Tuesday, April 26, 2011

30 Days of Horror: Day 26

"Day 26 - Your favorite horror film to watch as a child"

So not only is this the 4th to last post in my 30 Days of Horror, it's also my 800th post! I KNOW!! Fuck! So to celebrate, I'm gonna do something a bit different.

Saturday I recorded an episode of The LAMBcast where we talked about "Scream 4". It was me, Dylan from Blog Cabins, Nick from Random Ramblings, James from Cinema Sights, this chick named Stevee and a British guy named Simon. During the recording, things went from "talk about the movie" to "talk about the people in the movie and what they would've done" or "what stuff means" or "how doing something differently would effect something or another" I dunno, I was silent through most of it because I had nothing to say.

It took me about 6 fucking years, over 150 reviews on The Site, and 800 blog posts to realize: I only talk about what happens in the movie, and not give any profound statements about the movie or analyze it deeply.

My god. What have I been doing with my life?

So I'm gonna try to do that here, for my 26th entry by doing a deep critical review on "A Nightmare on Elm Street".

I first seen this when I was six years old. I was living with my grandparents at the time due to family issues and my uncle was about 13 or so. One night, "Elm Street" came on cable TV and we all watched it. Being six years old, I was freaked out. I identified with the character of Nancy.

Nancy comes from a "broken" home. Her dad, John Saxon, was a cop who was never home so her parents got divorced and Nancy lived with her Mom, but her Dad was still around. Nancy had several friends, but when this monster showed up in their dreams and started killing them one by one, Nancy got tough.

We all can take a look at Nancy's plight and realize the true meaning behind "A Nightmare on Elm Street". Obviously Freddy Kruger represents bad dreams, meaning without a stable family life, any hopes of going to a successful college and having a great carrer is gone. So all her "dreams" (AKA Hope and desires) are now gone. After all the events in the movie happened and she didn't get tough, Nancy would've ended up a waitress in a truckstop, possibly sucking trucker's dicks for extra money.

Let's think of the first kill, shall we? With Tina. Freddy chooses Nancy's closest friend first, because Tina, who was all pure and innocent, was Nancy's conscience, telling her she CAN make something of herself. But then Tina fucks some random dude (I think his name is Nick. You can never trust anyone named Nick) and now all that innocence is lost and her world is turned "Upside down" until she's ultimately dead.

Nick's death in the jail cell represents all the male guys that came and went throughout Nancy's life. Nick's killed by being strangled by bedsheets, so this represents putting to bed any normal relationship she would've had with any guy. Poor Nancy.

Then there's Johnny Depp's death. He was set up to be Nancy's love interet until he didn't listen to her and eventually he got sucked down a hole and soon was torn apart until a gyser of blood filled the bedroom. I guess this represents the fact she was on her period at the time.

Eventually, Nancy decides to take control of her destiny and learn to "kill" her "bad dreams" once and for all. How does she do that? She reads books. On military. So this is Nancy's desire to kill something, anything. And where can you "legally" kill something, anything? The military.

The mom getting sucked through the tiny window at the end of the movie?

That's just a fucking awesome way to end a movie.

In CONCLUSION, I would like to state that "A Nightmare on Elm Street" changed my life. When the movie ended, me and my uncle (we shared a bedroom) went to sleep and my uncle decided to pull a prank on me by grabbing four kitchen knives and a flashlight, then shining the light on his hand with the knives sticking out and talking in Freddy's voice. If it wasn't for this event, I wouldn't have said "AHH you motherfucker" and I would've never learned how to cuss.

Thanks "A Nightmare on Elm Street".
-Jason

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is by far your greatest post yet...not that I read all the other 800 posts.

Sometimes I try to think about what A Nightmare on Elm Street means, but along the way I usually get waylayed by how awesome it is and don't really think it needs to mean much of anything...and then I think that the fact that it could mean something interesting only makes it that much more awesome.

Nick said...

haha, good post. And no, you can never trust any mofos named Nick.