The Films of 1994: Stargate

Roland Emmerich’s Stargate (1994) is the movie that launched a thousand ships, or at least several hundred episodes of popular cult television.  

As the initiator of the durable (though now dormant…) Stargate franchise, the film sets up a universe that, broadly-speaking, is based on the once-popular Von Daniken Chariots of the Gods (1968) notion that “God” is an ancient astronaut…an alien.

In movie-based terms, Stargate is the film that landed Emmerich on the map in A-list Hollywood.  Although Emmerich had already directed Universal Soldier (1992), Stargate quickly proved a massive, world-wide hit, and paved the way for the director’s busy career, which has included such films as Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 10,000 BC (2008), and 2012 (2010). 

Frankly, I don’t regard the bulk of Emmerich’s oeuvre in very positive terms.  Despite the bad reviews it received on release, Stargate likely dominates even today as the best Emmerich sci-fi film in the aforementioned pack. In part that’s because the film’s opening act is so engaging, and it builds up a real sense of anticipation, mystery, and excitement.

Not that a number of critics would agree with that assessment.

Roger Ebert awarded Stargate one star (out of four) and derided the film’s use of “action movie clichés.” Hal Hinson at The Washington Post felt that the film degenerated by the end into “routine pyrotechnics,” and The San Francisco Chronicle’s Mike LaSalle termed the film “imitation Spielberg” that “crashed inside 20 minutes.”  

Probably all of those comments are accurate to some degree.  The movie is indeed girded with action movie clichés, it does resolve with fireballs and pyrotechnics, and Stargate plays, at points, like low-grade Spielberg.  The film’s first half-hour is also undeniably its strongest. 

And yet, in spite of these admittedly on-the-mark criticisms, Stargate is a hell of a lot of fun.  .

In part, that fun emerges from the cast’s dedicated and sometimes herculean efforts.  James Spader plays the comedy and wonder aspects of the tale wittily, while Kurt Russell – acting as though he’s starring in a hard-boiled John Carpenter or Howard Hawks adventure – brilliantly essays the role of laconic but tortured Colonel O’Neil. 

And although Jaye Davidson (The Crying Game [1992]) remains a decidedly unconventional choice for a primary villain -- being delicate and androgynous rather than physically menacing in the conventional sense -- the very unpredictability of his physical presence adds to the film’s sense of menace, as well as the villain’s unique decadence and obsession with youth and beauty.  Davidson’s Ra is bizarre, but also incredibly sinister.

I remember when I first screened Stargate in the theater in October of 1994. There was much talk that it was “the next Star Wars.”  

That kind of chatter proved to be hyperbole, and yet Stargate is a film that, somehow – and indeed a lot like Star Wars – is much more than the sum of its individual parts.  The heroic theme music by David Arnold, the knowing performances from Russell and Spader, and the film’s strong action chops combine with the intriguing Von Daniken presence to render a film experience much more buoyant and enjoyable than it surely could have been. 

In other words, Stargate works on a crowd-pleasing, blockbuster level, and in this case, that’s more than enough.  The film has been assaulted as being stupid on many occasions, but in some fashion Stargate is very canny in how it manipulates the audience and audience expectations. It’s a film about guns winning the day, and yet it also delivers an anti-gun message, underneath. It’s a film that reveals the Ancient Astronauts, not mankind, achieved wonders in our antiquity, and yet the film also showcases modern man confronting those astronauts and proving his worth. 

In short, Stargate boasts a great premise, some terrific production design, capable actors who are clearly having fun, and enough sci-fi gadgetry to, well, sturdily launch a franchise.  I should probably add that the film absolutely plays like high-art in comparison to underwhelming and even laughable Emmerich fare such as 10,000 BC or 2012.

“I created your civilization. Now I will destroy it.”

Down-on-his-luck linguist and translator Daniel Jackson (Spader) is recruited by the Air Force to help translate an ancient Egyptian artifact, one unearthed in 1928, near the Great Pyramids.  He determines that a series of symbols on the artifact represent not letters in an alphabet, but coordinates in outer space.  The artifact is actually a stargate: a door connecting Earth to a world on the other side of the known galaxy.

