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A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child – Movie Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Hello horror lovers, it’s Slick Dungeon here. I’m back again to review another of the Freddy films with A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. This review may contain spoilers so if you haven’t seen it, put your kids to bed, watch the movie and come on back here for the review.

For a series of films with five installments, the Nightmare movies have done a pretty good line of keep a consistent story. The only real miss with that was the second film but so far each movie has done something to build on the legend of Freddy Krueger.

Robert Englund is back again as the man in the worst of your dreams. We also pick up the story with Alice who survived the fourth film. She is able to tell Freddy is back but this time something is different. This time, he’s been killing her friends while she is awake.

Once again, no one believes the main character when they say Freddy is real and he’s coming to kill everyone, even after teenagers start dying rapidly in town. Alice still has her boyfriend Dan and even though he survived the events of the last movie, he still isn’t sure if Freddy is back.

Of course, we all know Freddy is back and we see him wade through nightmares and kill people who are unlucky enough to fall asleep when he can get to them.

The story of this movie gets a bit weird and wonky, which is why I can’t really give it more than three stars. On the plus side, it really goes into the origins of Freddy and his mother. On the minus side it still uses the whole, “lunatics in the asylum” trope and not very well either. Also, some of the effects probably looked great when it came out but now just seem like overkill. It sort of becomes too grotesque to be truly scary and you find yourself thinking, how long did they spend making it look like that, rather than just being frightened of what is on the screen.

The first film is so scary because while Freddy does kill you in your dreams, it sort of feels like all the dreams begin plausibly in reality and become horrors unexpectedly. This one feels more like when you walk through a Haunted House at a carnival or something. You know there will be things in there that are scary, you know they will be frightening to look at or might make you jump, but you also know it’s fake and just think about the production more than the story.

Even the tone of the background is darker, which oddly, makes it feel less real. While they definitely pull off some impressive makeup, the acting is fine, and they further the story, it just doesn’t quite work. I don’t think it is the worst of the Nightmare series but it’s far from the best one.

In addition, the characters other than Alice, Dan, and Alice’s father all just feel like tacked on friends you have to have in the movie just so someone can die.

The dream child itself is kind of an interesting idea but it just doesn’t quite work. Basically, the reason Freddy can kill while Alice is awake is because Alice is pregnant with Dan’s child. While the baby dreams, Freddy has an entry point into nightmares.

In the first movie, Freddy didn’t exactly need permission to invade anyone’s dreams so I’m really not sure why he has to have Alice as a connection but that’s still consistent from the last movie so I can’t fault it too much.

While a lot of this is sort of peak Freddy it’s just not the scariest Freddy so it’s not the best one. Still, if you want to know what happens in the series and why Freddy is able to come back, and theoretically how to stop him (but we know that’s only temporary) then this movie does deliver all of that.

We’re getting toward the end of the main line of these movies but I will be reviewing most of the reboots and spinoff movies as well so stay tuned for that.

Do you have a favorite Freddy movie? So far, I think the best one remains the first one. Let me know in the comments if you do.

Nightmarishly yours,

Slick Dungeon

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master – Movie Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Warrior

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Hello horror lovers, it’s me, Slick Dungeon. It’s still Halloween month so we’re diving into more spooky films. This time I am reviewing the fourth film in the Freddy franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. There will be some spoilers for the movie below so if you haven’t seen it yet, give it a watch, realize you don’t want to go to sleep, and come back here to read the review.

This film picks up some time after the events of the third film in the series. Three of the teenagers who survived the last film are back. However, the role of Kristin Parker is now played by Tuesday Knight instead of Patricia Arquette.

Things have been relatively normal in the little town where Elm street is. It seems Freddy was defeated, but Kristin still sometimes has bad dreams, and still can pull in the other dream warriors Joey and Kincaid. We’re also introduced to Kristin’s best friend, Alice who will become central to the film.

Kristin is convinced Freddy is not gone. Her dreams get worse and whether she wants to or not, she keeps bringing her friends into her dreams. This allows Freddy access to the teenagers. One by one he visits their dreams. And one by one they start dying in reality.

