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Starring:
John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Johnny Depp, ... Genre: Horror / Thriller
Available on DVD: Sep 26th 2006
Review By:
Stephen Snart
School:
NYU Class of 2007
Favorite Quote:"I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose." - Woody Allen
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high-handedness as it investigates the mythology of dreams ranging from the Mesopotamians to the Chinese. In addition to interviews with Craven, it also features academics in the fields of Jungian Psychology and Neuroscience. Despite its austere pedigree, it’s all surface-level stuff, although it does illustrate the greater intellectual relevance of Nightmare.
Next up are three Alternate Endings imaginatively entitled Scary Ending, Happy Ending and Freddy Ending. Scary Ending omits the car gag from the feature film ending, Happy Ending is exactly what it sounds like and Freddy Ending places Freddy in the driver’s seat of the aforementioned car. The official ending is much better than these alternatives, capturing the macabre, unresolved conclusion you often find in a short story.
Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street runs almost an hour and is divided into seven chapters. This retrospective documentary on the making of the film covers virtually everything you could want to know about the production. Some of the subjects dealt with include casting, Freddy’s design and overall low-budget constraints. Most interesting are the incredibly detailed deconstructions of many of the film’s signature set-pieces, including the infamous bathtub scene.
Freddy’s Coming for You: Trivia Challenge is an interactive game that makes you answer questions about the movie using your DVD remote within a certain time frame.
There are also two Feature Commentary tracks. The first has fourteen participants and includes Craven, Shaye, Englund and film historian David Del Valle among others. Unfortunately the track is not scene-specific and the participants have been recorded separately. The track is compiled from interview snippets, which is normally a bad sign but in this case, the track manages to avoid merely rehashing the points already made in the documentary.
The second is an Archival Commentary Track with Craven, Langenkamp, actor John Saxon and Cinematographer Jacques Haitkin. This is taken from the 2001 DVD release and it’s nice that they’ve preserved it for the updated DVD. This time, all the participants have been recorded together and they share some fun stories about the production, including the boiler room set being filled with asbestos and Langenkemp admitting to napping in between takes during her scenes in bed.
New Line has done a superb job with this DVD. The picture has been marvelously restored and any fan will doubtless be happy with the quality of the special features.
Movie Grade: B+
DVD Grade: A
Overall Grade: A-
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