Jackson and a team of soldiers, led by Colonel O’Neil (Russell), travel through the stargate and find a barren desert world where human slaves toil to build a pyramid for a “God” called Ra (Davidson).  With the help of a beautiful local, Sha’uri (Mili Avital), Jackson learns Ra’s story. He is a ruthless alien being who survived his race’s extinction and went out into the galaxy seeking a way to extend his life.

Ra found that way on ancient Earth by possessing the body of a young man, and setting himself up as a God.  The primitive people were amazed by Ra’s technology, and fell in line.  But a group of slaves rebelled against the alien king’s authority, and Ra’s stargate to Earth was buried and forgotten, so he could no longer return.

Now, Ra – who possesses the power to resurrect the dead – plans to punish Earth for that long ago rebellion and its recent incursion.  O’Neil has brought a bomb through the Stargate to destroy any threats, and now Ra plans to send it back…to destroy the planet.

Jackson and O’Neil must not only find a way home now, they must help the humans of this faraway planet defeat Ra, and save the Earth in the process.

So you think you've solved in fourteen days what they couldn't solve in two years? 

Erich Von Daniken’s published works about “ancient astronauts” represented a major fad in the 1970s, even though the books were widely debunked and ridiculed by the scientific establishment.  Von Daniken’s theory suggests that artifacts and constructs of the ancient world -- such as the Pyramids or Stonehenge -- are the works of advanced, star-faring aliens because humans of those historic eras did not possess the technology or skill to build them. 

Primitive man thus perceived the builders – aliens – as “Gods.”  Von Daniken interpreted stories from the Old Testament (like Ezekiel’s description of a ship of angels in the Old Testaments) as being literal stories of alien encounters and incursions.

Von Daniken’s ideas have found significant currency in science fiction television and cinema over the decades since Chariots of the Gods was published.  Battlestar Galactica (1978) and The Phoenix (1982) both traded on the idea of ancient astronauts and “brothers of man” in space.  More recent films such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and Knowing (2009) also developed these Von Daniken-esque notions.  The upcoming Prometheus (2012) also appears as though it will mine this idea rather thoroughly: that aliens visited man in antiquity and helped shape his future and his very world.

The appeal of these stories (and thus the appeal of Stargate) rests on twin concepts.  First, that we are not alone in the universe.  And secondly, that we are intimately connected with the alien races out there, existing beyond the stars.  Meeting these alien races, we are faced with the resolution of a mystery that connects our most distant past to our immediate future.  The promise is that we will join our cosmic brothers one day, and with a full understanding of where we came from.  In other words, the key to knowing who and what we really are rests on contacting the ancient peoples who set our culture in motion.  In space, then, we find our both our origin and our ultimate destination as a species.

The first twenty-three minutes or so of Stargate, -- the film’s strongest -- tread deeply into such ancient mysteries.  Who built the pyramids? Why were they built?  And what can we learn from the Ancients? 

As Stargate opens, Dr. Jackson is asked to translate the symbols that will activate a stargate, the doorway to the other side of the known universe.  The film lands the audience on Jackson’s side almost immediately, as he is ruthlessly mocked by his narrow-minded colleagues.  Then, the audience shares Jackson’s excitement as he translates the alien language inscribed on a 10,000 year old alien device. 

This part of the film races by with intrigue, humor and excitement. The sense of anticipation, of wonder, is palpable.  Spader proves especially strong here as the audience surrogate and as a committed detective.   Jackson’s obsession with “knowing” becomes the audience’s obsession thanks to Spader’s enthusiastic portrayal, and his self-deprecating sense of humor.  A lot of this could seem like dry, dull exposition, but Spader makes the material riveting to watch, and colors it with his character's idiosyncrasies.

Once the Stargate is discovered and activated, however, the film gets mired down in familiar-seeming desert terrains and the like.   After the visually-amazing “ultimate trip” to another planet, it’s a little disconcerting to come down to Earth, literally, and see familiar sand dunes and sky.  And watching Jackson and O’Neil encounter a city of primitive slaves is not exactly heart-pounding. 

But by the time the first hour is over, Ra arrives and the film picks up again. Emmerich makes the most of the film’s unseen menace at this juncture.  

