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[personal profile] zouzounaki
Okay, here's something you may not know about me: While I do adore horror, I simply cannot stand Wes Craven. Not only do I think he's the worst for women by far of the biggies (Carpenter, romero, etc.), while the others apologize for it, he gets away with saying how edgy his treatment of the fairer sex is because he's a slick talker. So imagine my surprise when I actually found myself almost spraining something squeeing over the trailer for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Come on, Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy?! Can it get any freaking better?! I think he's about the only person in existence I'd accept replacing Robert England. And there's Katie Cassidy (wall and ceiling death! Kick ass!), Kyle Gallner (Johnny Depp's part!) and Rooney Mara (Kate's little sister) to sweeten the deal. Oh yeah, I'm excited!



Peace, Ghani

on 2009-09-30 06:08 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] lastwordslinger.livejournal.com
NIIIIIIIIIIICE! Mostly for the JEH factor. ;) But yes, that actually looks like it's going to be pretty awesome. I never say that about remakes, but whoa. What a trailer, is all I can say!

on 2009-09-30 07:03 pm (UTC)
ext_30761: (The Shining creepy twins)
Posted by [identity profile] ghanistarkiller.livejournal.com
At least it is a remake and not just 'Freddy kills s'more people' like the Friday the 13th alleged remake was; it was exciting to recognize stuff from the original film as well as seeing the new actors in those roles. And, look, it's Clancy Brown at the beginning lynching Freddy--even in secondary, and third and fourth tier roles, they got awesome actors!

JEH just looks... so terrifying! Eeee, I'm all excited now! Plus, hey, you get to see Katie Cassidy horribly killed, mehehe! Oh, I know you don't harbor the grudge I still so because you weren't as big a Ruby fan as I was, but I must admit to a bit of satisfaction, hehehe! Plus, I'm weird 'cause I like seeing the actors I like getting the good deaths! xP

on 2009-10-02 01:08 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] may-child.livejournal.com
Clancy Brown...he of "Earth 2," aka one of many TV shows killed before its time. Coolness! It makes me kinda wish that they'd cast Debrah Farentino in there someplace, perhaps as Marge Thompson. Brown and Farentino on "Earth 2" showed that chemistry can occur in the most unlikely pairings.

on 2009-10-02 04:21 pm (UTC)
ext_30761: (Great Pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns)
Posted by [identity profile] ghanistarkiller.livejournal.com
Yes, that Clancy Brown, also of the other equally tragically short-lived and brilliant Carnivale, where he revealed that, alas, the ginger curls are gone, but were replaced by a very classy and classic silver! Mmmm... Ahem. Devon/Danziger Otp 4 EVER! Seriously, they had some amazing chemistry, and I just love Debrah Farentino as an actress and can't remember seeing her in anything of late, which is a real shame!

(Damn, I wish I had some of my Earth 2 icons on hand...)

on 2009-09-30 06:45 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] may-child.livejournal.com
You hate Wes Craven? OMG I had no idea. I love his movies -- well, not all of them, but quite a few of them. And here I was gushing about his flicks to you all this time. I'm so sorry.

I was uneasy about the remake, but this trailer is definitely WIN. The original NoES movie featured Freddy Krueger as something truly scary and creepy, whereas the sequels had him cracking bad jokes and making bad puns and punctuating practically every sentence by laughing uproariously. Looks like this remake will stick with the scary-creepy Freddy, thank goodness.

on 2009-09-30 07:00 pm (UTC)
ext_30761: (The Shining creepy twins)
Posted by [identity profile] ghanistarkiller.livejournal.com
I no, I don't hate him! (I was being a bit overdramatic, heh!) I do think he's extremely smart, charming, mind-bogglingly talented and well spoken, but I do feel with a couple of the specials I've watched about horror, that I see John Carpenter repenting for his treatment of women (and mostly rightly so), and George Romero repenting (truly unnecessarily, because he does women the best) about his treatment of women, whereas Wes Craven seems to not only get a pass on it, but be allowed to talk about the horrid, disgusting things he's done to women like it's something revolutionary. I just steer clear of stuff like Last House on the Left and some portions of The Hills Have Eyes.

