But the Third One Was Great

Coming Soon: The Book

2011-02-28T07:20:00.000-08:00

Hey there.

First, my apologies that I vanished for a while there. Out in the world, there's a thing called real life, and it got in the way.

Secondly, yes, I will be finishing the Children of the Corn series. And I'll also be going back and catching the last Romero "Dead" movie, which came out a few months ago.

But it won't be here.

Instead, I'll be going throught the blog, grabbing every last word, and turning it into a book. Though it'll more than likely be three books (or four, or five) by the time I'm done.

So if you're waiting for the exciting conclusion to The Children of the Corn, hold tight. It's coming, and at a low, low price.

Regards,
Josh

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror

2010-08-19T09:42:00.001-07:00

Let’s talk direct-to-video sequels for a minute, here.

Most of these things should be both much better and much worse than they are. Worse because the budget is often something like one-tenth of the original.

Better, because they’re often made by the new and hungry, who are calling in every favor they have so that the movie will come out awesome, which will impress people, so their next movie has actual money and a theatrical release date behind it.

A decent hour of television around the time (1998) this movie came out probably cost somewhere around a million bucks. That’s per episode. But if I had to guess, I’d say most of these “Corn” movies probably came in at a cost of maybe a half-mil.

Perhaps less.

The thing is, though, V is a bit of an anomaly. It was written and directed by Ethan Wiley, who wrote the minor hit “House” in the 80s. And then went into a bit of a fallow period. Or at least, nothing he was trying to get made GOT made. If you check out his IMDB information, after he wrote “House II” in 1987, there’s nothing on his resume until this movie.

After that, there’s another 10-year gap before his next project.

So I have to imagine that the guy really, really, really wanted this one.

But there were, of course, some obstacles.

Let’s start with the previous movies. 1 and 2 kind of fit together, although the passage of time between the two movies horks things up a bit.

Then we’ve got III, which is tied to the previous movies in only the most tenuous of ways, but which still has a killer ending that could have led to a whole new offshoot for the series.

This led to IV, which doesn’t tie to III. Or as near as I can tell, to 2 or 1 either. Mostly because they forgot to even mention “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.”

Wouldn’t it be neat if our new friend Ethan decided to try to tie it all together?

Sure. Let’s give it a go.

Ethan gets one thing right, from the first moment. The movie starts in a corn field. We’re in a point-of-view shot, walking through the corn. Then we’re not anymore. Instead, we’re watching a hand crush a flower that is, I guess, in the corn field.

Now it’s night. Shot of the moon. Credits.

Still night, but back to the corn. A kid is walking through the corn. In the dark. So that we can barely see him. Plus the credits are still rolling.

The kid gets to a small fire pit located in the heart of the corn, while the credits remind us that this movie is TOTALLY based on a Stephen King story.

The kid approaches the fire, which, a couple of times, turns a little greenish. He gets within about a foot of the fire, and green sparks shoot out of it, flowing into the kid’s chest.

The kid falls over. The fire goes back to being a normal fire.

The kid opens his eyes. There’s green fire in them.

Now we’re looking at a house. It’s the middle of a rainstorm and a burn-in on the screen tells us that it’s one year later.

You know, is that an exact thing? Has it been exactly 365 days since the event we just had to sit through?

Regardless, we’re in POV-Cam mode again, approaching the house. And then, it’s just inside the house. It’s pretty dark in there, though no mention is made of saving electricity, or the power being out, or whatever.

Instead, a man and a woman talk about the fact that the man found one of their heifers with its throat slit by their property line. Third one this month. He mentions something about “kids” and “Luke’s place.”

Back to spooky-cam outside. There’s a thump inside the house. The man decides to “check it out.” With his shotgun. And a raincoat and rain-hat.

He walks for a second, and spots the kid we just met in the opening scene. The man asks what the kid is doing there. The kid says, “That corn field belongs to us.”

The kid lifts his hand, and the farmer is lifted up in the air, where he’s struck by a bunch of lightning. The kid drops him. He dead.

His wife, in the meantime, has run out into the rain. She stands there while more kids approach. They beat her to death. I guess she wasn’t worthy of being killed via magic. You’ve gotta earn that kind of death.

Then we’re somewhere else, by cracky. A bad road. And it’s day now. A guy and a girl are driving along in a convertible. He’s playing with an inflatable doll. You know the kind. They pull over, and he puts the doll on a road sign.

We leave the happy couple, and meet four new people in ANOTHER vehicle. Well, five, if you count Kurt, the dead guy in the urn. There are two guys in the car, and two girls, but we don’t get a name for any of them. Even the subtitles don’t give you a clue. So let’s move on.

We’re back with the man and woman, who stop to put yet ANOTHER doll up pointing where the other car is supposed to go. This has to be the most expensive way to give directions ever.

The guy looks away from the girl for a second, and when he looks back, she’s gone. Did I mention that we had another corn-POV shot of the girl just before that? We did.

The dude wanders around, looking for his lady. He walks right by a sign that says No Trespassing. Ah, and there she is. She’s just taking some corn from inside the field. Never mind that there’s plenty right at the edge. And that they don’t seem to be headed anywhere that they can actually use the corn.

The music is getting ominous, and she sees kids running through the corn. She yells to the dude. He yells to her. Yet, they don’t hear each other. As we all know, corn is a natural sound barrier.

Finally, a random kid we’ve never seen before cuts her up with a small scythe and she dies.

Dude walks through the corn and sees a clearing. His dead lady and a few kids are there.

Possessed kid comes out of the corn and admonishes the killer kid for killing. The dude runs. Two other kids catch him and kill him. Killer kid also has a whack at the dude.

We’re 13 minutes into the movie, and four people are dead and one is possessed. Not bad.

Now it’s time for a shot of the gas pump that the dude was attaching the inflatable doll of love to. The doll is gone.

Back to the other car. The people in it are all lost, because there are no dolls to guide them. Until the “lost” doll suddenly appears in their windshield.

There’s screaming and swerving.

The car goes into a ditch.

Everyone tumbles out. Kurt is out of his urn and onto his ex-girlfriend. Otherwise, everyone is okay.

Ex-girlfriend smells something funny, and wonders what it is. Possessed kid comes out of the corn and says it’s none of their business. The kid tells them that they don’t have a phone, they’re on private property, and town’s about a mile “that way.”

Conversation over, the kid and his backup leave.

Our “heroes” get their stuff out of the car and head to town.

In town, the heroes find Kurt’s favorite dive bar, and head in for a beer.

Ex-girlfriend goes to wash up.

I’m gonna go bonkers if I don’t throw names on these people, so….

The driver is named Greg. Other dude is named Tyrus. Ex-girlfriend is Kir. And Other girl is named Allison.

There, I just gave you more than both the movie and the subtitles have offered you up to this point. You’re welcome.

Greg asks the bartender for beer. Allison asks for a tow truck. It seems that the truck is out of commission.

They also ask about their friends, but the bartender says they haven’t seen them. The bartender, by the by, it played by Kane Hodder, who is best known as Jason is a handful of the Friday the 13th movies. Mostly the ones that no one is actually a fan of.

Even more funny? He had a small role in “House IV.” This makes the horror movie circle complete.

Greg, already bored by talking about their missing friends, tells the bartender that the town smells like burnt popcorn. This allows some other dude in the bar to babble on about how a corn silo exploded, and how they can burn for months.

The silo is located on Lucas Enright’s farm. It seems he’s a “queer duck” who keeps to himself. Him and his smattering of “adopted children” who work on the farm. They’re also religious nuts who worship “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.”

Dude, wipe your mouth. You got some exposition barf on yourself.

Allison picks up on the “He Who Walks” bit. She seems to know something. Kir and Tyrus come back to the bar, and Allison says they should go. Near as I can tell, they don’t even pay for their drinks.

They get outside, and a local cop asks if they’re lost. They tell him about their car, and he says he can’t help. Also, if they run, they can just make it to the bus. Only they don’t. So they walk back to the car.

They get there. It’s on fire.

This makes Greg more sad than his dead friend’s ashes flying all over.

Allison says she thought she saw a house down the road – she’s thinking there might be a phone they can use.

Um… er…

Who are they going to call? The cops? Dude clearly wasn’t all that interested in their plight. Their friend? This is a time before cell phones were prevalent. I swear, this woman is bonkers.

Whatever. They walk. They get to the house. It appears to be deserted. In fact, it is deserted, since it belonged to the man and woman who were killed in the first five minutes of the movie. Not that the director makes it easy to figure this out, since he manages to shoot the house in the most generic way possible, and include no helpful hints as to who the house belonged to.

Allison votes that they stay there for the night, and catch the bus in the morning. They go in, and somehow locate a lamp. Which they light.

Other things they find in the house: The beds are all fully made, the water is still on, and the pantry has food in it. Including fruit cocktail and Smeat. Which might be a Spam joke.

Also found? Beer.

The group eats. They blabber about the fact that Kurt died in a bungee-jumping accident, and Allison refuses to drink a beer. Turns out Allison found a suicide note. She hid it before anyone could find it. Which begs the question: How do you commit suicide while bungee jumping? Do you tip the person tying you up to do a bad job?

This makes Kir mad. Or sad. Some combination of the two. Tyrus puts her in bed, and he’s about the leave, but she says she doesn’t want to be alone. And she kisses him. You can tell she’s into it because she’s breathing. Not heavy or anything, but she’s definitely converting oxygen to carbon dioxide.

Outside, Greg does something that resembles confronting Allison about Kurt’s suicide note. Allison would rather talk about her brother. It seems her dad was a mean drunk, and as soon as she could, she moved out. Dad got worse, and took it out on her brother, Jacob. So he ran away, when he was about 14.

The last thing he said to Allison was that he was devoting his life to “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.”

Night falls further. Evil-POV-cam stalks around the house while everyone sleeps.

Allison wakes up because she hears a noise. So does Kir, who’s lying in bed with Tyrus. She grabs the sheet and walks to the window. She opens the curtain. Someone is outside.

She screams and falls back. Allison comes in, and Kir says there was a man at the window. Allison says she’s going to go get Greg, and be right back. She does not comment on the naked people who clearly had man-woman relations. Or just cuddled.

Outside, Allison and Greg shine a flashlight they found somewhere around in the dark. Allison finds a muddy handprint on the side of the house.

They hear a noise, and head away from the house. They don’t bother to tell their friends where they’re going.

Eventually, they find some kind of machine. Allison sees blood on some corn in the machine. Corn falls away, and there’s their dead female friend. This makes Allison sad. Oh. And there’s the dude.

The next day, the sheriff shows up, and he and a deputy throw the dead bodies in the back of the sheriff’s truck. Here’s a question: How did they CALL the sheriff? Is the phone still working? If so, why did none of them call, say, their PARENTS or some other FRIENDS about a ride home?

The four teens (are they teens?) confront the sheriff, who accuses them of (I think) getting drunk and playing with farm equipment, which somehow ended with their two friends dead.

Rather than, say, arrest them for accidental death, or public intoxication, or squatting, he just demands they all get out of town on the 8 AM bus.

Of course, town is a mile away, and it’s really light outside, so I guess that means they get an extra day to bum around.

Or not. The guys start to walk away, and Allison says she’s staying. She wants to find out what’s up with her brother. Greg also wants to stay. Tyrus doesn’t, really.

But he hangs out anyway.

I’m sure we’re supposed to infer some sort of friendship dynamic here, but you got me what it is. I don’t know if he’s staying there for Allison, or if he’s staying there because Kir wants to stay (she doesn’t say anything).

Whatever.

The foursome walk to the other farm, and confront possessed kid. Allison says she wants to talk to her brother. Possessed kid says he brother doesn’t want to see her. She asks if they should get the police involved. The kid says no, and leads the way.

They go to the house. Allison heads in. The rest of them are blocked from entrance.

Greg feels uncomfortable, and decides to wander off so Tyrus and Kir can talk. Tyrus tells Kir it wasn’t just a one night stand for him. Kir says it was for her. Then she wanders off. Not forcefully, or with acting, or anything. More like she thought she saw a cute squirrel and wanted to check it out.

Possessed kid takes Allison to Enright. Enright says that the people in town think he’s nuts. But no. All that happened was, he found a baby left to die in the corn, and took the kid in and raised him as his own. Then his corn exploded, and the fire “guided” a bunch of lost, abused children to him. So that he could care for him and teach them to worship “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.”

And with that, the movie abandons all pretense of having anything to do with any of the other movies. Just for a start, we have an adult leader. This guy should be mega-dead by now.

Allison says she wants to see her brother. Enright says to go ahead, as they have no secrets. The possessed kid, whose name is Ezekiel, is charged with taking Allison to Jacob.

Somewhere else, Greg wanders around alone. Never mind that they found their two friends, dead, like 12 hours ago.

He’s confronted by the killer kid, who has an axe. But he manages to walk away with all his bits intact.

Kir, meanwhile, goes to talk to another kid, named Zane. Zane says that he can tell Kir is hurting. Kir breaks down crying. So Zane starts the brainwashing process. Kir stops crying, and says she has to go back to her friends.

Inside the house, Allison talks to Jacob. She asks Ezekiel for privacy. He leaves. Allison tells Jacob happy birthday. His birthday is actually tomorrow. Oh, and dad is dead. Jacob says that this is his family now. And he’s got a wife. Enright chose her to bear Jacob’s child.

Allison asks if he loves his wife. He says yes.

There’s also a whole thing about how children are awesome, and at the age of 18 they enter the age of sin. He turns 18 tomorrow. Allison asks the obvious question: If over 18=evil, then is Enright evil?

Jacob is about to answer, when Ezekiel comes in and says Allison has to leave right now.

So she goes to leave. Jacob tells her to wait. He gives her a book, after writing something in it. He says it will help her to understand.

Allison leaves. All her friends are sitting around on the front steps. They go back to their squatting residence.

Kir reads them some of the book, and says it makes a lot of sense. Basically, kids are born pure, and their evil, tainted parents turn them evil.

Tyrus points out that two of their friends are dead, and he doesn’t want that to happen again, so he’s getting out of town. Kir says she’ll go with. Greg wants to stay behind, but Allison says she’ll figure something out, and tells him to go.

So the three of them head to the bus stop.

Allison starts reading the book, which basically starts with, “When you’re 18, you die.”

She finally looks at what her brother wrote. What is it? Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that there are four letters along the left-hand side that spell out “HELP.”

Allison freaks out. She gets ready to take action, only there’s the sheriff, in the house, reminding her that he wanted her on the bus.

At the bus stop, the three other friends hang out and look mopey. Well, except for Kir, who just looks kind of blank, still.

So, without discussing it, they head back to the house. Greg and Tyrus go in. Kir waits outside.

Inside, it’s already pretty dark, and Allison is gone.

Tyrus and Greg head outside, and find out Kir is gone as well. Amusingly, Tyrus blames the kids right off, and says, “First it was Allison, now it’s Kir.” Like it’s a big conspiracy. Allison could be in the bathroom, for all they know.

At the other farm, all the kids are standing by the still-on-fire corn silo. Ezekiel says some stuff, and tells Jacob to jump in the silo while his pregnant wife stands nearby. Jacob says he can’t do the jumping thing.

Jacob says he thought he was free to go whenever he wanted. Ezekiel tells him sure, but Jacob has nowhere to go. Jacob asks his “wife” to come with him, and she says that “this” is her family.

Then Jacob walks away.

Ezekiel asks for the next person who is going to be 18 to step up and take Jacob’s place. Kir is there, and she calls out that she’s going to be 18.

Uh… what now? She walked into a bar and ordered a beer. I’m pretty sure she’s in her 20s at least. (24, according to the IMDB.) Maybe she just didn’t understand the question. Up to this point, most things, including human emotion, have appeared to elude her.

Ezekiel asks why she wants to jump into the fire, and she basically says it’s her purpose. Also, she thinks Kurt is waiting for her there. Yeah. Sure. Perhaps she needs to learn a little more about how the cremation process works.

Jacob gets found by a couple kids, who beat him to a pulp.

Kir climbs up the silo, while the boys look up her super-short dress. It’s a great day for them. They get to see underpants, and they don’t have to jump into fire.

Kir climbs up, and looks down at the fire, which has a greenish glow to it. Bet you forgot about that. The green glow.

Kir jumps into the fire.

Jacob hangs by his arms in the barn. Ezekiel does some, “You done WRONG!” talking, and gives him a good stab in the leg with a knife. Apparently Jacob is going to be made into a scarecrow.

Ezekiel tells one of his thugs to cut Jacob’s throat and put Jacob in the cornfield. Ezekiel leaves. Jacob kicks the thug in the face, knocking the dude out, and frees himself from his ropes.

He passes out in the barn from stab wound pain.

Later than night, Allison, the sheriff, the deputy, and a fire truck show up. They say they have a warrant. The sheriff shoves Ezekiel out of the way and says he needs to talk to Enright.

Enright says that if they put out the fire, they will have to face “His” fury. The sheriff asks if Enright is threatening him. Enright says he’s trying to save the sheriff.

The fire people get their hose ready and prepare to wet that silo down. But instead, the fire sets the dude with the hose aflame. He screams. He falls. Another dude grabs a hose and gets ready to do some dousing.

He, too, gets set alight.

The sheriff pulls Enright out of his chair for “threatening an officer.” Enright starts to get freaked, and says, “It is out of my hands, now.”

Hey, remember when Ezekiel did that magic? I mean, he’s still in the room. Any reason he hasn’t gone all killer-y yet?

Enright’s head splits in half. A little worm shoots up his neck, and fires flames into the sheriff’s face, which burn a hole right through his head. Dude. Duuude.

Both the sheriff and Enright fall to the ground, dead. Ezekiel tells Allison not to feel bad for Enright. He’s been dead for years.

Allison accuses Ezekiel of… something. And Ezekiel says they all have skeletons in their closet, but he was able to put his “to good use.” As their leader.

And let’s talk for a minute, because logic has abandoned this movie.

Here are the various problems:

First: Why kill their two friends? I suppose you could argue that they were in the corn when they weren’t supposed to be, but if they’re trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves killing a couple of people really isn’t the way to do it.

Second: Why throw the doll at their friends? They really had no way to know that these four outsiders were an any way related to the first group.

Third: How long has that corn silo been burning? Because here’s what we know. “One year ago,” Ezekiel, for whom we have no history, walked into the corn field and was possessed by a green light in some corn. Then, one year later, he killed to the two farmers one farm over.

Then, a short while later, these other kids entered his life. And he corn exploded. Or…

Wait. It could go something like this: Ezekiel, a runaway kid, ends up in a corn field at night. He Who Walks Behind the Rows, in a form of a campfire, takes him over. A year passes. The fire is then somehow transferred to the corn silo. A bunch of kids are drawn to the farm, magically, by He Who Walks.

Okay, that all makes some sense. Except then there’s Jacob, who is just about to turn 18. He left home when he was 14, to join this particular cult.

Now, it could be argued that they’ve been there for three years, except one would think that at some point the folks in town would start to wonder why the silo had been burning for three years. Also, and more importantly, Jacob hasn’t done three years worth of aging. In the flick, I’d put his age at around 13, and that’s when heavy growth spurts start. So he should have grown somewhat in the intervening years.

Unless being possessed by He Who Walks makes you not age. Which would also sorta-kinda work, until you get to the end of the movie. So remember this, because I’ll come back to it.

Outside, the deputy hears something. He goes to check it out. One of the kids kills him.

Allison goes outside, carrying the sheriff’s shotgun. She shoots and kills one kid. Fends off another. Greg hits that kid in the head.

They run off. Tyrus is in the sheriff’s car, which has no keys. He wants to know where Kir is. The remaining kids run up, ready to do themselves some outsider-killin’.

The teens run. The kids chase. Everyone heads into the corn. The teens get out of the corn, and head into the barn. They find Jacob. Allison tells him this is all her fault. Jacob says no, Allison tried to protect him.

Allison asks if Jacob knew about Ezekiel and all the killings. Jacob doesn’t say anything. He tells her they can fight fire with fire. He mentions to storage shed. Then he dies.

Greg and Tyrus find their friend’s car. It won’t start. Greg looks under the hood. Outside, some of the children of the corn realize the teens are in the barn.

Elsewhere (how big is this barn?) Allison wanders around with a flashlight (how did she find it?). She locates fertilizer.

One of the kids outside tries to chop his way into the barn. Tyrus fights him off with a chainsaw.

Tyrus gets attacked (and killed) from behind. The kid picks up the chainsaw and goes after Allison.

Allison runs up to the second level of the barn, hits the kid with a board, and knocks him off the second level and onto some kind of farming thing with lots of sharp points.

Elsewhere in the barn, Greg is lying under the car, trying to fix it. Somehow. He sees shoes on both sides of the car. Two kids come down, one of either side. One has a drill. The other one has a blowtorch.

Greg grabs the torch out of the one kid’s hand, and gets a drill in the leg. He pulls the gas line out of the car, and lights it up with the torch. His final line? “I got your eternal flame right here.”

The barn goes boom. Allison is thrown out of the barn. She goes to get the fertilizer.

In the house, Ezekiel talks to all the kids about how it’s time to get while the getting is good, and join He Who Walks Behind the Rows in a better place.

The kids head outside, where they find Allison climbing up the ladder to the silo, fertilizer in hand. They just stand there, watching and wondering how this tiny chick is carrying 50 pounds of fertilizer up a rickety wooden ladder. She gets up to the top, opens the silo doors, and gets ready to toss the fertilizer in.

Ezekiel attacks her with a metal hook. They grapple. Allison gets the hook, hooks Ezekiel, and throws Ezekiel into the fire. He yells out, “My precious!”

Okay, not really.

Allison throws in the fertilizer. She closes the silo doors. The fire goes “boom,” and she gets knocked off the platform. She grabs the side, and dangles for, like, a second. Then she pulls herself up.

She opens the silo doors. The fire is out.

She goes down the ladder, and finds all the kids on the bottom. Her brother’s baby mama asks if Ezekiel joined He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Another girl asks if they can go. Allison says, “He might have,” and “I don’t think it’s your time yet.”

She and the kids walk away from the silo.

Some time later: Allison rings a doorbell, and a man lets her in. She gets to meet her nephew. Turns out the mom’s name is Lilly. They’re giving the baby to Allison, because Lilly is, you know, a kid. And adoption works that way. (In the movie world.)

The family leaves so that Allison and the kid can get to know each other. Allison sings “Hush Little Baby” to the kid. And we move in his eyes. What’s coming? Come on. You’re a smart one.

Right. Green flames. Kid is totally being possessed. Which means, if we try to follow the timeline of this movie properly, that he will never age. Which should make part six pretty cool, as all the kids try to follow the will of a child incapable of speech.

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering

2010-08-06T21:56:00.001-07:00

Let’s recap a few endings, here:

Movie 1: There are still kids alive in Gatlin, and a couple who aren’t married take the two normal children off with them.

Movie 2: The couple (though not the kids) are mentioned but never seen, and the remaining kids kill everyone in the next town over. A reporter, his kid, and their respective girlfriends all drive away. Most of the kids live.

Movie 3: At least, one of the kids lives, because he has been around for every major slaughter in Gatlin, because I guess there have been a bunch. His adopted brother lives, as does his girlfriend, but his foster parents are dead, and so are her parents. The evil corn, however, is about to go worldwide.

What we have here are called “dangling plot threads.” If anyone actually cared about any kind of continuity, this movie would trying to tie all these different stories together. But since the only elements anyone seems to think are important are children and corn, well, no one is going to make an attempt.

And I still have no idea what year it is.

What I can tell you is, even the movie doesn’t know what its title is. The box, and the DVD information, say this is “Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering.” But the movie itself, as the credits roll, insists that it’s just: “Children of the Corn: The Gathering.”

I realize that kind of thing is nitpicky, but isn’t that why we’re all here?

As our story begins, an older woman is standing inside her house. There’s a boy outside, who holds up his hand. It has a cut in it. He says one word: “Help.”

The kindly matron invites him in, then tells him to go sit down. She goes to the medicine cabinet to get cut-fixing stuff, and knocks over a glass, which shatters in the sink. She is not harmed by this glass in any way.

I find it sad that the movie is desperate to get us to jump this early on in the flick, but can’t afford a black cat to come leaping out at us.

She goes back to the kid and sticks a thermometer in his mouth because he felt hot to her. He starts to tend to the wound, not noticing the sweat dripping off the kid’s brow, or the blood coming out of his mouth.

The kid stands up, the thermometer falls out of his mouth, and it shatters on the floor. She’s gonna need to call a HAZMAT team, get rid of the mercury.

The kid falls over, revealing other bloody patches on his shirt. The woman backs up. The kid starts to turn into… something-or-other. A monster-type thing, I guess.

The woman runs. The monster attacks.

The woman wakes up. Wow. Dream sequence. At the very start of the movie. Perhaps it’s that corn, the stuff that was going bad? Could it be?

Probably not.

The credits roll, and remind us that this series is still, they totally swear for serious, based on a short story by Stephen King.

Eventually, the credits stop rolling over black, and start rolling over footage of a woman in her 20s driving through country and city roads in her car. She reaches the place where the lady who has bad dreams lives, and says, “Welcome home.” To herself.

She greets the bad dreams lady, and we learn our new friend is named Grace. Bad Dreams Lady is her mom.

Then the movie just starts whipping characters at us. We meet Grace’s sister and brother, who are both WAY younger than she is. By maybe 10 years. The kids are named Margaret and James.

Also in the room is “Doc,” who seems to have no other name, but who happens to be sitting with mom when Grace comes in. Doc asks Grace to walk him out. Then we get a flash-cut of mom’s nightmares, because this movie is supposed to be scary, and not a family drama. (Note: These flash-cuts happen CONSTANTLY in this movie. I refuse to mention it every time it happens, because this thing would be twice as long. If you really want the same effect, convince a friend to sneak up behind you and yell BOO at you once every three minutes or so.)

Doc and Grace talk. Mom is scared to go past the end of her walkway. They need to try and fix that. And Grace doesn’t have any money coming in, so Doc says she can have her old job back, working for him.

Jane and Rosa Nock, two women who appear to be about 107 years old, also drop off something in Mom’s mailbox. They’re nice old ladies, it seems.

Doc leaves.

Later that evening, some dude we’ve never seen before walks through a large field of sorghum. No, I’m kidding. It’s corn.

He takes a drink from a bottle filled with hooch, and heads into what appears to be a barn. He breaks into a well in the barn, and brings up a bucket of water. Inside the well is a dead dude, who opens his eyes when the water bucket goes by.

The drunk guy takes a drink of water, but it turns into bugs. So he starts to walk away.

