Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge

One of the aspects of dreams that horror films always seem to get wrong is that dreams are intensely personal to the dreamer. If one was able to watch someone else's dream, you would almost always find the dream to be completely incoherent with no understandable narrative. But to the dreamer, the dream is a deep delve into the most personal domains of hurt and desire. 

One horror film franchise that is deeply involved in the explorations of dreams and how we view them is the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. Like most franchise horror films that spawned a seemingly unending number of sequels, the quality of each film varies from almost achieving greatness to utter stupidity. Growing up I must have seen most of these films dozens of times, except for one, which as a teen I found to be confusing and seemingly out of place in the series. That film would be A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Well, after recently rewatching that film, I now think it may be the best Nightmare on Elm Street, beating out my old favorite of Part 3: The Dream Warriors. 

Part 2 opens up to a new family, the Walsh’s, moving into the former home of Nancy Thompson, some years after her family and friends were destroyed by dream stalker Freddy Krueger. The film centers on Jesse Walsh, a teenage boy who is seemingly popular at school but has some deeply hidden insecurities and confusions. Jesse starts to dream of a hideously burned man with a glove fitted with razors on each finger. This burned man, Freddy Krueger, has sinister intentions for Jesse. Freddy wants to take over Jesse’s body, so he can bring his nightmare world of murder into the sunlit real world. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street takes the central conceit of the first film, that Freddy stalks teenagers in their sleep and makes their nightmares real, and inverts it. In Part 2, Freddy wants to enter the real world and make everyday life into a nightmare. It makes Freddy into this kind of vortex of unreality. He seeks to subvert the normality of reality that we take for granted and twist it into something malevolent and delirious, to make the whole universe a nightmare. It’s actually a quite brilliant idea and one that I missed on my first viewings. One just assumes that Freddy attacks teens in their nightmares, so I was confused why people were getting killed in real life, I didn’t get the inversion of the premise. 

In the first two films of the series, the nightmares are deeply personal, completely intertwined with the main characters. Nancy’s visions of Freddy had to do with her shame and hurt over her feelings of parental abandonment and the fear of losing her friends. Jesse’s dealings with Freddy centered on his fear of his body changing into some unknowable thing, and his deeply repressed needs and desires that felt alien to his concept of who he was. The visual style changes from the first to the second film to capture this change in focus. A Nightmare on Elm Street has these creeping phantasms of Nancy’s friends in body bags, visions of opened bodies and the stuff that leaks out, whether ropy innards or slimy crawling things. Part 2 has these Cronenbergian visions of discarded husks and bodies emerging from bodies, all underscored by this subdued homoerotic tension. 

How great would it have been if the A Nightmare on Elm Street series had kept going with the premise that Part 2 brought? That Freddy, and the actual framework of the film, was actually shaped by the fears and secret desires of the main protagonist. Instead, we got a wise-cracking anti-hero that spewed one-liners while finding new and ever more over the top ways to kill teenagers. There is a seriousness to the first two films that gets lost along the way. Freddy is more malicious, he isn’t saddled down by the ridiculous expectations of the later films. He is allowed to actually be scary. The first A Nightmare on Elm Street had a brilliant idea with the killer who stalks you in your nightmares, but was hampered by Wes Craven's directing style. While a lot of the imagery was beautifully surreal and disturbing, the pacing and the editing was just too fast, the film never allowed any kind of dream-like atmosphere to emerge. Anytime a scene started to get interesting, he would immediately turn it into a chase scene, killing the mood. Part 2 fixes the problems of the first one. This one has atmosphere to burn. The scene of Jesse sneaking into his sister's room, possessed by Freddy, only to see his sister jump roping in slow motion singing, 1... 2... Freddy’s Coming For You…, and the look of utter horror on his face is simply devastating. 

I think that like Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, this one is due for a rediscovery by horror fans. A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 is a film that showed how much could have been done with the series. It pushed the boundaries of the franchise while also blazing its own trail. The film is both a vital part of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series and completely capable of standing on its own. 9...10… Never Sleep Again...