Joey dies in an interesting call back to the way Glen died in the first movie and Kincaid does not survive his confrontation with Freddy. Kristin does realize their deaths are at least partly her fault since she brought them into her dream. And she knows Freddy is coming for her.

Kristin is also dating Alice’s brother Rick. While Alice and Rick have a hard time believing Kristin, they can’t deny the sudden deaths of their friends. One night, Kristin brings Alice into her dream and this is the link Freddy needs.

He is able to kill Kristin but Kristin transfers her dream powers to Alice before she dies. Alice, who is known to daydream a lot has a pretty deep understanding of dreams and catches on to the fact she is in danger pretty quickly. Rick still has a hard time believing her but he knows there is something going on.

Alice’s friends start dying, both at night and whenever they fall asleep in class. I will say, Freddy is responsible for all of the deaths, but I’ve noticed that in all of these movies, at least one horrible nightmare happens in class while a teacher is delivering a boring lecture. Maybe the poor school curriculum is partially to blame?

The rest of the movie is pretty much Freddy trying to get Alice to bring her friends into her dreams so he can kill them and Alice trying to stop Freddy. We don’t get a ton more background on Freddy other than him saying they shouldn’t have buried him.

While the acting is pretty good in this one, it is hard to get over the fact Kristin is not played by the same person. Knight does a fine job but it just doesn’t feel quite right.

The soundtrack is solidly stuck in the 1980’s and makes no apologies for it. It feels very much like a music video of the time, albeit a little smarter than most of those were.

There is also a heavy dose of body horror, even more so than in the last three films. Robert Englund still delivers as a terrifying, yet humorous presence.

In the end, as always, it seems Freddy has been defeated. There are no more children connected to what happened to Freddy, although the parents are still alive in many cases. I’m not sure why Freddy wouldn’t also go after them but he did always have a preference for killing children so it makes sense in that regard.

This is not a bad follow up and it is worth watching. But so far, none of the sequels can quite top the terror of the first film.

Nightmarishly yours,

Slick Dungeon

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A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge – Movie Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Hello horror fans! It’s me, Slick Dungeon. I’m back to review part two of the movie series about the man from your nightmares, Freddy Krueger. The follow up to the first Nightmare on Elm Street film has the epically awesome title of A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. I know it’s a mouthful but they get to the point eventually in that title. Do be warned before you read any further, there will be some spoilers for this film. If you haven’t seen it, grab yourself some popcorn, watch the movie, stay up late, and come back here to read the review.

It was probably inevitable the second film in this franchise would not be as terrifying as the first. Robert Englund is back as Freddy, and as always he puts in an incredible performance. While this may not be the best Freddy movie, it certainly has its fans and some people see it as a cult classic, especially due to some of the subtext that might be read into the story.

This film takes place five years after the events of A Nightmare on Elm Street. We open on a school bus where a teenager named Jesse is riding home. There are two teenage girls in front of him and when the bus gets to their stop, it just keeps going. Everyone on the bus starts to panic and yell at the driver. Turns out this is one of the nightmares Freddy pops up in.

When Jesse wakes up we learn he lives in the same house Nancy Thompson lived in when she was menaced by Freddy in the first film. Since they moved in, Jesse has been plagued by nightmares, or more accurately, night terrors. He has a friend at school named Lisa. Lisa is romantically interested in Jesse but Jesse sort of thinks he is losing his mind because of all these nightmares.

Jesse also starts having some trouble at school. He gets in a fight with a fellow student named Grady, and they both have to suffer the harsh punishment of their coach. The coach is at least rumored to be into men and is known to frequent one of the seedier clubs in town.

In Jesse’s nightmares there is an interesting twist. Freddy is not going after Jesse. Instead, he’s trying to get Jesse to kill people for him. Jesse tells Lisa about the dreams and one day while they are in Jesse’s room they find Nancy’s diary. At first it reads like a typical diary with comments about her attraction to Glen who died in the first film. But as the diary goes on it gets darker and starts to mention a description of Freddy which Jesse instantly recognizes.