Only he dropped his hooch. So he tries to reach it, but it fell behind some farming equipment.

In the well, the dead dude starts to climb the wall, but then fades out of existence.

In the barn, the drunk starts climbing under the farming equipment. Watch out for falling things made of blades, my friend.

He reaches the bottle, and rolls over. There’s a kid there, with some light burns on his face. The kid slams a scythe through some portion of the dude’s anatomy, but it’s tough to tell which part.

The kid tells the man that “he” will send angels to those who drink strong drink. Then the kid waves his hands around a bit, and a pitchfork, a shovel, and machete, all of which are tied up over the dude’s head on a rafter, fall and impale the drunk in various body parts.

Then he takes a scythe and chops into the guy, as the movie cuts away.

To where? To Grace, who is putting Margaret to bed, while talking to her brother James about Charles Manson.

Margaret confesses that she likes Margaret better than mom.

Grace talks to Mom, and Mom recounts the dream she had about the boy. Grace tells mom to take her medication.

In the barn, the freaky kid-demon-thing collects some blood from the now-very-hacked-up drunk dude. He draws a cross on his hand using the blood. The cross starts on fire. The Demon blows it out.

Margaret moans in her sleep. Grace cleans up the house, complaining that no one there seems to know about recycling. Margaret goes to see Grace. She has a fever. Mom finds Grace. James also has a fever.

Grace’s friend comes to visit. They talk about a bunch of stuff that may or may not be important. But the movie doesn’t bother to tell us the friend’s name, even though we learn she works at a school now.

The next morning, Mom takes the papers to the end of the walkway. Burn-boy is standing in the corn, watching her.

Grace goes to work at Grand Island Community Clinic.

Um… Gatlin, anyone? We appear to have forgotten about it.

Grace tries to get a kid named Michael to stick a thermometer in his mouth. He says no.

The phone rings. There’s a parent with a sick kid on the other end.

Grace looks around the waiting room. There are a ton of sick kids there.

In an actual doctor-place, Doc talks to a kid who has the same thing all the other kids have, plus hemophilia. Wow. That’s going to be a nauseating sequence, when we get back to that kid.

Doc decides to keep the really sick kids at the clinic overnight.

Later that evening, we get a shot of a bottle of pills, and learn that Mom is actually named June, and also yes, they really do live in Nebraska, so at least they got the STATE right, if not the city. That has to count for something, right?

Oh, and her prescription is “Sleeping Pills.” Way to do research, you chucklehead screenwriters. You could have at least made up a drug name.

June takes a pill. Then she takes two more.

Night falls. Demon Kid, who is in the barn again, says, “Come to me.” Then dead drunk guy starts on fire.

We get shots of various kids moaning in their sleep.

At the clinic, Doc and Grace take temperatures. They have four kids, who all have a temp of 103. They’re hot blooded, as the doctors have just checked and saw. (Ye cats, that was a long way to go for a joke.)

The feverish kids call out to their parents in their sleep.

All the kids’ temps keep going up.

Doc tells Grace to prep an ice bath. She does.

Demon-kid does a flashy thing.

Moms everywhere stick their kids in ice baths.

Grace has a vision of Margaret in a bath full of blood.

Margaret kind of flies up in the air and calls to Grace. She falls back on the bed and goes to sleep.

All the kids’ fevers break.

Grace goes home to get some sleep. She walks into her room. There’s someone in her room, and also Demon-kid, who does some freaky stuff and then vanishes.

Grace wakes up. Yet another dream sequence. Fun.

Doc says he’s going home to get some sleep, and tells Grace to keep an eye on the kids.

The next day, Grace and Doc send all the kids home.

June walks to the end of her walkway, saying a Hail Mary. Demon-kid is in the corn. June looks around, but doesn’t seem him.

That night, hemophilia-kid (his name is Marcus) is told to go to bed. He turns off the TV, and sees the reflection of the Demon-kid.

Marcus’s mom goes to tell him to turn off the TV, and he says he won’t be able to go when they move the next day. He opens the curtains to the patio door, revealing three kids who have white makeup on their faces. Are they dead? Demons? No idea.

Mom screams, and someone attacks her with a scythe, first cutting off her fingers and then slashing her up a bit. She screams, but Marcus just stands there, and dad is trapped in another room and can’t help.

Dad finally breaks in, but the scene is over.

Grace puts Margaret to bed, and sees some marks on Margaret. But Margaret claims she wasn’t playing with fire or poison ivy. So Grace leaves.

Back at Marcus’s house, the sheriff grills Marcus’s dad, Donald, about what happened. Marcus, meanwhile, climbs a nearby fence and walks off into the corn. The sheriff gives chase.

The sheriff walks around for a long while, to build tension. And because filming walking around is super-cheap. Finally, the sheriff says he’s going to count to three, and if Marcus doesn’t show up, Marcus is going to be in big trouble.

Marcus doesn’t come. Then Marcus does. He tosses the sheriff a burlap bundle. The sheriff opens it. It’s the drunk guy’s head. The sheriff freaks. Then Demon-kid (at least I guess it’s him, it’s hard to tell, given the only-semi-competent way the flick is shot) jams a scythe through the sheriff.

The sheriff dies.

Demon-boy walks off.

Marcus’s dad goes running through the corn, and finds the sheriff. He keeps on running.

At Grace’s house, Margaret looks for Grace. Grace feels her head. When she pulls her hands away, Margaret has wounds all over her face.

Grace wakes up. She was asleep on Margaret’s bed. Grace sits up. Margaret stabs her. Grace wakes up AGAIN.

Marcus’s dad, Donald, goes to the Nock sisters and says he needs a place to hide. It seems they’ve “heard” about his troubles, though I have no idea how, since they just started like an hour ago.

Regardless, they take Donald in.

The next day, Grace takes some blood from Margaret. She also tries to put some ointment on Margaret’s rash-thing. It hurts Margaret.

Doc shows up, and offers to help out, but Grace blows him off.

Grace drives Margaret to school, so they can listen to the radio and hear the Donald story.

Night falls. Doc goes to leave the office. A mom is there with her twin boys, who are acting all freaky. Among other things, they say that their real names aren’t their names.

Doc says they’re “pulling mom’s leg” and says he’ll keep them overnight, so their mom can get some sleep. Mom leaves. Doc verbally confronts the kids, but they still claim to not be who they are.

The confrontation continues. Turns out, the boys are using the names of a real set of twins that lived in the area years ago. They were killed by their dad. Doc says he’s going to recommend a vigorous spanking for the kids.

June tells Grace that she’s taking the pills, but things just keep on getting worse. The dreams, that is.

Meanwhile, Doc and the twins hash things out the only way they can be hashed out in a horror movie: with violence. There’s a locust. And the kids (including the evil unexplained kid) appear and disappear. It ends with bloody streaks on the door and Doc lying dead on a gurney.

Later that night, Grace goes to the clinic. She looks at a paper and gets all concerned. Then a gurney starts rolling around. Grace prepares to freak out and run. But she gets pulled into a room by Marcus’s dad, who we all pretty much forgot about. He wants to know where the kids are.

There’s some intense verbal sparring that comes out like so: Marcus was “infected” with something, and the blood tests Grace gave her sister don’t make any sense. All the kids have some kind of disease, and Marcus’s dad is of the opinion that what happened to Marcus is going to happen to all the other kids, too.

Dad leaves. Grace stands there, trying to figure out if the plot is too complicated, or nonsensically simple.

The next day, Grace takes more blood from her siblings. Then she drives them to school.

There’s a kid there dribbling a basketball in slow motion, so that it’ll be freaky. Grace goes to open the door for Margaret, and Margaret pulls out one of her teeth and says, “I’m not Margaret.”

At home, June looks out the window and sees a kid coming out of the corn. It’s a little girl. She knocks on the door, and shows June a wound on her elbow. The scene continues as an exact replica of the one at the opening of the movie, only the kid is a girl instead of a boy.

Well, that’s what happens until she gets downstairs, and sees that the girl is now the boy from the start of the movie. She runs out the door, to the end of her walkway, and then stops. The kid breaks a window in her door with a scythe, and she decides that to run is a good plan. She gets into her car and drives away.

Elsewhere, Grace drives her sister and brother to the hospital. Parents are lined up outside with all their kids.

Grace goes in and takes charge, even though she’s not a doctor. For some reason, she knows that Doc is gone, even though she doesn’t have, say, a note from him. Or his corpse.

She deputizes her friend from earlier in the movie as her new nurse.

Grace tells her friend that Margaret is spitting out blood and teeth. In answer, her friend spills an envelope of teeth into Grace’s hand. Grace tells her friend to take blood from the kids, give them gauze to chew on, and to find the Doc.

Out by a barn, Jenny sees her son, James, and pulls over. She goes into the freaky, freaky barn. She calls to James. She walks around.

Something that looks like a wet rope grabs her and drags her towards a pitchfork. The camera cuts away.

Back at the hospital, Grace takes another look at the blood tests and says that they appear to be mixed with “something dead.” She decides to take Margaret to Doc’s to figure out where he is.

Oh, and all the kid’s medical charts are missing. So there’s that.

Grace and Margaret are in the car, ready to drive away, when Donald, Marcus’s dad, shows up again, this time with a shotgun. He tells Grace to leave the kid behind, because he and Grace have “someplace to go.”

Grace tells Margaret to stay with Mary Anne. Which is the name of her friend.

Out in the corn, kids are walking. And not talking.

Grace and Donald go to visit the Nock sisters. They give Grace a picture of traveling preachers. It’s an old picture. The boy in the picture, who was born “of sin” to a young girl.

The preachers took him in, and he became Josiah, The Boy Preacher. It seems he was good at what he did, and made the preachers rich. The only thing was, the preachers would come back, year after year, and the boy was still just a boy.

Wow. That almost ties in with established mythology. That and the fact that it’s the harvest moon.

Back at the hospital, Mary Anne drops a blood sample, and the blood comes out of the test tube and… I can’t really tell. It looks like the blood is vanishing, but it’s unclear what, exactly, is going on.

The Nock sisters continue to talk about the boy who stayed a boy. It seems the traveling preachers did everything in their power to keep him young. Kept him from sleep. Fed him quicksilver. But none of that worked, so they abandoned him.

Er… what now? I thought they did something to keep him young. Kind of a black magic thing? No? That’s right, I’m watching this movie, right now, and typing, right now, and the sisters here have opted to change their story. The boy did NOT stay a boy, after all. The preachers abandoned him, and so he killed them with a scythe.

In turn, the town dragged the boy out into the cornfield and burned him. It seems he screamed way longer than he should have. The next morning, the Nock sisters collected all the bones and ashes of the kid and sealed them up in a well.

Now, Josiah is looking for a “like child,” and once Josiah finds that kid, well, it’s game over for everyone. He’ll take over all the kids.

The Nock sisters tell Grace to “take back the child.”

And who’s the like child? Margaret. Who isn’t Grace’s sister at all. Nope. She’s Grace’s daughter.

At the hospital, Mary Anne is experimenting with the blood samples. Which suddenly all pop their corks and overflow.

Mary Anne tries to run away, only to be attacked with various medical implements. And then killed by a flying scythe.

Grace and Donald make it to the hospital, and Grace runs through the halls calling to Margaret. There’s blood everywhere. Donald sees Mary Anne’s blood experiment, and tries to figure out what was going on. Turns out, the blood is afraid of “quicksilver” – which is actually mercury. There was mercury in Margaret’s filling, which is why her tooth fell out.

Donald asks where the supply closet is.

Back with the Nock sisters, one of them tells the other that “it’s time.” She continues: “Your boy’s come home.”

Out at the freaky barn, kids are gathering, and saying, “I bring him my flesh,” and cutting themselves and bleeding into what looks like a tub full of water.

Grace and Donald throw a bunch of stuff in a vehicle and make tracks. Donald breaks open thermometers and dumps the Mercury inside them into some shotgun shells.

At the barn, Margaret says that the “boy” is going to use her soul to lead them. Then she leans way over the tub o’ water and blood.

Marcus cuts himself, and sits around bleeding. Because, duh, hemophilia.

There’s a lot of shock cuts and chanting, “We bring him our flesh.” A hand reaches out of the water and blood and pulls Margaret under.

Donald and Grace get to the barn. They have two red shells, with mercury in them, and a bunch o’ black shells, which Donald says he “hopes” they don’t have to use to shoot children.

They go into the barn, and see Marcus on the floor. They slip around to somewhere else.

Margaret comes shooting out of the water.

Grace fills up the water tank outside the barn with a compound that has mercury in it. Donald goes to get Marcus. I have no idea how he’s going to accomplish this.

Grace goes back into the barn, carrying the shotgun.

Lucky for Donald, no one is looking at Marcus. So Donald grabs him and runs.
Then all the kids leave. For some reason. Grace calls to Margaret.

Donald takes Marcus to his truck and tries to stop the bleeding. All the kids surround his truck and start doing some damage.

In the barn, the evil kid attacks Grace. So she shoots him. He doesn’t like it.

Outside, the water tank is building pressure. Not quite sure how or why.

Inside the barn, Grace finds one of Margaret’s ribbons. And Doc. Who is still very dead.

Grace reloads the shotgun with black shells. The evil boy attacks. She shoots. He falls. She goes to pull the chain on the sprinklers. He attacks. She falls. She shoots the water tank. It sprays him. His face melts off. The sprinklers fire up.

Grace knocks the evil kid into the tub of water.

Outside, the kids who were attacking Donald’s truck vanish. Marcus wakes up. Donald says he’ll be all right.

Inside the barn, Grace pulls Margaret out of the tub of water, and gives her CPR. Margaret wakes up. She’s okay!

A few days later, Margaret, Grace, James, Donald and Marcus stand over June’s grave. They get ready to part ways. James gets into Grace’s car, and sees a locust, which lands on the window. He stares at it, all freaky-like. We’re supposed to get worried, but then he swats the locust and says, “Let’s go.”

The End? Yes, the end. Well, not really. Three more of these things to go. Let us hope one of them remembers HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS. Which this flick did NOT.

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest

2010-07-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

I guess that final sacrifice wasn’t so final, eh?

The number of issues raised by the last couple of films has sort of piled up, so let’s see if we can sort through them before we get going here.

First: What happened to Burt and Vicky and the kids? I presume they’re still alive and well somewhere, right? Or perhaps not? Did another family member ever come and get the kids?

Second: What about all the kids from the two towns filled with dead parents? I presume John (and crew) “got their story out” into the world and let them know there were a few dozen kids who needed new homes. And a whole lot of treatment.

Third: Whatever became of John, Angela, Dan and Lacey? Even the two guys who were related to each other barely knew each other. And while they were all thrust together by these horrible circumstances, it’s doubtful they were able to keep things together.

I think there’s probably a solid drama in there somewhere. A sort of Lifetime movie wherein this tossed-together family tries to make it work after all they’ve been through. Or perhaps a CW series.

(Okay, this is freaking me out, because it kind of sounds like a good idea.)

There’s one final issue: He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

Rows didn’t seem to be dead, which would mean that the cleansing fire didn’t exactly do its job. That means that the creature, whatever it is, is still out there in the corn, and whoever comes to deal with it is probably going to have some serious problems.

All in all, despite the somewhat lackluster source material, there are a lot of interesting directions this could take. And it chooses?

Looks like none of them, as we open up in, naturally, a corn field.

A sign welcomes us to Gatlin, population 123. And then the movie welcomes us to a trailer home, and a drunk guy, who is calling out to someone named, “Joshua.”

Dude’s carrying a sickle, by the way. And it’s dark. So I doubt this dude wants to give Joshua a pony.

We see a kid running through the corn, and also the dude, who is walking through the corn, chopping it down with the sickle.

Joshua (I guess) ends up in front of a scarecrow, and another kid, Eli steps out from behind it. Eli knows the older man is drunk, and tells Joshua to go ahead, because Eli is the only one who can handle the older dude.

Despite the fact that Eli is clearly a few years younger than Joshua, Joshua takes off.

The man comes up, and Eli asks why the man would hurt “my brother.” Eli says he’d never hurt the man, “Even for this.” “This” is a suitcase. Eli walks to the scarecrow, and picks up a book from between its feet. The book is kind of bible-looking.

Then Eli walks away.

The man walks to the suitcase, and then the corn makes its move, attacking the man. It grabs all his limbs, and pulls on them. A cross pops up out of the ground. The corn ties the man to the cross, and then little vines sew up his lips and eyes.

Eli holds up his book, and tells something to “watch over this.”

Joshua comes back out of the corn, and tells Eli they have to go. He’s willing to let the man hurt himself, but not Eli. Eli picks up the suitcase and they go.

Joshua does not notice the “new scarecrow” behind him.

The book sinks into the ground.

In a bus station in Chicago, an older couple named William and Amanda meets their two new foster children: Joshua and Eli.

They’re introduced by their social worker.

Amanda and William take the kids home and show them around. Joshua picks up some glass art, and William asks him to put it down, because it’s very expensive. Joshua accidentally drops it, and William is kind of upset.

But Amanda says it’s no big deal, and that they should all eat.

So they go downstairs, and William brings out one pizza for a family of four. It’s clear they’ve never fed boys before. Two pizzas would be better. Three would not be a mistake.

William is about to eat, but Eli wants to say grace first. So: “Let us give thanks to He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Who protects our crops, and keeps the infidel and unbeliever in the torments of hellfire eternal. Amen.”

Amanda and William are, like, “Whoa,” but they let it go.

After dinner, William shows them the backyard. It’s small, because they live in Chicago, and Eli is non-plussed because they don’t grow corn. Which Eli thought they did.

Turns out that, no, William is a commodities trader. He SELLS corn. Yes, this really will be important.

Joshua sees some kids through the fence and goes to check it out. Turns out it’s a guy and a girl, and they’re playing basketball. Joshua and the other kids don’t understand each other’s native dress. It’s vaguely comical.

William calls Joshua back home, and explains you can’t just talk to strangers.

Upstairs, Amanda unpacks the kid’s stuff. One suitcase is all clothes. The other one is bugs. When Amanda opens it. When William opens it, it’s fresh corn, which William notes is pretty good stuff. Because he sells corn, y’know.

Which reminds me – what became of the poison corn in Gatlin? And who was this dude in the trailer, with the two kids he was going to beat? Did no one go looking for him when Joshua and Eli came around looking for new parents?

I’m a bit puzzled by how the screenwriter thinks the adoption process works.

Later that evening, William and Amanda fool around. Amanda feels a little uncomfortable with it, since there are kids in the house. But they’re clearly both excited to be parents.

They go to check and make sure the kids are asleep, and find Joshua and Eli asleep in the same bed.

They leave.

Joshua and Eli open their eyes. Joshua is worried he’s screwed things up with the new family already. Poor guy.

Night falls a little more. Eli goes out to the garden, slips through the fence outside, and goes to an old, abandoned construction site. Then he uses his magical abilities to plant corn.

William is lying there, awake, so he puts the moves on Amanda. Suddenly, there’s black stuff on Amanda’s lips. She gets up, and spits it in the sink. Then she’s falling into a hole that Eli just dug.

Amanda wakes up. Dream sequence!

I don’t know that the planting thing required an extra dream sequence to make it creepy.

The next day, William tells his boss that he deserves a promotion. His boss tells him that he’s too impatient.

Amanda gives some new clothes to Joshua. Joshua is happy with his new duds. Or he seems to be, until Eli walks up to him.

When Amanda talks to the boys again, a moment later, Eli explains that modest clothing blah blah blah pious life not nice to poor kids blah. Amanda is confused, but doesn’t want to hurt her new sons’s feelings. So she says okay.

Amanda takes the kids to school, and introduces them to Father Frank Nolan, the principal. He takes them and shows them to their homerooms. Obviously, they stick out a little.

They get to Joshua’s homeroom, and then try to take Eli elsewhere, but he gets all cuh-rank!-ay! about it.

Amanda asks to speak to Nolan outside.

Joshua tries to be sort of apologetic, but really, it looks like an abusive-spouse relationship, where one partner is always like, “No, really, when he’s not drinking, he’s a GREAT guy.”

Amanda and Nolan leave. Eli goes to sit down. One of the kids tries to verbally abuse him. Joshua comes to his defense. A switchblade comes out.

The girl who lives next to William and Amanda comes to their defense, with, “What are you gonna do? Cut an Amish kid?”

The dude says he’s going to cut her, and the boy from yesterday says, no way, that’s my sister, there will be NO cutting today, sir!

The boy and girl are Malcolm and Maria, by the by.

Nolan comes back in, and everyone settles down and goes back to their seats. Except Eli. Nolan tells Eli he has to go to HIS room. Eli complies without whining this time.

Later, the high school kids play basketball. It’s clear Joshua longs to play. Maria comes over to talk to Joshua. She tells him not to taunt T-Loc, the dude with the knife.

Maria tells Malcolm to let Joshua play basketball. Joshua, as it turns out, is really good.

Eli arrives, and a growly voice in his head expresses displeasure over Joshua playing the evil game of basketball. Joshua sees his angry spouse is there, and says he has to go.

That night, Eli accuses Joshua of leaving him, and then “playing their games.” He essentially says, that if Joshua loves him, he won’t play basketball with them.

Montage! Eli talks all crazy to his corn while we see life go on. Joshua starts wearing regular clothes and hanging out with Malcolm and Maria.

Amanda catches Eli sneaking back through the fence. It seems that her plants are dying around the fence-hole.

She goes through the fence-hole, to the abandoned construction site, and finds the huge plot of corn. She goes to steal and ear of corn. She checks it out. It’s pretty good.

As she walks away, another ear of corn sprouts in its place. Evil Corn-Cam starts tracking her. She freaks out and runs. She goes into the building next to the construction site, and bumps into a homeless dude.

Homeless dude is, like, “CORN!” and he goes to the corn patch.

The next night, Amanda and William discuss the corn patch. Amanda wants William to cut it down. William thinks that’s kind of crazy. But he says he’ll look at it.

Homeless dude eats an ear of corn. The corn fights back.

The next day, William goes to the corn patch. He hears someone. It’s Eli, who says, “Boo!”

Eli asks if William wants to try the corn. William tries the corn. It’s delicious. And growing in terrible soil. And Eli grew it in four weeks. He says his “Papa” developed the strain. Eli says he sort of helped.

William tells Eli that the corn is worth a lot of money. Eli tells him, “You reap what you sow.”

I have no idea what Eli means by this. Unless he’s just being literal.

William and Eli head back to the house, while a few corn vines (roots? What ARE those things?) pull the homeless dude’s head under the ground.

Later, Eli wanders the school hallways. He comes to the place where the food is cooked. He’s holding some corn seeds. Kernels? No clue. Regardless, he sets them on a counter, and they turn into cockroaches.

Eli leaves.

The roaches invade. Silently.

Later, at lunch, Joshua sits with Malcolm and Maria. Malcolm asks why Eli doesn’t join them. So Joshua goes to invite Eli over. Eli wants Joshua to join him, instead of joining “that.”

Malcolm and Maria, by the way, are ethnically ambiguous. So every time someone gets all, “Hey, be careful around those types,” you kind of think, “Maybe it’s just racism.” But you can’t really be sure. It’s weird that way.

Joshua tells Eli that, “That” is a friend, and Eli should make some. Eli says, “Maybe I will.”

In his office, Nolan coughs up a roach. And some vomit. On his bible.

That night, Nolan dreams about the first big killing sequence in part 1. He wakes up, and finds that his bible is spattered with red gore.

The next day, Nolan gives a sermon on Joseph, and his dreams, and how though Joseph’s brothers hated him, and sold him, Joseph’s dreams were accurate. (For those who want to know more, be sure to watch “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat,” or “The Ballad of Little Jo.” Or, you know, READ THE BIBLE. The story is in Genesis.)

Eli talks during the sermon, telling Joshua that Joshua is right, Eli needs to make friends.

Nolan asks if the sermon bores Eli, and he says yes. Nolan invites Eli to do better, so Eli stands up and starts talking. About Joseph. So he starts saying that Joseph was a child, and that Joseph loved the land.

Then he goes off on a pollution tangent. It seems his “adult” brothers polluted things. Strangely, Eli doesn’t mention Joseph’s little brother. I guess that guy was okay.

Nolan figures that’s enough for one day, and sends Eli to his office.

At the office, Nolan says that when Eli is ready to apologize, Nolan will be in his classroom. Eli asks Nolan if Nolan “liked the soup.” Creepy sounds go on in the background.

Punishment note: Eli is sitting in Nolan’s office, arms held out, holding up three or four books on each hand. That looks less than fun.

Out in the hall, Malcolm is all, “I didn’t know your brother was a preacher,” to Joshua.

Joshua says that Eli got it from his dad. Not their dad. As he explains: “I’m sorry, I thought I told you. He’s my adopted brother.”

So… Eli and Joshua, not brothers by blood. So who was the dude at the start of the movie? Joshua’s birth dad, and Eli’s adopted dad? When did the kid get adopted? And where’s mom?

A better question: What YEAR is it? Part 1 came out in 1984, and 2 came out in 1992. But clearly, 2 happened shortly at 1 did. And all the kids that we saw across the two towns (and there weren’t a lot of them – maybe a couple dozen, tops) were pretty old.

Eli is in some version of middle school, so this movie can’t be taking place all that long after the previous one, right? It came out in 1995, which implies three years have gone by. In a timeline sense, I guess it works, anyway.

In her office, the social worker, who appears to be working rather late, makes a call to William and Amanda. She found some newspaper stories about Gatlin, it seems. She leaves a message saying that she has some information that concerns Eli.

Eli, it turns out, heard the message the social worker left on the machine. He goes upstairs, opens his suitcase, and takes out a candle. He lights it. He blows it out.

At the social worker’s office, the lights go out. The social worker lights her lighter, then drops it. She goes to pick it up, and there’s Eli.

She freaks, runs back to her office, and calls the police. At first, she gets a “Thanks for calling 911” kind of message, but then it ends with, “And the unbelievers shall be cleft in twain.”

The social worker lights a cigarette, to calm her nerves or something. Instead, the lighter flares up, and the flames jump into her mouth, setting her on fire, internally. Or maybe it’s just the Mexican she had for lunch. Caliente!

She screams, she turns around, she looks through the window behind her as she dies with her head on fire. Eli is there, laughing. The little scamp.

The next day, Joshua and Eli get ready to head to school. Joshua gets a kiss on the cheek. Eli asks for one as well. When he gets one, he sticks his tongue in Amanda’s ear. Then he says, “Bye, mom.”

Is it wrong that this makes me more nauseated than the head-on-fire from a minute ago?

