Review: The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

The Cabin in the Woods

IMDB rate: 7,1

Genre: Supernatural

As you might know, The Cabin in the Woods is one of my favorite movies. I've already seen it 3 or 4 times now, and I'm still amazed by it. The reason why I didn't wrote a review earlier is because when I'm writing a review I want to still remember the details. When I would write a review after a few months of seeing it, I would've forgotten most of the details which are an essential part. 

Some people are complaining about some similarities between Cabin in the Woods and The Evil Dead. I have to disagree with them. Sure, there are some tiny similarities between both of them, but if you look closely into Cabin in the Woods, you recognize a lot of other horror movies too. The beauty with this movie is that it contains some elements of other amazing horror movies, without it being too obvious or annoying. And just be honest, did anyone expected that ending?

Five teenagers head off for a weekend at a secluded cabin in the woods. They arrive to find they are quite isolated with no means of communicating with the outside world. When the cellar door flings itself open, they go down to investigate. They find an odd assortment of relics and curios but when on one the women, Dana, reads from a book she awakens a family of deadly zombie killers There's far more going on however than meets the eye as the five campers are all under observation.

When I first watched this movie in the cinema, I was bored as hell the first 30 (?) minutes. As many other people  I thought it would be another cliche horror movie, and I almost wanted to leave. Luckily my boyfriend convinced me to stay, and well, I loved it. My friend, a fellow horror lover saw this movie for the first time last weekend, and he also thought he could predict how everything would end, boy, was he surprised when he was wrong. My point is, I think we all thought we could guess how it will end, it which order the people would die and such. Maybe a few people knew that it would end this way, but I don't think that would have been many. 

It has been a long time since a fairly recent horror movie entertained me. This movie finally changed that. I didn't find it a scary movie, but it was build up amazing, with some comedy in it, and some horror creatures from everybody's nightmares. I think this was a movie I've been waiting for, for a long time. Joss Whedon previously entertained me with other movies, or television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I have to say that he have outdone himself with this movie.

I love the cast of this movie. When this movie was made in 2009, nobody was really well known yet. You might have spotted Fran Kranz in The Village, but that's about it. Of course, this movie was not released until 2012. In this period of time Chris Hemsworth became a very popular actor. I think that  Chris Hemsworth's popularity contributed a bit to The Cabin in the Wood's popularity. Which is not a bad thing. I enjoy Chris Hemsworth as an actor, and this role fitted him perfectly. Fran Kranz has an amazing performance in this movie. If I never saw him in other movies I would totally believe he is this stoner-weirdo type. I was not entirely sure about Kristen Connolly. Sure she is a good actress, but I found her a bit plain to be honest. She didn't entirely convince me that she was scared. Jesse Williams played his parts very well, but at first I never saw him as the 'student' type. He seemed like another hot football player to me. I guess that's why he had glasses on in the following scenes, to make it more believable. Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford have an amazing chemistry together, they made this movie fun to watch. I would love to see the two together again in another movie. All together, a great cast.  

The music is amazingly well chosen, it fitted perfectly with every single scene. Also, the dialogues... Joss Whedon has not written the best dialogues for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in this movie it was amazing. It fitted the characters, it fitted the story. All good.

Sure, some details in those movies seem to be a bit far-fetched, and some people might get irritated by that. I don't think it was bothering though, because you can not make everything right. Look at all the terrible horror movies that have already been made, why would I look at every tiny detail in a further amazing movie? Some people are just too picky I guess. 

I would love to tell about some of the amazing things happening in this movie, but I'm afraid that I will spoil the whole movie, so I won't say anything! I saw someone say 'The less you know about The Cabin in the Woods, the better'. I'll have to agree with that, because if you know how the story will go, you won't experience the surprise of the amazing plot twist.

This movie gives a whole new look on other horror movies in my opinion. And I can only recommend this movie. But there will be many people who will tell you otherwise.

You either love it or hate it, that's the easiest explanation :).

