Ten Days of Terror!: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Films: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

Horror sequels are something of a known quantity in a lot of respects. The rules of the horror movie universe have been set up, and the real goal from the filmmaker is to give the audience more spectacle than in the previous movie(s). Honestly, it’s one of the reasons that sequels aren’t very good as a rule. Plot and keeping with the original narrative are often jettisoned in lieu of the bread and circuses of elaborate death scenes and more brutal killings.

And this is where A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master comes in. This movie follows the very successful third film in the series, the one that righted the ship after the dismal first sequel. That puts some pressure on this film to measure up. The truth is that it does, at least in part. It’s not the equal of the previous film, but it doesn’t go too far off the rails. It continues the story as well as it can and tries to maintain some continuity with previous characters (despite one actor not returning for this film) and pass the torch, more or less, to a new set of actors.

Between the Devil and the...

Film: Deep Blue Sea
Format: DVD from personal collection on basement television.

Ever since Jaws, directors and producers have tried to recapture that magic. Sharks are a natural choice for this because, as Hooper tells us in the 1975 classic, sharks are a miracle of evolution—all they do is swim, eat, and make baby sharks. Over and over, filmmakers have failed to make sharks as interesting as Spielberg did, but Renny Harlin tried in 1999 with Deep Blue Sea. This film is kind of a genre mash-up. It’s clearly a man vs. nature film with nature in the form of a trio of sharks, but it’s also a science gone wild film and has a lot of similarities with a haunted house movie as well.

Research scientists on an offshore floating laboratory are doing work with sharks to find a cure for (among other things) Alzheimer’s. Why sharks? Because, we are told, sharks are primordial creatures that don’t get cancer or terrible illnesses. Why Alzheimer’s? Because one of our lead scientists has a personal family grudge against the ailment. The problem is that one of the sharks got loose and had to be corralled, and now the really rich dude funding them (Samuel L. Jackson) is ready to pull the plug. Our scientist-in-charge, Dr. Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows) makes the case for needing 48 hours to get results. Our rich benefactor, in all of his Samuel L. Jackson glory, goes back to the lab with her to see what is going on.

Off Script: Prison

Film: Prison
Format: Internet video on laptop.

There’s a sense with any list of films that advertises itself specifically as containing obscurities of the listmaker(s) putting things there specifically because they are obscure. It’s not so much a measure of quality as it is a measure of “let’s show how much I really know.” In the case of Prison, there’s a little bit of that. On the other hand, this is a film directed by no less than Renny Harlin and starring Viggo Mortensen at an early stage in his career. So, while it’s pretty obscure, it’s got a slight pedigree.

As the title suggests, this takes place in a prison. Specifically, this was filmed in a dilapidated old prison in Wyoming, and evidently used actual convicts for a number of the convicts in the film. We start 20-some years in the past, witnessing the execution of an inmate for a reason we’re not told. One of the people witnessing that execution is Sharpe (classic that-guy Lane Smith). This will become important eventually.