Lisa does some research and discovers Freddy killed at least twenty kids in the boiler room of what is now an abandoned factory. In other words, the guy in Jesse’s dreams is no joke, and Jesse might want to be concerned.

One night after a bit of a fight with his family, Jesse starts to wander around town. He happens to end up in the same bar his coach is in. The coach makes Jesse go back to school and run laps as punishment. Not sure that would fly now but for this movie it seems like a plausible thing that could happen. The coach tells Jesse to hit the showers and soon Jesse is hearing Freddy’s voice. One thing leads to another and the coach ends up sliced to death. Jesse looks down at his hand and sees Freddy’s iconic glove on it. It seems Freddy is able to take over Jesse’s body and cause some mayhem.

The rest of the film is really about Jesse trying to stop himself from becoming Freddy. As you would expect there are more deaths and the more Jesse tries to explain the situation the more insane he seems. Things come to a crescendo when Jesse goes to a party hosted by Lisa. He and Lisa start kissing but Jesse hears Freddy in his mind again. In order to protect Lisa, Jesse goes over to Grady’s house and warns Grady not to fall asleep. Yeah, so Grady ends up dead because, well, he goes to sleep.

Freddy does get to cause some epic mayhem at the pool party Lisa is hosting and that is probably the best scene in the whole film. Of course, in the end Freddy is defeated, for now.

Not all of the effects in this one hold up today. Some of them are still great, and as always, Freddy’s face is just out and out scary. But the effects that don’t work today bring the film down overall now.

Now, as I said there are some people who see this as a cult classic, mostly because you could derive from the subtext that Jesse is a closeted gay man and Freddy trying to take over is a metaphor for Jesse’s struggle. Also, Jesse is essentially playing the part of a “final girl” in the same way Nancy did in the first film which people argue is further proof of Jesse’s sexuality. Whether you want to interpret the film that way or not is entirely up to you but I am judging this movie more on the basis of if it holds up in the fear factor than anything else.

I do think there are some great scares in here and there is a bit of interesting body horror at times. However, I don’t think this movie would just automatically scare anyone who watches it for the first time, unlike the first film which is still absolutely scary.

The acting is decent and the story holds up enough. It gives us some more background about Freddy and kind of builds his legend up a bit. I will say, the hair and costumes in this one are a bit more distracting because they are so definitely 1980’s looks but I can’t really hold that against the movie.

If you are a Freddy fan you definitely should watch this one, just don’t expect it to be the most frightening of experiences.

Dreamily yours,

Slick Dungeon

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A Nightmare on Elm Street – Movie Recview

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Hello horror fans, it’s me, Slick Dungeon! It’s been a long year but we’ve finally made it to the month made for everything terrifying. I thought I would ring in the new October with a review of a little film called A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film was directed by Wes Craven, starred Robert Englund as the stalker on screen, Heather Langenkamp as the girl with the plan to escape and introduced us to Johnny Depp for the first time. Do be warned before you read this review there will be spoilers. So if you have not seen the film, take a watch, try to get some shuteye and come on back here to read the review.

It’s no secret Freddy Krueger is an absolute icon of horror. His disfigured face, dirty hat and sweater and glove with knives can be seen as a costume every halloween. He’s instantly recognizable. But to be fair to the image, all of that would not have worked if his first film had not been so completely, utterly, terrifying.

This film worked so well, if you were of a certain age when it first came out, and years later someone in a group starts to softly sing, “One, two, Freddy’s comin’ for you…” at least one person in the group is going to tell that person to stop it because it still creeps them out.

The plot revolves around a group of four teenagers who all live in a fairly well off community and all have a terrifying nightmare on the same night. That’s not that strange except for the fact the nightmares all had the same guy in it. A man in a dirty red and green sweater who has, “knives for fingers.”

The movie starts in an almost surreal way where the neighborhood looks too perfect to be reality. Tina, one of the group of four friends has an awful dream and she sees a glimpse of Freddy. When she wakes, her shirt is slashed right where Freddy tried to strike her.