Review: Song for the Unraveling of the World

Sometimes you hear a writer's name over and over and know you should check out their work, but with the deluge of books on the market, they can get lost in the shuffle. One writer I heard a lot of talk about but never really read any of their work was Brian Evenson. Then one day I ran across his short story A Seaside Town, in the anthology Year’s Best Weird Fiction vol 3. It blew me away. A perfect mix of nebulous dread and ambiguity. Then I ran across his collection A Collapse of Horses at a local bookstore. That collection left me unnerved and confused in the best possible way. I would say I enjoyed reading A Collapse of Horses as much as my first readings of Ligotti’s Teatro Grottesco or Kiernan’s The Ammonite Violin. Which my constant readers can tell you that is of the highest praise from me. Well, Evenson has dropped another collection upon an unsuspecting public. Song for the Unraveling of the World just came out and I rushed to get a copy. I was not disappointed. Evenson is a writer who writes in many different genres, but for me, I prefer his work that is more dedicated horror. And in terms of horror, A Collapse of Horses and Song for the Unraveling of the World are companion pieces and the most direct examples of his darker work. They both mix and match genres and influences, but both are top tier works of hallucinogenic horror. 

A Collapse of Horses was a pandora's box of unsetting work. It showcased his use of genre to set up expectations in the reader that he had no intention of fulfilling, instead taking a left turn into absolute insanity. For instance, you would start a story that seemed like a horror-flavored western, only to leave the story not even sure what you just read, or if you had actually had some kind of aneurysm and hallucinated the entire reading experience. A Collapse of Horses is an absolute attack on the reader. Bodies that should be dead are talking to you, horses are neither alive nor dead, dark shapes lurk in the trees or across the street always just past direct sight, people blend and blur their personalities, reading Evenson is like being on the verge of having a post-acid trip anxiety attack. I have a lot of favorites in this collection, but the one that left the most striking impression on me was the title story A Collapse of Horses, I actually had to take a break after reading it, the sense of a menacing delirium that engulfed me after reading that story was overwhelming. 

Evenson’s new collection, Song for the Unraveling of the World, has a more scifi/speculative flavor. Whereas in A Collapse of Horses, which focused more on stories that took place in a more realistic and current setting, only to twist what you thought was familiar in unsettlingly surreal ways, to explore the unknowable nature of reality, Song for the Unraveling of the World focuses on the interchangeable nature of appearances and the skin, often in more fictional worlds or far future settings. Skins are discarded, exchanged, and worn throughout this collection. It certainly adds a more body horror flavor to this one. There is also some more pulpy scifi and even some nods to Lovecraft, which makes for a wonderful variance in the stories. But to me, his strongest work again is his most mind-twisting work. My personal favorite may be Born Stillborn, a noxious tale of a man who sees a therapist in the daytime, and the therapist who visits him in his room at night. They may be the same therapist, or they may not. They may have his best intentions at heart, or they may not.

I feel that A Collapse of Horses may be the greatest horror collection of the past ten years. So the expectations were ridiculously high for his new one. I was not disappointed. Different enough to feel fresh, but still everything that I look for in a collection from Evenson. I highly recommend you don’t be like me and wait on reading his work. He is at the prime of his talents and may just be the most important horror writer working today.

Interview: Brendan Vidito

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Infinite Mutability of the Flesh: Some thoughts on David Lynch and Thomas Ligotti.

I have long held the maxim, if you would like to know me better, I would suggest a viewing of David Lynch’s film Eraserhead or a reading of one of what are my two favorite Thomas Ligotti collections, Grimscribe or Teatro Grottesco. What is it about these works that I find such a deep connection with? They certainly are not for everyone’s tastes. I think if you lent one of these to most of your friends, they would come back with a dismissive “ What the hell was that? That was just weird… “ reaction, usually accompanied with a look of disgust. I think these are works best enjoyed in seclusion. These are works I find too deep and too honest, so far away from the banal superhero blockbusters and the life-affirming novels of mainstream culture. Unlike whatever film everyone is talking about on the news and is playing at all the theaters, these works speak to me, and the existence and experience I live. They talk about truths no one wants to think about in their wage slave day to day lives, and presented with a pessimistic humor that is not at all funny.

The illusion of normal society. The horror of existence and consciousness. The utter fraud of social norms. These are some of the issues that both Lynch and Ligotti both keep interrogating again and again in their work. Ask anyone what they plan for their lives to be like. Most people will respond with what most would consider to be the healthiest and sanest answers. Go to college. Marry. Have kids. Retire. Maybe join the military. Help out at church. These people view mankind as the creation of a loving God. And they see the universe as one where everyone has a pre-planned destiny that they are meant to fulfill. But for a small minority, they see life in a very different light. They wake to find themselves existing in a bizarre sack of flesh, always on the verge of madness or injury. We move around to satisfy desires and impulses that seem alien to us, certainly not of our own making. We live just long enough to watch our bodies rot and our minds falter. And to see people finding an intelligent design or a heartwarming meaning in this hideous obscenity of existence, is the height of comedy.