My personal rate: 9/10

My thoughts about the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies

My thoughts about A Nightmare on Elm Street:

So as you might have figured by now, in two weeks time I watched all the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. These were the original 7, Freddy vs. Jason and the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I only ever saw Freddy vs. Jason and the remake before, and while I owned the original movies, I never saw them. Of course, being a horror blog, it's kinda shaming that I never saw these legendary movies. That's of course why I thought it was time to watch them. I watched them each day apart because watching them all on one day would be impossible and incredibly boring. It took a bit longer than I expected, but I got through them!

I must admit that while watching the original movies I sometimes had an incredible urge to stop watching, mainly because they were so terrible. Luckily, I didn't quit! Here is my top 9, going from worst till the best. 

9. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

I gave this movie a 3/10 because it is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Yes it contained Freddy but that's about it. The story was incredibly stupid. 

8. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

This movie made the whole series even more confusing than it already was, it was like: Drop everything you knew about Freddy, and learn this new story! I gave this movie a 3,5.

7. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

The story was not even that bad, but they kept going on and on with the teenage slaying. I was a bit boring after already seeing a few of those movies. And, the special effects were terrible. I gave this movie a 5/10.

6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare

It was a nice ending for Freddy, but some of the special effects were very ugly. And there were quite some disappointing scenes. I gave this movie a 6/10.

5. Freddy vs. Jason

It was a nice movie to see but it was just nothing special. It had good points and bad points. I gave this movie a 6/10.

4. New Nightmare

While the story was a bit bullshit, it was a fun movie to see. It was a completely different twist to the previous A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, which was kinda nice to see after seeing all sorts of the same movie. I gave this movie a 7/10.

3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Warriors

I really liked this movie. It had some good actors in it, and they figured something out to defeat Freddy. In my opinion it was very clever. I gave this movie also a 7/10.

2. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

I think this movie is equally as good as the original one. This part had some good things and some bad things, but so has the original. I gave this movie a 7/10.

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Nothing beats the original of course, while I thought it was just as good as the remake, it's hard to under appreciate the beginning of Freddy. I also gave this movie a 7/10.

Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street

IMDB rate: 5,1

Genre: Slasher

Today was the last day of watching all the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I was glad I finally reached the last movie, since watching all the movies became a bit boring after a while. Previously I watched the original movies 1 till 7, Freddy vs. Jason and last being this movie. 

After finishing this post I'll do a quick short post about my favorites and stuff. 

I must say that the first time I saw this movie I was quite impressed by it. But seeing it now I think it's somehow.. lame? I don't know how to explain it, but I think it's mainly because of the cinema experience. 

Death stalks the dreams of several young adults to claim it's revenge on the killing of Freddy Krueger. Chased and chastised by this finger-bladed demon, it is the awakening of old memories and the denials of a past of retribution that spurns this hellish vision of a dreamlike state and turns death into a nightmare reality. 

This movie is totally different from the original movie. I won't say this movie is better, but I do think that these movies are equally good. In this movie there is a much better explanation about Freddy. What happened, and why he became like this. It's nice seeing it in a visual way instead of thinking your own story next to it, like with the original. The story is slightly different, but I think I like it better this way. Things are much clearer now. I liked the modern twist given into it. The movie isn't an exact copy from the original one, which is a good thing. There are new things added to, some things are finally explained and some unimportant things were taken out. The things that I didn't like so much where Freddy Krueger himself. I thought he looked a bit lame this way. His voice is much darker, and he even gives some sort of explanation sometimes about why he does this. He sometimes swishes a bit though. When he talks he sounds a bit lame sometimes, also, his face hardly moves. He's also really made into a pervert in this movie.

The movie is a lot darker than the original movie. I don't think this is a bad thing, because it made it a bit more scary. 