The next day, Tina asks her friend Nancy, her boyfriend Rod, and Nancy’s boyfriend, Glen to all stay over at her house. Tina’s mother is not at home and Tina is afraid to sleep alone. Turns out Tina was right.

Tina falls asleep with Rod right next to her and once again encounters Freddy but this time she doesn’t survive the encounter. Rod is actually in the room with Tina when it happens and he sees cuts tear into Tina as he watches. Rod doesn’t do anything because he thinks he’s just having another nightmare himself. And since it looks like Tina is being attacked by no one physical, it makes sense that Rod thinks that. With Tina dead and no one other than Rod in the room at the time, it looks to almost everyone like Rod killed his girlfriend.

Nancy knows better. She knows it’s the man from her dreams who has been terrifying her.

I don’t want to give everything away in this review but from this point in the movie on, it’s pretty much Nancy vs. Freddy. No matter how hard Nancy tries to convince everyone of what is really happening, it’s awfully difficult for anyone to believe a dream is causing murders to happen.

Nancy goes from looking like a fairly put together person to someone who is frazzled, sleep deprived, and fighting for her life, all of which are true.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is so good at tricking the audience, even we can’t always tell where a dream begins and reality ends.

This is an older movie so not every effect holds up but most of them do. There’s a scene with a face in a ceiling that is still scary as can be, the ways the characters die are unimaginable, and if you are old enough to have experienced speaking on a phone with a cord, seeing a phone with its cord cut ring is really frightening.

The movie is not perfect but it’s a total landmark in horror. I’ve always been just a little bit more of a Friday the 13th fan than a Freddy fan but total respect for anyone who thinks of this film as their favorite horror film.

The most brilliant thing about the movie is the impossibility of fighting Freddy. After all, at some point you are going to fall asleep. And how can you fight someone who literally invades your dreams? There’s also a bit of backstory as to why Freddy is doing all this and while it doesn’t give all the answers, it’s enough to makes sense as to why these kids in particular are targets.

This movie also takes a lot the usual tropes and assumptions audiences have and makes sense out of them. In nearly every slasher film ever made, you have to wonder why the police are not more involved early on. In Friday the 13th it’s because it’s in a remote location. In Halloween they do try to get involved but they quickly die at the killer’s hands. In A Nightmare on Elm Street there are multiple issues happening. First, they think the real killer is Rod and they have him so it seems like their work is done. Second, everything Nancy says, sounds impossible, even when she confronts the sheriff, who happens to be her own father, with evidence of the impossible. The only one who even sort of believes her is Glen but he has to fall asleep at some point too. And on top of all of that, the adults in the town are covering something up so it’s not in their interest to believe Nancy. For a movie based on the impossible, a ton of what happens in the real world is completely plausible and that really makes it work.

Almost all slasher movies end with a jump scare at the end to leave you just a bit worried that the whole story is not quite finished. That can be fun. But with Freddy, you see that jump scare and you realize, no matter how hard you try not to, you’re going to have a dream with Freddy in it. It’s genuinely brilliant horror. And Freddy’s comin’ for you…

Horrifically yours,

Slick Dungeon

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I Still Know What You Did Last Summer – Movie Review

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Hello horror fans, it’s me, Slick Dungeon! I’m back to review another slasher film for ya. This time, it’s the sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer, the cleverly titled, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. We’re back with just half the cast of the first film because… well murder-y reasons from the first film. This time we have Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddy Prinze Jr. reprising their roles but we also get a host of new characters. Before we get too far into this review just a note of warning, there will be spoilers for both the first and second films in this franchise. And oddly enough a spoiler from Scream 5. So if you haven’t seen the movies, grab your rain slicker, bring your hook, and brave the bad weather to see the films and come on back here to read the review.

I Know What You Did Last Summer left us on a jump scare with Julie, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, seeing the words I Still Know written on a fogged up shower window and then the sound of breaking glass as someone or something jumps through the window. It’s actually a rather effective end and leaves the viewer a bit disturbed and wondering what will happen next. Naturally, the makes of the sequel decide to… completely ignore that scene and just start with Julie in college having a nightmare. And the nightmare isn’t even that scene which would have made sense. After that bad choice, the movie gets kind of worse.

