This week we have the the trio that brought you The Menu episode, SmirkGently and Oslowe. We dip our toes into the Freddy Kruger franchise and tackle A Nightmare on Elm Street.

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Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,

Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.

Evan: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com.

Evan: As it is spooky season, this week we are diving into a Wes Craven classic,

Evan: the 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street, which jump-started a,

Evan: I believe, seven-film franchise.

Evan: Maybe that doesn't include the newest one, but many, many, many,

Evan: many movies in this franchise. But we'll be focusing on the first one.

Evan: And with me, I have horror guru Oslo, who you may remember from other such episodes

Evan: as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Evan: And I have Smirk or Ashley, who you also may know from many episodes,

Evan: including The Menu with aforementioned Oslo.

Evan: Thank you both for being here today.

Ashley: Thank you for having me.

Oslowe: Thank you so much for having me back.

Evan: Given that it is, you know, spooky season, I'm going to ask for,

Evan: before we talk about the film, I'm curious if you have a horror movie you would

Evan: recommend to the listening audience.

Evan: And it may or may not be related to this film, or it could just be something you saw recently.

Evan: And you can't say The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Evan: But you should all listen to our discussion on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Oslowe: Today, I was revisiting Ryan Coogler's Sinners, and I was revisiting this absolute

Oslowe: masterpiece of genre play, because on the drive into work,

Oslowe: my buddy and I were just, you know, randoming music,

Oslowe: and Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child had come on.

Oslowe: And that is obviously older than all of us, but it's a great,

Oslowe: great electric blues song.

Oslowe: And it made me go, oh, when I get into the office, I'm going to put on a certain movie on my screen.

Oslowe: And so, yeah, that's my recommendation for people that want that feeling,

Oslowe: that twilight, well, the time of day, not the IP, that autumnal vibe.

Oslowe: I can honestly think of little better than that little piece of nasty Mississippi back road,

Oslowe: like just brilliant iconography that is Sinners from Ryan Kruger.

Oslowe: But if you want something more Halloween-themed,

Oslowe: Go for one of the anthologies. There's a lot of anthologies that are set on

Oslowe: or around Halloween, and you can usually find stuff for everybody.

Oslowe: Tales of Halloween is a pretty fun one. Trick or Treat is much beloved and kind of a cult classic now.

Oslowe: The two films that preceded Terrifier were both anthology Halloween films from

Oslowe: What's-His-Name, but I don't recommend those.

Oslowe: yeah just go with your heart look at the boxes in the video store and oh wait that's really hard to.

Ashley: Do now isn't it yeah try your local library sometimes they have they have DVDs

Ashley: I don't know how much of the horror selection they have in mind but,

Ashley: yeah you know what they need for that it's worth looking it

Ashley: is the only thing the libraries need and not I would never advocate for like

Ashley: a coffee shop or anything that you have to pay for at the library but a little

Ashley: a little stand of movie snacks like when you go to a blockbuster you get the

Ashley: the bunch of crunch and the snow caps some box.

Oslowe: Of gummy bears or whatever yeah.

Ashley: Bucket yeah yeah but yeah movies libraries always

Ashley: have almost always in my experience have had dvds maybe

Ashley: they got some good horror ones in there um a

Ashley: couple that i watched recently the most recent horror movie i watched which

Ashley: got it's got like a 2.5 on imdb which is already you know it's gonna be great

Ashley: um it's called uh strange frequencies taiwan killer hospital it's like a found footage kind of like.

Ashley: Mockumentary not mockumentary style it's supposed

Ashley: to be like these people are doing a live stream going

Ashley: into this extremely haunted hospital where anytime tourists go

Ashley: there they get murdered so these this guy

Ashley: who is going to be an actor and some other actors and influences are like well

Ashley: of course we have to go there and hilarity ensues um i think it's on like netflix

Ashley: or hulu or something um it was a lot of fun if you like like a it would like

Ashley: some of the visuals really intense.

Ashley: I thought it was it was a fun watch um and

Ashley: then one that i thought was really good that i saw recently even

Ashley: though it came out a couple years ago was no one will save you it's

Ashley: more of a sci-fi horror film um with uh

Ashley: caitlin i don't know is it deaver or dever

Ashley: i don't know how to say her name deaver yeah um phenomenal

Ashley: and it wasn't i hadn't read anything about it beforehand but

Ashley: i didn't really so i didn't realize until like 15 minutes

Ashley: in i'm like oh there's like no dialogue in this movie but you don't need

Ashley: it it just it you are just in

Ashley: it from the moment it starts and it's very it's really

Ashley: atmospheric um kind of surreal

Ashley: and the action pops off in such a way that

Ashley: like you're it's tense right from the start so if you want something a

Ashley: little more psychological and weird and then with the sci-fi element i would

Ashley: go with that but those are the two ones aside from sinners because obviously

Ashley: that's in my mind that's like the that's like the most recent like really really

Ashley: freaking good horror movie that i've seen yeah absolutely um yeah since.

Evan: We are here to talk about a nightmare on elm street being that this is now you

Evan: know it's came out many many a year ago,

Evan: i'm curious either of your sort of um memories of

Evan: this film i don't know i mean this came out when i was just a

Evan: two-year-old so i didn't see it until i was you know

Evan: maybe like eight or nine you know as a child of seeing inappropriate movies

Evan: and inappropriate times but i'm wondering sort of how or maybe not just how

Evan: you like your memories of it too but just sort of how you kind of see it fitting

Evan: in sort of the slasher sort of uh you know um these films as part of these long running,

Evan: series you know franchises like how it kind of stacks up in there and you know

Evan: just your overall impressions of it.

Oslowe: I was eight or nine i think when nightmare on elm street came out,

Oslowe: And I wasn't going to horror movies at the time.

Oslowe: Within four years, three years, I was ready for Halloween.

Oslowe: You know, my dad spent like two

Oslowe: and a half hours building on my face with liquid latex, all of the scars.

Oslowe: And I looked really gross and, you know, borrowed a rugby sweater from the next

Oslowe: door neighbor kind of thing that was red and green.

Oslowe: And it's a funny movie. It's not actually very funny, though it has some humor.

Oslowe: Wes Craven usually does.

Oslowe: He was on a real slump. Any of the power and sort of energy that he had shown

Oslowe: early in his career with Last House on the Left and then with The Hills Have Eyes,

Oslowe: he seemed to have sort of bled out in a bunch of efforts that maybe aren't held in very high esteem.

Oslowe: Invitation to Hell and Swamp Thing.

Oslowe: But he had had like three or four movies in a row that had all just kind of

Oslowe: not really done anything. And I want to say two of them had gone straight to TV.

Oslowe: Nightmare on Elm Street had like a $1 million budget. And I want to say that

Oslowe: when Bob Shea greenlit it, it was $700,000 budget.

Oslowe: So that's a made-for-TV movie, essentially. You had John Saxon,

Oslowe: who, you know, working stiff, he was in everything in the 80s,

Oslowe: God bless him. None of the kids were stars.

Oslowe: And yet with this little nasty sort of supernatural slasher,

Oslowe: and was it the first supernatural slasher?

Oslowe: Probably not. But it's the one that sunk, like sunk its hooks into the consciousness.

Oslowe: And it was the first one to go supernatural of all of the big guys.

Oslowe: It was, I think, honestly, that that's part of why we have the slasher cycles that we have.

Oslowe: is because of the video boom because

Oslowe: we weren't going to see these movies in the theater you know

Oslowe: i mean people did obviously they made incredible amounts of

Oslowe: money i think that nightmare on elm street after production

Oslowe: was finished was over a million dollar budget but it made like

Oslowe: 51 back and so

Oslowe: you know the house that freddie built as

Oslowe: new line has been called ever since um it

Oslowe: changed i think i think i think that it did introduce that

Oslowe: supernatural edge into the mainstream one of my favorite

Oslowe: uh slashers of the sort of 80s cycle

Oslowe: is a canadian film called um

Oslowe: hello mary lou but it's commonly

Oslowe: known as prom night too hello mary lou um but

Oslowe: it has nothing to do with prom night but it's a great supernatural slasher with

Oslowe: a fantastic lady villain so if you need a need a fun girl to cheer for because

Oslowe: she does things like have sex because she wants to and then the bad guys punish

Oslowe: her for that it's a fucking great movie seriously check it out.

Evan: What about you uh smirk what's your sort of history with this one.

Ashley: I if i saw it when i was younger,

Ashley: it would have been because like my brother showed it to me or something i don't

Ashley: really remember watching this until i was probably in high school or college

Ashley: and i can almost guarantee,

Ashley: that i didn't watch it sober until like after that watching

Ashley: it again the other day i was like okay i definitely remember this

Ashley: and i know it because it's just kind of ingrained because it's

Ashley: so much part of the zeitgeist it's like you know the story of freddie

Ashley: and nightmare on elm street but i was like it was

Ashley: kind of it was almost like watching it for the first time the things that

Ashley: really stuck out to me because of that supernatural element is how much they

Ashley: were able to play with like the special the um practical effects and everything

Ashley: like with the the rotating room um and just we'll get into all of it i'm sure but um,

Ashley: It just, I like a supernatural slasher, even the crappy ones I can have fun watching.