Amanda calls William, as she’s clearly ready to freak out. William tells his receptionist that she’s in a meeting. When that doesn’t work, he tells the receptionist to tell Amanda that he’s out.

William hangs up the phone, and hands an ear of corn to some dude, so he can tell the dude how awesome the corn is. Turns out he’s talking to someone outside his company. He’s going to use the corn to get what he wants.

Back at the house, Amanda hangs out outside, clearly feeling un-good about what just happened. She decides to take action. She’s gonna cut the ear-licker’s corn down.

But no. In class, Eli is using crayons (in middle school?) to color a picture of Amanda. If you know what I mean.

It’s sad, really. Amanda hasn’t actually done anything TO Eli. Poor woman.

Amanda takes her gardening sheers and tries to cut down a corn stalk, but it won’t cut. She checks the blade for sharpness and cuts herself a little. Yep. Sharp.

Then she turns her back on the corn (bad idea!) and the corn grabs her and yanks her into the “field.” Her shoes fall off, and she gets up and runs. She gets into the warehouse, backs up, trips on a pipe, falls, and impales the back of her head on a water pipe.

Water flows out of her mouth. Then blood.

And back to Eli’s picture. Amanda is crossed out.

Later, we see William, post-funeral. He’s sad. Eli goes to him, and they hold each other. Eli is smiling.

Nolan has a nightmare again, which allows the filmmakers to reuse the footage of the doctor getting stabbed with needles in Part II.

The next day, Nolan sees Eli talking to some kids at school. Or preaching at them, I guess. It’s all ominous and such.

Elsewhere, Joshua and Maria talk. Joshua found Eli’s drawing, which for some reason he took home and stuck under their bed.

Maria says Joshua should show it to William. Joshua thinks William will assume that Joshua drew it. Uh… Why would that be? Because of the broken glass thing at the start of the movie?

Maria then suggests that he could show it to Nolan. Joshua doesn’t want to do that, either. Because after all, he and Eli are brothers.

Maria reminds Joshua that they’re “adopted” brothers. Joshua does her a favor and doesn’t punch her right in the face for being ignorant.

She realizes the error of her ways and starts kissing him. Later, they’re back at her house. There’s more kissing. She starts running him through the bases. Quite literally. Her shirt comes off. He asks about a possible home run.

Malcolm walks in at that moment. He says NAY!

Later, Joshua and Malcolm try to talk it out. Malcolm still says NAY! He doesn’t want Maria involved with a family like Joshua’s. He points out that school is out, and they’re on the basketball court, and no one is there. Where are they?

Why, they’re all watching Eli preach over at the abandoned warehouse-o-death.

T-Loc shows up. Things get tense. Eli pushes him and runs to the corn.

T-Loc follows Eli. Oh, T-Loc. If only you hadn’t randomly gotten angry at Eli again after the passage of several months and decided, out of the blue, that Eli must be stopped.

Anyway, T-Loc ends up on the ground, and the mouth of the homeless man that’s been sitting there all this time bites down on T-Loc’s hand. T-Loc freaks out. He asks for help. Eli says, “Let us pray.”

And now, it’s sermon time again. Nolan, who is clearly losing it now, finishes a lesson on Revelation, and screams out, “Does anyone have any questions?” We get a shot of a bunch of students, sitting there, stone-faced. Including Charlize Theron, in her first film role. You get to see her for half a second.

Suddenly, Eli starts whistling. Just a single note. Everyone else starts doing it, too. Nolan walks out. Eli starts laughing manically. Everyone else follows his lead.

In the cafeteria, Nolan tries to explain to another priest that things are bad. Real bad. Only the other priest points out there’s no smoking, no fighting, and things in general are way better these last few weeks.

Eli sits at a table and preaches about how Noah wasn’t so great, but his kids were pretty awesome.

Which I suppose you could agree with, only the story goes that Noah was 500 years old when he had his kids, and 600 years old when he built the Ark. Which would make his kids about 100.

I guess everything is relative. No pun intended.

Malcolm sits down to lunch with Joshua, and says, hey, it’s cool. Clearly you and Eli are not the same type of people. He asks what happened to Eli’s parents. Joshua says Eli claimed they “disappeared.” Neither Joshua nor Malcolm seem to believe it.

That night, William looks over a paper that says, no lie, “Corn Export Countries” at the top of it.

Joshua heads out the door, and William sort of tells Joshua it’s too late to go out, but it’s clear that he doesn’t care all that much about anything except the corn right now. So he doesn’t chase him.

Eli comes in, and William and Eli talk about the super-awesome corn. Eli is way happy that children will be getting some evil corn.

Joshua walks around outside, thinking about his talk with Malcolm. He goes to confront Eli, asking what happened to his (meaning Joshua’s) father.

Eli says that he made sure dad would never hurt Joshua again.

Joshua stomps off, all mad about his dead dad.

Nolan has another dream sequence, where a bunch of hooded kids traps some parent-looking people in their bed and set fire to the bed. Then the bed is in a corn field. Eli takes off his hood.

Nolan wakes up. He sees Eli. Eli attacks.

Nolan wakes up again. Double dream sequence!

That morning, the UPS guy drops off a package for Amanda. Since she’s currently dead, Joshua signs for it.

He opens it.

Moments later, he goes next door and knocks on Malcolm’s window. Malcolm lets him in.

In the chapel, Nolan asks God for help. Eli is, of course, sitting in the back of the chapel.

In Malcolm’s bedroom, Joshua finally allows the screenwriter to attempt to fill in all the stuff in the movie that doesn’t make any sense.

Joshua’s dad moved them to Gatlin when Joshua was 14, because land was cheap there. Due to, you know, some bad stuff that happened there. Apparently, Dad needed the land to work on his “corn experiments.” No, really.

Joshua pulls out the newspapers – not photocopies, mind you, but actual copies of the newspapers that feature a) Gatlin killings, and b) Eli. The first one is from 1964.

Yeah, that’s right. 1964.

He gives Malcolm some other clippings from the 60s and 70s, while talking about how Social Services keeps “good track of their orphans.” Right. Because Eli here has been walking around as a pre-teen for 30 years, and no one has noticed. That’s great record-keeping.

Point being, there have been a bunch o’ murders in Gatlin over the years, and they all happened on a Harvest Moon.

And there’s going to be a Harvest Moon (gasp!) tonight! They need to go talk to Nolan!

At the chapel, Nolan asks Eli who Eli is. Eli says, “Father. As if you didn’t know.”

Nolan throws a Bible at Eli. Eli grabs it and tears it in half with his bare hands. He demands that Nolan pray TO him. Nolan says no.

So Eli puts one of his crosses on the altar, which shoots a whole bunch of light out of it. This hurts Nolan.

We cut over to Joshua and Malcolm, so we can cut back, so we don’t have to see how Nolan ended up upside-down on a cross. We get some banter, so that the audience can learn that the only way to harm Eli is by harming Eli’s special bible. Which is currently still in a field in Gatlin.

Eli leaves. Joshua and Malcolm arrive just in time for Nolan to die while telling them to get Eli’s bible. Somehow, Joshua remembers that Eli’s bible is back in Gatlin.

A mere 9 ½ hour drive away. Really. I looked it up.

Maria goes to see Joshua. He’s not there. But Eli is.

In his office, William signs some contracts with some dudes. People shake hands.

In his house, Eli pulls out some corn and says it’s time for dinner. Then his voice gets all evil as he informs Maria that her parents are expecting them.

Malcolm and Joshua arrive at Joshua’s old trailer home. They get some sickles and head out into the corn field. Joshua remembers that the bible is at the foot of the scarecrow. But there are two of them. So they each take one.

At Maria’s house, her parents eat the evil corn. Eli and Maria (who is in a trance) tell Maria’s parents they’re going to be the first. First what?

The first people eaten from the inside out by cockroaches.

Back in Gatlin, Joshua and Malcolm play “Digging for Bibles.” Malcolm doesn’t find one.

Joshua does. Unfortunately, his dead dad turns into a living-dead scarecrow dad. Joshua runs. Into Malcolm. Then they run again.

Joshua and the world’s angriest scarecrow duel with sickles. Joshua wins. But he drops the bible.

Malcolm goes to get it, and the corn attacks him. And rips his head off.

Joshua grabs the bible and runs. He takes Malcolm’s car and drives through the corn to another road. He’s on his way back.

Now according to both Mapquest and the movie we’re watching, it takes a REALLY long time to make this drive. 9 ½ hours or so. Joshua and Malcolm were up very early (according to the movie we’re watching) and drove until after dark to get to Gatlin.

And now, also under the cover of dark, Eli is doing his preaching thing in voiceover while kids sneak out of their houses to join him.

Out on the highway, Joshua passes a sign that says Chicago is 70 miles away.

William gets home. He’s all drunk and carrying a bottle of rich-man hooch.

In the corn patch, Eli gives a bunch of kids crosses that join them to He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

Then, some more crazy-preaching by the corn. Although he supposedly cleaned up the school completely, and eliminated all basketball playing, I’m gonna guess there are maybe 20 kids there. Ah, low-budget filmmaking. What are you gonna do?

Oh, and there’s Charlize again.

While I’m pausing: Why do the kids have torches?

William shows up, and Eli tells him that it’s, “Time to rest.” Then he puts a sickle through William’s chest.

William yells out, “Eli!” and falls over.

And here comes Joshua. He tells Eli that he thinks he has to destroy Eli and the bible at the same time. He’s under the impression that Eli is like a worm. It seems that worms have two halves, and if you kill one half, the other half lives.

So. Whoever wrote this thing needs to get on his lawyer about suing J. K. Rowling over the concept of Horcruxes, I think.

At any rate, Voldemort – no, sorry – Eli shoots fire out of his sickle that knocks Joshua to the ground. He goes to shoot him again, and Joshua uses the bible to block the fire.

Eli runs into the corn. Joshua follows. The only problem is, the director forgets to actually make the corn field menacing, so it looks like what it is. About 15 stalks across, with lots of space between the rows. It’s about as scary as walking through a field of puppies.

Out of nowhere, Eli shoots more fire at Joshua. Joshua continues to defend himself with the Horcrux.

Eli now has full-on evil voice. He runs into the corn field with Maria in tow, sickle to her throat. Joshua throws Eli the book. Eli fumbles it, then picks it up.

Joshua grabs the sickle, which fell on the ground, and drives it through both the book and Eli. Eli goes up in a burst of bad animation. The animation hits all the kids. They wake up. The director gives us another shot of Charlize.

T-Loc goes to grab his butterfly knife off the ground, and a huge hand reaches out of the dirt, grabs T-Loc, and pulls him into the earth.

We get some of that classic rolling dirt action. Then the camera looks away. Then it looks back.

And what have we got? A gigantic, badly superimposed, rubber creature. With three eyes. Corn vines (seriously, what ARE those things?) start grabbing some of the kids.

Joshua sees that Charlize is down, and goes to save her. The corn knocks Joshua aside. Charlize dies.

Maria grabs the sickle, and starts cutting vines.

Kids run. Kids die.

Maria takes the sickle and drives it into the puppet’s tail. The puppet turns around and grabs her with its tongue. Maria turns into a Barbie doll. I’m 99% sure this is just a really bad special effect.

Yep, she’s human in the close-up shots.

Joshua, who is tied to a wall, in a standing position, uses his booted feet to pick up a sickle and cuts one of the vines tethering his wrists. Then he cuts his other wrist free.

The creature swallows Maria.

Joshua gets knocked through a brick wall by the creature’s tail. This doesn’t stop him.

Meanwhile, Maria slides down the creature’s throat, and into its tail.

Joshua gets up and hacks off the end of the creature’s tail with his sickle, freeing Maria.

Joshua says, “We’ve got to cut the root.”

Ah. I see. The tail is actually a “root.”

They cut the root. The creature dies. Some of the teenagers survive because of this.

Joshua and Maria start walking away, presumable to call the cops and explain a bunch of dead teens, a hideous beast, and some corn.

A few days later, we see a couple of dudes we haven’t seen before at a shipyard. They open up a crate that just got taken off ship boat. What’s in it? Corn.

One dude turns to another and says, “This is just the beginning. Soon we’ll be shipping all over the world.”

The camera pans back to the corn. Ominous singing occurs. An animated sickle clears the screen.

The end.

Good twist right? Gonna be an awesome part IV, where Joshua and Maria go on a worldwide corn destruction spree to save the people of earth.

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice

2010-06-23T13:07:00.001-07:00

A lot of horror movies leave a little loose end in the final moments of the flick, not because they want to make a part II (though I’m sure they do), but because they need that final scare. Consider:

Friday the 13th: The kid in the water.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy drags mom away.

It’s Alive: There’s another one in Seattle.

It’s that final horror movie sting that sort of says, “Well, we CAN do another one. If you like this one.”

But in the case of “Children of the Corn,” there are a TON of loose ends. As Burt and Vicky head out of town, they’ve got a couple of supposedly normal kids with them. They’ve got to bear serious emotional scars, though. And what happens when their extended family members find out what happened to them?

What about all those kids currently in town? They all need to find places to live. And probably be deprogrammed. Don’t get me wrong, Burt’s “a real religion has love in it” speech was nice, but these kids killed their parents. With sharp objects.

And while most of the kids scattered at the end, there are at least a few of them who kind of held onto the idea of being evil. The girl in the car, for example.

Plus, there was that giant animated thing that was also under the ground sometimes. Assuming that was He Who Walks Behind the Rows, well, that makes him the villain, and villains never really die in horror movies.

Point being, there are a LOT of places that this movie could go, and some of them could be very interesting. They could even do something of a redo of the first plot, as doctors try to explain to the kids that a giant thing under the ground doesn’t exist. Until, you know, the thing shows up and starts eating people.

As the movie begins, we don’t get anything like that. Instead, we get some kinda-sorta animated shots of a corn field, with credits and sweet music playing. It was kind of confusing. I sort of expected the title to pop up as “Field of Dreams 2,” instead of “Children of the Corn II.”

I also have to laugh at the subtitle: “The Final Sacrifice.” People really need to learn to not use titles like that, because they are always, always, always wrong. This is part II of seven. Seven! They should have at least called it “The Sacrifice Semi-Finals.”

Finally, the credits end, and we get a shot of a cellar, with wooden steps, and a light pouring down from the door above. It’s the kind of shot a director would be really proud to have as his or her opening shot.

A man comes down the stairs, holding a flashlight. Someone else comes down behind him.

The goofiness starts right away. Every time the flashlight beam plays across the camera, there’s a big SWOOSH noise. Someone needs to have a talk with the sound editor about appropriate behavior.

The two dudes find a bunch of dead bodies. Including one that falls and swings at the camera. Good timing, dead body. I’m sure you’ve been waiting for your moment in the sun.

So, we’re about three minutes in, here, and we’ve already got a major contradiction. Sarah claimed that all the adults were “out in the corn field.” This is not a corn field.

I guess we could assume that Sarah just wasn’t all that bright. (We can also assume that we aren’t going to get any of our original actors back. The first movie came out in 1984, and this second one came out in 1992.)

(Which I just realized causes an interesting dilemma. What year is it? This movie starts probably a day or two after the last one ended. But it took eight years to get made. So what’s the time frame?)

The movie bumps over to a news reporter, so we can get a little backstory for all the people who decided to skip part I, and jump right on over to this here second part. Essentially, we’re in Gatlin, Nebraska, there are over 50 dead people (though they haven’t all been recovered) and the kids did it.

The reporter talks to the guy who found the bodies, but he’s too overwhelmed to say anything. The reporter moves on to the kids, one of whom says he just saw corn.

Then he talks to a cop, who says the kids were under the influence of some “teenagers.” Yeah, we know how that goes. Get some kids in front of teenagers, and the next thing you know, it’s mass murder for everybody.

I have a question, though. Who’s this guy who decided to check out the barn? Where is that barn, exactly? And why did it take everyone three years to realize that every adult member of the town was wiped out?

The cop does mention the “couple” who passed through town. So I guess Burt and Vicky made a phone call.

The reporter talks to more kids who, “Saw the corn.”

Now it’s time to introduce some more characters. So we go over to a vehicle somewhere on the highway and meet John and Dan. John is the dad. Dan is the son. They don’t like each other much, as it appears John has been an absentee father.

John points out to Dan that John is going to be in trouble if he doesn’t do some kind of job.

Now it’s back to Gatlin, where we get to watch a doctor examine each kid before putting them on a bus. And by examine, I mean he has them say, “Ah,” and then he sticks a tongue depressor in their mouth. Then he gives them a sucker and they get on the bus.

Meanwhile, in Soap Opera Car, Dan tells John that the only reason he’s with John right now is that his mom didn’t want Dan around for her wedding. It seems he doesn’t get along with his stepfather-to-be. A dude named Sherman. Remember that name, I’m sure it will be not at all important later.

Back in Gatlin, a Mrs. Burke rides up on her bike and tries to prevent the bus with all the kids on it from driving away. It seems that she lives in the next town over – which is where all the kids are going to be placed in foster care until someone can figure out what to do with them on a more permanent basis.

Mrs. Burke notes, correctly, that all the adults on Gatlin are dead, and that if the kids are all shipped to another town, it’s going to happen all over again.

Another, younger, woman tries to convince Mrs. Burke that the people responsible for the murders are dead now, and that Mrs. Burke should take in some of the kids.

Mrs. Burke says she’s taking her house, and getting out of there.

That’s a really, really screwy thing to do, and yet you have to admit Mrs. Burke is right. Unfortunately, she made all these statements in full view of one of the kids. Which means, tragically, that the smartest person in this movie isn’t going to make it to the end.

More’s the pity.

And now the characters start crossing paths. As the reporter we saw earlier heads out of town, he bumps into John and Danny, driving into town. The reporter tells John that the kids killed all the parents, and then mocks John. A lot. It appears that John has been writing for the tabloids, and perhaps done some other shoddy journalism.

I’m not really sure if the movie wants us to feel bad for John, or if we’re supposed to write him off as being a pretty sucky person. Ah, well. At least we got some backstory, and people’s feelings got hurt.

John and Dan head to Gatlin.

The reporter and his driver/cameraman head the opposite direction, but have some problems finding the highway. So they head into a cornfield.

I sure hope they already got their footage to their office in some way, because their van isn’t going to make it back. At least, not with them in it.

John and Dan arrive in town, and pretty much everyone is gone except for the nice woman who tried to convince Mrs. Burke that these kids totally aren’t going to kill them. And the kid she’s taking in.

John asks her is he can ask her a couple questions. She says she doesn’t want to talk about it. He asks if he can ask one question. Really, he’s already up to two, so he should be tapped out.

Regardless, the woman says okay: One. John looks at her shirt, which says, “Come Sleep with Me.” She owns a bed and breakfast. John asks if she knows where they can find a bed and breakfast. Nonplussed, she says she has one room, and they can follow her.

So everyone gets in their vehicles and drives away.

Back with the reporter and his driver, well, things aren’t going too good. They’re still driving through the path in the middle of the corn, and they aren’t finding their way out. So they stop their news van, and stand up, looking to see where they might find an actual road.

In the sky, an animated cloud does ominous cloud-things.

On the ground, Evil Corn-Cam watches the two men. You can tell it’s evil because the screen gets all reddish. Reporter and Driver decide to drive away, but the van. Won’t. Start.

The driver says, “It looks like a twister!” so the reporter tells him to get out of the van. They both do.

The wind pushes the driver into the corn, and hits him with little blue animated shocks. Then the corn cuts his throat.

The reporter pushes himself around to the driver’s side of the news van, and gets back in. He tries to start the van.

And then, I swear, a stalk of corn comes shooting out of the corn field, blasts through the windshield, and impales the reporter.

The windstorm stops instantly.

Since those two guys obviously aren’t going to be doing anything in the near future, the movie hops over to the bed and breakfast, where Dan, John, the woman who runs the place (Angela) and Freaky Kid are eating dinner.

Angela goes to clear the plates, and Dan helps, because his dad wants him to, and because you should always help the people you’re paying to make your food clean your plates when you’re done.

Really. The next time you go to a nice eatery, be sure to ask the busboy if you can borrow his bussing bin, and run the dishes back. It’s the right thing to do.

While Dan and Angela are gone, John quickly asks Micah, the Freaky Kid, if “he saw anything.” Micah says, “Some of it.” John asks, “Like what?”

Micah says he saw the corn, which I’m getting kind of tired of hearing, and then Micah goes a little further, and says, “Their blood was for the corn.”

Except, of course, for all the dead bodies in the cellar of that barn. Their blood was for the cellar.

Angela comes out and tells John to leave Micah alone. She asks who he writes for, anyway.

Dan pipes up. “The World Enquirer. He’s a rag-man.”

John explains that he used to work for Newsweek, but he got into a disagreement with an editor who he categorizes as “incompetent.” He chalks this up to youthful indiscretion.

Dan continues to harangue him, so John tells him to go outside so they can talk.

Then it all comes out. John flat-out tells John that he was a mistake that John made when he was 17 years old, and Dan need to deal with that fact in any way he can. Because ultimately, Dan needs to figure out who he is and what he’s going to be.

Let’s discuss character empathy for a second, here.

The major problem with John is that the main fact we have about him is this: He’s an absent father. He made a mistake, and then failed to step up and own that mistake.

Now, he’s also got other traits. He’s a reporter, but I guess he’s either not a good one, or perhaps he liked to go a little heavy on the details that weren’t actually, you know, true. Or maybe he was just a big jerk when he was younger, and he burned all his bridges.

Additionally, the first time he encounters a female in the movie, the dude checks out her shirt area. Which isn’t his fault. There was writing there. Saucy writing, no less.

So I want to feel for the guy, but in order to do it, you have to pretend that he’s been trying to fix his life, which may or may not be the case.

As for Dan, well, he doesn’t get along with his dad or his step-dad to be, so he’s kind of hard to tolerate.

These are our heroes for the next 80 minutes or so.

Here’s hoping they learn how to love.

As for right now, Dan says he’s on the next bus out of here. He walks to a bus stop. Good luck with that, dude. Evil Corn-Cam watches him.

A girl drives up on a moped. A really cute girl. Age appropriate. Dan says he’s waiting for the next bus. She tells him that the bus isn’t coming until Tuesday.

Also, how’s the dude going to buy a ticket? There’s no bus station.

Later that night, John talks into his tape recorder. He tries to write stuff down. Then he hears someone talking outside.

He looks at the corn field through his window. Micah is out there, calling to his friends. Evil Corn-Cam approaches. Micah runs.

He gets shot with lightning.

Elsewhere in the field, a bunch of other kids sit around a campfire. One of them asks Mordechai what they should do. Mordechai says they should wait for He Who Walks Behind the Rows to tell them what the do next.

Mordechai says that a leader will come out of the corn. The kid he’s talking to keeps challenging him, says there’s nothing but corn out there, and that Isaac is dead, and that everything was supposed to be revealed once the adults were all gone, but it didn’t happen.

He goes on to say that everyone is going to leave, when suddenly Micah walks out of the corn.

Micah says a bunch of crazy stuff, and I would transcribe it all, but it doesn’t make even a little sense. Eventually, he tells all the kids to go home and wait for a sign.

Out in the cornfield, Dan walks along a dirt path. He sees all the kids walking out of the corn. He turns around and bumps into Micah. Micah says, “It’s fun to play at night.” Because that explains why all the members of a former cult are sitting in a corn field under the cover of darkness.

Micah asks what Dan is doing, and Dan says he was going to leave, but then he met this girl. Micah knows her. Turns out her name is Lacey.

Why in the world does Micah know Lacey? Lacey lives in a town something like 20 miles away from Micah, and rides a moped, which I’m sure was forbidden in Gatlin. There is quite literally no reason they should even be aware of one another.

But whatever. Dan and Micah both decide to go home.

The next morning, John goes to visit Mrs. Burke, whose house is already up on blocks, ready to be moved away. That woman doesn’t waste any time at all.

Burke is standing on her porch, yelling at a bunch of the Children of the Corn to get off her lawn. No, really. She is.

She tells John that the kids are evil. She says her husband walked into a corn field 15 years ago and never came back.

(15 years ago? So the corn has been evil all this time? And, what, Isaac just pointed it out, or… I really don’t understand that line one iota. If the corn has always been evil, I’m not sure where or how the kids fit into the scheme.)

Then she turns around – and finds a green cross has been smeared on her house in what appear to be vegetable matter. I can’t really tell.

Burke goes into her house. John looks over at the kids, who are standing many feet away, just staring at the house.

John goes up on the porch, and touches the green stuff on the house. He smells it, then wipes it off on his pants.

He goes back to his vehicle. Dan is waiting there, whining that there’s nothing to do in this town. John accuses Dan of not even looking into what’s around. He tells Dan to check it out, and let him know what’s happening. For whatever reason, Dan does NOT mention all the Children of the Corn getting together for a meeting the night before.

Dan tells John he’s going to walk, and he strides away.

The Corn Kids watch Burke. Burke comes out and starts scrubbing the green goo off her house.

Micah tells his companions, including Mordechai, that the green goo wasn’t put there by man. It was put there by He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Mordechai asks if this is the sign they were waiting for.

Micah closes his eyes, and says, “Yes.”

The scene ends, with only one question: How did Burke get her house up on blocks in one day?

Dan walks down a country road. He looks over at a waterfall, and spots Lacey standing under it rinsing her hair, wearing a bikini top and shorts. They have teenaged banter. She asks if he can swim.

This eases us into the next scene, wherein a preacher says, “Fornication. Fornication my friends, is a pestilence.”

He goes on babbling, but whatever.

Now we’re back with Burke, who is looking for her cat. She sees the cat under her house. She looks around for kids on her lawn, but doesn’t see them, so she goes under the house to get the cat.

The kids appear. There is chanting on the soundtrack. Freaky chanting.

One of the kids picks up the cat. They release the pressure on whatever it is that’s keeping her house in the air, and as the house crushes her, she says, “What a world. What a world.”

Her legs are sticking out under the house. In this one scene, the writers and the director combine both The Wicked Witch of the East and The Wicked Witch of the West, taking an important piece of art and pooping all over it with “Children of the Corn II.”

By the way, was that the final sacrifice, from the title? Because we’ve got a lot of movie to go, so I just have to assume there are more sacrifices coming.

Regardless, that’s it for Burke.

So now it’s back to “Children of the Corn: Teenage Romance.” Lacey and Dan talk about how boring it was here until they found each other. Dan kisses Lacey.

Then, more talking, about how Dan and John barely know each other. Then they change the subject to whether Lacey knows any of the kids from Gatlin. She says she went to school with them, but she “never fit in.”

It’s nice that she never fell prey to peer pressure and decided to murder her own parents.