Julie is probably the least culpable of the group from the first film so the audience is more or less on her side and it makes sense that she’s the focus of the follow up movie. But Ray, who is the one who was behind the wheel when he hit someone in the first film, is also in this. He’s still dating Julie but the relationship is on the rocks. Julie doesn’t want to go back home for the fourth of July but Ray really wants her to.

Julie invites Ray to stay at her college for the weekend but Ray insists he has to work. And then, in what is almost completely unexplainable behavior, Ray gets really mad that Julie doesn’t want to come back to the town where she and Ray were almost murdered, on the anniversary of the day several of her friends and acquaintances were murdered, during a time she’s clearly having flashbacks and bad dreams about nearly being murdered in the spot Ray wants her to go to. But Ray thinks his anger can be justified because he, “has to work,” and because there is a guy on campus who is being relatively nice and understanding to Julie. I’m not here to give anyone relationship advice but if this is your situation, maybe think twice about who you are spending time with.

Ray goes back to his hometown and Julie and her friend win tickets to go on a vacation to paradise in the Bahamas. Julie promptly invites Ray to go but he won’t because he, “has to work.” And get this… Ray is still mad at her! She just invited him to go on vacation with her but somehow she’s wrong in this situation? What the heck?

Anyway, this is a horror movie, so let’s get into the horror, other than Ray’s weird attitude towards Julie. Long story short, the trip is a setup by someone who wants to kill Julie and maybe a number of her friends and acquaintances. Turns out the island is pretty secluded and no one can get on or off on the fourth of July because it’s the start of typhoon season and the seas will be too rough.

We meet a cast of oddball island characters from a hotel manager who seems to hate guests (this makes no sense considering they would be his only source of income) to a bar tender who can’t stand tourists (I get this a bit more but again shouldn’t she be trying to be nice to them to, you know, earn tips?), and uh.. Jack Black trying to deal weed to everyone. On the plus side, this movie has Jack Black in it so all good.

If you have ever seen a slasher film even once in your life, you know where this is going. Characters start getting picked off one by one, including characters the audience might have suspected were the killer.

Meanwhile, back at home, Ray gets attacked in the same spot as the accident from the first film. He pretty quickly realizes Julie is likely in trouble so he pawns the engagement ring he was going to propose to Julie with so he can get a gun and force someone to take him to this island. I guess we’re supposed to be on Ray’s side because, “he has to work,” so he could buy Julie a wedding ring. But like in the first movie, he does something so awful in the beginning (really getting on Julie’s case for feeling victimized) that it’s nearly impossible to like this dude.

The remainder of the movie is Julie and her friends trying to survive, Ray trying to save Julie, and the audience trying to figure out who the killer is.

**Spoiler warning here for both I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 5.**

If you’ve seen very many horror movies, and slasher horror in particular, you’re going to guess who the killer is immediately. We know it’s not Ray, although he could be a suspect if he was on the same island at the same time most of the murders happen. But he’s not. When I watched this movie this quote from Dewey Riley in Scream 5 immediately popped into my head, “Rule number one. Never trust the love interest. They seem sweet, caring, supportive. Then welcome to act three, where they’re trying to rip your head off.” This quote basically summarizes this whole movie perfectly. Respect for Scream 5.

Some of the deaths are interesting and there is a higher body count and definitely a bit more gore than in the first film. But the plot is not very strong and if a single one of these characters had asked if anyone heard them on the radio when they won this contest, the whole plot never would have happened.

There’s a twist at the end, like all good slashers should have, but it’s not a very inspired twist and it feels kinda lazy. Also, like any good slasher, we end on a scare. But if my guess is right, they will waste this one as well.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the first movie but not because the plot wasn’t believable. For that one, I just found the characters unlikeable. In this one, I find Ray super unlikeable and the plot unbelievable. The newer characters are for the most part fine, although some of them just seem like silly stereotypes of horror characters you might see in any horror movie, the stoner guy, the odd and creepy older man, the sort of angry bar tender etc.