In Eraserhead we find a man and a woman trying, or are trapped into trying, to create what is called a family. Except for the whole notion of birthing some screaming thing into the world is nightmarish. Carrying around some alien thing in your body, a parasite, and then thrusting it into the world covered in blood and placenta, and how most people see this as the holiest of acts, is the height of absurd comedy. Eraserhead is a feverscape of rusted industrial parts that belong to no known machine and swampy terrain of reproductive organs. Our bodies reveal their own strangeness with every abhorrent birth. Midnight desires result in these strange mutants things emerging from our wombs. In Lynch’s world, sex is never erotic. It is baffling and uncomfortable. But decaying factories, figures half seen in smoke and shadow, the aberrations of the body, are of the highest rank of eroticism.

In Lynch’s film Blue Velvet, we find a small town as dissected corpse. Boy scouts falling into sadistic sexual games with mysterious women. The undeniable pull of the perverse on the seemingly wholesome and moral townsfolk. And the underbelly of insectile urges and the all-encompassing drive to self-destruction. The social contract that we believe is there, a need to better ourselves as a community, the basic kindness of mankind, the safety net of our police forces, are seen for what they are, comfortable illusions against the darkness just underneath the surface. As the film’s demented Frank Booth says, “ Don’t be a good neighbor to her!! “.

In Ligotti’s chilling short story Our Temporary Supervisor, we find a factory wage slave slowly falling apart working day after day. Until one day he comes into work and finds there is a new manager. Only this manager only lurks behind the office door. The manager is seen as a vague dark ripple. It may have arm protrusions and head parts. But it is definitely not human. With the new manager comes new nonsensical work requirements and longer hours. And if an employee even thinks about leaving, the new manager makes it known the nightmarish consequences that would befall on one who tried to leave. Definitely one of my favorite short stories. And the thing that makes it even more disturbing? How far away from the reality of working life is this? At most jobs, your boss might as well be some inhuman entity, and what they ask from you is just you work yourself to death. And if you don’t like it? Well, you can just not afford to pay your rent or be able to afford groceries. The idea of a career for most people is more disturbing than what most horror stories are able to convey.

In The Last Feast of Harlequin, Ligotti has his fictional agents of nightmare dress up as hideous clowns, a perfect metaphor for his view of existence. But also, like in most Ligotti stories, darkness covers even deeper darkness. It is revealed that the ridiculous clown makeup is only covering another mask. In the downtrodden ending, when these clowns mutate and bodily descend into these humanoid worms, belonging to some ancient cult that worships non-existence, the disguise rots away, revealing yet another, even more, hideous disguise. The worm behind the clown makeup may be a perfect symbol of the Ligottian “ normal productive citizen “.  

      We find in their own ways, I think both Ligotti and Lynch share a similar worldview, but from different angles. Lynch see this world of mutant bodies lost in smoke and shadow in an extremely optimistic way. He is fascinated by this world and uses his art to delve into the furthest limits. He sees beauty where others would only see disgust. Lynch fully engages in existence. Ligotti, on the other hand, is extremely pessimistic. He sees existence as something to escape from. He uses his art to wrap the world in a veil of nightmare, to make slow self-destruction the highest art. Ligotti, in discussing Lovecraft, wrote about how “ the great dream of supernatural literature is to convey with the greatest possible intensity a vision of the universe as a kind of enchanting nightmare. “ I think this is one of the most profound statements on horror fiction I have ever heard. When you ask most people what the value of horror is, you get the same tired and untrue statements like, “ it’s a preparation for being able to deal with bad times, it’s a rollercoaster ride, it’s to speak on social issues that are taboo “. Sure those are parts of it. But I think the main purpose of horror is to take the abject things, the horrible parts of life, and create a poetry of them. Ligotti in his pessimism and Lynch in his optimism, complete the duality of horror. To take the mystery and ultimate unknowableness of life and make it an object of worship. To take the nightmare, and enchant you with it. To descend into black depths, far beyond all light, and sing.

Announcement! New Horror Anthology From Plutonian Press!! PLUTO IN FURS.