It's hard to explain my feelings on the subject and I feel like I botched it above if I made you feel guilty about talking about him to me because, geez, obviously the guy's a genius and I do like him personally. I just wish his idea of edgy didn't equal rape. But that has less to do with his movies than the way people talk about him. Shrug.

Like Carpenter though he's just kind of lost it, hasn't he? I can't remember the last good movie he made, which is a thing of sadness because, despite people blowing out their asses about the alleged "Splat Pack" (and I have worse things to say about them, trust me, heh! Eli Roth is my nemesis! Even though he doesn't even know I exist and wouldn't really care! xP) and all, there really aren't people on their level working in horror anymore.

The original NoES is a classic and still unnerves me in ways I cannot begin to describe; as you say, Freddy hadn't begun to play it for laughs yet and everything about him--the acting, the lighting, the make-up--was terrifying (I didn't sleep for weeks after I was subjected to it at a slumber party!) When I heard about the remake, I cringed, because I truly have respect for Robert Englund, no matter how much he began to camp it up, but Jackie Earle Haley is... such an incredible actor! And it has such a good young cast as well!

on 2009-09-30 07:19 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] may-child.livejournal.com
Oh, I see. I haven't watched Last House on the Left or The Hills Have Eyes. I've seen the Nightmare films he's directed (the first, and the last, where the cast of the original was brought back to play themselves and Freddy enters "the real world"), and the Scream films, a couple of the flicks on which he was the "executive producer," plus his foray into non-horror, Red Eye.

When I saw him in interviews and the like, it quite honestly stunned me that he was the exact opposite of what you'd expect a guy who made so many gory, violent movies to be: soft-spoken, erudite, and gentle-natured. He has kind of "lost it"; methinks it would be wise for him to step away from filmmaking.

I didn't know about him getting a pass on his treatment of women, whereas other horrormeisters repented for it; I did watch one of the specials you spoke of, but I was pretty tipsy at the time. (I had to be. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre played immediately after the special, and no way was I going to watch that sober.)

John Carpenter...I thought Halloween was good, and combined with Halloween II and Halloween H20, ignoring all the crappy quasi-sequels in between, makes a pretty decent horror trilogy. But then Rob Zombie had to go and shit all over it.

on 2009-09-30 07:50 pm (UTC)
ext_30761: (MST3K movie sign!)
Posted by [identity profile] ghanistarkiller.livejournal.com
You know, I always forget Scream is him--I just watched Scream 2 the other day, one of my absolute favorites and what made me love Liev Schreiber! Me being fair I'll admit that, thinking about and remembering all he's done, he actually kept his "it" a lot longer than any of his contemporaries, or spread it out over a greater period of time.

I think both he and Romero really are the most intelligent, well and soft spoken of the horrormesiters--not at all like today's brash, in your face, obnoxious little twits (yeah, I'm looking at you, Roth!) who think they're as erudite and speak as if they were, but show off their own inadequacies because of it. Of course, with that type of personality being the in thing now, everyone has to insist that Last House on the Left is really Craven's best film, and was so revolutionary and amazing when it just kind of makes me want to vomit.

Shudders at the mere mention of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You are a braver woman than I, because I watched it just that once and got such a case of the jitters that I've never been able to sit through it again. I don't blame you if you got totally plastered beforehand, lol! Tobe Hooper wins the crown for grossness with female characters for that movie; some of it just made me dry heave, I have to be honest, and not necessarily the gory parts but the just primal fear of it.

The Fog is one of my absolute favorites and it's always delighted me how the characters seem to almost be taking on the stereotypes Carpenter created with Halloween, of the virgin surviving, etc. Plus, it's about zombies from a shipwreck--now you know that's going to appeal to me. So, combined with the Halloween movies you mentioned, I have a soft spot for Carpenter, even if he is an old crep, to use one of my parents' expression! xP

Oh, don't even get me started on Rob Zombie! Now him I really hate!

on 2009-10-01 03:23 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] may-child.livejournal.com
What makes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre hard to watch -- sober, that is, heh -- is not so much gore, because it has surprisingly little of that, but the general creepiness of it, and the perverseness of it, like the sicko "dinner" scene. Leatherface may have been the chainsaw-wielding killer, but his "family" was, in a way, just as frightening. Watching the flick was like stumbling into some sadistic freak show.