It’s far from the worst horror film I have ever seen but it’s also nowhere near the best. If the franchise went downhill this fast, I can’t imagine what the third one will be like. I will be reviewing it so if you want my take on it, stay tuned.

Knowingly yours,

Slick Dungeon

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I Know What You Did Last Summer – Movie Review

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Hello horror fans, Slick Dungeon, here. I’m back to review another horror film for you. This time I watched the slasher from the 1990’s with the dream cast of the 1990’s, I Know What You Did Last Summer. This is an old movie but on the off chance you have not seen it, be warned there will be some spoilers below. So, if you haven’t seen it, hop on a boat, grab a chunk of ice with a hook to cool yourself off, and watch the movie. Then come back here to read the review.

Still with me? Great. I Know What You Did Last Summer is a slasher film which has a lot of call backs to an urban legend about a man with a hook for a hand. Think of the original Candyman but not quite as good as that.

The movie stars some actors with major name recognition for the time including, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Anne Heche, Ryan Phillipe, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Johnny Galecki.

It’s the 4th of July and a group of friends is about to finish high school and head off in various directions to start their lives as young adults. But before that, Julie James, Helen Shivers, Barry Cox, and Ray Bronson are going to party it up. These four friends go out to the beach and party down. They hang out with a crowd, then split off to tell campfire stories on the beach. One of the stories has to do with the hook handed killer and none of them can quite agree on the correct version of the story.

Barry, in particular starts drinking fairly heavily. At night, when it’s time to go home, the rest of the group do the responsible thing and don’t allow Barry to drive.

They pile in the car, with Ray at the wheel. But apparently Barry can’t help but be a bit of an idiot as he shouts out of the sunroof of the car and spills alcohol all over everyone else. Ray takes his eyes off the road for a moment due to the distraction and ends up hitting a pedestrian.

Rather than call the police or an ambulance, the group decides to hide the accident and toss the body into the ocean. Before they can do that, their classmate Max drives through but the group is able to send him on his way without too much trouble.

A year later, the group is not at all where they imagined they would be. Julie is failing her classes, Ray has become a fisherman, Helen is working at a retail store and Barry is just kind of existing at home. It’s clear at least some of this group feels guilty over what happened.

Things take a dark turn when Julie receives a simple note which just says, “I know what you did last summer.” It’s a simple but extremely threatening message.

The film plays out with people who were part of the group of four, or people who know them well, being killed or threatened in some way. In all of these instances there is a glimpse of someone wearing a fisherman’s slicker and holding a hook.

There are a few potential killers but no matter who it is, it’s clear this person has the whole story of what happened the summer before. The characters who are able do some research to figure out what is going on.

I don’t want to give away the end here in case anyone hasn’t watched it but there are some twists and turns and the reveal is potentially surprising.

This never quite elevates itself to a great horror movie but it is well acted and believable. One problem with it is it can be hard for the viewer to sympathize with a group who decided to hide an accident rather than own up to their own part in it. These aren’t completely innocent babysitters just trying to make it through Halloween, these are people with a pretty major secret.

That aside, there are some good scares and although there is a bit of gore it’s fairly tame compared to a lot of other horror franchises. The very end certainly leaves it open to sequel potential and I will be reviewing the others in this series.

If you want to watch a good popcorn slasher without having to overthink anything this is a solid watch. But, it’s not quite capable of reaching the greatness some horror franchises achieve.

Horrifically yours,

Slick Dungeon

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Final Destination 5 – Movie Review

Final Destination 5 2011 Film

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Hey there, horror fans, it’s Slick Dungeon again. I’m back to review the last of the Final Destination franchise films, Final Destination 5.

It doesn’t seem like something with the title Final Destination could have five separate installments but here we are. Be warned this review may contain spoilers for the film.

As is true with all the films in this series, this one opens with a disaster that kills a group of people. This time it’s a bridge collapse where a bunch of people who are on a work retreat are inevitably killed in gory fashion. Also, as always it’s a series of truly unlikely random events that cause the accident. And someone in the group has a vision, warns everyone, and saves them from death.