I’m confused, though, because this movie keeps insisting that Lacey and all these other kids went to school together.

Once again, the two towns are like 19 miles apart. I can accept that maybe there’s a whole busing system, or something similar, but these kids have also been parent-free for 3 years.

So we have to accept that even with all the parents dead, the kids continued to go to school for the last three years? You know, I can accept an evil monster in the corn, but this is just stupid.

Then it gets even stranger: Lacey says that her parents are dead. They died in a car accident, and she moved in with her aunt and uncle. But she moved here “before any of that stuff happened.”

Um… You know what? I can’t even work out a timeline of how this is supposed to make any sense. I think the screenwriter just first-drafted this thing, figured he’d add logic in later, and then forgot about it.

Lacey gets all coy, and asks Dan to take her to New York with him. He says he can’t do that. She insists he can, and kisses him.

This is going to get interesting real quick-like.

But no, instead we head back to the church, where the preacher continues to do his hellfire and brimstone thing. A dude in one of the pews is feeling sick. Strangely, he has huge glasses on, which almost hides the fact that he’s the guy who found all the dead people in the barn at the start of the movie.

He tells his wife he’s feeling sick, and she gives him a tissue. Suddenly, he looks around and sees Micah.

That’s when he notices that his nose is bleeding. As this happens, the priest starts saying, “Movies are filled with violence, blood, and bodies…”

Writer’s joke? Meta-commentary? Just another way to make it to 90 minutes?

The bloody nose gets worse.

And we see Micah, who has carved a little wooden doll, keep on cutting into its nose. He moves to the ear.

Dude’s ear starts bleeding. Then his eyes.

He gets up, walking towards the preacher-man. Then he collapses and probably dies.

An old dude goes down on the floor, and looks at the dead dude. It’s the Doc, from earlier in the movie. He looks up, and sees Micah stand up. Micah drops the wooden voodoo doll, and walks out.

(Er… since when can Evil Corn Kids use magic to kill people?)

And now: The road! John drives on it. Evil Corn-Cam watches him for a minute.

John arrives at a building, takes out a camera, and walks into the building. He’s the Gatlin school. You know, the one Lacey went to?

There’s a bunch of corn in there. And torn-up furniture. And a lot of graffiti. Because that’s what you do after you kill your parents: Trash the school.

John finds a kid’s drawing of a dead person in a corn field. His head has been cut off. I wonder who left that just sitting out?

John takes a picture of the picture, but doesn’t use a flash. In a dark room. But he’s at least smart enough to pick up a few of the drawings afterwards to take with him.

Good thing there aren’t any police around investigating the 50-odd homicides.

John prepares to walk out, only he’s almost crushed by a part of a light fixture that is going to fall on him. He’s not, though.

When he turns to leave, he almost bumps into Frank Redbear, a Native American who I guess lives in these parts. He knows everything about John, including his weight. Because John left his wallet in his car.

John tries to grill Frank, but Frank doesn’t seem all that interested. John asks what’s going on, and Frank uses some fancy Native American words which he defines as, “Life out of balance.”

He explains that white people never seem to understand that people need to be in balance with nature.

John asks if this lack of balance caused what happened in Gatlin. Frank says no: The kids just went crazy and killed everybody. Yes, he really does.

They talk a little more, and Frank drives off. John asks how to contact him. It seems that Frank is a doctor working at the local university. Whoever wrote this thing is determined to make our Native American friend the most politically correct character ever.

John looks down at his pants, and realizes the goo from earlier ate through it. He’s lucky it didn’t also dissolve his skin.

He drives back to Burke’s house, and finds a bunch of cops and other folks trying to figure out how to get the woman out from under her house.

Suddenly, a woman who looks just like her, because she’s played by the same actress, comes up in a wheelchair and demands know to know what the kids did to her sister. The kids are, of course, standing around in a big group, looking sinister.

Creepy? Sure. But I would think the cops would send a bunch of kids away from the scene of a hideous accident. Especially if they know the kids KILLED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE.

But they don’t. The sister heads off, ranting and raving.

As it turns out, Dan is also there. John asks him why he’s all wet, and he gives the, “I met this girl,” speech. John says he doesn’t want Dan talking to any of the kids.

Me? I’m wondering why he let Lacey go somewhere in the first place. Why isn’t he with her RIGHT NOW? It’s pretty clear he has nothing else to do.

John leaves.

There’s a little musical cue, and Micah heads over to talk to Dan. He tells Dan that his dad pretty much considered everything a sin, including listening to the radio. And each sin required a beating.

Dan asks if Micah was sad when his dad was killed. Micah says there’s a passage in the bible that says to everything, there is a season.

John goes to visit the town doc in hopes of figuring out who, or what, is behind the two recent deaths. Doc doesn’t want to talk, and he states explicitly that he didn’t actually “say” the kids did it.

It’s clear the doctor is terrified. John leaves.

Doc calls the sheriff, and says that John is going to figure things out. He says, “We’ve sinned! We’re going to hell!” The mystery is totally deepening, y’all.

Meanwhile, Frank takes John to a rock with a bunch of drawings on it. I’d explain the whole thing in explicit detail, but the important stuff is this:

The place has power, which magnifies both good and evil, and…

There’s a legend that a tribe of farmers used to live there, but they got lazy, and their kids killed them, and…

Also, there’s a drawing of corn which will apparently is about how the corn will open to one who finds truth within himself.

John asks Frank if Frank really believes all that. Frank, it seems, does.

I’m guessing Evil Corn-Cam does too, since it’s watching them.

Now it’s nighttime, and doc is still working in his office. He turns off the light, and hears a noise. So he takes out a flashlight and starts asking who’s there.

Instead of, you know, turning the light back on.

He raises the shades, and all the kids are outside. So… Where are their foster parents, exactly? I thought the idea was, all the kids go to the next town, and the foster parents take care of them until other arrangements can be made.

I realize that all happened like a half hour ago in the movie, but I’m pretty sure I was paying attention.

Anyway, Doc reaches for something, but it’s too late – Mordechai hits him with a bat. And then a bunch of other kids pick up a bunch of hypodermic needles, and start stabbing the Doc with them. Then someone stabs him in the back with a knife, and he finally dies.

I feel a little ill. Is this where I confess to hating needles just a whole lot? Bleah.

The kids all toss lollypops next to him. Except for one. She sticks it in his mouth.

Lot a laughs on the set, I imagine.

So now we move over to John and Angela. John wants to know how Angela ended up here. So we get a minute of backstory, where she used to pull down 100 grand a year, but then her aunt died and she gave it all up to come here.

Later, they’re in bed, doing stuff. Good thing they stuck a dialogue buffer between this and all the needle-stabbing. Otherwise, it’d be icky.

Dan walks by the bedroom, and closes the door, noting to himself that dad is “sinning most vigorously.” It didn’t look all that vigorous to me.

Dan looks out the window, and sees a bunch of flashlights going into the corn.

In a clearing somewhere, one of the girls in the town (Hemingford, if you care) allows her hand to be cut, along with one of the boys from Gatlin. And Micah is all, “We are one! We are one!”

So… now Gatlin and Hemingford are joined? Just now? What about all the stuff before, with the kids killing people? Is it just, like, okay for Hemingford kids to kill now?

Awesome.

Micah sees Dan and tells him to come forward. Micah asks Dan to join. Dan says yes. This is probably because Dan realizes the other option is a lot of needles and a lollipop.

The next day, Lacey takes Dan to her favorite spot, which is on top of a roof where she can see… a lot of corn.

They get off the roof, and Lacey tells Dan, “If you can catch me, you can have me.”

Dan runs really slowly. That’s all I’m saying.

Finally, he catches her in a clearing. There’s some making out, things start to get heavy, and Lacey, who is lying on the ground, feels something under her back. It’s a hand.

They realize they’ve just found all the missing body parts that no one located in Gatlin. So I guess some of the blood was for the corn, after all. They take off.

Frank and John head out to some random barn somewhere. I do mean random. They don’t explain why they go there, or how they selected this particular barn.

More facts are revealed. There’s corn in the barn that shouldn’t be there. There’s a toxic mold on it – it’s that green stuff that John saw on Burke’s house. Apparently, it’s poisonous, but it poisons different people in different ways.

The mold has been blowing across the town, but some people, says Frank, maybe just got a cold instead of catching a case of death.

It seems the big town secret, the one doc and the sheriff were keeping, is that the town was going to sell a mix of old corn and new corn. Which would be bad.

Yes, that’s the big evil plan that John was about to stumble across. Which he did. Pretty much at random.

To recap, here’s what happened:

The world it out of balance because the town NEXT to Gatlin decided to take a bunch of bad corn and sell it.

No, wait. That can’t be it. I guess the world was out of balance, so the kids killed all the adults in one town. Then a couple of random people passing through broke up the party, but fortunately, the people in the NEXT town also didn’t know how to take care of corn, so the evil kids moved to the new town to make things right.

But no, because Frank says that this moldy corn can cause madness, especially in children.

So the whole thing is either caused by bad mojo, or moldy corn. Only it can’t moldy corn, because there was that deadly animation in the last movie. That had to be “real,” right?

At any rate, the sheriff shows up, and Frank tells him there’s a problem, and the sheriff points a shotgun at them and agrees.

Out in the town, West, Burke’s sister, is riding along in her wheelchair. Micah and the Evil League of Evil walk up behind her, driving a remote-controlled car. Micah then flips some switches on the remote, and it takes over the woman’s wheelchair.

He drives her in front of a truck. It hits her. She flies through the air, and through a plate-glass window.

Inside the building, people were playing bingo. And so the dude, who just won, yells out, “Bingo?” Because that will make the scene funny, you see.

Back at the bed and breakfast, Dan is on the phone with Lacey. She says something about her aunt and a town meeting. Then the phone cuts out. Dan plays with it, in hopes of getting it to work, and then he turns around. Micah is there.

It seems that “The soldiers of the lord are ready to march.”

Out in the corn again, the sheriff has tied Frank and John to a metal pole that’s stuck into the ground. He’s going to let a large farming machine chop them both into tiny bits.

You know that part of the movie, where the villain explains what his evil plan is? Here you go:

The sheriff and everyone else is going to sell the bad corn, and they already know who to pay off so they won’t get caught. Since the sheriff is going to lead the investigation into John and Frank’s deaths, the fact that it will never be solved won’t be a problem.

Also, he’s not shooting them because he’d have to explain that, whereas this is crazy, so he doesn’t have to concern himself with it.

And he’s headed into town for a meeting – it seems some people are, in fact, concerned about the children.

So the sheriff starts the Machine O’ Death, and then leaves, even though it should all be over in about 30 seconds or so. I mean, really, who has the time?

And Frank and John pull the pole out of the ground, since it’s only about three or four inches deep, and then they push themselves out of the way of the MOD.

I do like the fact that the sheriff is going to let the machine just keep on driving until it runs out of gas. It shows a kind of amusing non-thinking that you can’t help but love.

Angela goes back to her bed and breakfast, where the kids meet her. And abduct her.

John and Frank find John’s dead journalism buddy, and John demands that Frank give him a better answer than “poison corn.” Frank says his ancestors believed in a god of the earth, who takes revenge when the earth is wronged.

John doesn’t like the “god is angry” theory. Frank asks if John has a better one.

At the town meeting, the sheriff gets this party started, as he has information about how to adopt the kids of Gatlin. But wait! There’s a woman there named Mary who is concerned that the children are evil. Possibly because her husband was the one who died of a nosebleed.

Someone also mentions a dead sister, but I’m not sure what that’s about. Unless she had a sister in Gatlin that we don’t know about…

Probably not, though, as you would think someone would have found out about all the dead people there a lot sooner if people were related to them, and lived nearby.

The reverend, who is at the meeting, sees that the children are standing outside, and says they probably shouldn’t be around the meeting. The sheriff goes to open the door to tell the kids to take off, only, “The sweet children of Gatlin have chained the door.” He really says that.

The children also have gasoline, and fire-creating implements. So they burn the building to the ground, with the people of the town inside.

Once everyone is good and dead, all the kids gather, and Micah gets back to making speeches: “That is the funeral pyre of those that have poisoned our world.”

All the adults are dead. Except, you know, the people we’ve been following the whole movie. They’re probably around somewhere.

Micah asks Dan to join them, there’s a lot of chanting, and then Dan gets to meet the sacrifices. Angela and Lacey. Dan is instructed to cut out Lacey’s tongue, and then her heart.

For this, they give him… a machete. That’s going to make things a little tricky.

There’s more chanting, and suddenly, there’s a light in the corn. It’s He Who Walks Behind the Rows! No. Sorry. It’s just Frank and John in that big old corn-cutting thing that almost killed them.

They ride in, and the kids scatter. Dan uses the machete to cut Lacey’s ropes.

Micah demands that the kids, “Kill the outlanders!” He does not mention to John that they have his woman.

In order to make John look heroic, he jumps off the machine and knocks down three teenagers.

Dan frees Lacey, and they run into the corn.

John frees Angela, but he’s about to be attacked by the people he just knocked over.

He calls to Frank, who is still driving the machine. But someone shoots Frank in the belly (!) with an arrow (!) and Frank immediately slumps over, mostly dead. Frank is kind of lame, it seems.

One of the kids throws a spear at John, and John catches it and throws it back at the kid – and right through him. Then he frees Angela and they run off into the corn.

Micah yells out that if they don’t stop all the escapees, the kids will face the wrath of He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

Everyone but Micah and a couple of minions run into the corn.

Out in the corn, we get the moving Dirt Pile O’ Death. But no bad animation yet.

Everyone runs, until they all loop back to the exact same clearing they were all in a minute ago.

Micah is all, “What, you thought our evil god would let you escape?” And then he actually clicks his tongue, the way no human being ever would. And he admonishes Danny. And slaps him in the face.

Okay, I’ll admit, that was kind of great.

Micah tells all the good guys to get on their knees. He raises his machete in the air, and gets struck by blue lightning. He screams a bunch, but I don’t think those are unhappy screams.

Frank wakes up, sees that Micah is standing right in front of the Machine ‘O Death, turns it on, drives forward and passes out.

He goes forward just a little bit, and traps Micah’s ceremonial robes in the pincers of the MOD.

John grabs a kid, pulls him to the ground, and punches him.

The heroes all get up. John runs to the MOD and pulls Frank out, while Micah lies on the ground, screaming to Dan that Dan should help him, because Micah is his “friend” and that he was “there” for Dan.

Despite the fact that Micah was just shot up with blue lightning, and about to kill Dan with a machete, Dan looks conflicted.

But I guess it doesn’t matter. A moment later, Micah’s face turns into a demon face, which vanishes, leaving Micah’s face again, and then he gets sucked into the MOD, and we see blood spit out the back, so he’s gone.

And fire starts running down the rows.

And everyone runs away, as the MOD blows up.

John sets Frank down on the ground, and then Frank dies. John says, “No! Come on! Come on!” But does not try, say, CPR, or any other lifesaving technique. Like, pulling an arrow out of Frank and stopping the bleeding.

The next morning, Dan and John build a funeral pyre out of corn, put Frank in it, and light it up. Shouldn’t they call his family, first? Or the cops? Or anyone, really, before torching Frank? At the very least, the guy is evidence.

Dan asks Lacey if she really “meant what she said” earlier. The catch/keep thing? Or the “take me with you” thing? Lacey says she would have said “anything” to get her out of that mess.

Then she says something else, but I couldn’t tell you what it is. She totally mumbles it, and even after listening to it three or four times, I can’t make it out.

The foursome all walk away from the still-burning Frank to Angela’s car.

Angela asks, “What do we do about the children?”

John says, “Tell their story. Let the healing begin.” He looks at Dan, “It’s not too late for that, is it?”

Dan says no, it’s not too late. Because the discussion is deeply filled with meaning. He also thinks the editor at Newsweek might be willing to “reconsider,” since John went through all of this just to get a story.

Well, Dan, I suspect that the editor at Newsweek will think all of you are totally nuts. But whatever gets you through the night, man.

They drive away.

Back at the magical rock, Frank’s spirit, now fully dressed in Native American garb, completes the painting that shows that the corn will totally opened to one who found truth within himself, or whatever crazy stuff the screenwriter came up with earlier in the movie. I bet you totally forgot about that rock, didn’t you?

Frank walks away, his spirit fading to nothing as he does so.

Then the credits come up. Guess we’ll deal with what happened to all the kids in part III.

Children of the Corn

2010-06-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

Note: This section of the book is dedicated to Danny Grossman, because he requested it a long, long time ago. He also sent me a copy of “Leatherface,” when I needed to complete my “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” chapters.

I hereby promise not to mention him again in subsequent chapters. I just wanted to say: Danny, this one is for you.

“Children of the Corn” gets right to gettin’, by tossing the credits up. The title on the screen is “Stephen King’s Children of the Corn,” because this movie was made back when the name Stephen King could sell people on a motion picture.

Once we see the title, we get shots of… corn. Not unexpected, I guess.

This is followed by shots of a church – the upcoming sermon is “Corn Drought and the Lord,” which will be given by Rev. Timothy Case. And just because you care, the name of the church is Grace Baptist Church of Gatlin.

A burn-in informs us that this is: Gatlin, Nebraska – Three Years Ago.

The church bell is tolling through all this.

The doors of the church open up, and people start walking out, shaking hands with the priest as they walk out the door.

And then, we get voice-over from a young boy, who is exiting the church:

“It was about three years ago. I was the only kid in church that day. The others were with Isaac out in the corn field. I didn’t get to go because dad didn’t like Isaac. He was pretty smart, my dad. After church we went to Hansen’s. Just like always. Sarah was home sick with mom. She’d come down with a fever real sudden. Dad was worried, so he went to call mom first thing.”

At which point, dad says, “I’m gonna call your mom, okay?”

“That’s when I saw Malachi and the others. I guess their meeting with Isaac was over. They were acting real creepy.”

Obviously, at this point, dad is on the phone. The boy is sitting on a stool in Hansen’s. Malachi is playing pinball in the corner. And a bunch of kids are walking into the eatery, and locking the door.

The waitress puts something in the coffee. She serves the coffee. Several people drink the coffee, and die in rapid succession.

Then the kids all pull out sharp things and begin slashing throats. And stabbing. And generally killing all the remaining living adults in Hansen’s.

In and around all this, on the other end of the phone line, the boy’s dad talks to his mom about his sister, Sarah. Sarah is moaning, and has her eyes closed, but she’s still coloring something.

Now, all the adults in the diner are dead. Including dad.

The kids start to leave. One of them looks meaningfully at the boy.

Time for more voice-over:

“It happened everywhere in Gatlin that day. That’s when Sarah started drawing these pictures.”

And then we see Sarah, lying on the bed next to a drawing she made of the kids killing the adults in Hansen’s.

And now, more credits, while we look at pictures of children killing their parents in various exciting ways. It seems they also plant corn, and burn their TVs.

Finally, we get a shot of a car and a motel. Perhaps the kids are experimenting with the fruits of their puberty?

Nope. It’s a woman, who is inside the motel, setting the lock to “Do Not Disturb.” Then we get a shot of feet stalking across the room, a woman’s hand reaching into a drawer, and then, PARTY HORN.

She wishes the guy in bed happy birthday. She presents him with a donut and asks him to make a wish. He wishes to live happily ever after. She asks if that’s a proposal. Nope. She gives him a gift anyway.

It’s a lighter, with his name and her name on it: They are Burt and Vicky. They kiss. Then she turns on a little tape player thing and sings a song that’s called, based on the chorus, “School is Out.”

I guess the implication is that the dude just got out of medical school. After all that silliness, she finally offers to give him, shall we say, a more personal birthday gift.

Dude rejects her, saying they have to get back on the road. He goes to grab a quick shower.

Man, I’m trying to come up with an appropriate comment here, but this dude just blows my mind. Come on man. It’s your birthday. Take an extra three minutes for yourself, if you know what I’m saying.

But no. Instead, we get a shot of the car on the road. They’re headed in Nebraska, bantering about how he doesn’t want to screw up his internship. She thinks he was being a jerk.

Man, turn a woman down for forty-five seconds of passion and she will never let it go. Ever.

And now we’re back with the kids. Now, if you have kids, or are generally familiar with them, you probably know that they grow a LOT in a three year span. But these kids haven’t. Probably poor nutrition.

But whatever. That’s not what’s important. What’s important is that, so help me, the kid is voice-overing again. WHO IS HE TALKING TO? Himself?

Well, whoever he’s talking to, he tells us that besides himself (I’m going to have to call him Boy, because he doesn’t have a name yet) and Sarah, there’s another boy named Jacob who, it seems, doesn’t like Isaac and wants to get away.

Boy says, in voice-over, that he wasn’t scared. Then he says, “I’m scared.” Sarah adds, “Me, too!”

Jacob, it seems, is running away, though he promises he’ll come back for Boy and Sarah. Jacob says the two of them will be fine, as long as no one finds out about Sarah’s drawings. Crayons are forbidden.

Boy whines that Jacob won’t let them do “anything.” Jacob reminds Boy that if they get caught with something forbidden that… they know what happens.

This might build more suspense if we hadn’t already seen Sarah’s drawings, which featured people being tacked up on crosses. This movie is like a poker player who screams out what’s in his hand before the betting even starts.

Jacob says he’s going to run through the corn, which the kids seem to think is a bad idea. But it’s the only way out. Wherever “out” is.

Jacob sends Boy and Sarah to the sides of the barn they were all talking in, and tells them to let him know if anyone is watching them. Boy runs to one side and yells back that there’s no one, and Sarah yells, “Nobody’s looking! Nobody’s looking!”

Well, Sarah, I bet they are now.

Jacob runs through the corn.

Burt and Vicky drive along the back roads. They’re bored. They turn on the radio, and get themselves a hellfire and damnation radio station preacher. They mock him, then turn the radio off.

They drive by a sign: Gatlin: 7 Miles.

Jacob runs through the corn. He hears children laughing. The music gets all scary. Jacob trips. The director attempts to give us ominous shots of the corn, but mostly makes us think that a corn roast would be mighty tasty just about now.

Jacob gets back up.

Nearby, we see a kid with a knife, though we don’t see the kid’s face. Jacob turns. He’s stabbed, mostly off-camera. Blood artfully falls over his suitcase. Well, not really artfully. In an attempted artful manner? That works, I suppose.

Burt and Vicky drive some more. Vicky checks the map, but they can’t find Gatlin. Burt takes a look, which removes his eyes from the road.

Vicky warns him that there’s someone in the road. It appears to be a dead Jacob, posed in a scarecrow-esque fashion. Burt hits the kid, hard, and the body rolls.

Burt pulls the car over. He checks Vicky for injury. She’s got a bump on her head.

But gets out of the car and goes to check on the kid. Of course, the kid is dead. Vicky asks if the kid the dead. Burt says, “Oh, yeah.” He’s taking this really, really well. Burt says something is very wrong here, and that Vicky needs to go back to the car and lock the doors until he gets back.

Burt gets a blanket out of the trunk. And also, a tire iron. As he goes to wrap Jacob up in a blanket, stalker-cam watches him from behind the corn. Burt wraps up the kid, but doesn’t take him out of the road.

Interesting choice, Burt.

Burt goes to the corn and sees Jacob’s bloody suitcase. He goes into the corn to get it.

Meanwhile, Malachi, bloody knife in hand, walks to the car Vicky is currently sitting in. She’s sort of asleep. She hears a noise, wakes up, and GETS OUT OF THE CAR. If Vicky doesn’t make it through this movie, it’s going to be her own fault.

She wanders away from the vehicle, calling to Burt while Malachi stands by the car, casting an ominous shadow. She walks over to the Jacob, kneels down, and says how sorry she is.

Jacob sits up.

Vicky wakes up. DREAM SEQUENCE!

Burt is there. He calms her down.

Then he stuffs Jacob’s body in the trunk of his car, and drives away. While stalker-cam watches from the corn.

And we’re back with Boy and Sarah. Boy informs us, via voice-over, that they liked to go back to their house to play. Malachi said it was forbidden, but they do it anyway. These kids have a death wish.

Boy and Sarah are playing Monopoly, and bantering in a way that is probably supposed to be funny. But the kids have all the comic timing of a pair of worn-out staplers. So instead they kill a couple minutes of screen time, and then Malachi throws a knife into their Monopoly board.

Burt and Vicky drive. Burt reveals to Vicky that Jacob’s throat was cut. They both suspect they were being watched.

Regardless, they keep driving towards Gatlin. This is puzzling to me, because it seems that if Jacob is dead, and they’re near the barn, they should already be IN Gatlin, not two miles away from it.

But whatever.

Malachi takes Boy and Sarah to go see Isaac, who is the creepy little preacher boy who called for the killing of all the adults. Malachi rats out the tots, stating that they were playing a game, and listening to music, and also they had “this.” This being a drawing of Vicky and Burt’s car, driving towards Gatlin.

Isaac tells Sarah that she has the gift of sight. He tells Malachi to take them back where they were. And also, to tell “the old man” not to tell Vicky and Burt anything.

Malachi is unhappy, because the kids have a game, and also music, and Isaac admonishes Malachi, stating that Isaac is doing “his” will.

Malachi drags the kids off.

Vicky and Burt drive towards Gatlin. Burt wants to open Jacob’s suitcase. He turns on the radio again, and listens to the radio preacher for a second. He turns the radio off.

Vicky opens the suitcase. There are a few things in there, but the notable one is a cross made out of corn cobs. Burt refers to it as “primitive folk art,” while Vicky just says its “repulsive.”

Mostly, I’m wondering why Jacob kept the thing in his suitcase if he was running away.

And now: The Old Man. It seems the old man is a loon who runs the local gas station. As we meet him, he’s working on a vehicle, while yelling at his dog to bring him a bunch of different wrenches.

Vicky and Burt drive up. The Old Man says he doesn’t have any gas, and that if Burt doesn’t buy gas he can’t use the restroom. He tells Burt to take a turn and go to a city that is not Gatlin.

Burt asks about Gatlin, and The Old Man tells Burt that people there got religion and they don’t “cotton” to outsiders.

Burt leaves.

The dog, meanwhile, barks at something behind the corn, and then heads that direction. The Old Man heads after him. A hand goes into his truck and grabs a tire iron.

The Old Man turns around, and he think he hears something in his gas station. So he goes back that way. He goes into the station. He still thinks someone is in there. Outside, the hood of his vehicle slams shut, because loud noises equal cheap scares.

The Old Man goes back outside. He yells at the corn that he kept his bargain, and didn’t tell Vicky and Burt anything.

He opens the hood of his truck. There’s something bloody in there. It appears to be the dog’s scarf. This makes The Old Man sad, and then mad. He picks up a tire iron and heads back into the barn behind the gas station.