I liked the people who played the main characters. Like Kyle Gallner, I think he is a good actor and he played his role excellent. The same with Rooney Mara, I'm not really familiar with her but she's a good actress. Freddy Krueger is played by Jackie Earle Haley, and while I disliked the make-up, he played the role very well. It was convincing even though it doesn't seem like Freddy anymore. It's good that Robert Englund doesn't play the part anymore. I don't have anything against Robert Englund, but a fresh face is a nice thing to see.

I liked that they kept some of the original scenes in it. Like the scene pictured above, it's exactly the same as in the original one. Another famous scene you will recognize is the 'floating' death scene. It's almost the same and I think it would have been a shame if it wasn't in this movie. However, some people might hate it.

It's hard to compare the original and the remake to each other. Of course, the original is how it really began and it's hard to out top that, but I don't think the makers ever intended to overtop the original. I think their intention was to give a modern touch to the famous Freddy Krueger story. And to be honest, I think they did a fairly good job. This movie will never make it to my top 100 list though, but neither does the original movies. I think the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies have a good story, but in the original series it took 7 movies to get what Freddy was all about. In this remake a lot was explained in one go. Of course, still not how he is able to kill through nightmares. But it's still something. 

I hope they won't make a sequel to this movie. I think it's a perfect ending (except for the very last scene perhaps). If they will make sequels to this movie it will be the same as with the original series, it goes on and on and you know nothing more. I know many people who liked the original movies hated this remake. But in every remake there is a group of die-hard fans who will never give up on the originals and will hate the remakes. I personally like remakes because older movies never frighten me. It also hardly bothers me if a classic horror movie gets a remake. I always see it as a nice modern twist to a movie (of course there are many remakes that do suck, for example My Bloody Valentine). If you're not a die-hard original Freddy Krueger fan you will probably enjoy this movie, since it's a very decent horror. Don't get scared away from all the comments that are bringing down the movie. Even if you're not familiar with Freddy Krueger at all it will be a nice horror, since everything is perfectly explained in this movie.

My personal rate: 7/10

Review: Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Freddy vs. Jason

IMDB rate: 5,7

Genre: Slasher

Today I've watched Freddy vs. Jason as part of my 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'. I previously watched all the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and now all I have left is the remake. 

It has been quite some time since I last saw this movie. The last time I saw this, I had not seen any other A Nightmare on Elm Street movie yet. Back then I thought this was a reasonable movie, but because I didn't know anything about Freddy yet it was a bit confusing. I have to admit that I never saw any of the Friday the 13th movie, besides a tiny bit of the remake. So watching it now the Freddy part is a bit clearer, but the Jason part not. Maybe it's time for a Friday the 13th marathon huh ;).

It's been nearly ten years since Freddy Krueger terrorized people in the dreams, and the towns folk want to keep him erased from their memory. Freddy still has one more plan on getting back to Elm Street. He resurrects Jason Voorhees and sends him off to kill. The more bodies which fall to the ground, the stronger in which Freddy becomes. This is until, Freddy realizes that Jason isn't going to step aside easily, and must be taken down himself.

It's definitely a different kind of movie than A Nightmare on Elm Street. The things that you really notice is the difference of when it was made. For example, in none of the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies there was any in it. In the horror movies nowadays, it's all about sex. And of course, this movie isn't different from that. Also, this movie is full with the horror cliches. It was not really bothering or anything since I never took this movie serious. If this movie would be considered a serious sequel to the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies and the Friday the 13th movies then it would be incredibly bothering that it was filled with cliches. 

The most annoying thing in this movie was Kelly Rowland. She acted so terrible. I think she made this movie 10 times worse. The only thing that I did like was when she was mocking Freddy Krueger. Somebody finally told Freddy what it was all about! A character that I liked was played by Chris Marquette, I don't know why but I love him in every movie he plays in. He brings some sort of innocence to these kind of movies (he definitely did not in The Girl Next Door).

The battle between Freddy and Jason was really epic. I think it's a battle that everybody have been waiting for all these years. They ripped each other apart till the last piece wasn't standing anymore. Amazing. Also, Freddy being slashed by his own hand? Justice finally arrived!