Sam, the one who had the vision, has to put the pieces together as he and his friends start to die later, in the same order they would have died on the bridge.

Although most of the setup is the same, this one introduces a slight new twist, making it a bit more interesting than the last entry in the franchise. Tony Todd, the actor most famous for Candyman, reprises his role as coroner in this movie. He tells Sam that there is a pattern and it can be changed if one life is exchanged for another. This causes Peter, one of Sam’s friends, to realize if he kills someone, he can extend his own life.

The first two thirds of the movie plays out just like all of these do. But it does set up an interesting confrontation for the end.

However, even with this change, it still feels like this film is just on repeat until the very end. I won’t give away what should be the final twist in the Final Destination franchise but I’ll just say if you have seen the rest, you’ll appreciate it.

Also, like the other films, there is a good bit of gore here so if you don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing this is probably not for you. This one is no worse than any of the rest of them though.

All in all this turned out to be a solid franchise with pretty consistent quality throughout. I’d put these into the bucket of fun popcorn horror to watch sometime with your friends late at night.

If they ever decide to make another I will be terribly disappointed though because it ends in a way that feels inevitable.

Do you have a horror franchise you’d like me to review? If so, let me know in the comments.

Finally yours,

Slick Dungeon

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The Final Destination – Movie Review

The Final Destination 2009 Film

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Hey film fanatics, Slick Dungeon here! I’m back to review the fourth of the Final Destination films. This was intended to be the last of the Final Destination films (see the irony here where something should end but just keeps coming back??) so they called it The Final Destination instead of Final Destination 4.

If you haven’t watched this, hop in your car and race yourself to the movies so you can get caught up because there will be some spoilers for this film. You’ve been warned.

Still with me? Great. The movie starts out in typical fashion for these films. A group of friends is about to do something. In this case it’s watch a NASCAR race when one of them has a vision of horrible death. Nick O’bannon, played by Bobby Campo has a freak out as he is predicting everything that is about to happen and he and a few other people end up narrowly missing certain death.

For a fourth film in a franchise this movie has some surprisingly recognizable faces. NIck Zano who you probably know from Legends of Tomorrow as Nate plays Hunt, one of Nick’s friends and Shantel VanSanten who you probably know as Becca from The Boys plays Nick O’bannon’s girlfriend Lori. And the security guard from the race track is played by Mykelti Williamson who you most likely know as Bubba from Forest Gump. This one does however lack Tony Todd who any horror fan knows played the extremely memorable title role in Candyman and was in the first two films and a voice in the third.

As usual characters who survived the initial incident start falling off through random accidents one by one. I will say in this one the deaths seem pretty inventive and there are a few times where it was genuinely surprising how the kill happens. And as usual, you do need enough of a stomach to handle some gore to watch this.

The characters find themselves sounding crazy and doing everything they can to try to prevent the impending deaths. This time the death order seems to be linear once again so as long as they can figure out the order of who dies, they can prevent a death. This skips to the next person though so they have to figure out how to stop everyone from getting killed.

The performances here are also a bit less cheesy than in some of the previous films and that helps make it believable. There’s even a moment where it seems like maybe the characters can win but it is turned right on its head.

And, as usual, it does seem like a lot of these deaths would be prevented by safety protocols and general upkeep. If you learn nothing else from these films, always remember, safety first.

Characters are killed off via impaling, dismemberment, and going through car washes.

While I wouldn’t say this is necessarily the best of the series it’s pretty good. And as usual, the real horror here is not at all how the characters die but the unsettling thought that these things could happen to anyone at any time. It’s a really crazy set of circumstances which usually causes the accident but for all of them they could potentially happen. This does elevate the horror a bit because you simply cannot fight inevitable death.

One thing I never get in this series of movies is there will at least one character who just refuses to believe they are next on the death list. This is always after the first character has proven they can see death coming and even possibly saved some people from it, yet they refuse to believe. I mean, why take the chance when someone who already proved they can predict this stuff tells you to get out of there. I’m not overly superstitious but I would leave a movie if someone had saved other people from a terrible death previously.