I have a super secret project to announce! The next book from Plutonian Press! Coming in August 2019…. Pluto in Furs! An anthology of the darkly erotic and the seductively nightmarish! A collection of short stories for those horror obsessives who need to plunge into the macabre and the unearthly again and again. What is this need to dream of unspeakable horrors? Is it some strange masochism? And why do we keep going back for more? In these pages, you will find desire and dread, interchangeable. From your most cherished nightmares to your most perverse dreams, Pluto in Furs will serve as your guide to the twilight nether regions of the unreal. If you enjoyed our first anthology, Phantasm/Chimera, I promise you that this one is going to blow your mind! Cover art and ordering info to be revealed later, but today I have the official table of contents to unveil! In no specific order:

An Abysmal Masochism ( An Introduction ) - by Scott Dwyer

The Tangible Universe - by Jeffrey Thomas

The Wolf at the Door or The Music of Antonio Soler - by Devora Gray

Other Yseut and Romance Tristan - by Adam Golaski

Dermatology, Eschatology - by Kurt Fawver

Headsman’s Trust: A Murder Ballad - by Richard Gavin

It’s Hard to be Me - by John Claude Smith

The Gutter at the Bottom of the World - by David Peak

Tender is the Tether - by Rhys Hughes

With Shining Gifts That Took All Eyes - by Mike Allen

Stygian Chambers - by Orrin Grey

Behemoth - by Clint Smith

Worm Moon - by Gemma Files

The Silvering - by Thana Niveau

Walking in Ash - by Brendan Vidito

Review: The Dissolution of Small Worlds by Kurt Fawver

Kurt Fawver is on a mission to disassemble the world. Wait. That is not quite right. Let me up it another way. Kurt Fawver’s latest collection The Dissolution of Small Worlds is trying to break down how you view the world. After reading his collection, I am not sure what I mean anymore...

Each story in this collection takes the entire world and shreds it to bits. He then reassembles it in strange new ways. I think it would be a mistake for the reader to pick up this collection expecting a collection of standard weird horror tales. To me, Kurt Fawver stands more in the tradition of Harlan Ellison and Theodore Sturgeon. He employs the tools of science fiction, horror, and dark fantasy to tell a darkly hypothetical tale, to talk about aspects of culture and existence that most may not be comfortable with bringing to light. What would life be like if this strange thing happened and how would we retain our humanity? Most of his tales start in the realistic but then end up in the completely fantastic. He does have a couple of quiet and low key stories that lean more towards the horrific, which may be my favorites in the collection since I’m biased towards more subtle horror fiction in general. I think the horror genre is more properly defined by its exhalation of Mystery, the erotics of the unhuman. I think Kurt’s work is more defined by Speculation, His stories are probes. They are examinations of the raw matter of existence, perverting and twisting it to find out its core essence. His work would be right at home in Ellison’s landmark Dangerous Visions anthology. What does it mean to be human in the face of an unknowable and ever-changing existence is the key question of this collection.

My personal favorite tale in this collection may just be The Convexity of Our Youth. A story that both attacks the reader with its surreal premise, but also has a bit of fun with the pulpy conceit of its plot. The Convexity of Our Youth showcases a town recovering from an unexpected tragedy. A mysterious orange ball has been appearing in towns at random, somehow instigating a strange outbreak of mutations. The orange ball envelopes this tale in a shadow of the abstractly alien as much as the monolith does in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trust I know how that sounds, you will just have to read for yourself, it really does come off as that bizarre and strange to the reader. The orange ball appears silently and suddenly, affecting only children who have the misfortune to come into contact with it. After a short period, a matter of days in most cases, the affected children undergo a horrific and painful metamorphosis into a literal orange bouncy ball. Their internal organs evaporating into nothing, their humanity lost. This is one of the strangest and most downtrodden stories you will ever read. It examines with microscopic detail the real grief and feelings of guilt that parents suffer when they lose a child. The whole story has this wonderfully bleak and apocalyptic feel. But thankfully, Fawver never loses sight that the story, at its core, is a story about kids turning into bouncy balls, and winks at the reader with dabs of macabre humor and some wonderfully delirious set pieces. The story is a master class in tone, taking an absurd premise and totally committing to it, going all the way with it until it becomes the stuff of existential fright.

I highly recommend The Dissolution of Small Worlds to adventurous horror readers and fans of the darker sides of science fiction and fantasy. Just try not to be alarmed if when you look up from reading the book, the world looks a bit… fractured.