Ashley: So I really, for me, this kind of sets the tone for all the other ones that

Ashley: I probably remember a little bit better.

Ashley: And I can see where those drew from into the now, which is really cool.

Ashley: You know, even if it doesn't all 100% hold up, it's still, it's incredible work,

Ashley: especially for the time.

Evan: Yeah, I think that like, it's, it's interesting you mentioned you both said supernatural.

Evan: like that's how if you see if you go on to wikipedia you

Evan: know the obviously the uh only source of information

Evan: on movies it calls it a supernatural supernatural slasher

Evan: film which i think made it so much

Evan: different than some of the other ones you know before it

Evan: and you know all of those like the italian ones and

Evan: and maybe canadian ones like uh

Evan: prom night well prom that but i was also thinking

Evan: of um black christmas the

Evan: bob clark yes canadian yeah like it's such

Evan: a different great film perspective on it where i

Evan: think a lot of movies like halloween and the the earlier

Evan: slasher kind of precursors to this film

Evan: play a lot more on the sort of normal person in your town that could be you

Evan: know the killer like you know in black christmas it's this guy stalking a sorority

Evan: house and we all know about you know the Friday the 13th series and the you know when.

Oslowe: A stranger calls.

Evan: And all yeah exactly and I think this one changed that a lot and to me I've

Evan: actually was just I was listening to this book on,

Evan: Wes Craven, more about Scream. But I didn't realize he had a bunch of degrees, like, in psychology.

Evan: And so it really makes a lot of sense that he was able to, like,

Evan: dig into a movie about, you know, this subconscious that people are having.

Evan: Like, at the heart of it, this is about people who are being killed while they're dreaming.

Evan: And so it has that supernatural aspect. So I don't know how,

Evan: like, what do you make of the idea that, like, the killer can get us while we're dreaming?

Evan: And, like, do you think that's some kind of, like, do you think he meant it

Evan: as some kind of metaphor for something deeper or or do you think it's a metaphor

Evan: for something deeper whether Wes Craven.

Oslowe: Absolutely a hundred

Oslowe: percent Wes Craven never made a movie that was just about

Oslowe: what the movie was about of course and I think he'd be the first he'd

Oslowe: be the first filmmaker to say that there are definitely filmmakers who

Oslowe: would say no I made the movie you decide what it's about and I respect that

Oslowe: but Craven was not one of them Craven loved to talk about well why did we do

Oslowe: this you know and And I actually think that he was touching on a lot of the

Oslowe: same themes in Nightmare on Elm Street that he would explore much more effectively,

Oslowe: in my opinion, in People Under the Stairs.

Oslowe: I think he starts to deal with Reagan America as early as Nightmare on Elm Street.

Oslowe: And one could even argue that The Hills Have Eyes touches a little bit into

Oslowe: Reagan's California, but that's a different episode.

Oslowe: No, I think I think that Nightmare on Elm Street is partially so iconic because Freddy cheats.

Oslowe: He gets you in your dreams. That's not fair.

Oslowe: Fuck that. That's when I'm asleep, you know. And and in some of the later films,

Oslowe: they really play with that.

Oslowe: We're like, hey, I'm supposed to win. It's my dream.

Oslowe: I'm the good guy. And it's like, oh, sorry, pal. Those rules don't apply here.

Oslowe: This is nightmare world. And that freedom for the filmmakers,

Oslowe: I think, is why Freddy is so beloved when he's only in a couple of good movies

Oslowe: and then some really not good ones.

Oslowe: Like, you know, he's he's his his output is not very high, but he is probably

Oslowe: one of the most beloved of the slasher icons.

Evan: Yeah. And one thing, since you mentioned Reagan and this is being came out in

Evan: 1984, one of the things that he did say about the film was that it's something,

Evan: you know, the the underlying sort of plot of this is Freddie is going after

Evan: these children because of what their parents had done in the past, the sins of the parents.

Evan: And when you said Reagan, it almost makes me think of people who are,

Evan: you know, growing up in the 80s like I did are dealing with the sins of the

Evan: parents, you know, in society.

Evan: Like we have to deal with the shit that we have to deal with in the 80s and

Evan: 90s and progressively getting worse because of the sins of our all of our collective

Evan: sort of parents. because.

Oslowe: Of what the the boomers and the silent generation etc the world they had built

Oslowe: is the one that we ended up in it's uh yeah no i totally hear you agree.

Evan: Yeah and you could go even further and say like you know they kind

Evan: of live in this waking dream thinking like oh yeah things are you know great

Evan: and cool you know like yeah like i you know you bought a house for you know

Evan: ten thousand dollars you know now ten thousand dollars will buy you like a you

Evan: know a pint of ice cream and a you know six pack of beer so you know yeah.

Ashley: It's.

Oslowe: Not even good beer.

Ashley: And their houses too like okay so there's a pretty clear delineation uh between the,

Ashley: the two couples the two couples in the

Ashley: movie um glenn and nancy and

Ashley: then tina and what's his name the other one

Ashley: i forget him because he's like rod rod thank

Ashley: you um tina clearly you

Ashley: know her mother is like when she's around she

Ashley: has some guy over and then she's just gone like we never see

Ashley: her again for the rest of the movie she doesn't seem to be very present um

Ashley: just barely involved in her kid's life the house is

Ashley: not like totally crappy but then in juxtaposition to

Ashley: where nancy lives her parents are divorced her

Ashley: mom is like apparently a secret drunk which you

Ashley: don't like i didn't realize that until like

Ashley: later on in the movie when she's like standing she's like

Ashley: pulls a bottle out and starts drinking it like in the hallway and

Ashley: then across the street where glenn lives

Ashley: is like immaculate and yeah these people are doing

Ashley: super well like even though there's a killer stalking

Ashley: their children like their main concerns are like for for tina's

Ashley: mom's just going away the rod's parents i don't

Ashley: know maybe they don't exist we literally never see them he has like a crappy

Ashley: history they write him off as like a no good kid and then yes yes he is yeah

Ashley: he's got the jacket and everything he's very he's completely he's that type

Ashley: yeah and then the other kids the And Glenn, his mom.

Ashley: She seems to be very involved, but she also just like, she has no idea what

Ashley: the hell is actually happening.

Ashley: He never tells his parents that he's going to get killed in his sleep,

Ashley: which is crazy to me how little people communicate this, but people don't talk to their parents.

Ashley: So I guess that's realistic. he.

Evan: Does tell his parents he's gonna watch like the what the nude you know uh what does.

Ashley: He say like the the nude miss america yeah miss nude america because she's like

Ashley: she's like how can you watch tv and listen to your records at the same time

Ashley: he's like well not listening to the tv,

Ashley: Miss Noon America is going to go on. She's like, well, you won't be able to

Ashley: hear her. And he's like, who cares what she says?

Oslowe: Oh, oh, oh.

Ashley: Yeah.

Oslowe: Train the men.

Ashley: And then his dad.

Oslowe: Was it ad-readed by Johnny Depp?

Ashley: It's actually, it ages really well when he says at one point,

Ashley: well, who would want to kill me? Like, I don't know.

Ashley: But yeah, these kids, their parents are not present. And even when they're trying

Ashley: to be, they just miss, even when the kids are telling them exactly what's going

Ashley: on, they're just, they're missing the mark completely.

Ashley: They're just, they're completely useless. So the kids are really just left to

Ashley: pick up the pieces of what their parents have completely fucked up.

Evan: I mean, Nancy basically has to do the job of her parents and sort of the police

Evan: and, you know, getting to school.

Evan: Her mom's not taking care of her really at all. I mean, she makes her take a

Evan: bath, but she almost drowns in there.

Evan: She's not, I mean, I mean, to be fair, she fell asleep for, for a hot second

Evan: and, you know, Freddie almost had her.

Evan: And maybe my favorite shot of the entire movie is the, the hand out of the bathtub.

Evan: I don't know where I was going with that exactly. Other than just,

Evan: I think that the, as you said, like Oslo, like Craven isn't intent,

Evan: unintentionally making any of these, these choices.

Evan: and a lot of the film too

Evan: this is more it's like there's a lot of autobiographical elements

Evan: like he named the character kruger because

Evan: of a kid who had bullied him as a child and uh

Evan: he you know didn't have

Evan: the best childhood his dad left him at a very young age as well

Evan: and so it seems like he's putting himself into this film more than maybe any

Evan: of his others i don't well i guess maybe some of his early work you know he'll

Evan: suffice maybe but i don't know what you make of that like how he puts himself

Evan: into this and if there's you know anything else to it.

