Never Too Young To Die Japan VHS Cover

Never Too Young To Die Japan VHS Cover courtesy of robotGEEKSCultCinema.blogspot.com

I must admit, I'm a bit over the moon right now. I think I'm still in shock that I was actually able to get this in my hands after so many years. Here's my story, if you care to know.

This immediately became one of my all-time favorite films ever the second I was done watching this. Of course I had seen it upon it's first release in '86 on VHS, but hey, I was but a young lad and except for the fact that it starred Gene Simmons in drag and the sex scene between Vanity and John Stamos (which my mother made me close my eyes during!), I really didn't remember anything about it. Then I decided to check it out a few years back and to my surprise, this ended up being one of the biggest "WTF?!" films I'd ever seen. I mean, seriously. So much of this ridiculous film makes no sense! But it's so much fun! You can check out my original review HERE.

A few months after that re-acquaintance, I came upon an online shop that sold rare hard to find Japanese VHS tapes. I had purchased one of these tapes on eBay, and when I received my order it included a card to this shop from the same seller. So as I browsed this guy's selection on his official site, BOOM! There is baby was and it was cheap! I almost shit myself. I never knew this existed in the Japanese VHS market. Suffice it to say, it was an immediate impulse buy, a no fuckin' brainer. Then, a few days after my payment, I get a refund email with a note saying that unfortunately while the site listed this as for sale, they couldn't find the actual item in their inventory. It was like a punch to the gut. So naturally ever since then I've been on the lookout for one, to no avail.

Flash-forward to about a month ago and through the powers of the universe, I met a Japanese seller online who asked me to send him a list of movies I'm looking for. Out of that list, this was the only one he could find, but that's more than fine by me! Some negotiating back and forth and I have this beauty in my hands and I couldn't be happier. As much as I've been wanting this, the price he initially threw at me was just insane. I think with the current VHS explosion a good half of the sellers from all over the world just assume we will pay anything for these tapes, and that's just not the case. We know what they are worth and won't be suckered into paying ridiculous sums of money for a tape that in reality, not a lot of other people would want. And that's what I told the guy; that it was great he found one, and that I did in fact want it, but I know it's not worth what he wanted and I can guarantee nobody else would pay that price either.

So there you have it! I've got my Never Too Young To Die Japanese VHS Tape and the world is alright again.

Review: Never Sleep Again

2010
Directed by: Daniel Farrands, Andrew Kasch
Category: Documentary

I consider myself about as big a fan of this franchise as your average horror lover. This is one of the few horror franchises where I actually paid money and went to the theater to see every single one, except Part 5, which says a lot. With the prices of movies these days, I don't do that very often.

But anyway, somehow I'd never heard of this amazing and fascinating documentary about the Elm Street franchise and it wasn't until I read my buddy Ingo's review on it (here) over at Hellford 667 Movie Reviews some time back that I was even aware of it's existence. I never saw a trailer or any piece of promotional material, which is a damn shame because in reality, this is hands down one of the absolute best and one of the most thorough documentaries I've ever seen related to a horror franchise. Unlike the mediocre and boring His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th, this documentary goes right for the meat of the series and gets right down to business from the get-go. I'd actually seen this a few weeks back, but somehow totally forgot to do a write up on it. Because the bottom line is that more people need to be aware of this comprehensive, exhaustive and completely engaging 4 hour documentary.

Narrated by Heather Langenkamp (Nancy), this documentary goes through every single film starting from the first film and going in chronological order all the way to Freddy vs. Jason. It even touches on the television series, which I thought was a fascinating and hilarious point to touch on. There are so many aspects of the individual films as well as the television series that I was just completely unaware of, but spoiling them for you here would be unkind and selfish of me. You just have to watch this for yourself. One of the other things I love about this is that when they are touching on each individual film, for the most part they interview almost every single main actor, as well as the filmmakers and executives themselves, and it's interesting how many of them look almost nothing like how they did in the films some 20 odd years ago.