An other epic scene was the bed scene, pictured above. It seems rather nasty to die this way. 

The story itself isn't even that bad. I mean, there were A Nightmare on Elm Street movies that had a worse story than this one. This story was actually kinda fitting, and was not complete nonsense (like I expected) to the previous movies. Sure, it was absolutely not a great movie. But it was reasonable and bearable to watch. The acting was not that good. The special effects were good. The Make-up was good and the locations were perfect. I think they have made the best out of this movie. They only should have left Kelly Rowland out of it.

A stupid moment was during the final battle between Freddy and Jason. This girl named Lori Campbell and her boyfriend finally had the chance to leave this murdering scene, and what does she want to do? Stop and stare at Freddy and Jason battling each other. She suddenly gets a demonic voice screaming that the wants to see them kill each other off. Right, very believable.

All together it's not a serious sequel to the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. It's fun to watch if you don't take it seriously. I think many die-hard A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th fans will hate this movie. The blood rate in this movie is certainly higher than in the previous A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, which is a nice touch to this movie. If you want to see the most epic battle ever, go watch this movie!

My personal rate: 6/10

Review: New Nightmare (1994)

New Nightmare

IMDB rate: 6,3

Genre: Slasher

Today I've watched the seventh movie of the 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' series. This is the last one from the original series. I still have two more movies left to watch: Freddy vs. Jason which is a mash-up of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, and the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). 

I liked this movie. It was not really an essential part for the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, but it had a funny twist in it. It has absolutely nothing to do with the original series, since this is based in the 'real' world. It is a bit useless, since Freddy was officially dead. But still, it was a fun movie to watch.

It's nearing the 10th Anniversary of the film 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and one of the stars, Heather Langenkamp is being scared by a voice on a phone, sounding very similar to the film's villain, Freddy Krueger. When Heather's husband is killed in a car accident and is discovered with slash marks on him, Heather starts to wonder something. Especially when she discovers that Wes Craven is writing another 'Nightmare' film. Soon, she realizes that Freddy has now entered the real world, and the only way to defeat him is to become Nancy Thompson once again.

The concept of this movie is completely different than the previous ones. But it certainly works. It has some elements from the first movie in it, like the famous 'floating' death part. It's amazing seeing it once again in a different concept. 

When the movie started it reminded me to Idle Hands, because of the hand of course, that was loose from Freddy's body going around the set to kill people. The second scene reminded me of Scream, which wasn't been made yet by that time. But it's obvious that Wes Craven got inspired by some of the elements in it. 

It's nice seeing Nancy Thompson again, or Heather Langenkamp herself actually. Also, Wes Craven showing up was kinda fun. I don't think he has much potential in being an actor though, since his face kept the same the whole scene. Also, Robert Englund, now really being himself and Freddy, how do you come up with it? He needed to be afraid of himself, sort of. Where he went to in the ending was a bit of a mystery, unfortunately. I think you'll have to make up yourself what happened to him.

In none of the previous movies were real jump scares, at least, I didn't notice any. But in this movie there were quite a few. The make-up was also very good, I think it was the best of all the movies. I thought it looked real for the first time. Freddy's humor was also dropped from this movie, this is certainly a good thing for this movie, since it would not fit in New Nightmare. This movie really comes in my A Nightmare on Elm Street top five, for sure. 

There are not many kills in this movie, and absolutely not much blood. Surprisingly enough, the budget from this movie wasn't even the highest of all the movies made. The highest budget was in fact for Freddy's Dead. I thought that was a reasonable movie, but I thought most of it looked kinda cheap. The budget for The Dream Child is the same as for New Nightmare ($8.000.000) while they certainly differ a lot from each other in quality. I would have expected that this movie, New Nightmare, would have the highest budget, because most of it looks really good (except the last scene), and The Dream Child looked rubbish throughout the whole movie. It's really how you use the money huh? (Fun fact: the original A Nightmare on Elm Street has the lowest budget of all the movies).