Oslowe: I mean i don't know about self-insert i haven't

Oslowe: honestly read that much about wes's early life uh until he was working doing

Oslowe: edits in new york that's kind of when i pick up the trail i know that he was

Oslowe: inspired after reading several accounts in the newspaper about,

Oslowe: I believe it was some Hmong refugees,

Oslowe: men between the age of like 18 and 50.

Oslowe: And there were a lot of refugees from Cambodia and Laos in that particular period

Oslowe: in time for some reason. You could say.

Oslowe: Some of them didn't want to sleep because the nightmares were so bad.

Oslowe: And then according to Wes Craven, in the articles that he sort of pieced together,

Oslowe: wait a second, and some of these guys died in their sleep.

Oslowe: And I think it's even referred to as like, and please forgive me,

Oslowe: but it's like Asian death syndrome or something like that, where you're like, wow, interesting.

Oslowe: But I mean, refugees who had been through some shit died mysteriously.

Oslowe: I don't think it is that mysterious for us to fail.

Oslowe: I think that our hearts and our minds can only take so much trauma.

Oslowe: But that's just my own personal, you know, I think that death is a terrible inevitability.

Oslowe: But he was just hooked. And I think particularly, he said it was something about

Oslowe: finding out that one of these guys who didn't want to sleep had kept a coffee

Oslowe: pot in his closet that his parents didn't know.

Oslowe: And and of course Evan you sent me a message the other night like how did her

Oslowe: mom not smell the coffee and I'm like because she was drunk,

Oslowe: because she was drunk off the secret vodka that she keeps in the linen closet

Oslowe: yeah which is different than the bottle that she drops earlier in the movie well that's.

Evan: Why she needed the closet vodka right she needed you know.

Oslowe: It's funny because like Ronnie Blakeney I've seen her in other things who played

Oslowe: the mom and I don't think she's a bad actor but either She and Wes did not agree on what they wanted Mrs.

Oslowe: Thompson to be performing like.

Oslowe: I mean, I feel like there was a disconnect because every time I've watched this

Oslowe: movie since I was a kid, her performance has always hit me as just wrong.

Ashley: You know what it reads to me as

Ashley: is like somewhat evil, like soap opera matriarch. The way she carried it.

Oslowe: Yeah.

Ashley: And she's not, because I looked her up, because I was like, I have to know,

Ashley: like, where she, like, how she trained, like, what other things she's,

Ashley: she did, like, a lot of movies.

Evan: Nashville.

Ashley: Yeah. But the way that she, like, frames herself in some of these shots,

Ashley: I forget what it is that Nancy sang to her, but she looks like that she gives

Ashley: the three-quarter profile to the camera, and she's talking to Nancy,

Ashley: but she's looking over here.

Ashley: It's just a very, like, specific style of acting that is completely different

Ashley: from anybody else in the movie. Thank you. And it sticks with you. Yeah.

Oslowe: Helps me feel less crazy.

Evan: That makes a lot of sense.

Ashley: No, you're absolutely right.

Evan: Because in a way, I don't want to call this like a, I mean, when I say cheap,

Evan: I mean like literally it was made for cheap.

Evan: They had to scrape together, you know, what's his name? Bob Shea.

Evan: Like I had to scrape together the money to get this to be made.

Evan: But like in a way, it's almost like.

Evan: For me, it's almost like Wes Craven was focusing more on Nancy and I think like

Evan: Freddy Krueger and the kind of the the vibe of the movie and probably just kind

Evan: of like let her do what she wanted to do.

Evan: That's the only explanation I can have, because you can keep and get people to act.

Oslowe: I mean, I I suspect that that she was probably at the time one of the bigger names in the movie.

Evan: And John Saxon.

Oslowe: Yeah, so how much—well, I mean, John Saxon had transferred almost entirely to

Oslowe: either starring in Italian films or supporting role in American films.

Oslowe: I don't think he was under a lot of pretense as to what his career was by the 80s, you know?

Oslowe: I mean, he seems like a solid guy who knew what he was getting called on to do.

Oslowe: He was either eat people for the Italians or be a sad dad, you know?

Evan: Speaking of, he was also in Black Christmas, which we mentioned.

Oslowe: Yes, he was. And Joe Unger, who plays Sergeant Garcia, the night sergeant who

Oslowe: won't let Heather Lagenkamp in to see Rod.

Oslowe: Joe Unger went on to play one of the Texas Chainsaw family in Leatherface,

Oslowe: the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 3.

Oslowe: There's always someone in the backgrounds in a Wes Craven film who does something

Oslowe: else. But, I mean, I don't think Ronnie Blakely's bad.

Oslowe: But, yeah, I think, like you said, it's like she's almost doing like a TV arch

Oslowe: kind of performance, especially when she reveals the backstory.

Ashley: Yes.

Oslowe: And that backstory is a fucking doozy. I am allowed to curse on this, right?

Evan: Oh, please. If you didn't curse on it, I'd have to cut it.

Oslowe: I think that that backstory transcends most slasher films.

Oslowe: because it makes you go wait so hold

Oslowe: on is he getting like a just revenge from beyond the grave i mean i know that

Oslowe: we're given this whole oh and there was bad evidence so it was thrown out but

Oslowe: she's so awkward in that scene i never believed her i always sat there going.

Ashley: She's lying i think that's sort of ambiguity yeah that.

Oslowe: That that's a me problem you know.

Ashley: No there is there is a layer of ambiguity to it because you can't trust

Ashley: her because she's a she's a drunk and she hasn't told i mean and and listen

Ashley: it's she's not the most reliable person to relay this story so it's understandable

Ashley: that you're not going to necessarily she shouldn't be and she and it's understandable

Ashley: that you're not going to be able to trust her um i think that layer of it,

Ashley: makes it even more scary because you don't know exactly like

Ashley: you were saying like if it's justified or not like later on i

Ashley: think i think in some of the other i was reading about

Ashley: it a little bit like it's supposed to be the thing the reason

Ashley: that it got thrown out was because somebody didn't

Ashley: she said somebody didn't sign a search warrant or something right when they

Ashley: found him doing something to a kid or whatever and i just like i know obviously

Ashley: cops are incompetent or they're really good at being bad at their jobs which

Ashley: is kind of like you know six of one but it just,

Ashley: i think you are supposed to on some level wonder if maybe maybe they got the

Ashley: wrong guy or something that was

Ashley: always the impression that i feel like people had every now and again i.

Oslowe: Think it's the most intriguing thing about the original film and it is pretty

Oslowe: much just thrown out in every sequel the remake does actually bring that back

Oslowe: to the foreground and i appreciate the remake for that i know it gets a lot

Oslowe: of hate but and i don't think it's a good movie.

Ashley: But i.

Oslowe: Do think it was trying to do something interesting with the backstory which

Oslowe: in 1984 obviously we get a kind of, you understand in the audience, you adults,

Oslowe: we know what they're insinuating,

Oslowe: this sort of heavy feeling that perhaps this Kruger gentleman was interested

Oslowe: in children in a way that is unwholesome.

Ashley: And...

Oslowe: I mean, yeah, no shit. He has a glove with knives on it. But was that before? Was that after?

Oslowe: And that lack of certainty in the original film,

Oslowe: that kind of vague, it almost calls up some of those Hammer films,

Oslowe: where a just ghoul would sort of return from the grave and carry out righteous

Oslowe: vengeance on the living.

Oslowe: And I do think about that because, of course, Robert Englund wasn't the first choice to play Freddy.

Oslowe: They had hired David Warner, the great fucking British character actor.

Oslowe: David Warner had done screen tests,

Oslowe: but then his schedule wouldn't let it happen. So they had to let him go.

Oslowe: And so then they went and they got Robert Englund, who obviously was like,

Oslowe: I'm going to play him like a weasel. I'm going to play him like a ferret.

Oslowe: I'm going to play him like a molester. You know, he wanted to play.

Oslowe: He understood that was what Wes was writing.

Oslowe: And I think that's why Freddie is as scary as he is genuinely scary in the film,

Oslowe: because the sadism is on full display. Like from the first fucking nightmare, he is playing with Tina.

Oslowe: And he's just rule. Jason, like, whack, you know, leather face, whack.

Evan: Michael Myers.

Ashley: This guy. Yeah.

Oslowe: This guy. Michael Myers.

Ashley: Stab.

Oslowe: This guy, though. Get him and Pinhead together from Hellraiser.

Evan: As you were talking about that, it just made me think, too, just the idea that

Evan: the killer is a potential former, you know,

Evan: molester and murderer of children is such a scary proposition in a movie in

Evan: the 1980s just on its face.

Evan: I just like to think about that. That's crazy. and then

Evan: but like i think about a movie like you know halloween and i

Evan: and you know some analysis on it would say it's about kind of like the fear

Evan: of the white suburbia like you're safe but now there's this guy who's coming

Evan: and killing you whereas in this it sort of brings in that aspect of like these

Evan: people live in a fairly you know nice suburb and things are as things are okay but.

Oslowe: At what cost.

Evan: Right exactly exactly because.