In particular, he shoots an underground siege absolutely perfectly by utilizing P.O.V. shots.  Members of O’Neil’s team are picked off one at a time, and we don’t see the hunters.  Instead, the camera creeps up on the unsuspecting soldiers, and then the film cuts to their bodies being dragged off-screen by unseen creatures.  It’s almost as though we’ve shifted gears into a horror movie, and the grunting, inhuman sound effects of Ra’s soldiers augment the idea of a terrifying, unknown presence.  Even the final, momentous reveal of these minions remains quite powerful.  Looking at these glowing eyes, metal-headed soldiers, it’s easy to see how man could misinterpret them to be Gods. 

When Ra is finally introduced, he isn’t at all what we expect.  But in an action film, that kind of surprise can be a good thing, indeed.  We expect a seven-foot tall monster -- a Darth Vader, perhaps -- and are instead presented with a wispy, lithe, uncomfortable presence in Jaye Davidson.  Ra lives inside a human form, so it’s appropriate that we feel ambivalent about his appearance. We don’t know how to process him, at least not initially.  Is he male? Female?  Some strange combination of both?   

Impressively, Jaye Davidson conveys a sense of both uncomfortable beauty and absolute malevolence at the same time.  He may look beautiful on the surface, but his eyes and movements pulsate with a brand of wickedness that suggests the alien’s true nature.

Again, there’s something to be said for choosing an atypical direction in a spectacular like Stargate.  The filmmakers might have cast a bulky strong-man as Ra, but their selection of the slight, whisper-thing Davidson unhinges matters a bit.  The story becomes almost instantly more unpredictable because there is a sense in watching Davidson that we don’t know what he is, literally, and therefore what he will do.  On the few occasions that his alien features shine through his skin, we get a sense of the diabolical Ra’s inner ugliness.

Action films made today depend a great deal on quick cutting and herky-jerky, hand-held camera moves to transmit a sense of urgency.  However, the over twenty-year old Stargate plays as refreshingly retro during its accomplished action scenes. The film builds a sense of pace and immediacy through cross-cutting, first between two opposing scenes, and then, finally, between three.  

The approach generates a strong sense of momentum leading into the climax, and it’s carefully-wrought.  It helps too, no doubt, to have the muscular, steely-eyed Russell fronting an action scene.  No one in the film is made out to be a superhero, and there’s something refreshingly human and tenacious about the way Colonel O’Neil just dukes it out, punch-after-punch, with Ra’s muscle-bound minion.  I admire this scene because it doesn’t rely on special effects (except for the macabre punctuation…) or even wild (but improbable) stunts.   Instead, it’s just an old-fashioned slug-fest.

I would like to comment again -- as I have in the past – about at what an absolutely great leading man Russell is.  His O’Neil is distinctly different from his Snake Plissken, Jack Burton, or MacReady in The Thing.  There’s a kind of retro, non-showy grittiness in Russell’s performance here.  The film features a number of scenes during which he stands back in the corner of a frame and just silently smokes a cigarette, an act which is pretty unusual in mid-1990s cinema but which reminds one of Humphrey Bogart or some other leading man of yesteryear. 

In these moments, Russell quietly dominates, and all eyes reflexively turn to him.  Even if the script doesn’t exactly give the actor emotional layers to explore, Russell’s taciturn approach suggests a contemplative mind at work, a man silently watching and reacting to everything happening around him.

Perhaps Stargate seems less-than-impressive mainly in several canned, off-the-shelf moments.  O’Neil’s subplot about losing a son is all-too-familiar in this genre, for example, but Russell’s sincerity in vetting it makes it less-than groan-worthy.  His expressive, guilt-ridden eyes go a long way towards making the commonly-seen trope seem powerful and new again. 

Not so strong, however, is the moment -- rendered in over-the-top slow motion photography -- when one of the rebellious slave youngsters goes down in a blaze of glory, and the last we see of him is a tumbling army helmet.  It feels like a moment that would be right at home in Team America: World Police (2004).

Another moment – a trade of salutes between the former slaves and O’Neil – also plays as eminently cheesy and way over-the-top.  You’ve got to wonder why a film that can foster a sense of wonder (in the first twenty-minutes), transmit a strong sense of menace (at the hour point), and convey strong action (at the climax), feels the need to go schmaltzy and sentimental in conclusion.   I suppose it’s just Hollywood: a land where implication isn’t enough and you must be spoon-fed “emotions” so you know EXACTLY how to feel all the time.  It’s insulting.