Tire irons: The weapon of choice in this fine film. Followed closely by knives.

Malachi is in the barn. It’s go time!

And by, “It’s go time,” I mean, “Now we’ll cut over to Vicky and Burt, who keep trying to avoid Gatlin, but every sign they pass says they’re headed there, so they drive through some corn and arrive back where they started, at the gas station, and Burt yells out the window at the old man, only we get a shot of the old man’s arm, with the strong implication that the old dude is dead.”

Out in the corn, Isaac holds up his little corn cob cross and preaches at the kids that he had a dream. It seems a time of tribulation has come – the final test. First, Jacob ran away, but his blood couldn’t be spilled on the corn (um… it was) so he was cast upon the road.

Now, two unbelievers are coming: a man and a woman. We already know about them, so I’ll skip over some details, and go over to Boy and Sarah, who are hiding at the edge of the corn and having the following conversation:

Boy: “I wish Isaac never came here.”

Sarah: “But he’s always been here, just like He Who Walks Behind the Rows.”

This strikes me as a weak answer for moviegoers asking a very obvious question: Where does a little weasel like Isaac come from, anyway? After all, he appears to be a kid, but kids aren’t usually allowed to wander from town to town preaching, or whatever it was he was doing before this movie started.

Isaac says that the “Outlanders” are going to have to be sacrificed, like the Blue Man. The Blue Man is the withered husk of a cop, which is currently residing on a cross made of corn.

The kids all get up and start chanting, and Boy and Sarah sneak off.

Burt and Vicky finally make it to Gatlin, and they pull into the city. There’s no one there. At least, no one they can see.

Two kid spies, however, spot them and go running off.

Burt stops the car at Hansen’s Café and they go inside, looking for a phone. They ponder what’s up with all the corn, which is pretty much scattered everywhere. Burt finds the pay phone and goes to make a call. The phone is dead.

Burt and Vicky prepare to leave. They spot some kids poking in and around their car. They run out, and the kids run off. Burt and Vicky get in the car and give chase. The kids vanish.

Vicky tells Burt they should go on to the next town. Burt decides this is not the worst idea ever, and they drive off.

Just as they’re about to leave town, Burt sees a door closing at the house on the edge of town. So they get out of the car and go to investigate.

No one answers the door, so Burt walks in. They wander around, and find the non-working phone. Vicky shows Burt a magazine that’s three years old. I guess someone cancelled all the mail, after every adult was killed.

Burt hears a noise upstairs, and goes to check it out.

He wanders around for a bit, and then finds a bunch of Sarah’s drawings taped to the wall. He wanders around some more, and the movie decides to use all the pent-up suspense by having Burt run into Vicky all of a sudden.

They hear music, and go to check it out. They find Sarah , who tells them all the adults are in the corn field. Burt figures they’re at a meeting, but Sarah tells them the truth. Isaac put all the adults in the corn field, and also he’s their leader, and also, he’s scary.

Burt doesn’t buy any of this, so he decides to leave the car with Vicky, so he can walk back to the town hall. Vicky asks if they’re safe here.

Burt replies, “It’s a little weird here, but it’s safe.”

Burt’s definition of a “little weird” is WAY different than mine.

Way. Different.

Vicky stays behind to grill Sarah.

She discovers that Sarah is “drawing pictures,” and that Malachi said that was bad. Vicky insists that Sarah draw some more pictures. Sarah thinks this is awesome. So she starts drawing.

Burt goes back into town. He looks in the school. There’s a bunch of corn laying around inside. He goes by the old church. There’s more corn. A kid spots him, but he doesn’t spot the kid.

Malachi and a bunch of other kids go to the house where Sarah and Vicky are currently using the forbidden crayons.

They have various sharp objects.

Burt wanders around the town. Kids spot him. They, too, have sharp objects.

The kids back at the house sneak into the house at various entrance points. Not that there’s any reason to avoid using the door. At all.

Vicky asks to see Sarah’s drawing, and Sarah hands it over. Vicky looks at it, concerned, and asks, “What is this?”

She hears a noise, and calls out to Burt. Only Burt’s not here, man. No, it’s Malachi and company. She asks what they want, and Malachi says, “We want to give you peace.”

Vicky takes that as a bad sign, so she runs upstairs and into a room and she slams and holds the door. One of the kids drives an axe through the door, Vicky backs up, and the kids come in and take her while Sarah just kind of watches with her hands over her ears.

In the town, Burt goes into the cop shop, and finds more corn. And a blood-spattered picture of a woman having fire blown on her by a dragon. Burt remembers the, “Are we safe?” conversation, and he runs back to the house where Vicky is.

He sees his car, which has a bunch of corn stuffed in it.

He goes into the house, and asks Sarah where Vicky is.

Turns out, she’s tied up on a corn cross in a clearing in the nearby field.

In the same area, Isaac and Malachi argue like crazy people speaking in another language. Apparently, He Who Walks Behind the Rows is mad at Malachi because Malachi killed the old man when he still had gas they could use. And He’s not too happy about Jacob, either.

Malachi, in turn, wants to know when they’re going to do something about Job and Sarah. Ah. Boy really does have a name.

Isaac is all, “I am the one true connection to He Who Walks Behind the Rows! Do not question!”

At the house, Burt continues to probe Sarah for answers. Then he finders he drawing, which indicates Vicky is totally going to end up as a sacrifice.

Burt goes out back and calls to Vicky. There’s corn there. The corn suddenly parts for him, indicating which way he should go. So he starts walking, instead of running the other way, which might be a good idea now.

The church bell starts to clang. Burt runs.

The kids pick up Vicky’s cross and get her up in the air. The kids all start chanting, “Kill! Kill!” This goes on for a while, because it’s both menacing and cheap to shoot.

Elsewhere, an older kid takes a knife and carves a star (or perhaps a pentacle?) into his bare chest. Blood flows out. A date is written in blood on a scroll.

Burt goes running into the church.

There’s a verbal confrontation, which lays out like so:

Burt: What are you guys doing?

Dude with Star Cut Into His Chest: We go to He Who Walks Behind the Rows on the first day of our 19th year.

Girl Running the Ceremony: (To Random Kid) Bring Malachi to deal with the interloper!

There’s some light tussling, and the girl stabs Burt with the chest-carving knife. Burt pulls it out and brandishes it at the kids to get them to back off. They do. Burt runs.

The kids chase him.

Burt tries to hide, but there really isn’t anywhere to go. The kids are everywhere.

Finally, he ends up in the center of town, with a bunch of kids circled around him.

Malachi arrives, and yells, “Outlander!” And Burt runs again.

He somehow manages to elude his captors, taking refuge in one of many abandoned buildings. Malachi walks by a window, sees something, and goes inside.

Burt crouches, and when Malachi gets close, Burt stabs him in the leg. Then he stands up and clocks himself in the head.

Still mobile, he runs again. Job finds him, and takes him to a cellar to hide. Sarah is also there. It’s actually an old bomb shelter, complete with food. It seems none of the other kids know about the place.

Job tells Burt about Isaac, and where everyone’s parents went. Burt takes all the news with little show of surprise.

In the corn field, Isaac and Malachi argue about what He Would Walks Behind the Rows really wants. Isaac thinks they should just sacrifice Vicky. Malachi thinks they should sacrifice both Vicky and Burt together.

So Malachi makes a power grab, and demands that the kids cut Vicky down and Isaac be put up on the cross.

Strangely, the kids go along with this, even though Isaac is the entire reason all the adults are dead. None of them even appear to question the idea.

So Malachi takes Vicky and a bunch of his foot soldiers back into town, and he yells out to Burt: “Outlander! We have your woman!”

Love it.

Burt doesn’t come out. So Malachi cuts Vicky, to get her to scream. Then he does some taunting. Only Burt can’t hear Malachi.

Burt tells Sarah and Job to lead him to the clearing where Vicky is being held. They all head out.

Back at the clearing, the kid with the carving on his chest is ready to “celebrate his birthday.” Malachi tells him that Isaac will be joining him. Isaac does the whole, “This is blasphemy!” thing.

Job and Sarah take Burt to a barn, and they look out the window on the second floor. They can see the clearing from there.

Burt leaves the kids there, and heads to the circle.

Night falls.

The kid with the carving on his chest hears the growling of He Who Walks Behind the Rows, and he walks into the corn. The ground moves like there’s something slithery and living underneath it.

Isaac, from his cross, calls out that he did everything the creature wanted. But it doesn’t matter. A really, really, really poorly animated red and yellow light flashes over him, and then his cross shoots in the air while he screams like a woman.

Burt runs into the clearing, grabs Vicky, and shoves her away, telling her to run.

Burt stands in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by kids with weapons, and demands to know what kind of a god demands that kids kill their parents. The kids seem unsure, and somewhat confused.

Burt continues to talk: “Any religion, without love and compassion is false. It’s a lie!”

This is a surprisingly philosophical movie.

Well, it was for a minute, anyway. Malachi leaps from the crowd and tackles Burt. They tussle. Burt gets Malachi on the ground and starts smacking him in the face. He gets up, holding Malachi’s knife.

Then he throws in the knife on the ground as a demonstration of this compassion thing he was talking about, and walks away.

Malachi yells out to the kids to get Burt, but they don’t move.

And then there’s some screaming: “Malachi! He wants you too, Malachi.”

Isaac is back, talking in a deep, and deeply freaky voice. He’s all white and ashy, too, which probably means something. Couldn’t tell you what.

Malachi looks very sad about this.

Isaac walks up to Malachi and grabs him by the neck.

All the other kids run to the barn where Job and Sarah are. So does Burt.

A storm kicks up.

Burt and Vicky debate whether it’s safer to stay in the barn, or to try to get back to the road.

Burt asks Job if anyone ever tried to hurt the creature. Turns out that the “blue man” did. It seems he talked to the preacher, and then came to the field with a page torn out of the bible.

For some reason, Job has the page now. He pulls it out, and Burt reads a highlighted section:

“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. Where the beast, and the false prophet are, and shall forever be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Burt asks what that’s supposed to mean?

Vicky determines that this means the cop was going to try to burn the creature. Job says yeah, only he was stopped by Malachi.

Burt figures the cop must have been planning to use the fuel the kids were making from the corn (yes, this was mentioned before, but it was sort of ridiculous, so I left it out up until now) to burn the beast.

Burt tells the kids to get him a bunch of hoses and some glass bottles.

He gets one bottle, fills it with corn fuel, and makes a Molotov cocktail. Then he hooks up a hose to the burn-y corn fuel and heads out into the corn with an “I love you, Vicky.”

Things go okay until the corn attacks him, knocking to the ground and administering the kind of beating only corn can give.

Job runs out and frees Burt. Burt tells him to go back to the barn. Job does not obey.

Burt goes to some kind of machine, and jams the fuel hose into it. He tells Job to turn a valve. Then Job guides him through starting the machine.

I really wish I knew what the machine was.

Finally, it starts up. Turns out, the machine is one of those really large sprinkler systems that farmers have when they need to water a really, really, really large area.

So, it seems that Burts plan is to set fire to the entire corn field. I cannot say the man thinks small.

Bad animation rises up from the corn in a semi-threatening manner.

Burt runs over to Job and lights his Molotov cocktail. He throws it. He manages to hit the one part of the field NOT covered in fuel.

Job runs to pick up the cocktail, while the animation looms overhead, and also whatever it is under the dirt continues to run around under the dirt.

Burt keeps calling to Job, and for some reason it sounds like he’s yelling out, “Joey!”

Job grabs the Molotov, and runs back to Burt. He tells Burt to “throw it right this time.” Burt throws it. There is fire.

Also, some more bad animation. Back at the barn, Vicky and Sarah call out to Burt and “Job-y!” I guess that’s what Burt was yelling. Regardless, it sounds ridiculous. I’m wondering if the kid’s name was “Joey” originally, but then someone realized that didn’t sound all that biblical, so they changed it to Job in post, and then tried to cover it up.

At any rate, the four of them watch as the fire goes BOOM a couple of times. Then Burt suggests they run. Good thinking.

The fire rages, burning away the bad animation, which spontaneously develops into a huge, not-very-well animated face. The face screams. There is also animated lightning.

Then the face vanishes.

Job yells out, “Is he dead?” Burt says yes. The kid asks, “Then why are we still running?”

I dunno, Job. Maybe it’s because there are still a bunch of kids running around carrying implements of death?

Everyone reaches the car, which is still stuffed with corn, though for some reason it appears to be less stuffed than it was previously. Burt notes that the nearest town is 19 miles away. Vicky asks if they can walk.

Burt says yeah. Vicky and Burt share some light banter, and they kiss. Job and Sarah giggle. Since we’re getting to the end of the film, and the screenwriter needs to tie up some loose ends, Burt and Vicky determine that Job and Sarah can live with them for a while.

I’m sure that will raise no questions from anyone. I mean, it’s not like Burt is, like, 26, and Job is, like, 9, and he and Vicky aren’t married, and the kids don’t really look anything like them, and also Burt and Vicky were in that town where all the corn burned to the ground, and like 600 other suspicious things. And let us not forget the dead body in Burt’s trunk.

Burt gets into the car to grab their map, which has been SO useful up to this point, and when he sits down, the girl who stabbed him earlier is sitting in the back seat, waiting to finish the job.

She attacks, Burt fights back. He gets out of the car, she lunges, and he slams the car door, which knocks her out cold.

Burt asks aloud what he should do, and Vicky says, “Send her a get-well card from Seattle.”

The words THE END burn into the screen, the credits start rolling, and Vicky, Burt, Job and Sarah walk away from the car and out of town.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

2010-06-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

For a change, we don’t get a scroll. Instead we just get a big block of text:

“August 18th, 1973. News of a bizarre, chainsaw wielding family – reports which were to ignite the world’s imagination – began to filter out of central Texas. Regrettably not one of the family members was ever apprehended and for more than ten years nothing further was heard. Then, over the next several years at least two minor, yet apparently related incidents, were reported. Then again nothing. For five long years silence…”

Oh, good gravy.

I guess the “apparently related” incidents are part 2 and part III?

I don’t really want to take the time to unpack everything that’s wrong with this, but I guess it’s my job, so here goes:

Everything.

Easier than I thought.

Astoundingly, this doesn’t mention Sally and her invalid brother Franklin. Then again, it doesn’t mention Stretch, or Enright, or Michelle, or anyone. At all. And in direct opposition to part III, no one was ever apprehended. And we can pretend that Sally is still alive, though we have no idea if she’s in a coma still, or not.

I’m not sure that there are three sequels to “Chainsaw,” at this point. I suspect that, instead, what we have is one original and three different attempts to make a “Part 2.”

All right. Let’s keep moving.

First burn-in: May 22, 1996.

Annnd… credits.

Including an “Introducing,” tacked in front of the guy playing Leatherface.

Credits over. Moving along.

We’ve got a pair of lips. Lipstick is applied.

Then the tube of lipstick is dropped, and the girl who just put it on wipes it off.

A girl puts on what looks like a prom dress. She calls out to her mom.

There’s a flash, and we watch an older woman take pictures of the girl, and a guy. They are dressed up to go to what I’m guessing is the prom.

Then we’re outside a gym, and a bunch of kids are running around, only we haven’t established any of them, so I have no clue who they are.

Then we’re inside the building but outside the actual prom, and some OTHER girl asks an older woman if she’s seen Barry. Who we haven’t met. The woman thought the girl and Barry broke up, but this is not the case.

The girl talks to another girl who talks with some sort of a tick. Then she talks to the first girl we saw, and her date. They haven’t seen Barry either.

So the girl goes outside, where a bunch of people who we don’t know are having a conversation. And the girl yells out, asking if anyone has seen Barry.

I haven’t seen Barry yet, but I really, really, really hate that guy.

The girl walks around, and catches Barry making out with some other chick. Barry calls out to the girl, who runs away. Her name is Heather, by the way.

Heather gets into her car and goes racing around the parking lot, while Barry chases her. He catches up to her and gets into her car as she pulls out of the parking lot.

Heather is mad at Barry. Barry says he only kissed the other girl once. And also, guys need sweet, sweet loving or they’ll get “prostrate” cancer.

In the back seat, that girl we saw at the beginning of the movie and her date sit up, and the girl says, “That’s a lie.”

Then Heather slams her car into another car.

Then she drives away, to complete the hit-and-run.

The girl whose name we don’t know? Jenny. Her date is Sean. There’s a bunch of exposition, so that we can know lots of things about these characters aside from the fact that they’re kind of hateful:

Sean: Stoner.

Jenny: Hasn’t felt the touch of a man. Sean is just a friend.

Heather: Dumb.

Barry: Dumb, mean, and a liar. Also, they’re in his car. Or his dad’s car. I’m not sure which. It’s not Heather’s car. So I’m not sure how Jenny and Sean got in there, or what they were doing there, and I’m not sure why Heather is driving it.

Regardless, they keep on driving, even though it seems they all hate each other and the prom is the other way.

Heather turns off on some freaky side road, which passes through the middle of the woods. Why? Who knows.

Everyone tells her to turn around, but she can’t find a place to do it. Then a car runs into them. Where did that other car come from? No idea.

Now the two cars are in a ditch. The other driver gets out of the car, and says he’s not hurt. Then he falls to the ground. Heather is all, “He’s gonna die.” The rest of them figure the kid will live.

Barry tries to drive his car out of the ditch. It won’t go. No one thinks to try pushing the car, because why would they?

Jenny is smart enough to try random dude’s car, but it won’t even start, so no luck there.

Jenny decides that they need to go get help, and everyone argues about who should go. Heather really wants to come along, but she asks Barry for a flashlight.

Jenny starts walking. Barry and Heather go with her. They have a flashlight. So they walk for a while. To build suspense. Also, Heather talks about a dream she had where she was chased by a murderer. She says they’re all going to die.

Heather jerks around and knocks the flashlight out of Barry’s hands. It falls to the ground and stops working, so Heather thinks they should stop walking and start a fire.

I am growing less and less shocked that Barry cheated on Heather.

Barry gets the flashlight working. There’s something dead on the ground. No clue what that is. This is the most poorly lit movie I think I’ve ever seen. It’s like they shot every outside scene using pen lights with four-year-old batteries.

They find a small building that has the light on. They go in. There’s a woman at the desk.

They tell the woman at the desk to call an ambulance because there’s a guy dying.

Heather demands that someone bring her a glass of water, even though there’s a water cooler perhaps three feet from her arm.

The woman calls some dude named Vilmer, who isn’t there to pick up the phone. She flashes some cleavage, which Jenny admires. For some reason.

The woman tells Jenny that they’re phony as three-dollar bills, but that they changed her life. She doubled her commissions.

Well, this is an awkward conversion.

Barry gets Heather some water. No idea why.

The lady talks to Vilmer, and gets him pointed in the right direction. She hangs up, then tells a blond joke, which Heather doesn’t get. Wow, is this not a fun movie.

The window shatters as something flies through it. Or maybe it just blows up, because really it just goes BAM and there’s glass.

The lady seems not at all worried about this. She claims it’s some “farmer’s wife.”

She goes to the window, and says, “Like I’m even interested.” Then she pulls up her shirt and adds, “See ‘em and weep, boys!”

Outside, a car drives by. There is hooting. The woman says that the high school boys are always doing something to get her to flash them.

She seems pretty nonchalant about the fact that someone just smashed her window.

Moving right along, we head back over to Sean and the hurt kid. The hurt kid mumbles something, and a tow truck drives up. I suspect these two things are unrelated.

A dude with a contraption on his leg gets out of the tow truck, and Sean asks if there’s an ambulance coming.

Contraption man walks over to the hurt kid, and says he’s dead. Sean says the kid is not dead. Contraption man snaps the kid’s neck. Man, some dudes just don’t like to be wrong.

Sean starts backing away from Contraption man. Contraption man tells Sean that there’s no point in Sean running away.

Sean asks what Contraption is going to do to him. Contraption says, “First, I’m gonna kill you.”

He keeps talking, and while he’s talking… um… I guess Sean runs away. We don’t actually see him run away, mind. Instead, Contraption says a few more lines of dialogue, and then gets in his truck and starts driving in an unclear direction.

I guess he’s going after Sean.

And now we’re back with the rest of the gang. They’re going to go back to Sean. The woman who did the flashing a little while ago says she’s can’t give them a ride. They ask if someone at the “service station” across the street could give them a ride, but the lady says the man who runs it is likely to shoot first and ask questions later.

Okay, so, there’s a service station across the street? Why didn’t they go there first?

And maybe it’s just the way the movie is shot, but the “service station” just looks like a house.

The gang starts walking down the road.

And now we’re back with Sean and Contraption. Sean is, in fact, running away, with Contraption driving slowly behind him. Contraption catches up to Sean, and Sean asks what he did wrong.

Contraption says Sean is just out of luck.

Sean asks that Contraption “give him a chance.”

If Sean really wanted a chance, perhaps he could consider RUNNING INTO THE WOODS, where Contraption’s truck can’t drive. That would sure help his cause. Also, as pointed out before Contraption has a crippled leg. So he probably can’t follow all that well, either.

At any rate Sean then runs down the road in the opposite direction, so Contraption starts driving after him. Backwards. He hits Sean. I think. It doesn’t really look like it, because it’s really poorly shot.

Then Contraption drives the truck over Sean’s body a few times, though we don’t actually get to see it, because everything is super-dark. Inside the cab, it just looks like the vehicle is nudging back and forth, and outside, it looks like the truck is just moving forward and backward.

If there’s something under the wheels, it isn’t visible.

I confess I’m feeling less than terrified at the moment.

And now we’re back with the rest of the gang. Heather’s feet hurt, and now she wants a piggyback ride.

Barry tells her to lose 20 pounds. Yes ladies, he’s a catch.

A car comes up the road, ignoring all the kids. Barry yells to the car, saying that they’ll pay the dude in the vehicle. He drives past them, and turns down a side road. Heather and Barry chase after them, leaving Jenny alone with the flashlight.

After a moment, Jenny finally starts walking after Heather and Barry. She whisper-yells to them. Why? Who is going to hear her? A maniac in a tow truck, perhaps?

Either way, she tells her “friends” that she’s going back to Sean.

A motorcycle drives by, but doesn’t stop.

Jenny starts calling out. She wants to know who is there. No one is there. Suddenly, a PLASTIC TRASH BAG BLOWS ON HER FACE.

I guess the writer/director couldn’t afford a cat.

Jenny presses on.

And now we’re back with Heather and Barry. Because I want you to understand how little fun Heather is to be around, allow me to share with you the little monologue she gives to Barry while they continue following a car that’s not headed towards their friend in any way:

“Barry, wait. Stop. What if they’re murderers and they want us to follow them, so they can hide behind trees and stab us? There could be dead people buried all around us, and we’d never know. They could tie us up in a cellar and no one would ever hear us.”

Barry points out that no one has cellars in this area.

So Heather KEEPS TALKING: “Okay, that’s it. Don’t call me dumb, Barry. I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I’m not stupid. I just act that way sometimes to get people to like me. All those stories about murders and people following me, I know it’s not true. It’s better than being bored. I’ll tell you what’s stupid, is that line you gave me about you and that girl, Brenda. Not even a little kid would believe that.”

Honestly, I’m not going to say that the original “Chainsaw” was a brilliant character analysis. The characters barely had names, barely had a reason to be where they were, and when you examine everything that happens in the original flick, it’s doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

But at least it was kind of freaky, and you didn’t actively hope that certain characters would be the first to go.

The fact that both these characters are vapid, even if they admit to it? It doesn’t make them fun to be around. Worse yet, it doesn’t make them interesting, either. I can appreciate that the writer is trying to give us something to cling to, but all he’s doing is giving them less sympathy, not more.

Heather concludes her monologue by saying that she wishes she was more like Jenny. It seems that Jenny’s mother is always getting married “every 15 minutes” and her dads are always hitting on her. Heather says, with envy, that she’s had P.E. with Jenny, and Jenny has a body to die for.

Now, somewhere in this world exists a longer cut of this movie, which makes some scenes even LONGER (Why? Why!?) and puts in a subplot about Jenny being molested by her stepfather. I tried to find it, but didn’t have any luck. And I can’t say I’m too hurt by that. Spending another 10 minutes with these characters doesn’t exactly hold a lot of appeal.

And speaking of Jenny, now we’re back with her. She’s still walking along. Alone. Calling out to Sean. At least she’s yelling again, instead of whisper-yelling.

The flashlight dies. Jenny stands there.

Heather and Barry finally reach a house. It probably took them longer to walk there than it would to get back to where Sean was. Heather says to offer them $50, but to not actually pay it. Just have them send a bill. She says her father does it all the time.

They get to the door. Heather knocks. No one answers. Barry says the people might be out back. In the dark. Right. So he goes to check.

All the windows are boarded up, by the way. But there are lights on.

Barry keeps walking, and peeks through a window slat. He just sees a broken-down old house. So he keeps on walking to the general “around back” area.

On the porch, Heather sits. She shuffles a little. Adjusts her dress. Then a dude walks up behind her, and sniffs her hair. The movie is shot in a strangely dark way, so you can’t really see much of anything, but it appears to be our old friend Leatherface.

Leatherface sniffs Heather’s hair. Really, she should clean the wax out of her ears because that porch should have made an awful ruckus when Leatherface climbed up on it from wherever he came from.

Barry keeps walking around the house, until some dude with a shotgun calls him out. They banter, and the dude with the shotgun calls Barry a moron. He speaks the unvarnished truth.

On the porch, they do the hair-smelling thing a couple more times to get some laughs out of it or to try and build suspense. Either way, it doesn’t work. Heather gets up, Leatherface knocks over a broom, and she finally sees him, and screams.

Leatherface grabs her and carries her towards the front door.

Barry almost decides to be a hero, but then he remembers that he’s got a shotgun pointed at him. Though even if the gun weren’t there, I sort of think Barry probably would have been, like, “Whatever. I have other options. Apparently Jenny is super-hot, and has low self-esteem…”

Leatherface drags Heather into the house. She gets free, and goes into another room, and latches the door.

There’s freaky stuff in that thar room.

Leatherface breaks down the door. He grabs Heather, and pulls her down the hall for a while. I will say, Heather puts up quite a fight.

Finally, Leatherface sticks Heather in a large freezer. Heather kicks her way out. Leatherface shoves her back in. They do this a couple of times, and Leatherface finally realizes he should put something heavy on top of the freezer.

Leatherface runs out into the hall, away from the screaming girl in the freezer.

Outside, Barry is still getting walked around by the shotgun guy. They go to the front door. Barry informs the man with the gun that if he goes inside, it’s considered kidnapping.