Oslowe: Because there was an aberrant thing in the neighborhood, and mommy took care of it.

Oslowe: It is a movie about the sins of the parents being visited upon the child,

Oslowe: literally, in this case.

Oslowe: Honestly, I'm sorry that we didn't get something with Glenn's parents connecting

Oslowe: them to what had happened.

Oslowe: You know, that we didn't see more from the adults, sort of this,

Oslowe: hey, Mitch, yeah, how's it going? You know, this shared secret.

Oslowe: But it was a $700,000 quickie.

Oslowe: It was a made-for-TV thriller that they threw a lot of money into the blood

Oslowe: because why not? Yeah. It worked.

Ashley: It did. It really comes in rock.

Evan: Let me ask you both another thing. This is this kind of maybe I only ask this

Evan: because I just saw Scream and I think I mentioned I was reading a listening

Evan: to this book about the the Scream and it's sort of, you know,

Evan: impact on like the 90s horror, you know, era.

Evan: But in that movie, it's famous for the fact that like the Drew Barrymore character

Evan: is spoiler killed in the very first opening long scene.

Evan: and you could also argue that in this movie one

Evan: of the quote-unquote main characters is killed pretty abruptly

Evan: and early on in the movie which i think almost set

Evan: the table for something like scream later on also obviously a wes craven film

Evan: whereas typically you don't see that early on in a movie like the early kill

Evan: and if it is it's something like the backstory like you know mike myers like

Evan: why does he do what he does because he killed his sister when he was a little

Evan: kid and he flipped any, you know, flipped out.

Evan: Whereas in this it's kind of a like what do I call it? Sort of like like starts that,

Evan: trend i don't know.

Oslowe: It's it's an outlier

Oslowe: from the norm in that it does

Oslowe: play with giving us a chance

Oslowe: to get to know tina before nancy even

Oslowe: shows up and tina's blonde she's it's

Oslowe: amanda vice who was very very pretty and personable

Oslowe: and just easy to like and so you go oh that's that's your buffy that's your

Oslowe: girl that's that's the girl right and there's her friend with the frizzy hair

Oslowe: you know if if this movie wasn't a classic you know when when you guys grew up it wasn't already,

Oslowe: set those tropes they he was playing with them the same way that he wouldn't

Oslowe: scream it's just that with scream by then we were sort of going oh okay okay

Oslowe: with nightmare on elm street though the tropes were still fresh i mean what

Oslowe: psycho was only 20 years earlier yeah 67.

Ashley: Yeah i was gonna i was gonna say because he really i mean he shocked a hell

Ashley: out of people with that with you know within the first.

Oslowe: I mean a little bit of the film yeah yeah you can't beat that that rug getting you can argue that.

Evan: Might also be one of the reasons why the film did so well you know in the box

Evan: offices like these kind of movies where you see it and you're like oh i can't

Evan: believe like that you're not going to believe what they do.

Oslowe: You have to see it.

Evan: Just like Scream was supposed to be a bomb, and then all of a sudden it took

Evan: off. I think this is one of those same cases.

Oslowe: Everybody was talking about Scream when that movie came out.

Oslowe: People are like, oh, yeah, that's really good. And you're just like,

Oslowe: okay, shit, I better go see it. Yeah, no.

Oslowe: But Nightmare on Elm Street, I mean, I don't know if anyone could have even dreamed,

Oslowe: freddie would take on what he would you know that there there was a 1-800 line

Oslowe: where you could call to have robert england's voice tell you a scary story,

Oslowe: like that was a thing you know

Oslowe: there was a kid and that was his make a wish he's dying of leukemia i want to

Oslowe: meet freddie krueger i don't want to meet robert england i want to meet freddie

Oslowe: krueger the child yeah but he's funny you know he's he's a funny guy he would

Oslowe: have had a podcast i think what's.

Evan: Even scarier is the uh i saw why they chose his green and red sweater and apparently

Evan: craven had looked up that it.

Oslowe: Was like the.

Evan: Colors that would mess with your head the most like you know like the dress the.

Oslowe: Right the.

Evan: White you know the what color is this dress like it's kind of the same thing

Evan: and it just messes with people but it's like the most iconic aspect of like

Evan: really i mean that and like.

Oslowe: Christmas that too red and green he's like yeah I read a thing where this guy

Oslowe: talked about how red and green if they're close together that makes people uncomfortable

Oslowe: it's like it just makes me think of Christmas I don't know what you're thinking about Wes like,

Oslowe: he was like so into this yeah red and green oh we're all kind of going,

Oslowe: I

Evan: Think arguably if you were to ask people just randomly like what the first person

Evan: that comes their mind when they think of like a slasher killer i gotta think

Evan: that freight kreuger is numero uno on that list oh.

Oslowe: You think jason i think jason i think jason wins i.

Ashley: Do michael myers is up there too i think yeah.

Oslowe: I mean look mike's the og nothing but

Oslowe: respect but i really feel like jason

Oslowe: has a lasting ability that none of the other slashes have really had um and

Oslowe: freddie probably comes the closest to and which is why we got the really not

Oslowe: great film with both of them but it is fun but not good it is fun but it's not good.

Evan: There aren't that many kills you know like i think of like a lot of slashes like there's lots.

Oslowe: Of killing.

Evan: You know and this there isn't really a lot of killing yeah three johnny depp.

Oslowe: It's a small body count and the mom i guess the mom yeah.

Evan: Three kids and then the mom later and then um but of the of them what would

Evan: be your i know maybe this is a for the end of the episode but what's your what

Evan: do you think the best one of them is.

Ashley: I think it's got to be Glenn. I think the blood fountain going up into the ceiling

Ashley: is just, we don't see, because we don't really see what happened in his dream.

Ashley: They never take us inside of his head, which is fine.

Ashley: I don't think there's much going on in there anyway, but he just doesn't get that impression.

Ashley: Yeah. I don't want to see what's happening there, but the effects and the,

Ashley: just the visual impact of that.

Ashley: And then his mom, like finally, finally there's an adult in the room who sees this absolute,

Ashley: fat shit insanity but then still somehow i don't know do they just think she's

Ashley: hysterical that's i don't know we can get into that later why that doesn't result

Ashley: in them yeah specifically.

Evan: But what about you ozl what's your.

Ashley: Yeah.

Oslowe: I mean honestly like glenn's is

Oslowe: iconic for a reason i mean you know crib

Oslowe: from sam ramey and have a couple gallons of blood yes

Oslowe: but tina's death has real

Oslowe: impact um for me like i

Oslowe: think that the genuine terror of

Oslowe: that sequence you know for both her

Oslowe: and rod that's a that it's a

Oslowe: really good scene um where she's being dragged

Oslowe: up the wall and and and it's played completely straight and it is scary and

Oslowe: tense glenn's death to me has always kind of felt slapsticky i love it but it's

Oslowe: slapstick and so tina's tina's demise for me is is the better,

Oslowe: uh sequence because i just think there's a lot more going on i.

Ashley: Mean the way they shot that is really crazy too like they had they made like

Ashley: a rotating room and everything for it like yeah.

Oslowe: They use it for both scenes it's both tina's sliding along the ceiling and glenn

Oslowe: gets pulled through the bed it was the same the same thing and they just redressed it.

Ashley: See that yeah and that That makes sense. Do you happen to know if that particular

Ashley: high school set has been used in a bunch of other...

Ashley: movies because it looks like three that i can think of off the top.

Oslowe: Of my head like i know that but i am

Oslowe: almost positive that if we look it up it'll be

Oslowe: the one that's in the valley that was also used on buffy it was also used in

Oslowe: strange behavior disturbing behavior it was also used like yeah like there's

Oslowe: a couple local la uh buildings that get reutilized a lot and i think that might

Oslowe: be what you think it is yeah.

Evan: A note that i thought that was crazy this is kind of

Evan: related to it so the they found the place that they used

Evan: to film like the boiler room scenes was in the basement of

Evan: a jail and a year after they filmed it

Evan: apparently the jail was shut down and the

Evan: partly because the boiler room just had like asbestos everywhere so apparently

Evan: they you know were just in there breathing asbestos for however many days oh

Evan: no not good but i think you're right about the school i didn't see a note about

Evan: it but to me i think it's i think it's called i think they also filmed um grease

Evan: they're pretty in pink it.

Ashley: Reminded me of grease yeah grease was the first one i thought of i was thinking maybe buffy um.

Evan: Just like the most perfect iconic with.

Ashley: The big arch yeah like this is what a high school looks like yeah.

Oslowe: In southern california.

Ashley: Yeah no i work in a high school they do not look like that.

Evan: Yeah i think the the so the um

Evan: so to bring it back like to the mother and some of

Evan: the other like well there's two things and maybe they're kind of related

Evan: because you mentioned sort of the mother being hysterical and this is kind of

Evan: a trope in a lot of horror films and especially with nancy and her parents sort

Evan: of not believing her you know what's going on in her life and her mom takes

Evan: her to that like sleep center and they do the you know strap her up and the whole thing oh.