Despite such missteps, Stargate is nimble in its special effects (especially the depiction of the stargate itself) and boasts a nice through-line about technology.  Technology doesn’t necessarily make one superior, at least in the long run, the film seems to state.  Here, the slave community comes together to stop Ra (just as slaves did on Earth, in antiquity), and the idea that gets conveyed is that we succeed when we work together.

Although I have distinct memories of the late Gene Roddenberry complaining about the ancient astronaut theory because it failed to take into account human intelligence and human ingenuity, Stargate actually possesses a commendably optimistic streak too.  Humankind here is ready to confront its former gods.  Primitive superstition is behind us.

Of course, on the other hand, both Ra and the military men of Earth still attempt to dominate situations through violent means: with bombs, guns and other weapons of destruction.  We may not literally be slaves anymore, but even as advanced as we are, we’re still slaves to our destructive (and self-destructive) impulses.  

Stargate is never quite smart enough to square that circle.

Still, this is one of those “big” sci-fi movies where it helps if you allow yourself to get swept up by the bigness of it all.  The bigness of the soundtrack. Of the performances. Of the (high) concept. Of the desert vistas. And of the special effects. 

If you do let yourself succumb to all of that impressive eye candy, Stargate is a film of wonder, humor, imagination, and not a small degree of charm.

The Shadow Handheld Game (Tiger; 1994)

The Films of 1994: The Shadow

In terms of comic-book or superhero films, there’s a long-standing rule that Hollywood producers have forgotten on multiple occasions.

Period genre films fail at the box office.

Indeed, Hollywood history is littered with the corpses of period superhero or comic-book movies with titles such as Doc Savage: Man of Bronze (1975), Dick Tracy (1990), The Rocketeer (1991), The Shadow (1994), The Phantom (1998), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) and John Carter (2012).

All these films either adapt older properties that are no longer popular enough to generate popular success, or are new properties that serve as homages (like Raiders of the Lost Ark [1982]…) to the decade of the 1930s.

Either way, these films don't meet with widespread audience approbation.

Because these films all failed, however, that does not necessarily mean that they are artistic failures.  

Indeed, I count The Rocketeer, Sky Captain and John Carter as remarkable successes in terms of universe-building, and in the successful re-capturing an earlier era in entertainment. 

I’m conflicted on Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy. It’s a beautifully-made film, but largely an empty one, at least in terms of human interest.

A reader this week asked me about The Shadow, the 1994 Russell Mulcahy adaptation of the Walter B. Gibson character created in 1931, and it occupies a slot close to Dick Tracy in terms of my admiration assessment.  

There are several powerful and successful elements at work in the film, and the jaunty, tongue-in-cheek tone makes it less dire (and less difficult to sit through...) than Beatty’s 1990 comic-book film.

Some critics of the day saw these virtues and made note of them. Jeff Laffel at Films in Review observed, for instance, that The Shadow was a “lot less pretentious” than Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and a “whole lot of fun.” 

In Cinefantastique, James Faller felt that the movie had “much to recommend it,” but that there was “never much sense of urgency or identification with the title character.” 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, The New York Post’s Michael Medved called The Shadow “the most embarrassing bit studio bomb of the summer.”

I don’t find the movie embarrassing in the slightest.  

On the contrary, I think The Shadow is a fun if overlong movie, buttressed by Alec Baldwin’s game performance.  I do agree with Faller that, by film’s end, the film feels more like a breezy, occasionally diverting effort than a compelling, necessary movie.

“The clouded mind sees nothing.”

In the early twentieth century, not long after the First World War -- in far off Tibet -- American ex-patriot Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin) has become a ruthless warlord who terrorizes the locals. 

One day, he is abducted from his HQ and brought before a Tulpa, a Tibetan instructor who teaches him how to ‘cloud’ the minds of enemies.  He will pay for his crimes by fighting other criminals.

Years later, Lamont lives in New York and operates as ‘The Shadow,’ a vigilante who strikes fear into the heart of Manhattan’s gangsters. The Shadow also controls, from his sanctum, a network of associates/agents who owe him favors since he saved their lives.

