist and Psycho in terms of sheer terror: the filmmakers leave it open for a sequel. Now that’s horror.

Enter Hatchet. A short little slasher flick that’s about a small group of young Americans who are on vacation, wander off the beaten path, and start to get picked off one by one. What makes Hatchet different from all the other teen horror flicks is the sense of humor that it has in response to the same old tired stereotype characters and predicable plot twists that we see in too many American horror films.  It takes those characters and extends and exploits those stereotypes to a whole new extreme.

The plot of Hatchet is much of the same as what I’ve previously mentioned, and if anything, it tries so desperately to be incredibly straight forward in terms of your typical slasher film plot. You guessed it; a group of young Americans are on vacation, they get sidetracked from the fun, get lost in the middle of nowhere, and for some reason somebody or something wants to kill them. Hatchet can certainly be admired for making us laugh at it’s overly stereotypical characters, over the top killer lunatic, and humorous plot advancements, but in the end, Hatchet is still JUST THAT…another Hollywood Horror Film with very few tricks up its sleeve.

So if Hatchet won’t surprise you, it can most definitely make you grin. It does manage to be very clever. When most of our characters are still alive, their interactions and self conflicts can be amusing, to say the least. Adam Green, the films writer and director, simply takes material that is not at all original and tries to use his witty script to his only advantage. As a result, the characters will keep you interested in the film and you might even find yourself feeling a bit disappointed when some of your favorites get the axe…errr, i mean…hatchet.  You won’t necessarily miss them for the duration of the film, but you might find that the film was far more humorous  when all the characters where alive and well.

So this is a slasher, right? So it’s got some good kills, right? YES! If you think that you’ve seen it all (you’ve got some nerve!) then you are dead DEAD wrong. The killer in Hatchet is a HUGE man-beast that slays our main characters in the most satisfying and almost always humorous fashions. Nothing is incredibly realist here as far as blood and guts are concerned, but lets just say that due to all the buckets of gooey red stuff that were spilled, my jaw dropped in glorious wonderment on more than one occasion. If you are watching the film with a friend you will undoubtedly be saying “DID YOU SEE THAT???” after countless kill scenes. The funny thing is, of course he saw “that”,…i mean…he’s sitting in the seat RIGHT next to you. Dumbass! Still, you know what I mean.

This sounds like a gimmick that would have worked beautifully in a movie about a killer who stalks you in your dreams (and it does) but it becomes too repetitive towards the end to elicit any strong feelings in the viewer. It’s a movie that, no doubt, appeals to fans of the series and film critics because the direction, concept, and writing are all very good and there isn’t anything technically “bad” about this film. But I was, frankly, quite bored by the halfway mark and couldn’t help feeling that the potential to make a truly scary Nightmare flick had been wasted.

The movie takes place in California about 10 years after the first NOES and introduces us to Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy, living her life as an actress remembered largely for her role in an 80s slasher flick. As with most actors who are remembered for a single iconic role, she distanced herself from the genre but soon becomes caught in a new wave of Freddy hysteria after rumors emerge that there might be a new movie in the works.

Langenkamp, who has settled down with her husband and young son, Dylan, turns down the offer to “play Nancy” again; but the film soon begins to take on a life of its own, blurring the line between reality and the subconscious, forcing Heather into a compromising position.

This was Craven’s attempt at returning his Freddy character to its roots but there’s actually a lot more going on than just that. The film’s self-awareness might be missed by casual viewers or people simply looking to get scared – it’s more of a commentary on the series and on what had become of his original concept.

Apart from a few minor inconsistencies, my main problem with this film was that it got repetitive midway through and dragged itself to a predictable and lackluster finale. Seeing Dylan “possessed” over and over again was unnecessary and the low-budget acting was more evident in a movie with decent production values. The redeeming factors, for me, were the ending (which tied together everything perfectly) and the self-referential humor, which was used sparingly but effectively.

With a remake of the original NOES slated for this spring (I’m not holding my breath), the series is about to undergo another potentially disastrous reinterpretation without Craven. While I didn’t enjoy New Nightmare, I understand that it’s a movie Craven made more for himself than for an audience – a complex, self-aware, therapeutic horror film intended to bookend the series. That’s something I respect even if I didn’t have any trouble sleeping after watching it.