I don't think everybody will like this movie, since it's a whole different movie than the original A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. The real die-hard Freddy fans might really hate this, but when you love the see another concept of the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies then you might enjoy this movie. I think this movie is kinda comparable with Scream 3.

My personal rate: 7/10

Review: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

IMDB rate: 4,7

Genre: Slasher

I secretly skipped another day in watching the next 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' movie, mainly because part 5 (The Dream Child) was that bad that I almost didn't want to watch any of the next parts. Adding to this fact was that the IMDB rate of this movie was even lower than the IMDB rate of The Dream Child. But this is another case of don't always trust the IMDB rate, because this movie was definitely not worse than The Dream Child. Anyway, this is part 6 of the 'A Nightmare on Elm Street movie', after finishing the original movies I will continue with watching Freddy vs. Jason and the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

This movie is absolutely not that bad as everybody says. I was prepared for the worst but I actually sort of liked this movie. They finally changed the standard story of helpless teenagers running from Freddy, which was about time. I was really afraid that this will be another movie just like the first 5 movies, but that luckily wasn't the case. I think this movie would have been a good ending for these movies. Unfortunately they also made a part 7 (and Freddy vs. Jason) so I guess the movie makers didn't agree with me on that part ;). 

In part six of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, dream monster Freddy Krueger has finally killed all the children of his hometown, and seeks to escape it's confines to hunt fresh prey. To this end, he recruits the aid of his daughter. However, she discovers the demonic origin of her father's power and meets Dad head-on in a final showdown.

I've read many reviews of people who thought this movie was terrible, well it's certainly not something special, but it's an essential part for these movies I think. I was afraid that we'll never find out something new about Freddy but in this part we finally do. For instance, you see parts of the youth of Freddy Krueger. What you see is that he was already fucked up, but I also think he had a bit (tiny bit) of a good side in him, how else did he manage to get a wife and a daughter? It's nice seeing Robert Englund as the 'normal' Freddy again, it makes him look like a real human instead of only seeing the burned face.

There is also a short explanation coming from Freddy himself how he became this Nightmare slasher. It's only a few sentences long, but it was something. It explains how he is immortal and how he's able to slash people through dreams. 

The acting in all these movies are still terrible, there always seems to be at least one Kristen Stewart in one of the movies. There is this guy named Spencer (played by Breckin Meyer) playing in it, and nowadays he plays in reasonable movies. At least, most of the movies are enjoyable, but even he plays terrible in this movie. There are two nice cameo's in this movie: Johnny Depp (the guy in the commercial) and Alice Cooper (Freddy's father). The special effects were not really good, but at least they were not as terrible as in The Dream Child. In this movie they didn't use many computer made effects, which is a good thing since they always looked cheap in the previous movies. The make up looked terrible, when Freddy took of his hat, you could almost see the bald cap that Robert Englund wore.

It's funny because in some of the movies the story didn't even played on Elm Street anymore, it's a nice thing that the brought back the Elm Street element, since that is what the movies are supposed to be about. 

Freddy's humor is really getting in in this movie, which made the movie a lot better. If they tried making this a serious movie it would have been terrible, but the humor lightens it all a bit up. Freddy is really teasing the people he tries to kill, instead of saying one smart line and slash them. I thought this was a good thing, because this made the movie less standard. 

The thing that I was disappointed about was the ending. I hoped on a spectacular battle between father and daughter, but this unfortunately didn't happen. 

I think this movie is nice to watch for understanding Freddy's story a bit better. It's definitely not a great movie or something, but it doesn't hurt to watch. The story is finally a bit different from the previous movies which makes this movie a whole lot better. Don't get scared by the IMDB rate, because it's not that terrible as it seems.

 I've read many good things about the next part: New Nightmare and I'm really excited to watch it tomorrow! 

My personal rate: 6/10

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