As Lamont falls in love with Margo Lane (Penelope Anne Miller), the telepathic daughter of a scientist (Ian McKellen), a new threat rises. 

The evil Shiwan Khan (John Lone) arrives in NYC to take over the world. He wields a deadly weapon, thanks to Dr. Lane; a Beryllium sphere, or atom bomb!

“You know what evil lurks in the heart of men.”

One quality that makes The Shadow a lot of fun is its bubbly, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor.  The film doesn't take itself too seriously, and that makes the re-assertion of dark superhero tropes bearable at times.

Also, Alec Baldwin -- who would have been the ultimate Batman in the eighties and nineties -- is perfect as the urbane, and faintly sinister Lamont Cranston. 

Baldwin plays a man whom the audience can believe truly boasts a seething dark side. Not only is he saturnine in appearance, with piercing eyes, but he possesses a gravelly, authoritarian voice. In 1994, Baldwin was the perfect choice for The Shadow, especially given the character’s roots in radio (a voice-driven art form).  He looks right, and he sounds right too.

The Shadow’s opening scene set in Tibet also seems, in some crucial way, to forecast one of the crucial (and best) sequences in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005).  There, as you may recall, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale traveled to Ladakhi, a location inhabited by people of Tibetan descent. 

There, he trained to become a great warrior (and consequently a superhero), and master his fear. That’s pretty much what happens in the prologue of The Shadow, with the path of Lamont’s life altered forever by is training at the hands of the Tulpa.

In some ways, this period of Far Eastern training works better, at least in terms of character consistency, in The Shadow. 

Batman may be “the dark knight,” based on his childhood traumas, but Lamont is recruited to his superhero calling because, literally, of the darkness coruscating inside him. 

He is picked for training because he carries some essential understanding -- based on his history as the “Butcher of Lhasa” -- of his own psyche. He knows what evil lurks in the heart of men as The Shadow, because that evil lurks within him.  But Cranston's training has helped him master it.  

At least most of the time.

If The Shadow’s prologue forecasts Batman Begins, then it is fair to state the opposite case too. 

The Shadow also feels very much like a child of Tim Burton’s Batman. The first scene after the Tibetan prologue in The Shadow, for example, imitates the opening scene of Batman to an uncomfortable degree. Just as the mysterious Batman terrorized street level criminals in Gotham City in that film, The Shadow here confronts a number of thugs on the Brooklyn Bridge.  

It is fair, to state, of course, that all superhero films feature scenes of heroes in criminals in conflict. 

But just consider the underlying feeling or details at work in both sequences. 

Specifically, the Shadow and Batman are both such terrifying presences that leave their respective criminals shaking and quaking in horror at their existence.  

In both cases, the hero has become a near-mythical or superhero monster, not merely a superhero.  There is a connection, in both cases, with darkness, monstrosity, and villainy. The Batman and The Shadow are both icons of fright, in these productions, at least before the audience gets to know them. They strike fear into the heart of men.

Superman doesn't do that. And neither did Adam West's Batman. Post-Dark Knight/Frank Miller, superheroes at the cinema had to be thee brooding, creatures of the night, stalking their prey under moonlight.

Also to the downside, the love affair in The Shadow between Margo Lane and Lamont Cranston feels very de rigueur, much like the unholy combination of the Superman/Lois Lane relationship, and the Batman/Vicky Vale relationship.  

Like the former, the love interest is named “Lane” and represents a “threat” to the hero because of some experience or knowledge she brings to the table, either as a hardcore investigative reporter or a psychic,  

And like Vicky, Margo “gets inside,” finding access to the hero’s dark, closed off world.

I don’t believe that The Shadow is as visually compelling or inventive as Dick Tracy is.  That film’s overwhelming and distinctive color scheme -- as well as its fidelity to keeping action sequences confined to individual “frames”-- resulted in a singular entertainment.  Yet The Shadow does a remarkably effective and impressive job creating 1930s New York City, and locations such as The Cobalt Club, The Empire State Building, the Monolith Hotel, and the aforementioned Brooklyn Bridge.

I should also note the film’s “prophetic” touches. There are some fun moments in The Shadow that require one to understand the history of America since the 1930s. For example, Khan quips at one point about creating a “New World Order,” and that was a critical comment of the first President Bush’s era in American politics. 

