Wes Craven's Good, Bad and Ugly

[Gabriel Girard]

INCUBUS!

[mavrach]

Good: The Hills Have Eyes - Tight low budget horror film that stretches every dollar perfectly. They basically used a trailer, the desert and instead of makeup effects they hired a guy who has a real-life medical issue (though I feel bad now that I know that). For me a big part of the horror was that the people being killed weren't random teenagers; they were family members so nobody felt expendable.

Bad: A Nightmare on Elm Street - The series is a childhood favorite but hasn't carried over into adulthood well. I'd always considered the first to be very dark and serious, but when I returned to it a few years back I thought it was garbage. I'm afraid to rewatch my favorite, Dream Warriors. The Dream Master was my first ever horror movie so it holds a special place for me, but I know better than to retry that one.

Ugly: Vampire in Brooklyn - Haven't seen it since it first came out, but a failure on all levels, and the beginning of the end of Eddie Murphy.

[Mach6]

Good: Red Eye - Cillian Murphy & Rachael McAdams really were incredible. They carried a mediocre script to an intense thriller that was better than it had any right to be. Their bathroom confrontation was the highlight for me. I liked the crazy third act as well with Murphy using his Christian Bale Batman voice after his tracheotomy.

Bad: Deadly Friend - I just saw this & HOLY CRAP, this is the definition of “an its so bad its good” in a really cheesy way. The basketball decapitation alone made it worth it for me. Pure 80’s awfulness at its best!

Ugly: Scream 4 - I saw this for free & I still hated how lazy it was. Courtney Cox was nails on a chalkboard & all the attempts of using I-Phones & Web Cams to update it didn’t do anything to improve the story. The finale involving the typical horror movie hospital that has no security or alarms & the reveal of the killers (who didn’t have the physical ability to pull off all their crimes) was such a letdown.

I’m not a Wes Craven fan (especially after the Scream franchise) and he doesn’t deserve the Master of Horror label. The original Nightmare on Elm Street did create a horror icon in Freddy but I wouldn't call NOES great or a classic. I consider NOES an above average B-Movie slasher flick with a lousy ending (I know Craven was forced by the producers to add it). Compare Craven’s best with John Carpenter’s best horror work (Halloween, The Thing, & Christine) & JC wins that battle pretty easily.