Oslowe: Yeah with charles fleischer as.

Evan: It reminds me a lot of like the exorcist when they're doing like lots

Evan: of tests on the little girl but to me it plays on the trope of sort of like

Evan: the historical the historical the hysterical not the historical the historically

Evan: hysterical you know woman or girl where you know nothing she says can be trusted

Evan: when it's ironically like the mother who can't be trusted in any sense when

Evan: we should be trusting the.

Oslowe: Grown-ups don't believe.

Evan: You yeah.

Oslowe: The grownups don't believe you. And that's the big fear, too.

Oslowe: It's both the truism of a teenager. They don't fucking understand.

Oslowe: But it's also the fear. They're not going to listen when it matters, right?

Oslowe: I know that was a big, big one for me. Oh, yeah.

Oslowe: Yeah, no, actually, I love the sleep center sequence, and I'm glad you brought

Oslowe: that up, partially because I love Charles Flesher, who plays the doctor,

Oslowe: and of course, he was the voice of the crypt keeper for Tales from the Crypt,

Oslowe: and is very memorable from Zodiac as the man who has a basement. I do.

Oslowe: And also, Tales from the Crypt presents Demon Knight, where he played Wally,

Oslowe: the friendly mailman. That's a terrific one.

Oslowe: But, Smirk, you were starting to say something that I interrupted you, and I'm sorry.

Ashley: It couldn't have been that important because I don't remember what it was.

Oslowe: I like that you brought up, though, The Exorcist, which, without question,

Oslowe: one of the most important horror films of the 70s.

Oslowe: And so Craven would have been very aware of the fact that he was treading on

Oslowe: some well-trod ground doing that sequence.

Oslowe: But I think it adds to the importance of that sort of central conceit of these

Oslowe: kids kind of are on their own.

Oslowe: And more than in a lot of other slasher films where there really is that whole

Oslowe: sort of lifeline of an adult, you know, of a cop, of a counselor,

Oslowe: of whatever, Nancy's on her own.

Oslowe: And and she's such a fucking great final girl.

Oslowe: Like, I'm sorry, Laurie Strode, but Nancy Thompson is pretty dope.

Ashley: Yeah, because she just she figures it out with every piece of information she has so quickly.

Ashley: Like, she's the only one putting pieces together.

Ashley: She's the only one that's actually like making like in the beginning,

Ashley: Tina is kind of interested in hearing if other people have had bad dreams.

Ashley: so she doesn't get to live long enough to pursue this really the

Ashley: fact that none of these kids are like of course the boys don't talk to each

Ashley: other about it because feelings boys can have nightmares too but

Ashley: but yeah i'm just i'm not going to talk about it because it's fine it's

Ashley: whatever i'm a man um but then the thing

Ashley: that struck like the thing that bugs me is the

Ashley: fact that even after his mother

Ashley: sees the fountain of blood and he's like

Ashley: suddenly for like three seconds it's

Ashley: the bed that eats and he just gets like sucked into there he

Ashley: just all this happens is mom sees it and i'm only

Ashley: assuming that they think she's hysterical because nancy's dad

Ashley: is there a second leader the cops show up and and they're just like i don't

Ashley: know what happened this is the craziest shit i've ever seen and then as he talks

Ashley: to his daughter and she's like i know what happened actually and i'm gonna catch

Ashley: the guy come on over and he has like fucking gomer over there just staring at

Ashley: the house and not and not being of any help.

Ashley: So like, yeah, they didn't think the parents would listen. They were absolutely fucking right.

Ashley: They didn't. They were completely useless the entire time.

Evan: Yeah. Yeah. Like in a lot of those other films, there is a cop or someone investigating

Evan: that does seem to have an investment.

Evan: Like his same character in Black Christmas, he has an investment in trying to help them.

Evan: Where in this, he doesn't have that investment into helping them.

Evan: And I think it's, you said Asla before, it's like the kids are literally on

Evan: their, or maybe you both said, like they just are on their own.

Evan: They don't have anyone to help them. and which.

Ashley: Is insane because it's what it's his daughter's friends three of his daughter's

Ashley: friends have been killed within the space of a couple of days and he's.

Evan: Like i.

Ashley: Don't i don't know go.

Oslowe: Go go lay down honey geez.

Ashley: And also does she never like visit with her her dad because he's only there

Ashley: like after after somebody gets killed is when when she sees him or like when he he follows she.

Oslowe: Stays with zombie mom all.

Evan: The time.

Ashley: All the time drunk mom who's like never there their parents are divorced and

Ashley: he's like well you're the woman you take care of the kid even though you're clearly wasted he's.

Oslowe: Always at the office.

Evan: Something that maybe does relates also to the mom and

Evan: i don't know how another sort of metaphor to i

Evan: guess also just kind of like one of those mcguffin type of situations when

Evan: nancy comes home and the mom had put bars on all the windows and

Evan: like change the lock on the front door and it's like locking it from

Evan: the inside like where you can't you know leave the house and

Evan: she's drunk and you can't find the key and all and all that it's it's like this

Evan: extra layer of you know that like white suburbia we need to have keys and locks

Evan: on our door it's almost like she's more afraid exurbia is she trying to prevent

Evan: nancy from leaving or is she trying to prevent someone from coming inside and.

Oslowe: Is it the same thing.

Evan: For her.

Oslowe: And yeah no it's it's it's really good because it's really fraught and especially

Oslowe: for the middle of the 80s to suddenly have your house covered with bars you

Oslowe: know i feel like that's it's you know it's not without a vacuum it's not in

Oslowe: a vacuum it's it's not without a vacuum.

Ashley: Yeah i know what you're saying there's there's there's yeah there's something there.

Oslowe: I mean for me as a kid from that

Oslowe: era you know only a little bit younger than the protagonists of the film like

Oslowe: i remember watching that movie and thinking like oh yeah man like the neighbors

Oslowe: that have that kind of bars on their windows like we never see those fucking

Oslowe: weirdos you know this is in dc I mean,

Oslowe: so like that was just there were some houses that had like Fort Knox bars,

Oslowe: but you didn't think about them.

Ashley: Yeah, it's really it's a good it's a good sort of analogy for a lot of.

Ashley: Well, just all the fucking everything there. She puts all these bars and shit

Ashley: on the windows and the locks on the doors and everything.

Ashley: I think they're assuming this whole time that the killer is someone that they

Ashley: don't know. Like, they're still assuming it's like some human man,

Ashley: presumably, that is from somewhere else.

Ashley: So they're becoming more insular and they're staying in their house and everything.

Ashley: But the danger is what they actually created themselves.

Ashley: There's, yeah. It's what they actually need protection from.

Oslowe: It's such an exciting idea because it's such it's so ripe you know oh they thought

Oslowe: they were doing the right thing and so they created this giant nightmare.

Evan: And even when the mother gives her sort of her sort of uh testimony to her child

Evan: as to what you know she pulls a little of course she's also saving the glove

Evan: in her house which is also really fucking weird to begin with,

Evan: really like that she has she's like

Evan: yeah i just kept this like maybe if she hadn't kept it there he wouldn't

Evan: have known what house to go to you idiot i don't know um

Evan: but like when she's giving this whole like testimony about it she doesn't even

Evan: really have any there's no like real sense of self reflection on their actions

Evan: and her sort of responses let's put bars on the door you know to keep Freddy

Evan: Krueger away. The boogeyman.

Oslowe: It's okay, honey. Mommy killed him. Mommy killed him.

Evan: She's not even phased by that statement either. He's like, were you drunk, mom, when you did that?

Ashley: Do you think that's why she drinks?

Evan: Maybe.

Oslowe: I mean, I think it's kind of implied, especially since once Freddie is gone,

Oslowe: Mom is cured. I just think I won't be drinking anymore.

Oslowe: I just don't feel like it. You know, that wonderful little, huh?

Evan: Well, speaking of that, so I want to talk about the end of the film because

Evan: there's things, different takes, opinions, thoughts.

Evan: And let's say excluding the sequels, which completely changed the ending of the film.

Evan: So that's why you kind of have to take this film on its own and not as part

Evan: of its, you know, seven or eight, seven part franchise.

Evan: So at the very end, we have, you know, the mother is killed in her bed.

Evan: The father witnesses this.

Evan: Still doesn't seem to be like, oh, oh, so you were right all along.

Evan: Like, doesn't give her any due credit still. and then we sort of have this moment

Evan: where nancy leaves the house and she gets into the car

Evan: and she with her friends that are murdered that we

Evan: know johnny depp and and so forth and then the the roof of the car convertible

Evan: has the the freddy black uh black green and red you know sweater and then the

Evan: mom is in the front of the front of the door like kind of like not a care in

Evan: the world not you know quit drinking and then she gets sucked through the the

Evan: uh you know with the very obvious dummy but.

Oslowe: One of the worst special effects.