Then he decides to go in, noting that he needs to use the bathroom anyway. The moment he’s in the front door, he locks the other dude outside. And calls him a name.

The dude does not shoot the door. Even though it appears that none of these people are related to anyone in the first (or second, or third) movie, I guess he still remembers Leatherface getting in trouble for messing up the door in the first movie.

Barry wanders through the house, calling to Heather. And also, he really is looking for a bathroom. He’s very, very leisurely about the whole thing, considering there’s a dude with a shotgun outside the front door.

He finds a bathroom, and goes to make urine. He brags to Heather, wherever she is, about how he locked the dude with the shotgun outside. I like the fact that he has yet to consider how he’s going to get back out of the house.

He finishes emptying his bladder, turns around, and notices the decomposing body in the tub. He freaks, and runs into the hall without washing his hands.

Leatherface is there with a sledgehammer. He clocks Barry in the head.

You know what would be kind of awesome? If Jenny never saw any of these people again. She just wanders out of the woods, and catches a ride home, never to appear in another scene.

How cool would that be? No idea where she went, people all watching the movie and wondering what happened. I’d love that.

And it wouldn’t make any more or less sense than what’s happened so far.

Disagree? Okay, then. Question for you: Who’s the dude with the shotgun? And what’s with the guy with the bad leg? The opening text implied that these were all the same people, but guess what? With the exception of Leatherface, they aren’t.

Speaking of Leatherface, he kicks Barry for a while, then drags him into the room with the freezer. Heather calls out to Barry. Who knows why?

Leatherface pulls her out of the freezer and sticks her on a meat hook. Heather doesn’t enjoy it. But at least she stops talking.

Outside, we finally get back to Jenny, who flags down the Tow Truck O’ Death.

Contraption and Jenny back and forth, with a whole, “Where’s Sean?” “Get in, I’ll take you there,” thing.

That takes a little screen time. Then Jenny gets into the vehicle, and Contraption says that it’s dangerous to get in cars with strangers, and that some girl got in a car with a dude who cut off her arms and left her for dead. Contraption thinks that guy lacked imagination.

Jenny starts to realize getting in the vehicle was a bad idea, and Contraption tells her to look out the back window. She says that if he stops driving, she’ll look. He stops. She looks. She can see a dead Sean and that other random dude hanging there.

She asks, “What’s gonna happen to me?”

I’m not sure I understand why people in a movie like this ask that question. Also, she seems a lot less hysterical than she should be. She just saw that her friend was dead. On a freaked scale, she should be at something like a seven, and she’s at a two.

She throws herself from the vehicle and runs. At first, she does the same thing that Sean did. Run down a road so the truck can chase her easily. But finally, she runs into a group of trees, out of reach of the vehicle.

She’s kind of stuck in there, though, and she stops moving. Which is dumb, but still makes her the brainiac of her social circle.

Contraption shines a light on her, and babbles for a bit. He concludes with, “Okay. If that’s what you want. It’s up to you. Live and learn.”

Then he drives away.

Jenny looks around the dark, dark woods.

Nothing happens. Then: CHAINSAW!

Yep, it’s Leatherface. Time for running and screaming.

They do that for a bit, then Jenny makes it to the House O’ Death. She locks the door, and runs up the stairs.

Once again, Leatherface forgets it’s his house, and he starts slicing up the door.

Jenny, meanwhile, finds a dead stuffed cop. She takes his gun and starts walking down the stairs.

Leatherface breaks into the house. Jenny points the gun. It goes CLICK. Jenny throws the gun at Leatherface and runs upstairs.

She jumps out a window, and lands on part of the roof. Leatherface steps onto the roof, and they run around on the roof for a while. Jenny climbs the TV antenna, and then leaps into the air and grabs a cable, which I guess is the line to their phone?

Either way, it’s pretty strong, as she starts climbing along it, and that works great until Leatherface cuts the line.

(I feel ashamed to say it, but, “Oh, snap!”)

Jenny falls through what looks like a half-completed shed, and lands on the ground.

She gets up. We get a little cleavage shot. Jenny looks around. And then: CHAINSAW!

How did Leatherface get off the roof so fast?

Whatever. Chase sequence.

Jenny runs and runs, until she ends up at that shack again, where the woman who likes to flash guys is.

Hey, remember this scene in the first movie? Where Sally is running, and she talks to the Pump Jockey, who turns out to be evil? I’m sure that won’t happen again, right?

Nah.

The woman goes out and yells for a bit. Then she comes back in, and says, it’s “Nothing.”

Jenny retorts that there’s a guy out there with a chainsaw. She actually saw the word chainsaw three times in about five seconds.

The woman makes a phone call. This time, she calls a guy named W. E. W. E.? The guy who was tried and executed in the opening scroll of part III? The W. E. who never appeared in any of the other movies?

That guy?

My head hurts.

The woman comforts Jenny for about a minute, and then W. E. shows up. He was the dude with the shotgun, earlier. How did he get there so fast?

The woman tells W. E. to tie Jenny up. W. E. pokes Jenny a couple times with a device that administers a little shock. She falls down. He hits her a few times.

A little while later, she’s tied up in the back of the woman’s car. He shocks her a few more times for fun. The woman tells W. E. to tell Vilmer that she’s going to pick up some pizza and bring them home.

Is this another reference to part III? The pizza thing?

Also, don’t they eat people? What’s with the pizza?

The woman drives away, with Jenny in her trunk. She picks up her food at a drive-through window. The dude at the window tells her he can hear something in her trunk.

She says it’s someone she’s got tied up back there. She asks the dude if he wants to come see. He says yeah. She pops the trunk. He says he probably shouldn’t come out and look, as he might get in trouble.

She steps out of the car and goes to close the trunk again. She tells Jenny to shut up and quit kicking the car. Jenny says she can’t breathe.

Um. Jenny. Now is your chance to kick and run. Go! Go! Go!

Another person pulls up at the drive-through. A bunch of kids also walk by, none of them commenting on the woman talking to Jenny in the trunk.

The woman agrees to poke a hole in the bag on Jenny’s head if Jenny will shut up. She pokes the hole, Jenny shuts up. The woman closes the trunk.

A cop gets out of the car behind the woman, and asks what’s in the trunk. She gets all coy, and says she can’t tell the cop. Then the man in the eatery tells her that her drinks are ready, and the woman takes the drinks and drives away.

Then, as she drives away, the cops drive by and she gives a little wave. Just in case you thought to yourself, “Well, THAT was a stupid scene.” This way, you think it was a stupid scene, and you’re extra annoyed, because it’s actually two stupid scenes now.

Next thing we know, the woman is driving along a dirt road, and there’s Heather. In the middle of the road. Lying down. For some reason.

The woman stops, and Heather asks for help. The woman says she needs to go get a blanket, or something. Then she gets a broken branch, and hits Heather with it. Lightly. Because I guess she isn’t very strong.

While Heather says things like. “Don’t hit me. Stop.”

Not that she tries to get up and run away.

The woman gets back into her car, with the admonishment that Heather shouldn’t try crawling away, or anything. Then she gets in her car, and drives to the house. She pops the trunk, and brings the pizza in.

Leatherface and W. E. come out. Leatherface pulls Jenny out of the car and brings her in. W. E. pokes him with his electric toy.

The woman also tells them to go get Heather, since she’s crawling off down the road.

Inside, the woman talks to Vilmer, who isn’t happy that none of his batteries are charged. They argue.

Then W. E. comes in, all mad about the door that got chopped up.

Interestingly, the front door was just fine in the previous shot. Continuity much, people?

Vilmer tells everyone to be quiet a second, and opens the bag that’s holding Jenny, so they can have some crazy banter. I’ll admit, the banter sure is crazy, and I think if we had a movie that consisted of just Vilmer and Jenny, the creep factor would be a lot higher.

But no. We’ve got the other lunkheads in the movie too, which means that Vilmer eventually stops yacking about how he might or might not kill Jenny, and instead tells everyone to look at the busted door. Which he then tosses in the trash on the floor.

W. E. quotes something at the woman. (You know what? I’m tired of calling her that. So I looked up her name. Darla. I’m sorry, I just can’t hack it any more.). W. E. has been doing this the whole movie – at least half his dialogue is random quotes.

Interesting character trait? No. No, it is not.

W. E. goes out, and Jenny asks Darla for help. She wants to know what’s up with Vilmer. Darla says she thinks Vilmer is from outer space.

Vilmer and W. E. drag Heather in, and now Jenny wonders aloud what they’re going to do to Heather. Turns out, Vilmer is going to bite her in the face, while Leatherface lifts Jenny in the air, and W. E. pokes Jenny with his shock-stick.

This scene cuts to one in another room, where Darla comforts Jenny for no reason at all, and says she’s really pretty, and says she’s got a really nice dress that would look great on Jenny.

Jenny says, “I just don’t want to die.” Darla says, “Of course you don’t.”

Okay, first of all? I am SO happy this is the last chapter in the saga. This movie makes no sense, these characters make no sense, and I have no idea what’s going on.

Consider: We still have Leatherface, but no one else from the original family. Up to this point, we haven’t even seen Grandpa, the only character not named Leatherface that appeared in all the other films.

Second issue: So, are these people cannibals, or what? Eating human flesh is what these people DO. But not here. Here I guess they’re just serial killers. Except, not really. There aren’t many bones around, and they just bought a bunch of pizzas.

Consider the original. By now, Sally was well on the way to insane. Most of the second half of the movie is chasing, beating, and the dinner sequence. And what are these yahoos doing?

Talking. A lot. And while a little crazy talk can be fun, it’s more like they’re playing good psycho, bad psycho with her. To what end? This is a horror movie, right? So where’s the horror at? It’s like they keep forgetting what kind of movie they’re making.

But back to Jenny and Darla, with a note on an earlier scene:

A few minutes ago, Vilmer made a comment about the FBI having the house wired. And now, Darla goes off on some rant about there are people who control everything. Not the government, mind you, but some other group that’s been running things for 1000, or 2000 years.

Darla can’t remember which.

Having finished her crazy-speech, Darla is tossed out of the room by Vilmer, who then starts beating lightly on Jenny again.

He pulls out a knife, and counts backwards from 10, giving her these ten seconds to come up with a reason not to kill her. Her answer?

“You want me alive for some reason.”

This is good enough for Vilmer, who walks out of the room, saysing, “It kind of makes you think, doesn’t it? Smart girl.”

Ah. I see. We’re watching a movie about government plots. That might explain the distinct lack of terror I’m feeling.

Leatherface picks up Jenny and drags her back to the kitchen. Darla and Vilmer are beating each other up. W. E. is just kind of standing there. And Leatherface seems to be sad that Vilmer and Darla are fighting.

So Jenny gets up out of her chair, and grabs a nearby shotgun, which she brandishes at everyone. She tells everyone to get on the floor.

Darla, W. E., and Leatherface get on the floor. Vilmer decides to continue with the crazy talk. First, he takes out a knife and cuts himself. Then he tells Jenny the shotgun isn’t loaded. Then Darla says the pizzas are getting cold, so he knocks Darla over and steps on her neck.

Jenny tells Heather to get up, because she’s still lying on the floor. She’s been there all this time. Heather says, “Five more minutes.” Then she almost gets up, but changes her mind and lies back down.

Jenny, who appears offended that Vilmer is still stepping on Darla’s neck, sticks the shotgun in his back. He grabs it, turns around, and sticks it in his mouth. She pulls the trigger. CLICK.

Nothing.

Vilmer takes the gun from her, points it at the window, and pulls the trigger again. It goes BANG. Vilmer begins celebrating like the Sand Person who clocked Luke in Star Wars. Yes, really.

Jenny takes this chance to run away. She gets in Darla’s car, which still has the keys in it, and tries to drive off.

When she backs into the house, Vilmer jumps out of a window on the second(?)(!) floor and lands on the car.

So she drives, while he says crazy things and tries to grab her through the window. She stops the car, and he falls off.

She starts driving forwards, and the hood flips up in front of her.

So she gets out of the car.

And Vilmer grabs her by the ankles.

A minute later, he drags her back in the house, has W. E. hold her, and then he hits her in the face with a shotgun, knocking her out.

Elsewhere in the house, Leatherface dresses in drag. Including lipstick.

Darla goes to the kitchen. Remember how Vilmer has that contraption on his leg? Well, it uses a remote of some kind. Darla tells Vilmer he has to be nice to her, because she can always go back to her husband.

Then she takes the remotes and starts playing with his leg. They go into a passionate embrace. On the kitchen table. Darla appears to be dressed in a prom dress now.

Darla kind of shoves Vilmer off, and grabs a pizza, and goes into the other room, telling him to join her before the food gets cold.

It’s been like an hour. The pizza is cold, lady.

So now we’re in the dining room. Jenny is dressed in some crazy black and silver dress. And there appear to be more bones in the décor, though they don’t look human, for the most part.

Vilmer says, “Welcome to my world!” No idea why. Jenny is still unconscious.

He slaps her awake.

Leatherface, W. E., Darla, and a bunch of dead people are at the table. Jenny starts screaming. Her arms aren’t tied. Vilmer screams back. Finally, everyone stops screaming.

W. E. quotes something at an old dead guy who I guess is grandpa. Or not. No one ever says, and he looks younger and less dead than previous grandpas.

After all the screaming ends, Darla brings over a paper bag for Jenny to breathe into. Jenny says, “Are you gonna help me or not?”

Pretty sure she fell on the side of “not” a long time ago. Why keep asking?

Jenny goes on to say that Vilmer doesn’t work for anyone. He’s just crazy.

Darla says there’s something in her head, and if Vilmer touches a button, her head will explode. Jenny says there’s nothing in her head.

W. E. agrees. Tee-hee.

Vilmer pulls Jenny out of her chair, and says that Leatherface is sick of his current “face,” and that he wants Jenny’s. Jenny slaps Vilmer in the face a couple times, and says, “Don’t you ever touch me!” Vilmer gets the crazy eyes, and then takes a book off the shelf and starts to read it.

Jenny says, “If you’re gonna kill me, then do it.”

This makes Vilmer mad. So he hits Darla, and also W. E.

Grandpa gets up from the table and walks away.

Jenny says, “Now, I’m gonna leave, and no one is gonna stop me.”

I’d just about kill to have even one person in this movie act like a normal human being, or something close to it.

Leatherface gets up and yells. Jenny tells him to sit down and shut up. He does.

Vilmer comes in, throws lighter fluid on Heather, and sets fire to her. She waddles away. Darla puts her out with a fire extinguisher.

A horn honks outside. There’s a car there.

A moment later, there’s a man in a suit at the front door. And also his driver.

Vilmer asks the man what he wants. The man in the suit says he assumes that’s a rhetorical question. Then he refers to Vilmer as a “silly boy.”

He goes into the dining room. Jenny runs into his arms, and says that the people are crazy, and he has to help. He tells her that it’s all right, and does a whole, “There, there,” thing. And he has her sit down.

Suit asks if anyone knows what “this” is. I’d like to know, too.

Then he goes to talk to Vilmer. He says this is appalling, and continues:

“You are here for one reason, and one reason only. Do you understand that? I want to hear you say you understand that. It’s very simple. I want these people to know the meaning of horror. Horror. Is that clear? You don’t want to be a silly boy. Is that clear? Is that clear?”

Suit undoes his tie, and starts to unbutton his shirt. His torso has a strange pattern on it, and also it’s pierced in three spots.

First, he berates Darla for being with Vilmer. Next, he licks Jenny’s face, while Leatherface holds her.

He walks away. He picks up two pieces of pizza off the floor and puts them on the table. He leaves.

Vilmer goes to stand in the corner, and presses a button on his belt. He puts his foot on Heather’s head, and presses another button on his belt. There are crunching noises.

Jenny is finally getting her crazy on. She starts weeping and getting to like a six on the scale of ten.

Vilmer pulls out a knife and starts cutting himself again.

Darla says, “Don’t, it’s not your fault!” She tries to stop him.

Jenny stands up, and walks into the next room. She tries to break through the window, but it’s boarded up.

Vilmer comes and gets her.

They go back to the dining room. Velmar holds Jenny down while Leatherface brandishes his chainsaw.

Jenny grabs the remotes for Velmar’s leg, and starts pressing buttons. She wiggles out of his grasp.

Jenny runs out the front door.

Vilmer tells Leatherface to go get Jenny.

The sun has risen. An old couple, in an RV, drive along the road.

Jenny jumps in front of them and asks them to stop.

The wife says, “Don’t stop.” And also, “There’s a monster chasing her with a chainsaw!”

Then, after she lets Jenny in while they continue to drive, “Step on it, Mr. Spottish!”

I don’t know if he steps on it or not. About a second later, here comes the tow truck, with Leatherface on it, swinging his saw.

They pull alongside the RV, Spottish freaks, and they go off the road and ram into some branches, which causes the RV to flip onto its side.

A small plane flies by overhead.

The tow truck pulls up next to the RV. Jenny runs.

Leatherface and Vilmer chase her.

The plane dives, and rams a wheel into Vilmer’s head. He falls to the ground. There’s lots of blood, so he’s probably dead.

Leatherface, in turn, stands in the middle of the dirt road and screams.

A car honks. Jenny turns and sees it, and runs to get in. The car drives away.

Suit, from earlier, is in the passenger part of what I guess is a small limo. Jenny tries to get out, but Suit says, “You have nothing to fear.”

The car drives past Leatherface, who is still freaking out a bit. Leatherface watches it go, then does his little Leatherface dance from part 1.

But at least Suit is going to explain what we just wasted our time on, right? Wrong. This is what he says:

“This. All of this. It’s been an abomination. (Wow, is this guy ever right!) You really must accept my sincere apologies. It was supposed to be a spiritual experience. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. I suppose it’s something we all live with. People like us who strive for something – a sense of harmony. Perhaps it’s disappointment that keeps us going. Unfortunately, it’s never been easy for me. One of my many failings. Would you like to go to the local hospital? Or to a police station?”

Does anyone else think that whole thing reads like an apology from the writer/director, for making such a horrifically awful flick? “Sorry, folks! I tried to make a scary one, but it doesn’t make a lick of sense. My bad.”

A short while later, Jenny is sitting in a hospital, talking to a cop, who says: “You know, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. We will find out what this is all about. This is not the end of it.”

A woman is wheeled by on a hospital bed. Wow. It’s actually Sally, from movie number one.

Fade to a shot of the sun. Oh, and Leatherface doing his little dance.

And credits.

A fun note: The voices of “Couple in RV?” They aren’t the same as the people playing them. Those dudes are dubbed. That’s going to plague me. Though probably not as much as this little fiddle tune playing under the credits.

Though once again, I guess I’m just happy it doesn’t feature Leatherface rapping.

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

2010-06-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

First, a couple of dedications:

Number one: This one is for Danny Grossman, who, when I announced that a local video store had gone out of business, sent me his copy of this movie. He’s not just good people, he’s great people.

Number two: A moment of silence for Hollywood Video. They were there when I needed Halloween III, then vanished before I could rent “Leatherface.” Video rental places are closing down, and soon the world will never be the same.

That said, let’s talk “Leatherface.”

As per usual, we’ve got a scroll:

“On August 18th, 1973, Sally Hardesty, her invalid brother Franklin, and their friends fell afoul of a bizarre, cannibalistic clan of serial predators. Ms. Hardesty was the sole survivor of that night of terror. She died in a private health care facility in 1977.

“A single member of the murderous “family” lived to see trial. The prosecution recorded his name as W. E. Sawyer. He died in the gas chamber in 1981.

“The jurors concluded that ‘Leatherface,’ presumed to be an unapprehended killer, was in fact an alternate personality of Sawyer’s, activated whenever he donned a crude mask made of human flesh.

“If there was no Leatherface in reality, then Sally Hardesty may at last rest in peace… If there actually was a Leatherface, he remains at large, and the so-called ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre…’

“…Was only the beginning.”

Wow.

Where to even start.

Pretty much everything in this scroll negates all the events that happened in part II, up to and including the scroll at the start of that movie.

II: No one was ever caught, and the massacre never happened.

III: Someone was caught, but only one someone. And while the last name, Sawyer, is the right last name, I don’t think it matches up with the name of any of the previous characters. So who did they catch? The hitchhiker that was run over by the 18 wheeler?

Did that guy survive to be tried?

Also, as far as the last movie went, Sally was still alive. And when that movie ended, Leatherface had a chainsaw through his belly, and the “dad” had just fired off a grenade.

And what happened to Stretch? Why doesn’t she get a mention? And what about Enright? And L.G.?

Are we just pretending part II never happened? I mean, I guess I can play that game, but why not call this one “Leatherface,” and leave the Part III off of it? The III implies that it follows II, and it really, really, really doesn’t. At all.

This is just the first minute-and-a-half.

Then we get a blond woman screaming, and a sledgehammer falling, and then they throw the title at us, which is listed at: “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.”

No “The” in the title, even though it’s on the box.

Then we’ve got a person writhing on the floor. Who might be the blond. I guess she is.

And the credits. And shots of some hands making a mask out of a human face. Using scissors and such.

Don’t you have to cure the flesh, or do something to it to make it into actual leather you can sew?

At any rate, the back of Leatherface keeps on making arts and crafts. Some woman looks in the window as he does it. She seems way less freaked out than she should be.

She moves her foot. Something goes “snap!” Leatherface looks up, then goes outside and slams a big old metal door, which is supposed to remind you of when that happened in the first movie. Wasn’t that cool, that first time?

Yeah. It’s a little boring now.

And now we’re out on a dusty highway in, I guess, Texas. A car is coming towards us. The radio is blaring something about a pond bed with the remains of several dead bodies in it.

Inside the car, we’ve got Ryan and Michelle, a lovely young couple who are driving across the country so that they can die in this fine motion picture. We get some backstory. One is headed to Florida, and the other to New York. And we learn through some kinda-dull banter that no matter what happens, they’re going to break up.

They hear about the dead people on the radio. Ryan thinks that whoever killed those people should “fry.” Michelle, on the other hand, thinks that violence begets violence. This is known as a “setup,” which will pay off later when Michelle confronts a clan of serial killers, and is unable to get them to make arts and crafts that don’t involve the flesh of humans.

Ryan, by the way, thinks that Michelle needs to join the real world.

The car drives on.

Night falls. We get a walk-on from a female reporter… who… whoa. It’s Stretch! I guess she managed to get un-crazy and carry on her journalistic career. Maybe she forgot to tell everyone about the serial killers?

I guess I should mention that no one actually says it’s Stretch. But yeah, it’s her. Or rather, the actress who plays her.

Ryan and Michelle drive by the site of the mass grave, and Ryan determines that they should drive on before they have to meet any of the dead people. Only they can’t drive on. Not sure what’s holding them up. Exposition, I guess.

The exposition is handled by a couple dudes in HAZMAT suits, digging the bodies out of the graves, and taking flash photos, so you can be, “Hey, I remember that bit in part I! It was totally awesome!”

There’s a lot of talk about how the bodies are rotting, which makes them dangerous to humans. In the car, Ryan explains that if you’re buried the right way, “Your skin turns into poison Crisco.”

Which is strange, because you would think that the Sawyer clan, or whoever, would have held onto the skin. The skin is the best part of the meat, after all. Fries up nice.

I guess someone just decided that it was more important for this movie to be icky that for it to make any sense.

At any rate, here comes a cop. Michelle tells him that they’re coming from LA, and headed for Florida. She’s driving the car for her father. I realize they’re trying to give us some backstory on the characters so that we’ll care about them, but who are they kidding? How is anything we’ve just learned relevant to what comes next?

Michelle says she wants to drive through the night. They do. So… shouldn’t they have crossed Texas during the night? Because they’re still in Texas the next morning.

They seem unusually perky the next morning, all things considered.

But then, Michelle hits an armadillo with the car. Her dad is NOT going to be happy. Not even a little bit.

They get out of the car, and realize that the armadillo is still alive, but barely. Michelle wants to kill it, because she feels it’s her duty, but she can’t. So Ryan does.

At a gas station somewhere-or-other, a hitchhiker gets out of a car. He walks to a nearby gas station while the dude who just drove him to the middle of nowhere drives away.

A dude with a messed-up eye is sitting on the porch, cutting up a magazine that has naked women in it.

The hitchhiker goes into the gas station.

Ryan and Michelle pull up to the gas station. Michelle sends Ryan in to use the bathroom first. Ryan walks to the potty.

The station attendant uses some creepy thing to scare Michelle, then takes her picture with a Polaroid camera. He tries to sell it to her for five bucks, but lowers his price to 3.69.

Michelle says she just wants the gas.

Someone needs to tell whoever wrote this thing that it’s not okay to just throw the screenplay of the first movie into a blender and hit frappe. All we’ve gotten up to this point are moments from the first movie, but in a slightly different order.

The only original sequence up to this point is the dead armadillo.

The gas dude goes off on a rant on how he’s going to “service” Michelle, and how she’s going to like it. She starts getting freaked out, and gets out of the car, and then here comes the hitchhiker.

He informs Michelle that the gas jockey is the town loony, and that he hasn’t been right since he lost his job at… anyone? The slaughterhouse! Of course.

The hitchhiker continues to talk to Michelle, asking who she’s traveling with and what they hit. Michelle claims she killed the animal, which just isn’t true. The hitchhiker says that road kill is the natural order of things in Texas, while rubbing his fingers through the blood on the car.

To conclude his opening argument, he says, “If you were the last thing I saw before I died, I’d die a happy man.”

Remember earlier, when I talked about setups? Yeah. Pretty sure this is one too.

Michelle smiles. Aw.

Inside the gas station, the station attendant is all crabby.

Ryan gets done pooping, and says howdy to their new friend, who says they can call him Tex. Of course they can.

Tex says he’ll buy them both a beer or something if they’ll take him a little farther down the road. Ryan says they’re in a big hurry, but Michelle either wants to make Ryan crabby, or is moving on a little sooner than expected. Either way, she says they can “discuss” whether or not they’ll let Tex hitch with them.

And now it’s Michelle’s turn to make a poo. She walks away.

Tex tells Ryan that he has a “really nice car.”

Inside the gas station, the attendant hears noises in the lady-bathroom. He turns towards in.

Inside the bathroom Michelle looks at the wall, which is covered with lady-pictures.

She heads into a stall.

Outside, Tex tries to convince Ryan to try a faster alternate route. Of course, anything they do has to be faster than what they’re doing now, seeing as how they’ve been driving through Texas for more than 12 hours without actually crossing it.

Inside the gas station, the angry attendant lifts up a picture on the wall. Yes folks, he’s going to watch Michelle use the restroom. Because cribbing from the original “Massacre” wasn’t enough. Now it’s time to pull a sequence from “Psycho.”