By bringing in the future, through lines of dialogue such as this, The Shadow proves in fact, that it is not about a sinister and complex world, but an innocent one. The appeal is thus nostalgic.

Today, I'm not sure that's a quality the the film should have aimed for.

And even though The Shadow is actually one of the key influences behind the Batman mythos, the long-lived hero comes off in this film like a knock-off of such modern heroes as Batman, or even Darkman. 

Furthermore, the film's supporting characters -- Roy Tam, Margo Lane, Moe Shrevnitz -- are unfamiliar to most audiences.  Sure, they are faithful to The Shadow’s history, but there’s the feeling this feeling about the film that it is about ten-to-twenty years too late to please those who grew up with the Gibson character.

A sequel to The Shadow might have had the opportunity to build on the good things presented in this film (especially the Baldwin performance), but audiences never got the chance for a return engagement.  Instead, this film simultaneously seemed too new and too much the same not to ‘cloud’ the minds of its confused audience.

As I’ve noted, I like The Shadow. I think it’s a notch or two better than Beatty’s Dick Tracy, at least as pure, human entertainment.  

But I also think The Shadow proves the point that period superhero movies represent a tricky bet at the box office.

When we look to our silver screen superheroes, we don't want the adventures of yesteryear.  Instead, we want cutting edge technology and characters, apparently.  

Too late, The Shadow knows this.

Cult-Movie Review: Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

The tenth birthday of cinematic boogeyman Freddy Krueger should have been a big deal to start with, that's for sure. 

Why?

Well, in the late 1980s, Freddy Krueger veritably ruled the box office and the horror genre, thanks in large part to three or four very talented people: Wes Craven, who gave birth to Freddy, Robert Englund, who gave the silver screen monster body and personality, and talents like Heather Langenkamp and Lisa Wilcox, who, on more than one occasion, gave Krueger worthy nemeses.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Freddy was truly flattered throughout the eighties.  In the latter part of the decade, every new issue of Fangoria  seemed to trumpet the arrival of "a new
Freddy, a boogymena challenger to knock Krueger from his long-held king’s throne.  

The candidates didn’t end up being so imposing, from Harris (Richard Lynch), the cult-guru of Bad Dreams (1988), to I Madman’s (1989) Malcolm Brand.  Even Craven himself took a shot at toppling Freddy with his new monster: Horace Pinker (the great Mitch Pileggi) in 1989’s Shocker.

But by 1991, somehow, Freddy Krueger was played out. The last series film, Freddy’s Dead (1991), was a disaster, and his TV show (Freddy’s Nightmares) was cancelled after just two seasons.

After years holding on, and being praised as the best of the slasher pack, Freddy lost his cultural currency.

So New Line Studios did the only thing that made sense. It went back to Freddy’s dad, Wes Craven, one more time, and he devised a new twist on his most beloved character.  Craven revived the series, -- at least from an artistic stand-point -- with the brilliant Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994).

As Kim Newman pointed out in Sight and Sound (Jan 1, 1995, pg.62), “The major achievement of the film, given the complicated mix of in-jokery and philosophy and the by-now familiar nature of Freddy’s schtick, is that Craven manages to make things scary again.”

That was a big deal, considering the fact that after five sequels, Freddy had become more circus ringmaster than slashing, menacing murderer.

But even better, New Nightmare was scary in a smart way. The New York Post’s Thelma Adams observed that it is a “rippingly good movie-within-a-movie, a pop Day for Nightmare.”  Indeed, the film’s is-it-real-or-is-it-a-movie approach to the action might very well be seen as the missing link binding 1980s slashers to the most popular horror franchise of the 1990s: Scream (1996).

I love New Nightmare, however, not merely because it is scary, and not merely because it plays with our understanding of reality (and indeed, franchise history). 

Rather, I adore the film because it speaks meaningfully about the horror film’s place in American society.  It erects, brilliantly, in my estimation, a pro-social case for the horror film as art. 

Horror films offer a very necessary catharsis for our society, states the film's thesis. The monsters that we don’t capture on the screen will haunt us in real life. Thus horror movies not only “bottle” such monsters, butthey  help children grapple with the idea of evil in a way that does not endanger them, and, to the contrary, shows them how to survive.