Evan: Well it wasn't the original ending of.

Oslowe: That decade no yeah.

Evan: The original ending was for her to just do for nothing to happen to her.

Ashley: Yeah it's just it's because i mean and obviously there's sequels and i think she shows up.

Evan: In like the.

Ashley: Third one or something nancy does so it's like all right

Ashley: so what was that there but yeah they get into the

Ashley: the freddy striped car and that's

Ashley: supposed to aside from the fact that all these people are dead and they're

Ashley: here um but the

Ashley: fake out at the end is pretty consistent with the genre for the time too you

Ashley: know yes like so you're on the on the boat just kidding got you i was in the

Ashley: lake like that's starting with carrie yeah yeah so do you think that's why they added that just to.

Oslowe: I know that Wes wanted it to end with, and she just drives off with her friends

Oslowe: into the fog, and it's a little bit weird, because that's what Wes thought was

Oslowe: a good ending to a movie about dreams.

Oslowe: Bob Shea hated that. My recollection from reading is that Bob really needed

Oslowe: it to have a stinger, because that's how you end a horror movie in 1984, is you have a stinger.

Oslowe: and so I guess they tried it a bunch of different ways and what we've got I

Oslowe: believe the quote from Wes was that we all thought that the mom being dragged

Oslowe: through the door looked so ridiculous we had to use it,

Oslowe: sort of a you know what fine you want something Bob here here are you happy now there ending it with.

Evan: The girls jumping rope is just perfect like that is the perfect.

Oslowe: Ending it is a great great moment yeah i.

Evan: Mean if you stop watching the movie.

Oslowe: 20 seconds earlier.

Evan: You can have the ending you you want yeah but but do you think that in his mind

Evan: the idea was like you don't know if like are we still in the dream.

Oslowe: And you.

Evan: Know i'm some kind of staying it's like it's kind of staying the obvious.

Oslowe: I absolutely think he wanted that though i mean i really,

Oslowe: that's exactly what he was going for it's um i also wouldn't be surprised i

Oslowe: have a a strong suspicion that Wes Craven might have been a big fan of Let's Scare Jessica to Death,

Oslowe: which I'm guessing from your blank faces you haven't seen.

Oslowe: So we'll have to do that one next. Because talk about a movie that...

Oslowe: Let's Scare Jessica to Death, 1971.

Oslowe: It is a movie about three people from New York City, maybe, who move out to

Oslowe: the countryside to get away from it all, and things go there from there.

Oslowe: And it's possibly one of my like four favorite movies of all time.

Oslowe: It is, I think, one of the most important and uniquely American.

Oslowe: Sorry, the cat is full wilding right now.

Oslowe: Important horror films, American horror films of the 70s. Like,

Oslowe: Let's Scare Jessica to Death, Messiah of Evil, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Oslowe: Those are like the sort of American horror story 70s.

Oslowe: like but that's that's my own convoluted um personal mythology but um i think

Oslowe: that nightmare on elm street did it different um,

Oslowe: And it did it different at a time when there was a lot of same-same.

Oslowe: And I just don't think we can ignore how iconic that look is.

Oslowe: I mean, Robert Englund's makeup and the hat and the silhouette, it's phenomenal stuff.

Evan: It took forever for him to get in and out of the makeup, apparently,

Evan: and he would just like rip it off his face.

Evan: Like, his face was completely raw from it. from it i think it said it took.

Oslowe: Like three.

Evan: Hour a two hours like a long time and it is.

Oslowe: Liquid latex is really uncomfortable it is.

Evan: Supremely scary i mean it is not uh like you think about other ones where there's

Evan: a mask like he is like he doesn't have a mask because he's scary without it.

Oslowe: Which i think is also yeah space well i

Oslowe: mean and that's that really sets freddie apart he's not

Oslowe: some giant mumbling hillbilly you know

Oslowe: with the sack he's this feral snarky

Oslowe: he knows your name yeah i mean

Oslowe: that alone like just gives him that extra level

Oslowe: of he knows your fucking name

Oslowe: but yeah no i mean he was he was a completely different slasher and changed

Oslowe: the landscape of we wouldn't have some of the the horror villains like the wish

Oslowe: master without freddie not a chance of hell terrifier not without freddie we wouldn't have had a.

Evan: Home alone either because of the little booby trap inside the house no i don't know.

Ashley: I like when she said when uh when her and glenn.

Oslowe: Are talking survival yeah.

Ashley: It's like i think we all.

Oslowe: Are nancy.

Ashley: To some extent i just love.

Oslowe: When the hammer falls down and just.

Evan: Nails him right like in the you know the chest or something.

Oslowe: Yeah you also notice though that she tells her dad in 10 minutes Come wake me

Oslowe: up in 10 minutes. And then she goes and starts setting all the booby traps.

Oslowe: And you go, oh, I think this edit.

Oslowe: I think maybe this was earlier. And we're just going to ignore how long it takes

Oslowe: you to file the light bulb to make one of the most ingenious home landmines I've ever seen used.

Ashley: Yeah, that's that's insane.

Evan: I just.

Ashley: What was she? What was she like that? I don't think you could get that book

Ashley: at most public school libraries at this point. i.

Evan: Also kept thinking about like you know her knowing approximately how long and

Evan: i think they show her in the dream looking at a watch but like i thought in dreams.

Ashley: You don't like see.

Evan: Your watch i don't know.

Ashley: Some people i've read about this i've read

Ashley: about this most people usually you can't you can't read you can't perceive numbers

Ashley: because the part of your brain that processes language like written language

Ashley: and and symbols like that it's just not really there and and like doing stuff

Ashley: when you're asleep it's like this is my time off sometimes you can but that

Ashley: did stand out to me too oh so you have your,

Ashley: in your dream interesting and i mean it worked it worked i don't know why they didn't just i guess,

Ashley: dream time is usually different though in movies right like it takes

Ashley: so much longer like a like five minutes in a dream it's like it's like a second

Ashley: or something yeah the time is linear yeah yeah yeah it's kind of all over the

Ashley: place the thing i do think that kind of like the the scary elements of this

Ashley: movie there's a lot of them that we've talked about i think,

Ashley: from the other side of it if the parents were at all like

Ashley: interested in keeping their kids alive the thing that would be

Ashley: scary to them would be that like when they're asleep in

Ashley: their dreams is the one time they can't be protected and that's

Ashley: like as i'm watching it as somebody who's thinking like oh i have a kid like

Ashley: that's fucking scary like somebody who specifically wants to kill children obviously

Ashley: scary but then they come back after you killed them and they and they want to

Ashley: kill him the one time that you can't do anything about it that's fucking yeah

Ashley: it's incredibly frightening well.

Oslowe: And all of us as as parents i believe we've all soothed a child from a nightmare.

Ashley: Or

Oslowe: You know i know i have seen one of my kids responding as if they're in a nightmare

Oslowe: and that urge to sort of reach out and be so okay buddy yeah you're okay you

Oslowe: know it's dreams or yeah that's that's some scary shit i don't have jurisdiction there.

Ashley: Yeah yeah yeah the whole thing is kind of just the stuff that parents and people

Ashley: in general might do thinking they're protecting their children and if making

Ashley: so much much making them so much worse,

Ashley: you can't even possibly imagine you.

Evan: Know i mean i'd like to think that the problems would have been much less terrible

Evan: if they all had had a little sit down and discuss their feelings and their dreams

Evan: in that very first scene when they're getting into school.

Ashley: That would have been so much helpful.

Evan: But you know rod isn't going to do that he doesn't talk about his feelings with his friends.

Ashley: Yeah no and it's going to be at least another five years to six years before

Ashley: people start like joking about therapy in movies like that so they're definitely

Ashley: not going to talk about their feelings, which is a shame.

Evan: Did they mention therapy? No. Okay.

Ashley: No.

Evan: I think I've watched another movie just yesterday where they mentioned therapy, so...

Evan: Wouldn't it make sense in this?

Ashley: Apparently they don't have stop, drop, and roll either, at least not until the

Ashley: following year. He's hauling ass up those stairs.

Oslowe: That was a prolonged burn, too.

Ashley: That was a long burn.

Oslowe: Whoever did that stunt, kudos.

Evan: I also love when they're following him upstairs and there's the footprints of

Evan: fire, the little fire footprints.

Evan: It's like the little stuff like that just adds to the dimension of just...

Evan: this guy seems very real.

Evan: Like he was walking with the fire and it was just creating these little craters. I don't know.

Oslowe: No, look, Wes Craven was a really, really visually inventive director.

Oslowe: And I think he had some phenomenal ideas. And this is one of the times where

Oslowe: he was able to tell the story he wanted to in a way where I don't think he was

Oslowe: too upset with the, the final, the final version.

Evan: I think I saw something that the, the glove that they created actually did cut

Evan: someone at some point like they had like a stunt glove and uh actually did like

Evan: slice someone and that's uh and.

Oslowe: They had a.