Anyway, this is a minor detail in an overall decent horror franchise and if you’ve gone this far with these movies you might as well continue. If you want to see something with a bit of gore and several interesting ways to die, this is worth watching as the franchise consistently delivers a decent, fun ride.

Posted on by slickdungeon · 2 Comments

Final Destination 3 – Movie Review

Final Destination 3 2006 Film

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

It’s time for the inevitable yet again! It’s me, Slick Dungeon, back to review the next film in the Final Destination franchise. This is the film series where the only murderer is death itself. And eventually we’re all going to lose that contest. So if you haven’t seen this movie yet, get off that rollercoaster before it takes off because there may be spoilers to smack you in the face below.

Still here? Okay, let’s get into it. The first two films in this franchise centered heavily around the tragic crash of flight 180 to Paris where a group of people got off the plane because one of the passengers had a premonition before the plane took off. While the second film was less closely tied to the first one, there was a definite and rather interesting connection for all the characters.

This film starts six years after the original crash. The group of high school students in this film are not even tangentially related to the events of the first but they still experience an incident. Kim who is seen as a control freak among her friends has a vision of a gruesome and fiery death on a roller coaster. She gets off the ride after a bit of a freak out and a few of her friends do so as well, either willingly, or for other reasons. Kim’s boyfriend Jason stays and meets his inevitable fate along with a few other students.

Unlike the last two films, the deaths of Kim’s friends seems to really bother and stay with her and other students at the school. This does make the deaths feel a little more meaningful even if they are still shockingly bloody.

Like the first two there are smash cuts and jump scares virtually guaranteed to make you jump out of your seat. The group has to figure out how to outrun death. This is no easy task and as in the other films it doesn’t seem like anyone but death will win in the end.

There are a few clever twists and turns and the actors seem to be more committed to the story in this one but by the third time this is feeling like old hat. While the setup and payoff is rather familiar, the deaths in this film are even more inventive and bloody than the first two, and that’s saying something.

It’s still a fun ride (pun very much intended) and if you’re a horror fan this is worth a watch. Just maybe don’t get on any roller coasters afterwards.

Inevitably yours,

Slick Dungeon

Posted on by slickdungeon

Final Destination 2 – Movie Review

Final Destination 2 2003 Film

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Hello internet! It’s me, Slick Dungeon. I’m back to review another movie about the inevitability of death, Final Destination 2. If you haven’t watched this before, buckle your seatbelts and strap in and watch it first because there may be spoilers in this review.

On the surface, it seems really silly to have something called Final Destination have a sequel. After all, wouldn’t final imply it’s the last? But the sequel does work and it actually connects fairly well to the first.

In the second film, we start off with something way more likely than death by plane crash. Instead, it’s death by car accident. Kim and her friends are about to drive out of town for a fun little getaway. She sees a huge, if somewhat unlikely, series of events resulting in a major traffic accident where she and a bunch of other people die. When she snaps to, she takes action and blocks traffic. Kim and several other people are spared death. Unfortunately her friends end up dead anyway.

Kim has heard about the events of flight 180 and the freakish deaths afterward and realizes she’s just experienced something similar. Clear, played by Ali Larter in the first film is still alive so Kim goes to see if she can be any help.

For the rest of the movie characters are trying, and mostly failing, to avoid their own inevitable deaths one by one.

I think the interesting twist in this one is how each character is somehow connected to the passengers who survived Flight 180. They come up with some rules for how to defeat death although, I’m not sure those rules really make much sense.

There are points where a lot of the characters simply ignore things they shouldn’t or take unreasonable actions. But, Kim and Clear for the majority of the film play it smart and Kim has the best idea of them all. I won’t spoil that here but her method does seem reasonable to defeat death in my opinion.

It’s a clever sequel and it once again has Tony Todd adding in an extra layer of creepy in the way only he (and maybe someone like Boris Karloff) can. If you liked the first film, this is not a bad follow up and I do recommend it. It’s just not quite as clever as the first, although I do think overall it is better acted.

Inevitably yours,

Slick Dungeon