LOL, I echo your opinion of that punk-ass bitch Rob Zombie. One of the things that especially ticks me off about him is that he thinks he is just so clever, and he added "depth" to Halloween with his remake.

on 2009-10-01 04:52 pm (UTC)
ext_30761: (The Shining creepy twins)
Posted by [identity profile] ghanistarkiller.livejournal.com
It's funny because I don't think anyone would accuse Texas Chainsaw Massacre of being psychological, but that is mostly it's scare factor. Ann always refers to the scene, because it's the one that horrified her most, where it's just a close up of the girl's eye, the pupil dilating with fear.

Yes, oh my God, Zombie's so pretentious and so full of himself! I remember my review of House of 1000 Corpses on Amazon is about the nastiest thing I've ever written (and I've written a review for Courtship of Princess Leia! 0_0) because I banged it out the day after I'd watched and and was still reeling. On the one hand, if I didn't know better, I'd have genuinely thought it was a real snuff movie with the least sympathetic "heroes" known to film. On the other, he insists on including trick shots or flashes of older exploitation films out of freaking nowhere, which obviously makes him "artsy!" Snort!

And Halloween, sighs. Did I learn my lesson from House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects? Alas, I did not, because I was curious. Wow, I could never have guessed he'd be able to shoehorn his wife pole dancing into even that! But he managed it! Even managed to get her into the sequel (and if she doesn't strip there, too, I'll eat my shoe!) Two-thirds of the movie is literally about Michael Myers, his childhood and time in the institution--seriously, aren't we over the fascination of why killers do what they do yet?!

It's amazing, too, that he almost singehandedly ruins the Grindhouse experience with his totally inappropriate trailer--in tone and style. More people walked out during that than any other part of that movie--seriously! Which leads me to believe that the genius of Nic Cage as Fu Manchu was someone else's idea because it could not possibly have been Zombie's!

On a totally personal note, Peter ran into him when he was living out in California and he was a complete tool! Pneh!
Edited on 2009-10-01 04:53 pm (UTC)

on 2009-09-30 07:25 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] may-child.livejournal.com
Forgot to add: I know what you mean about Robert Englund. I too could not see anyone but him playing Freddy, and I think he was approached for the remake, but declined.

And yeah, he camped it up in the sequels, although in some ways I can't blame him. He's a terrific actor -- I used to know someone who went to college with him, and she said "Bobby" dazzled everyone in his drama classes -- but once he played Freddy, he was indelibly and irreversibly typecast. So he used his subsequent portrayals of Freddy as a creative outlet.

on 2009-09-30 07:55 pm (UTC)
ext_30761: (The Shining creepy twins)
Posted by [identity profile] ghanistarkiller.livejournal.com
Speaking of those horror specials, Englund never, ever fails to impress me with just how sharp, funny and smart he is, or how perceptive. I watched Freddy vs. Jason (yes, we actually did--Jason goes down like a pussy, but then what did I expect against Freddy?!) and I have to admit that, even when he's in camp mode, he's an awful lot of fun because he's so aware of what he's doing and is using his immense talent to be, well, an awful lot of fun.

But he is just plain freaking scary in the original (and New Nightmare to a lesser extent, IMO). I... have a huge crush, I admit it; he impresses me the way that Craven impresses you! :-)

on 2009-10-01 03:29 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] may-child.livejournal.com
Heh, I watched Freddy vs. Jason too.

Robert Englund has a kind of nerdy-guy appeal. I mean, when I first saw him without his Freddy makeup, I was like, "THAT'S Freddy?" But in New Nightmare, he interacts with Heather Langenkamp a couple of times and you get to see a hint of the funny, smart, charismatic guy he appears to be.

on 2009-10-01 04:54 pm (UTC)
ext_30761: (Re-Animator oh snap!)
Posted by [identity profile] ghanistarkiller.livejournal.com
Mehehe, he is kind of a nerd-girl's wet dream, isn't he? I understand the appeal now! xD

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