Evan: Hero yeah that's such a good weapon too

Evan: like the i don't know about you but one of the most horrifying sounds

Evan: to me is probably to most people is like the sound

Evan: of like scraping like you know like a fork on a plate or something like that

Evan: like the sound in my head immediately when you in the very first scene when

Evan: he's going after tina is just that to me is almost scarier than anything like

Evan: just like this having to run away from that sound i don't know maybe that's just me but it's like no.

Ashley: No it really is it makes you it sets you in this like edge yeah you're just

Ashley: total unease from the minute the credits start that opening credits sequence

Ashley: is fantastic it's just so like intense yeah.

Evan: We didn't even talk about the music like the synthy music

Evan: in this also is oh my god i mean

Evan: i think of all the iconic sort of horror you

Evan: know uh interludes or the like theme music if you will like the synth in this

Evan: is just uh i mean it's also 1994 so it's different than you know halloween in

Evan: the 70s it's not john carpenter like you know banging out something but it's

Evan: like has its place as far as the iconic uh horror music.

Oslowe: No, it's a great score. It's one of the Bernstein's.

Evan: Charles Bernstein, maybe?

Oslowe: Yeah, I think so. Terrific score. The Freddie theme is it.

Evan: Right. I think that must be what they always call them.

Oslowe: Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

Evan: And then what's the nursery rhyme? It's like the one to buckle my shoe,

Evan: but they make it as the Freddie Kruger.

Ashley: Oh, yeah.

Oslowe: And they changed it a little bit, yeah. And it's a great rhyme,

Oslowe: too. It's like genuinely creepy and it's catchy the way that a rhythm needs

Oslowe: to be, you know, for that kind of jump rope.

Oslowe: So one, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, go and lock the door.

Oslowe: But we know that doesn't do anything.

Ashley: No. And the crucifix definitely does not. I don't think that helps at all.

Evan: I was thinking about the crucifix a few times in this and like the idea of religion.

Evan: I didn't have much to really go on other than just sort of like the idea that

Evan: religion just can't save you in a way that, you know, in some movies,

Evan: like they play more on like, oh, my faith will save me.

Evan: They don't even like bother for that, like the pretense in this.

Evan: They just kind of visually show it to you. And it's almost like a joke.

Oslowe: I think that's where the angry young man that Wes Craven was when he made Last

Oslowe: House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes kind of poked through again.

Oslowe: His kind of disdain for the idea of, oh, this will protect me,

Oslowe: this stalwart symbol of the system, of the patriarchy, of how it's supposed to be.

Oslowe: I think that Craven, I think he was a little bit cognizant of the dark humor

Oslowe: in that kind of iconography.

Ashley: Oh, I was just going to say to even like even to add on to that,

Ashley: the way that she actually gets

Ashley: one over on and she ends up surviving is is through an Eastern practice,

Ashley: which is what Glenn told her about dreaming and how you take the power away

Ashley: from what's haunting you by just ignoring it. And sorry.

Ashley: Yeah.

Ashley: I totally get what you're saying.

Evan: Apparently when, um, Craven's father like left this family, his mother toward

Evan: turned towards like a super religious Baptist faith.

Evan: And Craven did not like that when he was in college.

Evan: He apparently started making, he went to like a Christian school and was,

Evan: was making, I think Wheaton college or something like that.

Evan: And it was a religious school and he wrote some story that was against the religious doctrine.

Evan: He was basically left with the choice of like staying and keeping with

Evan: this faith or leaving and doing something else and

Evan: of course we you know the rest was history he obviously did not stay thanks

Evan: yeah and so like yeah I don't know it's been a while since I've seen some of

Evan: his like the first couple of movies of his so I don't know how those play in

Evan: it but to me it's sort of like you know forget religion you know forget that

Evan: it's not not gonna play here no.

Oslowe: I think that's definitely an accurate read I think that for Craven religion is something that,

Oslowe: characters might try and hide behind but he's not going to give it any kind of special power.

Oslowe: It's just not his style.

Evan: Yeah, but I like that what you said, Sperk, that Nancy all...

Evan: Well, maybe you didn't exactly say this, but she also doesn't give the power

Evan: to Freddie when she locks away her fear.

Evan: I'm not afraid of you anymore and I can make it go away.

Evan: That's not really logical, but in some ways somehow it is.

Ashley: Yeah, he turns into sparkles and just falls.

Evan: Yeah.

Ashley: Yeah.

Evan: There's one other thing I was going to mention, but I can't think of what it

Evan: was about Craven in the movie.

Evan: But I think, yeah, and they filmed this in 32 days, which is also crazy, the whole thing.

Ashley: Wow.

Evan: I mean, they only had, you know, like you said, like just a million dollars

Evan: after film. well i think you said it was 700 000 to actually film the movie

Evan: to make the movie and the 500 gallons of blood they used yeah.

Oslowe: And every drop on screen every drop on.

Evan: Yeah they weren't gonna the waste

Evan: any of that too and i think i mentioned briefly earlier to me like the,

Evan: scariest visual in this that's i think maybe even might even be the poster is

Evan: the or maybe it's not the poster actually it's like when the hand comes out

Evan: of the the bathtub you know and i feel like i I remember seeing this when I

Evan: was maybe nine or 10 and being like, I don't think I can take baths anymore.

Evan: You know, like this, this really, I can't think of any movie where there's like

Evan: such a freaky bath scene.

Evan: the top of my head.

Oslowe: Because it's an intrusion too because that is a private.

Evan: Space that.

Oslowe: Is a safe space you're in your.

Evan: Back you don't usually see nothing.

Oslowe: Can be in the bathtub with me.

Evan: Like there's creepy things in bathrooms like in a mirror things happening but

Evan: you're like literally taking a bath i can't think of any other like tub murder

Evan: scene racking my brain well she is not murdered in this scene.

Oslowe: No no she's stalked she's not she's not god.

Evan: Should have grabbed his glove and then he would have lost his glove.

Ashley: True. She could have kept it like the hat.

Oslowe: Yeah, and she could have just kept it in the boiler down in the basement.

Ashley: I still can't. The fact that she just pulled out this old hat out of nowhere.

Ashley: They know she didn't have it when she goes in and they're still like, where'd you get that?

Ashley: Like she literally just told you she pulled it out of her dream. Like stop pretending.

Evan: Doesn't the mom put the hat in the freezer?

Ashley: She like puts it in a drawer. I don't know. Maybe the freezer.

Ashley: She puts it in. Yeah, in the kitchen. That shit's pretty dirty.

Evan: You might want to wash that.

Ashley: She just really wants to keep these things because she lied about getting rid

Ashley: of it, too, right before that. She's like, I threw it away.

Oslowe: She put it under a bottle of vodka. No one will find it.

Ashley: Yeah. She probably thought she threw it away and forgot.

Evan: Or she put the bottle of vodka under the hat with then like another to hide

Evan: it. It would be like a nip, though.

Evan: The full bottle, a full fifth, wouldn't fit under the...

Ashley: Now you're Mr. Vodka.

Evan: Like Mr. Peanut, is that what you're thinking? Like the hat's on top of the...

Oslowe: Yeah, once she's wearing a hat.

Ashley: It's Mr.

Oslowe: Vodka.

Ashley: Yeah. She's just a little guy. One thing, too, she has like the no-dos or whatever.

Ashley: I don't know why. Why do they have like trucker pills in their cabinet in the bathroom?

Ashley: Very strange. But also it's the 80s.

Oslowe: From my dad to the cop.

Ashley: Oh, that's right. But also then it's the 80s.

Ashley: I don't know. Maybe nobody's offered her any, but she's drinking a lot of coffee.

Ashley: I can't believe she couldn't find any Coke. I don't know. I know it's like a

Ashley: separate neighborhood.

Evan: Well, Rod was dead. He would have been the one for her.

Ashley: That's true. Oh, yeah. That's why they had to take him out. He would have been the Kinect. Bummer.

Evan: Yeah.

Ashley: All right, people.

Oslowe: Elk Street Connection.

Ashley: You know, we don't see his dream either, do we?

Evan: No.

Oslowe: We only spend time in Tina's dream and then Nancy's dream. And it's pretty hard to tell them apart.

Ashley: Yeah, it's a very, it's the same.

Oslowe: And I do think that that's intentional. I think that that adds to the overall

Oslowe: dreaminess, if you will, of the entire film.

Evan: And just not showing like any of the male characters dreams too.

Evan: It's almost like they're shrouded with more of a mysterious, I don't know.

Oslowe: I mean, you could you could argue that they're doing what, you know, Clover,

Oslowe: Professor Clover suggested, which is that we are getting too much of the women

Oslowe: being stalked and tormented and not enough of the men, though I'd argue that

Oslowe: both of the guys have pretty gruesome ends.

Oslowe: It's not like, you know, they're playing with puppies.

Ashley: Yeah, but they do feel sort of incidental to the female characters.