A good scary story is more than entertainment. It is a journey survived, an obstacle overcome, a mountain climbed. A good horror movie can demonstrate how, once destroyed, order can be restored. It can shows us that monsters are defeatable, just as life's troubles can be defeated.

In case you couldn't tell, I love this film, and everything it stands -- and fights -- for.

"Every kid knows who Freddy is.  He's like Santa Claus. Or King Kong."

Former horror movie star Heather Langenkamp grows agitated when, following an earthquake in Los Angeles, she learns that her young son, Dylan (Miko Hughes) has been watching her Nightmare on Elm Street films.   

Worse, she is being stalked by an obscene phone caller, and is having nightmares about Freddy.

Before long, it seems as Freddy (Robert Englund) himself is crossing over into our reality, and using Dylan as a vessel to do so.

Desperate, Heather seeks the advice of her friend, John Saxon (himself) and horror movie guru, Wes Craven (himself), who suggests that it is time for the actress to reprise her role of Nancy Thompson if she hopes to defeat an ancient demon that has taken the shape of Freddy Krueger.

"I think the only way to stop him is to make another movie."

At its most basic form, Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a parent’s personal journey towards enlightenment.  

As the film commences, Heather obsessively protects her son Dylan from the danger of “scary movies,” of horror films, that she perceives. 

She admits that she wouldn’t allow Dylan to see her own motion pictures, namely Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, and that she is uncertain about “doing horror roles" because of their impact on Dylan and other children his age. 

She thus makes an argument that all horror film fans  have heard again and again. Horror movies are bad! They are bad for society, and bad for young eyes!

Additionally, Heather does not understand why her boy -- here representing all of America’s children -- is drawn to scary stories in the first place.  Regarding Hansel & Gretel, Heather declares, “it’s so violent, I don’t know why you like it.”  

Horror movie fans have heard that one too. 

I get this one all the time, especially when I reveal how much I appreciate Last House on the Left (1972), or Straw Dogs (1971).  

How can someone so gentle, so nice, actually like movies filled with such horrible violence?  

Well, unlike a lot of folks, I prefer all my horrible violence to be on screen, not in real life. I work out my fears, my anxieties in these movies, imagining the unimaginable, and feeling a catharsis when I have survived it.

But back to the movie.  

As a result of his mother’s repression of horror films and bedtime stories, young Dylan becomes partially possessed by the demons he has only half-glimpsed in these apparent fiction.  

Because he has not seen the entire picture, the whole film A Nightmare on Elm Street, he has not witnessed his mother defeat Freddy’s evil. He is therefore left vulnerable to evil influences and emotions. He has nowhere to put that "horror" and no way to achieve closure.

To illustrate this point, Craven’s screenplay has Dylan awaken as if from a trance each time Heather turns off the television to censor his viewing.  His need for security is shattered, and Dylan screams in horror.  

Significantly, he is not frightened by the images of terror unfolding on the screen, but because his mother has robbed him of narrative closure; of the knowledge that, in the end, evil is defeated and the world is returned to normal.

Similarly, as Heather reads Hansel and Gretel to Dylan for the umpteenth time, he orders her to finish the story before he goes to sleep.  

“Say how they find their way home, it’s important,” he insists.  

Craven’s implication here is that children like to be scared and that stimulating horror stories/films serve as an outlet for this need.  By seeing a scary story all the way through to its conclusion, children learn that they too can beat scary influences in real life. Horror makes them aware that they will survive.  

The form is cathartic, in addition to being fun.

As the plot of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare develops, Heather realizes that, as Craven eloquently puts it, an evil repressed can sometimes break through into “safe” reality.  A woman who has refused to allow her child to see horror films is then thrust unexpectedly into the position of defending them.  

“I’m convinced that those films can send an unstable child over the edge!” the well-meaning but parochial Dr. Heffner declares, but the horror Dylan faces is not imagined bur real, ironically, because the Freddy films are no longer being made in the 1990s.  

When they were produced in the 1980s, the series served as a healthy outlet for teenage fears and anxieties.  Since they have stopped, evil has escaped into the real world and is doing massive damage.

Craven explores this theme of horror as acceptable, even desirable outlet for fear by crafting an ongoing parallel between his Elm Street universe and the grim childhood story Hansel and Gretel.  