Ryan and Tex argue about how to get through the state, and Ryan finally says they can’t help Tex.

So Tex goes into the gas station for pretty much no reason at all, and catches the attendant watching Michelle. He pulls the attendant out and announces to Michelle and Ryan what the guy was doing.

In turn, the angry attendant runs into the gas station and grabs a shotgun. He holds off on firing until Ryan and Michelle get a little ways down the road. Then the shoots a hole in their windshield but for some reason doesn’t hit Ryan or Michelle in any way.

Ryan looks back, and thinks he sees the attendant shooting Tex as well. So he tells Michelle to takes Tex’s route out of Texas. Except, of course, he has no idea where that route leads. He’s just taking the advice of someone he thinks is a dead man.

Why? Was he feeling a little heartbroken now that they lost Tex?

No matter. They take Tex’s route. And night falls.

Back at the gas station, a garage opens up, and a truck with skin on the front of it is in there. The truck starts up, and drives away, while the station attendant yells out, “It’s Armageddon!” He also fires his shotgun in the air.

What a plan. “Let’s scare these two people off, and then once they’re gone, we’ll wait several hours and then send someone after them. I’m sure they won’t take a side road, or anything.”

So yeah. The car just keeps on driving along in the dark. Michelle and Ryan argue about whether or not to stop. Then they argue about the radio. Ryan turns it off.

Michelle hears something. It’s the truck we met like two minutes ago. How did he catch up so fast?

At any rate, the truck rams them a couple of times. Then pulls up beside them.

Ryan yells out, “What do they want from us?” As if Michelle knows. Maybe they just want to give you a copy of “Watchtower,” dude.

Someone in the truck throws a dead coyote on their windshield, smashing it. Man, is Michelle going to get it from her dad when she gets to Florida. Michelle pulls off the road. Which is dumb. Clearly they’re under attack.

Michelle notes that they blew a tire. She tells Ryan they need to change the tire and get out of there, like, right now.

Ryan tells Michelle to get the jack, and he’ll take care of the dead animal.

They change the tire. Michelle hears a noise. It sounds like metal squeaking on metal. She goes to investigate.

We get a shot of someone’s leg. He’s got a leg brace on. That’s what’s squeaking.

Meanwhile, Ryan finishes getting the tire on. He says, “Let’s hit it.”

Chainsaw go vroom!

Yeah, it’s Leatherface. He stalks on over to Michelle and Ryan, who race to get into the car.

Outside the car, Leatherface first busts out the rest of the back windshield, and then starts sawing in the trunk. Which makes no sense.

Why? Because Michelle can’t get the car started, and once it finally starts, she can’t get it into gear. Leatherface has a good 20-30 seconds in which he could easily come around the side of the car and put his saw through Michelle’s head.

But no. He keeps on hacking at the trunk.

Michelle gets the car started, but can’t get it in gear. Finally, it goes into reverse, and she knocks Leatherface and his saw to the ground.

She tries to get it to go forward, but it just won’t go, and Leatherface gets up.

At long last, she gets it into gear, and Leatherface pulls the lid off the trunk as they drive away.

Incidentally, the truck drove away after tossing a coyote on our so-called “heroes.” Rube Goldberg would look upon the family’s plan to get more victims and declare it laughably complex.

Somewhere else on the road, a black dude is driving.

Ryan and Michelle argue. Ryan wants to fix the lug nuts on the tire they changed. Michelle refuses to stop. Then she changes her mind, and says she’ll stop.

At that moment, some dude, covered in blood, runs out on the highway. It looks like Tex, so I’m gonna say it’s him.

Somehow, Tex timed it so that both Michelle’s car and black dude’s jeep are in the same spot, at the same time, so both of them swerve to miss the dude in the road and go off the road and crash their vehicles, totaling them.

The black dude walks away from his jeep with pretty much no damage to himself, though he does say that his jeep is, “Totaled.” So the audience doesn’t wonder why he doesn’t just drive away.

Black dude grabs a large flashlight and shines it around, making it easier for murderous thugs to find him.

On the other side of the road, Michelle and Ryan are deep in a ditch. Black guy goes to help them.

Turns out black guy (man, I would love a name right about now) is the most competent dude ever. Not only does he have a flashlight, he’s carrying a canteen. He goes over to the car, tells Ryan to go walk somewhere else, and gets Michelle out of the car himself.

Then he lays Michelle up against a tree and uses a first-aid kit to take care of Ryan. Who starts babbling about dudes with guns and chainsaws. To which black dude replies: “Militant lumberjacks, I see them all the time.”

By the way, we still appear to be working from snippets of the original “Chain Saw,” wherein the black dude helps out the white people who need some saving.

I confess I like this progressive aspect of the film, but so far the only original element in “Leatherface” is the dead armadillo.

Black dude still doesn’t have a name. Instead, he starts explaining what he’s doing. Apparently, he goes up into the hills every two weeks or so to hang out with some buddies at a survival camp. “Trying to keep in training for the big blowup, you know what I mean?”

He’s never seen anyone on this road before.

Ryan gets all mad and tells black guy that they’re being hunted. Black guy clearly doesn’t buy it.

Then Michelle wakes up, babbling about Tex in the road (hey, it was Tex!) and about how they’re being hunted, and the black dude is all, “I’m Benny,” and also, “Oh, you’re serious about being hunted?”

Benny the survivalist. Nice naming job there, screenwriter-guy. Perhaps Benny was originally an accountant? Or possibly a wacky sidekick?

Benny examines the saw marks in the truck and notes that they were made with a “big saw.” No idea how he can tell. Must be a survival skill thing.

Michelle realizes she feels a little woozy, and Benny confesses that he gave them both painkillers, which might make them feel somewhat drowsy.

And they’re all, “But we need to get out of here!” and Benny is all, “I’m going to get some goodies from my truck, and then I’ll find your friend, Tex,” and then he heads off into the darkness.

Back on the road, Benny sees that someone has put down a bunch of road flares. The dude has a hook. He doesn’t offer a name, just notes that they all had an “accident.”

Back at the car, Ryan and Michelle pass out.

On the road, Benny tells Hook that he needs help turning his jeep over. Even though he referred to it as “totaled” just a few minutes ago. Hook says he’ll help out. Benny is about to jump in the back of Hook’s truck, when he sees that there’s a chainsaw back there.

Oh, and on the front of the truck? Big old tarp that appears to be made of flesh. So I would guess it’s “that” truck. Which Benny doesn’t know.

Either way, Benny no longer trusts the man driving around in the middle of the night with a chainsaw and a hook for a hand, so he says he has to get something from his jeep.

Benny runs to his jeep and gets a big old gun. Which he puts together and loads.

Well, he almost loads it, only he panics, and doesn’t get it loaded in time. And Hook, who figures something is up, drives down the hill, right at Benny.

Benny falls and rolls way, way, way down the hill. Hook rams his jeep.

At the bottom of the hill, Leatherface revs his chainsaw and Benny and Leatherface go mano y mano. Benny kicks the saw out of Leatherface’s hands, and knocks Leatherface to the ground.

He starts choking Leatherface, who pulls a tiny electric saw out of his pocket, and uses it to cuts Benny’s leg.

Further up the hill, that woman who we saw right at the start of the movie? The one who was looking in Leatherface’s window? She’s up there. She yells at Leatherface that Leatherface wants her, not Benny.

So Leatherface gets up, revs his saw, kicks Benny in the side, and chases after the girl.

Never mind that it probably would have taken maybe three seconds for Leatherface to saw off Benny’s head. Who has time when there’s a lady up the hill?

At any rate, the girl runs, and Leatherface follows.

Back by the car, Michelle and Ryan wake up. Good timing, guys. They get up and get ready to go somewhere. Which doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Out in the trees, the girl continues to run while Leatherface gives chase.

Only I guess she doubled back, because she goes back to Benny. And indicates he should follow her. But then they go anywhere.

Instead she stands around looking both a little freaky and a little freaked out. Benny first tries yelling at her, and then realizes that her hand is hurt, and instead lets her babble. The short version: Her family was caught by the bad guys about a week ago. She escaped, but can’t get out of the woods because the bad people watch the road. Apparently the “pretend to have a hurt person in the road” trick is the one they usually pull.

So, Benny. I understand you want all this exposition really bad, but shouldn’t you go see about the health and safety of the people you doped? Because you really don’t seem to care, even though you just got chased by a dude with a chainsaw, and also by a dude with a hook.

Instead of doing any of that, Benny decides to sit and smoke a cigarette. He gives one to the girl. As a thanks for saving his life.

Out in the woods, Michelle and Ryan start calling to Benny. Never mind the fact that there are at least two killers that they know of chasing them right at this very moment.

Out in the woods, Leatherface hears Michelle yelling.

Benny, in turn, has an attack of conscience, and picks up his gun, which is still sitting there. He asks if the girl wants to come along, but she opts not to. She figures Ryan and Michelle will be dead soon.

The girl just sits there smoking, until she hears a twig snap. Then she goes to check it out.

Benny heads into the woods, where he almost walks over a trip wire. But he sets it off with his gun instead so the trap doesn’t hurt him. He says, “Nice neighborhood.”

The girl walks until the sees a chainsaw hanging from the tree. She turns around, and there’s Leatherface, who picks her up by the neck and holds her against the tree until she passes out.

Then he fires up his chainsaw.

We see him going towards her. We hear the chainsaw running. We see the girl screaming.

We do not, at any point, see the chainsaw touch flesh. Though we do see bits of something-or-other flying through the air.

Oh. Wait. We see blood on the girl now.

She falls to the ground.

And now we get shots of Michelle and Ryan walking around. And Leatherface walking around.

Finally, Leatherface locates Ryan and Michelle, though just how he does it is a complete mystery. Having finally spotted them, he cranks up his chainsaw to alert them to the fact that they’re going to get cut up.

Leatherface isn’t really into the element of surprise this time around.

At any rate, Michelle and Ryan hear the saw and start to run, which works great until Ryan gets his foot caught in a bear trap. He falls down. Michelle tries to help him, but of course she can’t, so she runs away.

Leatherface catches up to Ryan, and brings the saw down on him.

Benny wanders around the woods.

Michelle spots a house with all the lights on, and runs towards it. She runs to the house, then opens the door and walks in without, say, stopping to consider whether or not all the other killers are there.

She hears crying, and goes to the stairs. There’s a little blond girl there. The girl walks away.

Michelle runs up the stairs after her, and then walks into her room. There are a lot of bones on the floor.

I realize that Michelle is heavily doped, but you know what? If you see a bunch of bones on the floor of a room? You leave. You leave the very second you see the first bone. I know care how many painkillers you’ve had.

But no. Michelle walks up to the little girl, and asks what her name is. She doesn’t say. But she does hand Michelle a little doll with a skull for a head, and tells Michelle, “This is Sally.”

Yet another reason to RUN AWAY.

At any rate, the little girl stabs Michelle in the leg, which Michelle finally decides is a reason to leave.

Doesn’t happen though, because Tex is in the doorway. He grabs her by the neck, tells her she’s late, and then tells the little girl, “Boy, they just get dumber and dumber.”

I can’t disagree with the guy.

The little girl and Tex start giggling, and Tex drags Michelle away.

Somewhere off on the road, the pump jockey wanders around with a bag of people parts mumbling to himself.

In the house, Tex nails Michelle’s hand to a chair, and says, “So, how you like Texas?”

Did I mention Michelle is tied to a chair? I know! When have we seen that in a “Chainsaw” movie before, right?

To recap: New elements in this movie include: An armadillo. A little girl.

Everything else has pretty much been done before.

Moving along. Michelle asks why they’re “doing this.” The little girl says something about poking and leaking, and then takes a cup of blood to “grandpa,” who appears to be more dead than previous grandpas. She pours a little blood into his mouth.

Then out comes “Mama,” who speaks though a voice box in her neck. She’s in a wheelchair. Michelle pleads with Mama to stop what’s going on. I have no idea why. It’s not like Mama came in looking all shocked and surprised at this turn of events.

Hook comes in with Ryan, and Hook and Tex hang Ryan up on meat hooks. Michelle screams. As if that’s going to help.

Ryan has surprisingly little gore on him, considering the fact that he was attacked with a chainsaw.

Hook and Tex banter. Hook calls Tex Eddie, which makes Tex upset. Okay, we’ve got like four people who don’t have names, and now this yahoo gets two? And what’s with the character-building anyway? These people are all insane, I can’t say that giving them feelings is going to make for a better movie.

Whatever.

Tex gets the job of gagging Michelle, because it appears she’s going to start screaming. Tex pulls part of Ryan’s shirt off, and discovers that Ryan is still alive. All right then.

So they gag Michelle with Ryan’s shirt and some duct tape.

Hook, meanwhile, goes out to get a “present” for “Junior,” who I guess is Leatherface.

Out in the woods, the pump jockey does a whole lot of babbling, while Benny watches him from a distance. The pump jockey, who calls himself Alfredo, throws a bunch of body parts into some sort of body of water.

Which begs the question: Why didn’t the cannibals eat whoever that was? For that matter, why didn’t they eat all the people in the mass grave from earlier in the movie? Do they kill more than they can eat?

That just seems wasteful.

Alfredo wanders away from the water, and Benny follows.

Back at the house, Michelle sits in the kitchen and watches Ryan. She pulls at the nails in her hands.

Leatherface walks up to her, and puts a pair of headphones on her. Michelle screams. Leatherface takes the headphones away.

He keeps looking at Michelle. I guess he got lonely after Stretch and he couldn’t make it work.

Tex walks in with Leatherface’s present. A really snazzy chainsaw that says, “The Saw is Family” on the side. Which is from a line in part 2, which this movie is pretending never happened.

My brain hurts.

Leatherface brandishes the saw at Michelle, but it’s not nearly as suggestive as part 2. Alas.

By the by, Tex has used the name “Tink” twice, but never at anyone we could see on the screen. So I’m guessing it’s the dude with the hook.

Speaking of the dude with the hook, he comes in all mad, accusing Leatherface of not finishing the job – namely, killing Benny.

Leatherface looks sad, and offers his headphones to Tink. Tink takes them and throws them in the oven, to teach Leatherface a lesson. This doesn’t work out too well, as Leatherface grabs Tink by the neck, and forces Tink to take the headphones out of the oven using his hand instead of his hook.

Then Leatherface goes and cries to his Mama.

Tex tries to make Tink feel better by talking about how to kill Ryan. Head shots are discussed.

Mama tells Leatherface to go work on his lessons. I can’t say I really want to know about these so-called lessons, but it would be kind of awesome if a piano was involved. Or ballet.

In the woods, Alfredo wanders around talking crazy. Benny finally catches up to him, and asks him how many people are there, and what are they up to. Except Alfredo won’t stop talking crazy, so Benny whacks him in the face with his gun, and knocks him into the little pond where Alfredo threw the body parts.

Alfredo does not come back up.

Benny says, “One down.”

Leatherface goes to his work shed and sits down. He looks at himself in a mirror.

Benny walks through the woods.

Leatherface brings out some kind of toy that shows him pictures and asks him to type in the word saying what it is. The first thing he sees is a picture of a sad clown. He types in F-O-O-D.

The toy tells him he’s wrong, but he types it in again anyway. Why not? It’s cheap to film, and fills an extra 30 seconds or so, since Leatherface is a slow typer.

Though here’s a good question: How many clowns have driven through the middle of Texas? Not many, I’d wager. Perhaps FOOD is the only word Leatherface knows how to spell.

Benny makes it out of the woods, and watches Leatherface through the window while he runs the FOOD gag into the ground.

Finally, Leatherface gets frustrated and stands up. He grabs his new saw.

Inside, mama sets the table, and Tex informs Michelle that Tink figured out a new way to perform a hit to the head.

The little girl comes in and says it’s her turn to administer the blow to the head. Tex and Tink figures she’s right.

So the girl sits down next to a little string, she and Tex count 1-2-3 (we’re building anticipation here, people!) and then she pulls the cord and a hammer swings down from the ceiling and hits Ryan right in the face.

Of course, when we go back to looking at Ryan, he doesn’t look all that damaged. Though I’ve never actually seen someone killed by a blow to the face before, so what do I know?

No matter.

The little girl is told to go wash her hands for supper, and Tex and Tink make fun of the fact that Ryan had colored underpants. “California!” they both say.

They also determine that they have enough food for a while, so Tex suggests that perhaps they’ll have Junior “play” with Michelle. Just so everyone’s clear, he points out that Leatherface makes “The Sweetest Little Babies.”

Mama pipes up, “Junior likes them private parts. We knows what to do with them parts.”

You know, I just noticed that Tex has fingernail polish on.

Mama keeps talking. “Cut my own out years back. I did. Took care of Papa’s, too.”

Tex goes to help Tink skin Ryan.

Mama gives some lipstick to Leatherface, who uses it to draw on Michelle’s face. Then he fires up his saw at brandishes at Michelle, who does some screaming.

Finally, Benny figures out that what’s going on is really, really bad, so he points his rifle and starts shooting through the window. Mama is hit, and she slumps over, partially dead. Tink gets his ear shot off.

Michelle yanks her hands up, to get them free of the nails that were pounded through them.

Tex grabs her. She grabs a knife, and stabs Tex with it. She runs away.

Randomly, we get a shot of Grandpa, who has a bullet hole where his nose was. So if he wasn’t dead before, he’s really, really dead now.

Michelle runs out of the house, into the arms of Benny, who tries to reassure her. Um, dude, she has no reason to trust you. So far, all you’ve done is pull her out of her car, hand her a flashlight, and then dope her and her boyfriend. That’s ALL she knows about you.

He says, “Let’s go!” and she adds, “Run!”

So they run, and the little girl flips on a bunch of outside lights, making it easier to see them.

Leatherface gets in the skin truck, and runs over Benny. Then, despite the fact that Michelle isn’t that far away, he gets back OUT of the truck and revs his chainsaw.

Michelle turns around and says, “Just you and me then, huh?” She’s still got the knife she took from the house. And also, crazy, crazy eyes.

Not to mention a bad memory. To her knowledge, there are at least four people alive who actively want to hurt her: Leatherface, Tex, Tink, and the little girl. She’s also unaware of Alfredo, but he’s probably dead, so I guess that’s all right.

Inside the house, Tink appears to be okay, and he tells Tex to go get “the meat.” Mama is also somewhat alive, as she manages to rasp out another line of dialogue.

Outside, Michelle runs, and Leatherface stomps along behind her.

Outside the house, Benny crawls out from under the truck. Tex is there. They fight. Benny wants to know, “what’s wrong” with these people, so he keeps asking. He also says, “You ever heard of pizza?”

Tex replies, “I like liver. And onions. And pain.”

Remember when horror movies didn’t have all that sarcasm and irony, and it was just people killing people, and we were supposed to be scared, and not all, “Haw-haw, check out that quip? Benny brings the funny!” I miss those days. I do.

In the middle of the fight, they puncture a gas can. Gas flows out. Onto Tex. Benny yells out, “You’re toast!” Then he lights a lighter and throws it into the gas. Tex flames up.

There’s also heavy metal music playing, so the scene can be AWESOME. Instead of, you know, part of a horror movie.

Oh. Wait.

Benny runs away, and the truck blows up real good. Because that is AWESOME. Even if the gas tank of the truck wasn’t punctured, so this bit makes no sense. It is still AWESOME. You can tell because Benny is chuckling. At least until he remembers that the girl he met a few hours ago and then doped is running away from a killer with a chainsaw.

Michelle runs. Leatherface lumbers. Michelle gets her foot caught in a snare, which drags her a really, really, really long way, until it drops her in that little pond-thing. She gets free of the snare, and gets out of the water, but there’s Leatherface, brandishing his saw.

But wait! Benny leaps from the woods, ramming into Leatherface, so that Benny and Leatherface and the saw go tumbling into the water.

Benny and Leatherface tussle for a couple minutes, while the saw continues to run, floating on the top of the water.

Finally, Leatherface jams Benny’s head against the saw, and it looks like that’s it for Benny. Regardless, Michelle looks sad, and she finally decides to try running away again, instead of cheering for Benny.

Leatherface grabs her legs, and she falls over. She picks up a rock, and starts braining Leatherface with it, saying, “Sorry… Little… Guy…” This is supposed to be meaningful, because you, yes, YOU the audience member, will see this and think, “Oh yeah, I remember when she couldn’t even end the life of that poor armadillo.”

At any rates, she hits him and hits him and hits him, and finally he goes unconscious, or maybe just gives up, and slips under the water. So does his saw.

The next morning, Michelle walks to a dirt road, then sits down. A truck pulls up, that says, “Last Chance Gas” on the side, which is the name of Alfredo’s gas station, so the audience is all, “Nooo!”

Then the door opens up, and it’s Benny.

He’s alive. Despite the fact that his head got cut up with a saw and also he was drowned by Leatherface, and it probably took Michelle longer to beat in Leatherface’s head than it would have for Benny to run out of oxygen under the water.

But whatever. Benny is alive.

He helps Michelle into the truck, and goes around to the driver’s side. But just as he’s about to open the door, he gets a sledgehammer to the head.

It’s Alfredo. It really is. That little pond must have magical healing properties or something, because everyone who goes into it lives.

Al says, “It’s knock-knock time in Lubbock, and I’m back!” Then he starts smashing his own truck with the sledge.

Michelle kicks open the door and knocks him down, and reaches for the shotgun that was in the vehicle. Alfredo attacks her from behind. She bites him. He backs up, and jumps into the bed of the truck.

She picks up the shotgun, and sticks it in his face. He says, “I hate when this happens, you know.”

He backs up, then wonders if Michelle knows how to use the gun. She shoots him in the face, and he falls backwards into the truck.

A short while later, Michelle helps Benny into the truck. Then she drags Alfredo’s body, wrapped in some kind of tarp, off the truck and onto the ground.

She gets in, looks at Benny, and says, “There’s road kill all over Texas.”

He replies, “You got that right.” Because this was actually a buddy comedy all along, and not a horror movie.

They drive away in the truck, and Leatherface’s legs walk into frame. Oh, and there’s the saw. Leatherface holds it up, and revs it.

But do we get the emotional catharsis of a Leatherface dance? We do not.

We do get a super-loud hard rock song, though. Just in case we needed one. It’s called “Leatherface.” I guess we should just be happy that the credits don’t feature Leatherface rapping.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

2010-05-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

The opening they liked so much they decided to run with it twice.

Once again, lads and lassies, the opening scrawl:

“On the afternoon of August 18th, 1973, five young people in a Volkswagen van ran out of gas on a farm road in South Texas. Four of them were never seen again. The next morning the one survivor, Sally Hardesty-Enright, was picked up on a roadside. Blood-caked and screaming murder.

Sally said she had broken out of a window in Hell.

The girl babbled a mad tale: a cannibal family in an isolated farmhouse… chain-sawed fingers and bones… her brother, her friends hacked up for barbecue… chairs made out of human skeletons… Then she sank into catatonia.

Texas lawmen mounted a month-long manhunt, but could not locate the macabre farmhouse. They could find no killers and no victims. No facts; no crime.

Officially, on the records, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre never happened.

But during the last 13 years, over and over again reports of bizarre, grisly chainsaw mass-murders have persisted all across the state of Texas. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has not stopped. It haunts Texas.

It seems to have no end.”

We are slightly over a minute into the movie and already it makes no sense at all.

Even if Sally fell into a coma? Yeah. The dude who picked up Sally in the truck picked her up at the end of the cannibal household’s driveway. Also, there’s an 18-wheeler that’s parked right in front of it. And a dead body in the road.

The house has got to be pretty tough to miss. Even if they go to Sally’s grandfather’s old house, and follow the footprints between those two sheds, they’re going to find the house o’ evil.

I can only assume the cops are all deaf, dumb, blind, have lost their sense of smell, and are incapable of touch.

Here’s another question – why was it called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre before, and now it’s a single word: Chainsaw? What happened?

As for Sally’s last name, her grandfather’s house was referred to as “The old Franklin place” in the first movie. So was Franklin her last name? Was her brother Franklin Franklin? Or do they call houses by first names in Texas?

Either way, why does her last name appear to be different now?

Whatever. Let’s just keep on keeping on.

Up next? Two full minutes of credits. This flick is just awash in text. Thankfully, no one reads the credits to us. Though I guess that could have an entertainment value all its own.

Finally, we get actual moving pictures. No, wait, it’s just a shot of some mailboxes next to the road. A car drives by. Someone in it shoots the mailboxes.

Welcome to Texas.

The car keeps driving. There are two dudes in it. The driver keeps driving. The passenger keeps on shooting signs as they drive by them.

Then we move over to a radio station. A woman named Stretch is doing her DJ thing, and answering a phone. She has a conversation, but I can’t see how it could possibly play into the plot, so I’ll skip it.

Then the boys in the car call Stretch, and they say some things about the senior girls at their school, which I’m also not going to repeat because I feel very strongly that these guys will be dead soon.

The boys continue to stay on the phone with Stretch as the driver points out a truck coming the opposite direction. He decides to play “Chicken” with the oncoming vehicle.

They zoom into the oncoming lane, and go back and forth, staying in front of the truck, which finally goes off the road to avoid crashing into them.

The guys think this is hilarious.

In the DJ booth, Stretch tries to figure out how to get them off the line. Apparently, just hanging up the phone won’t work. So Stretch hassles the other guy in the station to make the boys go away.

On the road, the truck spins around, and it looks like it’s going to give chase, but it doesn’t do so right away.

The boys drive by a sign that says, “See Texas Battleland Amusement Park, 7 Miles Ahead.”

They shoot the sign and keep on driving.

Time goes by. Night falls. Stretch just keeps on DJ-ing. The phone rings. It’s the boys again. She tells them to hang up, but once again, they don’t, and their prattle keeps going over the air.

How did these two dudes afford a car phone in the late 80s, anyway?

Darkness has fallen. The boys drive. They go to cross a bridge. A truck, coming the opposite direction, cuts them off on the bridge. The boys stop their car.

They call the dudes in the truck names, and tell them/him to back up.

The truck does back up, and the boys move forward.

Only the truck, still in the opposing lane, keeps pace with them while driving backwards. I’m not sure that’s even possible, but I guess complaining about realism at this point would be a lost cause.

Sooo… the boys drive forward, the truck drives backward, and everyone keeps pace. The boys get freaked out.

Someone stands up on the truck, wearing what looks like a false head in front of their actual head. The boys get more freaked out. A chainsaw appears, and is revved.

The boys start screaming.

The chainsaw starts slashing. The boys narrowly avoid being harmed.