This DVD is definitely worth a buy. It's fairly cheap on eBay and Amazon, though I got it on Netflix. If I had known it was going to be this awesome, I would have probably just bought it so I can revisit it from time to time. Yes, it's that good. Netflix doesn't offer it on there streaming services unfortunately, so you'll have to get it through there DVD mail service, but it's absolutely worth the wait.

Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Original Media 1985 VHS release image courtesy of Ghoulbasement.com

1984

Directed by: Wes Craven

Category: Horror

After just finishing the brilliant 4 hour documentary on the Elm Street franchise, Never Sleep Again, I went out and bought every single film from this series. It was more of an excuse really as I hadn't seen any of the earlier films in at least ten years or so. But if you haven't yet had a chance to check out the excellent Never Sleep Again, I strongly suggest you do so. Thoroughly entertaining and informative on every single aspect of the entire franchise from the first film to Freddy vs. Jason to the television series and everything in between, Never Sleep Again will have you dusting off your Nightmare films and popping them in. 

I've probably seen this original Nightmare on Elm Street close to 100 times to date. 

Growing up in the 80's as a kid moving into teenager-hood was probably the best era in terms of horror films. You honestly couldn't have asked for a better time to be a teenager and to be into horror films. Most of them around this time were originals or sequels, not like now where they're all pretty much remakes and needless ones at that. All they end up doing is showing you how inventive and creative the originals were and what they did with a quarter of the budget without digital effects. Case in point, the Nightmare on Elm Street remake from 2010. If there was ever a needless remake that offered "nothing" to the franchise or the story, ANOES (2010) was that film. I guess since they were on a roll with remakes like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Friday the 13th, they felt they needed to complete the list of all time horror franchises. I'm not totally against remakes in general, but do feel that some films just need to be left alone like The Thing and Fright Night. If it's not broken, why fix it!? I quite enjoyed Friday the 13th (2009) much more than I thought I would though, even though the whole thing about Jason taking a hostage made absolutely no sense whatsoever. And I liked the TCM (2003) and TCM: The Beginning (2006) quite a lot too.Of course those were more style over substance, but they were a fun watch nonetheless.

Watching the original Nightmare on Elm Street this past Sunday reminded me of how great this film was, from the casting to the practical effects and to Wes Craven's creative genius. From beginning to end this is a creepy film with some pretty outstanding sequences and no matter how many times you've seen it, still manages to impress. Ok, so they never explain how the hell Nancy is able to pull first Freddy's hat and then Freddy himself out of her dreams and into the real world, but it's a fun concept and gave Nancy an opportunity to go all MacGyver on Freddy in the finale. What I found even more fascinating is that she was able to do this all in the span of 20 minutes, because from the time she calls her dad and says to check up on her in exactly 20 minutes to the time she's pulling Freddy out of her dream, she was able to construct all these booby traps, fall asleep and bring him into the real world. If anything it shows that she utilizes her time very wisely. 

Pretty much the entire cast is pretty great in this. I always had a crush on Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon was awesome as Nancy's dad. Johnny Depp does what he can with the "jock" role and teaches us never to fall asleep with a set of headphones on and a television sitting on your lap. That sequence along with the music accompanying it is still pretty freaking awesome and disturbing. As is the scene where Nancy's friend Tina is attacked by an invisible Freddy in bed while her boyfriend helplessly watches as he slices and dices her to death. The music played to that sequence is pitch perfect and still creeps me out. The real kudos obviously goes to Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. It just goes to show you that despite a ton of makeup, it's still the guy you hire to don the makeup and not the makeup itself who scares the bajeezus out of you. I remember how for part 2, in an attempt to save money and not wanting to pay Englund what he was asking for to reprise the role of Freddy, the studio hired some other guy who mostly stayed in shadows. I think that only lasted like a week before they realized they made a huge mistake and paid Englund what he wanted to come back. There are a few scenes with this other guy still in the film and if you look closely, you can totally tell. He looks different and walks different with more like a weird wobble.

No matter how many times I see it, the original still delvers the goods. I always remember Part 2: Freddy's Revenge always being my favorite, but as I'm going through this in chronological order, that will be my next one and we'll see if my memories still hold true. Thanks again to Jayson over at Basement of Ghoulish Decadence for the VHS cover scan.