Since Hansel and Gretel is deemed acceptable “bedtime reading” by most parents, a Nightmare on Elm Street is, by extension, also acceptable. And like the witch in the scary fairy tale, Freddy Krueger even tries to shove Dylan into an oven and in the film’s denouement is cooked himself. 

In stalking the young boy, Freddy declares, “I’m gonna eat you up!” and that he has some “gingerbread” for the boy, and these moments heighten the film’s similarity to written folklore. 

The film’s conclusion is the final reiteration of this leitmotif as Heather and Dyaln sit together and read the New Nightmare script from start to finish as the camera gently pulls away from the duo, both safe and sound. 

This reading provides closure and vanquishes Freddy forever to the world of imagination…or at least until people stop making horror movies about this particular demon once more.

Rich in theme and intellectual heft, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare not only examines parental responsibility and the healthy aspects of the horror film, it is also profoundly self-referential in its commentary on the world of Hollywood filmmaking. Freddy masks, costumes, gloves and affectionate fan signs are all seen on the talk show stage. Memorabilia from the Elm Street line, including reference books, action figures and paintings are seen in executive Bob Shaye’s office, and fans like the creepy limo driver pop up everywhere and startle poor Heather in the tradition of Freddy himself.

Craven pointedly contrasts the fanaticism of some fans with the blasé attitude of those who make the films and profit from them.

“That thing puts bread on our table,” Chase reminds Heather when she petulantly objects to Freddy’s new razor glove. 

“The fans, god bless ‘em, they’re clamoring for more,” Bob Shaye laughs, realizing that he has a money-making bonanza in this particular franchise.

Indeed, the very fact that the tenth anniversary of A Nightmare on Elm Street is a plot point in the film speaks to both fan devotion and executive greed.  Amusingly, Craven bites the hand that feed him here.  At the same time that he makes another horror sequel for New Line and Shaye, he criticizes the company for literally running Freddy into the ground.  

Freddy has returned to the real world not just because of repression, but because his mythos has become overly familiar, too watered down by mainstream concerns to be scary anymore. 

Even as New Nightmare slams past sequels, it is loaded with references visual and verbal to past entries in the Elm Street film cycle.  It is a movie about transformation and alternate reality bleeding in to ours, so by the movie’s climax Heather’s world has turned into the world of the 1984 film.  John Saxon is suddenly her father, her blond babysitter dies like blond Tina died, and so on. Heather's hair even goes gray again, and she finds herself inadvertently repeating dialogue from the original film such as “whatever you do, don’t fall asleep” and “screw your pass!”

The first Nightmare on Elm Street is not the only series entry referenced here. 

Dr. Heffner, the disbelieving professional, echoes Dr. Elizabeth Simms in Dream Warriors (1987), who felt that Freddy wasn’t real but rather a byproduct of “rampant” adolescent sexuality.  

The roadside death of a male protagonist, Chase, is reminiscent of Alice’s boyfriend Dan and his death in The Dream Child (1989), down to the inclusion of a pick-up truck in the sequence.  Another repetition from the fifth film is the subplot that a child can serve as a vessel of evil, one which Freddy can operate. 

 Finally, Heather’s comment to Dylan that people can only enter other people’s dreams in the movies represents a sly put-down of the premise of Dream Warriors.

By re-interpreting these standards of the Nightmare on Elm Street film series, New Nightmare transcends the familiar mythos and actually becomes oddly unpredictable.  Viewers believe they know all the twists, but all the twists are, themselves, twisted and given new meaning (and thus power) in their revision.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare contains many intricate realities.  For instance, the audience here is watching a horror movie concerning an actress planning to play herself in a horror movie. Fictional and real worlds overlap, and this is buttressed by the presence of Nick Corri, Robert Englund, Sara Risher, Craven and others, all playing themselves in the drama.  

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare also succeeds on a primal, childhood level. It plays on fears of the dark, monsters, “what’s under the bed,” anxieties about hospitals, and more.  It also deftly blends humor with the fear of losing a child, that which is most valuable and innocent in the world. 

So credit Wes Craven for doing something here that many thought was impossible on Freddy K's tenth birthday.

He breathed new life into an old monster, and an old form too.