Oslowe: It doesn't have the same weight. Yeah. And for as much as I love Wes Craven

Oslowe: as a filmmaker, and I'm fascinated by him as like a philosopher,

Oslowe: I do think that he played with the same sort of boring gender tropes that most

Oslowe: of the filmmakers of that era did, because that was what was the scene.

Oslowe: That was the sort of level of writing that was permitted, that was actualized.

Oslowe: I mean, there are exceptions, obviously.

Oslowe: But I don't think that a lot of the horror directors were really thinking outside of the patriarchy.

Ashley: Yeah, but he did turn it on its head a little bit, though.

Oslowe: Oh, he played with it.

Evan: Yeah, he definitely did what he was permitted in the time. I mean,

Evan: I don't know what I don't I didn't read anything about like how Bob Shay like

Evan: influenced anything except for the ending.

Evan: You wonder if he had to see it and be like, oh, yeah, you know,

Evan: I don't know what kind of notes he was giving him.

Evan: You know, Craven was pretty well established. He should have just told him the

Evan: fuck off. But, you know, he had the money.

Oslowe: That's the thing it's really hard to argue with the boss any.

Evan: Uh any last uh notes from either of you on uh freddie.

Oslowe: I actually struggled with uh

Oslowe: sleep paralysis for years and there was a period when i was a young person where

Oslowe: i would say that friday the 13th was my favorite slasher franchise but Freddy

Oslowe: was my favorite slasher because there was something genuinely scary about Freddy.

Oslowe: You know, like you can get away from Jason or Michael probably maybe,

Oslowe: but you can't really get away from Freddy.

Oslowe: And that to me is genuinely scary.

Oslowe: He's the villain. You can't really get away from because you're going to sleep

Oslowe: sooner or later. you're gonna sleep.

Evan: That's true yeah you could just fly to another country how's how's uh how's

Evan: jason gonna get there right michael myers he's gonna what he's gonna grab a bus ticket you know i.

Oslowe: Just stay away from his sister i'm fine i.

Evan: Think that is what makes it genuinely such a different level that

Evan: it's like bring it back to the beginning of just like the psych the psychological

Evan: supernatural element whereas yes michael myers is kind of supernaturally in

Evan: the fact that he can't die i guess you could argue the same thing when they

Evan: just go off the rails with jason and he can go to space and, you know, whatever.

Evan: But as originally constructed, he's just sort of like an indestructible man,

Evan: whereas this is just a specter you cannot...

Ashley: Yeah, a vengeful spirit. That's pretty scary.

Oslowe: Freddy starts at the next level. Most of those other guys start and they're

Oslowe: a pretty human-ish monster.

Oslowe: Freddy, from the get-go, is something different.

Evan: That does make it scary.

Ashley: I'm glad you suggested this one. This is your pick because, uh,

Ashley: It was fun. I'm glad I had the opportunity to watch it again and actually pay

Ashley: attention and think about it. Yes.

Evan: There was another movie I had originally feel like maybe months ago I had mentioned to you, Oslo.

Evan: It was the, not Babysitter Massacre, Slumber Party.

Oslowe: Slumber Party Massacre. Oh,

Oslowe: smart. The original film is one of the great slasher films of the 1980s.

Oslowe: it's written by rita may brown as a

Oslowe: satire of slasher films roger corman

Oslowe: read the script and famously didn't get the joke

Oslowe: so he just greenlit it as a slasher and the director the woman who got to direct

Oslowe: it this is the only slasher franchise where all of the films have been written

Oslowe: by women and directed by women um and the movie manages to balance what you

Oslowe: expect from an 80s slasher,

Oslowe: with being really fucking funny and making fun of what you expect from an 80s slasher.

Oslowe: Honestly, Slumber Party Massacre was Scream before Scream.

Oslowe: So... It passes the Bechdel test, too.

Ashley: Oh, that's going on the list.

Oslowe: Oh, it passes the Bechdel test with flying colors.

Evan: That and Black Crisp was both, too.

Oslowe: It also... Beautifully. Beautifully. Yeah, no. Slumber Party Massacre...

Oslowe: The original is phenomenal. There's a sequel that is worth watching because it's just bug fuck.

Oslowe: Slumber Party Massacre Part 2 is just insane and kind of has to be seen to be

Oslowe: believed. It's also deeply queer.

Oslowe: Like the first one is, but then the second one just sort of goes to the next

Oslowe: level and says, oh, you thought that one was gay. Oh, honey.

Oslowe: Oh, honey. And then in like 2019 or 2020,

Oslowe: there was a made for the sci-fi channel Slumber Party Massacre that manages

Oslowe: to be a modern update of the original film, plays with gender roles,

Oslowe: plays with what your expectation is, and actually gives us the male-dominated

Oslowe: version of a slumber party scene of beefcakes having pillow fights and spraying

Oslowe: each other with like soda.

Oslowe: while the girls go, is this what they think we do?

Oslowe: So it's that kind of movie. So I love the Slumber Party Massacre franchises, obviously.

Oslowe: They're a little bit campy and a little bit queer and a little bit wonderful.

Evan: I have not seen the second or the updated or the newer version, only the original.

Oslowe: You should. You should. I mean, the original's great.

Oslowe: The original is amazing. Just for the ending, But, like, the other two are also

Oslowe: very worth checking out.

Ashley: See, that's what I, this is, this sounds like an excellent pick for me,

Ashley: which does not surprise me, because you, you just, you just know.

Oslowe: I got you, bud.

Ashley: Yeah, and that's.

Evan: Yeah, I've just added Let's Scare Jessica to Death. And then the sequels to

Evan: Slumber Party Master to my October, well, I'll watch a horror movie,

Evan: it doesn't have to be October, but I watch extra horror movies. know but.

Ashley: In october i do like around the around the halloween season i do especially then like,

Ashley: a campy horror flick like a like a kind of goofy slasher i like something that

Ashley: it's gonna it's gonna be a little it's obviously it's gonna be messed up people

Ashley: are gonna be getting killed but you know what we're also gonna have fun with

Ashley: it everybody's gonna have.

Evan: A good time i need to watch actually the original i'll just what i'm gonna do

Evan: is just watch all all them you know in a row you know not the same sitting perhaps

Evan: but in order just to maybe maybe be in the same thing we'll see um but maybe maybe you'll all.

Oslowe: I need is some speed and.

Evan: A diaper yeah uh but maybe we'll uh return this uh this trio return to one of

Evan: those uh summer party massacre or something but oslo and ashley it's been a

Evan: pleasure as always to have you as this little horror horror trio.

Ashley: Thank you so much.

Oslowe: Thank you for having me. Yeah. It was a great pleasure.

Evan: Check out all these horror films, whether, you know, we like horror or not.

Evan: I think that, well, I might cut this, but do you think that Freddie and Amber

Evan: Elm Street is a movie that you would like, even if you're not like a big horror fan?

Evan: That's a weird question. Meaning like it's...

Oslowe: It's 2025. So I feel like it's 2025.

Oslowe: We're a long way from when this was a cutting-edge, genuinely frightening thing.

Oslowe: I feel like for someone who wants the nostalgia of a Stranger Things,

Oslowe: but to go to the source material, I think they could really enjoy Nightmare on Elm Street.

Oslowe: But it's not like the first thing I would recommend to somebody, probably.

Ashley: I would agree. I would think, like, if somebody is wanting to start getting

Ashley: into some horror movies, probably recommend some more recent things.

Ashley: And then when they're ready to, you know, take a look back and see where did we come from?

Evan: Yeah, sometimes if you go straight to those campy 80s movies,

Evan: you can be turned off. You know, I can understand.

Oslowe: Yeah.

Evan: I mean, I like them. I very much like them, but I'm not everybody.

Oslowe: Who doesn't love a little blood rage?

Ashley: Yeah, this feels like, honestly, this movie, Friday the 13th,

Ashley: so many of these feel like drive-in movies.

Evan: This would be a great drive-in movie.

Ashley: This is also a good summer one. Yeah, and if you have a drive-in theater near

Ashley: you, I'm lucky enough to have one nearby.

Ashley: They usually play newer movies. But if you have one near you,

Ashley: take advantage, whether or not they're playing horror movies,

Ashley: because they're very few and far between.

Evan: Probably yours might play them for halloween though right would you think.

Ashley: Um maybe i don't know they recently uh there's hopefully we will see they were

Ashley: closed down for a while then they opened back up um so fingers.

Evan: Crossed but.

Ashley: Yeah go to support your local uh independent theaters especially drive-ins your.

Oslowe: Local indie theaters and drive-ins.

Evan: And if you do have a video rental place which most people don't you could also

Evan: support them and support at your public library as you said at the beginning

Evan: of yeah yeah not not just to check out movies audiobooks regular books you know

Evan: can check those out you probably have access to libby i highly recommend listening to books that way i.

Ashley: Love libby yes i love.

Evan: Um but yeah oslo and uh and ashley signing off for the second time that's the

Evan: double goodbye uh we will catch you next time on left of the projector.