Stretch tells the boys to hang up their phone. Instead of, say, asking where they are so she can dial 911 and say there’s a murder happening, like, right now.

The driver tells the gun-toting dude to shoot the man with the chainsaw. Gun-toting dude shoots, and knocks over the false head. Behind the real head is Leatherface.

Not sure why Leatherface felt he needed a fake head in front of his own, already-masked face. No matter. Leatherface starts using his chainsaw to put even more hurt on the boys and their car.

The gunman fires again, and says that Leatherface “missed.” Only Leatherface actually cut off the top of the driver’s head. Which falls off. Then his head spouts blood.

Then we get to watch Stretch while she listens to the car crash through the phone. The “phone” goes dead. Stretch asks her partner-in-radio, L. G., what happened. He says he has no idea.

The next day, the Sheriff takes a look at the smashed-up car. He notices the deep grooves carved into the door.

Other official-looking people show up, and tell the Sheriff to gets away from the accident scene. Only they don’t call him Sheriff, they call him Lieutenant Enright.

One of the official-looking dudes gives us the exposition. It seems that Enright’s brother’s kids were the ones that went missing, all those years ago. The official dude says it was 14 years ago. The scroll at the start of the movie said 13 years ago.

These two sequences happen 12 minutes apart. Did no one catch that little gaffe?

Enright says, hey, one of these kids sawed his head off going 90 miles per hour.

Wow. That would mean the truck was going backwards doing 90. Why am I thinking that’s impossible?

There’s some bluffing, and Official Dude says he can put Enright on a plane back to Amarillo. And get him out of Dallas.

Enright says Official Dude should go ahead and try that.

Enright says he wants this story in the paper. Official Dude says he’ll get the story in the paper.

At a local hotel, Stretch goes to visit Enright at a hotel. She’s brought him a tape of the call.

For whatever reason, Enright isn’t all that excited. He thinks that Stretch is going to “get in his way.” Then he gives a speech about how he has no fear, and how the people he’s dealing with “live on fear.”

Well, first of all, they live on human flesh, but maybe fear makes it self-basting or something.

Stretch, of course says she wants to do this because she wants to do something real, not just play head-banging music. Really? Oingo Boingo was considered head-banging music?

Who knew? Certainly not Oingo Boingo.

At any rate, Enright kicks Stretch out of his room, never mind the fact that he was looking for witnesses and got one. Kind of.

As he sends her away, he says, “Adios,” and the subtitles say, “Speaking In Spanish.” Really, subtitles?

The scene concludes with Enright talking to his hand, saying, “I ain’t got no fear, Lord.” Yeah, but the dude has got the crazy.

Stretch heads down to the lobby, and talks to L.G., her radio partner. Who made a house out of French fries.

Somewhere in the same vicinity, it’s time for the champion of the Texas/Oklahoma Chili Cook-Off is about to be announced. What, no barbecue this time?

At any rate, Drayton Sawyer is announced as the winner. Hey, he looks familiar. And apparently, this is the second year he’s won. He is asked for his secret. He says it’s the meat. Then he keeps talking about the meat. “I’ve got a real good eye for prime meat.”

That kind of thing.

The announcer pulls something out of her mouth that looks quite a bit like a tooth, and Drayton laughs it off as one of those hard peppercorns.

Stretch, standing in the audience, does a little lead-out thing with a microphone. L.G. is holding something that I guess is a recorder. Or a transmitter. Who knows?

Enright goes to Cut-Rite Chain Saws. They sell chocolate bunnies. No, wait, I’m sorry. Actually, they sell fish food. Forget it. You know what they sell.

Enright throws a bunch of money on a stump that’s acting as a table, and picks up one large chainsaw and two smaller ones. He doesn’t say anything. He walks outside, and the shopkeeper tells Enright to try out the saws.

Enright fires up the big one and swings it around on a log like he’s fencing it. Hey, Enright, you know what? Maybe you should go to a GUN store. Someone show this guy “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Apparently, the proprietor doesn’t care what Enright is doing, since Enright paid in cash. All he does is stand by and say, “Oh, my kid banana.”

I did not make that up.

Over at the radio station, K-OKLA, which for some reason has a sign on the front that says “Gun Store,” Enright goes to visit Stretch. He wants Stretch to play the tape for him.

On the radio. On Stretch’s show. She says no. There are FCC regulations, it seems. Enright says she needs to bend the rules, because “the killers are here.” Although the law refuses to acknowledge this fact.

Stretch agrees to help out.

On the highway, Drayton laughs and cheers his win while driving home. His trophy is in the seat next to him. For whatever reason, he didn’t clean the chili out of the bowl on the top of the trophy. That’s going to get sloppy.

At the station, Stretch decides to play the tape, announcing it as a “special request.”

Still on the road, Drayton gets a call from someone. How did this people-eating hillbilly afford a car phone? He turns on the radio, hears the broadcast, and starts swearing into the phone.

Oddly, the radio starts playing the recording right from the beginning. I guess Stretch plays it twice in a row when she puts it on the air?

Drayton pulls off the road.

The phone at the radio station rings, and L.G. picks it up. It’s a caller who is mad about the tape. L.G. thinks that Stretch is going to get in trouble.

Meanwhile, it’s midnight, and Stretch says goodnight to all the listeners and plays “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Stretch figures she’s going to get around getting in trouble by listing the tape as a “request,” which people complain about every night. I see.

L.G. asks if Stretch wants to go out for coffee. Stretch says no. L.G. gets mad about this. So he does some spitting while heading for the door.

L.G. leaves the building. Someone calls the radio station. Stretch picks up. No one is on the other end. Stretch goes back to filling out some paperwork, until she hears a noise. She gets up, calling out to L.G. and/or Enright.

She starts walking around the station. Through the glass, she can see that “someone” is outside the station door. Ominous music plays.

She opens the door, and walks out into what I guess is the front office. There’s a freaky dude sitting on the couch, asking to buy some radio ad-time. Stretch says they’re closed.

Freaky dude acts all freaky. In what way, you might ask? Well, he’s got a wig, and also a metal hanger. Which he warms up with a lighter, and then touches to the back of his head. He says that Stretch is his, “fave.” He’s always wanted to make a request, and he asks he can make one now. Iron Butterfly. “In-A-Vida-Da-Gadda, Baby.”

I really did type that out, just for you. You’re welcome.

Then freaky dude asks for a tour of the station. Stretch says sure. She shows him various objects (a lamp, a typewriter) and then points to the EXIT sign and says, “Tour’s over.”

Then they say, “Good night” at each other a bunch and then freaky dude asks about his request. He says he really likes Enright’s request. He asks for a copy. Says maybe Stretch could autograph it. Of course, while he’s doing all this, he’s heating up the coat hanger, pulling flesh off his head, and eating it.

Then he looks over at a bunch of shelves. Apparently, it’s the record collection. He says maybe there’s some new stuff in there, the light goes on, and there’s Leatherface.

Leatherface’s saw fires right up, which is completely impossible, since he didn’t pull the cord. But whatever. Leatherface runs at Stretch, she runs away, and he bounces the saw off the freaky dude’s head. Luckily, the freaky dude has a metal plate on/in his head.

I mean, lucky for him. Not so much for the audience.

Stretch screams, and runs, and shoots a fire extinguisher at Leatherface, and closes a metal door and locks it with a peg. I guess this is probably supposed to remind us of Part 1.

Elsewhere, freaky dude is mad that his plate got dented. He claims it’s causing him to have a ‘Nam flashback. Who is this guy, anyway? He wasn’t in the first movie. Was he off collecting firewood during the entire first flick, or what?

Regardless, he gets like a minute-long monologue talking about how he’s mad that Leatherface destroyed his wig, and also he scratches his plate with that hanger, and eats some of the flesh off his own head.

I sense deep in my soul that all this was supposed to be intercut with Leatherface running around, and they just forgot.

Leatherface, tries to cut through the door, but he can’t. Never might, say, cutting the door frame. Or going through the wall.

Freaky dude looks through all the records.

Stretch doesn’t call the cops, which would be her best bet. Also, the clock behind her says it’s 6 o’clock. She’s been standing there for six hours.

Outside, L.G. comes back to the station. He’s got coffee. The dude doesn’t give up. He sees a truck outside, and I guess he figures it’s not two murderers. So he heads in.

He sees freaky dude. Freaky dude tells L.G. to lick his plate. Then Leatherface knocks L.G. over with a chainsaw, and freaky dude beats L.G. to death with a hammer, yelling out stuff like, “Time for incoming mail.”

Yes, really.

Finally, L.G. dies, and freaky dude sends Leatherface back to the door that Stretch is trapped behind.

It seems she really does have a reason not to use the phone, as it appears she’s locked herself inside some kind of cooler. Though I can’t tell. But I can see cases of beer. And Stretch picks up what looks like the kind of thing you’d use to carry large blocks of ice.

Oh, and there’s a big tub of ice with drinks inside it behind her, which you couldn’t see until just now.

Leatherface finally leaves the metal door alone and breaks through the wall, which is made of cardboard and comes apart rather easily. Stretch kind of half-climbs up into the tub of ice, and Leatherface stabs at the ice with his chainsaw. I’m guessing it’s sort of meant to be suggestive, but mostly it’s confusing.

Stretch yells out, “Are you mad at me? How mad at me are you? You’re not really mad at me?”

Leatherface looks at her curiously. Stretch says, “How good are you?”

Leatherface, whose saw is now off, kind of rubs the saw up Stretch’s leg. She says, “Oh. Really? Are you really, really good?”

And then, “You’re really good. You’re the best.”

Leatherface starts to shake. He pulls his chainsaw back, and fires it up, and starts chopping up a bunch of random stuff, but not Stretch. She just kind of stands in a corner screaming while he chops up the radio station.

Then thrusts his saw at her a few times and runs off. Freaky dude asks if Leatherface got Stretch. Leatherface nods. There is high-fiving.

Freaky dude and Leatherface drag L.G.’s body away, but for whatever reason freaky dude doesn’t suggest that they also bring Stretch’s body along. This is what’s commonly known as a “plot hole.”

The boys (two alive, one dead) get in the truck and drive off. Stretch is worried that they’ll get away. Really, she should call the police. Instead, she gets all mad because Enright is late. Which I can understand, but she’s not handling it well.

So she decides to go outside, her in her vehicle, and give chase. What a phenomenally bad idea. There should be awards for that kind of stupid.

Sadly, Stretch appears to be the only characters in this movie who doesn’t have a car phone.

She follows the boys all the way to that Texas Battleland we saw a sign for earlier. Stretch parks herjeep in a shadowy area, and continues to follow on foot. But no, there’s a vehicle behind her. With a man wearing a cowboy hat in it! Run, Stretch, run!

Oh, wait. It’s Enright. Sorry to waste your time with that chase sequence, folks.

Stretch is standing there, yelling to Enright, when a panel in the ground opens up and drops her down a hole. Stretch yells at Enright for being late, and he admits that he used Stretch as bait, but that he’s here now.

He extends a branch to Stretch, who I guess is supposed to grab that bad boy and pull herself up out of the pit? That doesn’t seem like much of a plan, really.

Oh, I’m sorry, it’s not a branch. It’s the arm of a skeleton. And it holds up about as well as you’d think. So it snaps and Stretch falls down the hole. Which goes to a slide. Which drops her through another floor, so she does some more falling.

Enright goes back to his vehicle and gets his saws. In the next shot, he’s got the two little chainsaws in what look like holsters, and he’s got the big saw in his hand, and he’s praying:

“Oh Lord. Help me beat this stranger that walks beside me, and takes away my strength. Lord, you show me the end. Show me what I fear, so I don’t fear it no more.”

Then he screams, and runs at the gate which I guess is the real entrance to the ride where the bad guys are hiding out. Only we just saw them pull into a totally different gate about five minutes ago, so I’m not sure why he’d enter somewhere else.

Did I mention he didn’t BRING HIS GUN?

Granted, I realize the character is nuts, but he appears to have fallen off the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down. Shoot, he took a bunch of time to get all his weapons ready, why not GO TO THE POLICE AND BRING A SWAT TEAM?

Whatever. He goes in, and starts walking around where the bad guys aren’t. He sees some blood running down a hole in the wall. He kicks the wall, and a bunch of entrails fall out. Well, some entrails fall out, but three quick edits attempt to make it look like more.

Enright determines it’s the devil’s playground, and says he’s bringing it all down. So he fires up his saw and starts cutting beams. This is both stupid and inefficient.

Our hero, lads and lassies.

Elsewhere, Stretch wakes up. She appears to be in the meat storage unit, only it doesn’t seem that cold. All three of the guys are yelling and fighting about the fact that they don’t have enough meat. Leatherface is told to carve up what I presume is L.G.

Stretch hides in a corner behind a barrel. A barrel of what? No clue.

Leatherface carves up the body, a little bit at a time, because the flick needs to hit 90 minutes and everyone is already at the place where the final showdown is going to have to happen. Got to kill time somehow.

I’m perplexed, though. If the boys didn’t drop that panel that Stretch fell through, why did it open? And what was it for in the first place? It’s like a big long hole with a slide at the end. It makes no sense at all.

Leatherface carves off L.G.’s face and starts looking at it. Stretch accidentally knocks over some meat hooks, and Leatherface goes to investigate. He’s about to slash at her with a cleaver, but she tells him no. “No good,” she repeats, over and over.

Leatherface goes to caress her face. I’m sure this is just like Stretch’s senior prom, all over again. Only less awkward.

Freaky dude and Drayton come back in the room and blabber about needing to get some meat cut up so they can make some money. Leatherface conceals Stretch so they can’t see her.

Then the boys leave.

Stretch begs Leatherface for help. So he puts L.G.’s face over hers. She keeps trying to take it off. He stops her, and basically indicates she needs to stay put. Then he puts a hat on her.

And he starts dancing with her. This is probably less than helpful, but hey, we’re still filling time before the final showdown.

Upstairs, Our Hero cuts through a beam, and dust falls on Stretch and Leatherface. So he ties her arms behind her back and leaves her in the freezer. With the door closed.

The rope holding her arms is also tied to a pole. Oh, and on the floor? L.G. grunts and sits up. He’s not dead. Did I mention that Stretch is still wearing his face? And also the cowboy hat? That must be incredibly awkward.

I sort of wish she’d say, “Got your nose!” right now, though.

Stretch and L.G. look at each other, making weepy, sad noises. Then L.G. clears his throat, and tells Stretch not to be scared. He stands up.

Parts of his torso skin is missing, so you can see ribs. Obviously, his face isn’t all there. And other bits are gone as well.

L.G. picks up a knife and says they need to get Stretch loose. Then he cuts her ropes. Though there’s a pause of sorts, to build suspense so you’ll think he’s just going to fall over. Or maybe die. Or something.

Regardless, she gets free, and L.G. says, “I guess I’m falling apart on you, honey.” Because it’s funny, you see.

L.G. falls over onto his back. He says, “No,” twice. Then he swears and dies.

Stretch puts his face back on him, and sets his hat on his chest. Then she says, “L.G., I love you.”

Welcome to the land of Too Late. Population? Stretch.

Stretch walks out of the meat locker, or whatever it is.

In the next room, Drayton, Leatherface, and the freaky dude are running around, yelling lines at each other. I could pretend it’s all scripted, but it has the flavor of, “Hey, guys. Yell at each other about how the meat is dirty, and how you’re going to lose money, and act all freaky. We’ll edit it down to make it funny, and the movie will be 90 minutes.”

Long story short: Drayton accuses Leatherface of cutting one of the support beams, and now the meat is all dirty and they’re going to lose money.

Upstairs, Enright just keeps on sawing away at things and yelling.

Downstairs, dust falls, so Drayton does more screaming and yelling. Oh. And freaky dude thinks they should create “’Nam Land.”

Enright cuts something. Stretch screams. Drayton tells Leatherface to make sure the main butane tank isn’t damaged.

Stretch runs. Drayton sees her. But no one gives chase right away, because everyone is busy improvising.

Upstairs, Enright finds… Franklin! Or what’s left of him, and his wheelchair. He’s pretty much a skeleton now. Enright goes to touch him, and his flashlight lights up for a second. Best batteries ever.

Enright says, “Don’t you cry my brother. I’m here now. I’m here now. They can’t do this. They can’t do this.” He keeps saying that last bit two more times, and then he starts cutting beams again.

Stretch comes out of the long pipe she was escaping through. Now she’s in a long tunnel. She heads down a hall, towards Enright, but before she sees him, he starts chainsawing stuff. Fearing the worst, for obvious reasons, she runs the other way.

Unfortunate.

Suddenly, Leatherface pops through a nearby wall and does his Leatherface dance. Stretch, who has mostly been screaming these last few minutes, does more screaming and runs. Towards Enright.

Who saws something-or-other, which causes everything in front of Stretch to collapse, trapping her with Leatherface.

So she turns around and starts yelling, “All right! All right! Let’s talk about it.” Followed by a bunch of stuff that implies she’s breaking up with him. I guess it’s supposed to be funny, but mostly you just kind of think, “Why hasn’t he chopped her up yet?”

Anyway, here comes freaky dude, who has a dead body on his hand like a ventriloquist dummy, and Drayton. He figures Stretch is the one destroying all the property, and asks if Stretch has the money to pay for the damage.

He also wants to know why Stretch isn’t dead, because they told him she was dead. This leads to freaky dude chanting, “Bubba’s got a girlfriend,” over and over and over and over, because repetition is supposed to make it funny.

In turn, Drayton determines that the reason Leatherface didn’t kill her was, “S-C-E-X. You had to find out about it. You just couldn’t leave it alone.”

Stretch says, “Help me.” A lot.

Drayton tells her to be quiet, and tells Leatherface to finish her. Freaky dude suggests that Leatherface burn her like a rat. Do I need to mention he says it a lot? I don’t? Good.

Drayton says, “You got one choice, boy. Sex or the saw. Sex is, well, nobody knows. But the saw, the saw is family.”

Freaky dude knocks Stretch unconscious with a rock.

Annnd now we’re pretty much back to the end of part one. Stretch is tied to the chair at the head of a large table. And everyone is getting ready for dinner. And what does that mean?

It means we’ve got Drayton, Leatherface, freaky dude (in place of the hitchhiker) and, yep, Grandpa. Who is 137 years old, according to Drayton.

So what happens? We get a speech about meat, and the hammer comes out. Stretch screams for help. Drayton tells Leatherface to bring Stretch to Grandpa.

You know, there’s a dead dude in a chair, too. I wonder if that’s the hitchhiker.

Stretch’s head goes over the washtub. Forcefully. Grandpa gets the hammer in hand, but he keeps dropping it. Stretch screams.

I’m not sure. I think it’s supposed to be funny this time? You can tell because Grandpa is laughing.

Anyway.

He finally hits Stretch, but it doesn’t kill her. Drayton, who is clearly getting tired of waiting, also doles out a hit with the hammer. Stretch passes out. I’m guessing she’s not dead.

And then? The sound of a saw. And Enright singing, “Bringing in the Sheaves.”

Enright jumps out of a pipe and lands in front of the crazy people. He says, “Boys, boys, boys.”

Drayton, in case you didn’t already think he was crazy, offers Enright money. He seems to think Enright is from a rival catering company. Did I forget to mention that these freaks have a catering company? Maybe. I guess it’s a major plot point, the catering angle, but it’s obviously just one long people-serving-people-to-people gag.

Stretch sits up and calls to Enright. Enright fires up his saw. Drayton runs, and Enright shoves his saw into Enright’s booty.

Then Enright cuts Stretch’s ropes and tells her to, “Run, sister, run.”

Stretch runs. Freaky dude gives chase. Leatherface fires up a saw. Chainsaw fencing! Yes!

Stretch runs. Freaky dude grabs her. Stretch punches and kicks him, and then runs.

Chainsaw fencing!

Drayton gives us a short monologue about how the chainsaw, “Took care of my hems.”

Stretch runs. Freaky dude follows.

Chainsaw fencing!

Leatherface gets run through with Enright’s big chainsaw.

Drayton monologues. And also grabs the dead, dried out dude from his chair and pulls a grenade from him. Or his clothing. Tough to tell.

Grandpa gets out of his chair, and starts walking. Carrying the hammer.

Enright leaves his big saw in Leatherface, and starts fencing him with his two smaller ‘saws.

Stretch runs. Freaky dude follows her. Catches her. She kicks him, then hits him in the plate with a plugged-in lamp.

He gets electrocuted. She runs for the exit.

Grandpa throws the hammer, and hits Leatherface in the head. Leatherface falls. Drayton drops the grenade.

Offscreen, it goes boom.

Stretch gets outside, and she and freaky dude fight. She bites his ear. Climbs steps. Goes to the top of the tower, trying to get away.

Meanwhile, he cuts at her with a straight razor.

Stretch gets to the top of the tower, and sees a dead, dried-out woman. With a chainsaw in her lap. Grandma, I’m guessing.

Freaky dude catches up. He alerts her to the fact that she’s in a dead end now.

Then he starts cutting on his own neck with the straight razor. He says, “It’s like death eating a cracker.”

Stretch grabs the nearby chainsaw. Freaky dude yells out, “Don’t touch her.” And also, “Grandma!”

He then says that Stretch killed Grandma. I guess anything is possible, but she looked mighty dead when Stretch got there.

Meanwhile, Stretch is trying to get the little chainsaw going.

Freaky dude jumps at her and puts a bunch of cuts in her with his razor.

Stretch gets the chainsaw going. She stabs freaky dude with it a couple time, and knocks him off the tower. He falls for a while, and slides into a pipe and out of sight.

Stretch stands on top of the tower, screaming, and doing the patented “Leatherface at the End of Part 1 Chainsaw Dance.”

Will we see her return in part three? Eh. Probably not.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

2010-04-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

Before we race ahead with this story, let us pause for a moment and consider the most amusing tale about this movie I can think of:

Tobe Hooper, the writer and director, thought it would be PG-rated. Which is why he left out a lot of the blood, nudity and swear words.

Here’s a tip to all you folks making PG-rated movies. Leave out the hammer blows to the head.

You’re welcome.

Like all classic tales of terror, this movie starts with a really, really, really long word crawl that is also read to us in voice-over, just in case we don’t feel like reading.

It goes:

“The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare.

“The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

Keeping in mind that this led to the discovery of this “bizarre crime,” why are there three sequels? Shouldn’t the discovery of the bizarre crime pretty much been the end of the story?

Never mind. We must keep going. We’re barely a minute into this series.

Ah. We’ve got a date: August 18, 1973.

(Oh, and by the by – do four deaths really make for a massacre? More of a minicre.)

And now, a black screen. And the sounds of digging. Or smashing. Could be pretty much anything, really.

Camera flashes. Which illuminate somewhat rotted body parts.

Then it’s day, and we’re looking at a dead body in the day time, while the radio news explains that it’s a grizzly work of art. A decomposing body wired to a large monument.

Apparently, there’s been a lot of grave-robbing. A lot of it.

We watch the corpse sit there for a while and we listen to the radio. Why? Because it’s cheap, folks. This is what low-budget filmmaking is all about.

Up next. Credits! The title of the movie, the people in the movie, the people who made the movie. You’ve gotta pad that running time somehow.

And then? The sun. And a dead armadillo on the highway. And a van driving down the highway.

The van stops, and a dude gets out. He takes two long boards out of the van, and sets them up so that another dude in a wheelchair can get out of the van. This must be Franklin.

Dude who can walk gives Franklin an empty can, and Franklin pees into it.

A semi drives by, Franklin freaks, and his chair goes rolling down a hill with him in it. A girl calls to him from the van.

He hits the bottom of the hill, falls out of his chair, and rolls for a minute.

Later, everyone is back in the van, and they are driving along again. Since it’s the 1970s, no one is wearing seat belts. Even more surprising, no one mentions that Franklin now smells like he’s been covered in his own pee.

The girl who is not Sally tries to explain to everyone a bunch of stuff about the Zodiac, and Saturn, but the gang is pretty much laughing her off.

They stop at a cemetery and the sheriff, who just happens to be there, takes Sally to look at her grandfather’s grave. She wants to see if it’s been dug up.

Franklin stays in the van, watching a drunk guy babble.

Then they’re driving again, and Sally tells Franklin that it doesn’t look like grandpa got dug up to her.

Everyone suddenly goes, “Ew!” and they all try to plug their nose. Something smells bad. Franklin points to a building in the distance. It’s the old slaughterhouse. He goes on to explain that this is where grandpa used to take his cattle. He explains that they hit the cows in the head with sledgehammers to kill them. And also, sometimes they had to hit the cows twice to do the job.

This gets cross-cut with lots of shots of cows.

Franklin concludes by telling everyone that these days they use a special air-gun to kill the cows. He then relaxes by taking out a knife and cleaning his nails. While in a moving vehicle.

Something terrible will happen to Franklin, and it will be his fault.

The crew spots a hitchhiker and decides, after a little talk, to pick him up.

Turns out the hitchhiker is a freaky, freaky dude who used to work at the slaughterhouse. He’s under the impression that the air-gun is a bad thing. He’s a fan of the sledgehammer.

He also took pictures of a few of his cow kills, which he passes around. While doing this, he tells everyone that nothing on the cow is wasted, and explains the concept of head cheese. Which is just icky.

But wait! There’s more! The hitchhiker calmly takes Franklin’s fingernail-cleaning knife from Franklin, touches his finger to the blade, and then cuts his own palm. After which he calmly hand the knife back to Franklin.

Then he stares at his bleeding hand and giggles.

Next he pulls a straight-razor out of his boot and shows it to everyone, explaining that he, too, has a knife.

Everyone is all, “Don’t spook the crazy guy. Don’t do it.”

The hitchhiker puts his knife away, and then pulls a camera from around his neck. He looks for a subject, then snaps a picture of Franklin. Apparently, it’s some kind of instant camera, since the hitchhiker pulls a picture out of the back of the camera.

The hitchhiker tells the gang that they should drop him off at his house, since it’s nearby. He figures they could stay for dinner. He says his brother makes a really great head cheese.

Everyone explains to him as politely as possible that the really, really need to drop him off.

The hitchhiker lets the picture finish processing, and then hands it to Franklin. Franklin says the picture didn’t turn out too good.

The hitchhiker says they can pay him now. Two dollars. Which, with inflation, is roughly the cost of our national deficit today.

Franklin gives the picture back to the hitchhiker at the behest of one of his van-mates.

The hitchhiker sets the picture on top of some tinfoil, puts some kind of burning element on it, and sets fire to it.

Then, the hitchhiker takes his razor out of his boot and cuts Franklin’s arm.

Right about now, everyone starts to panic. I’d say it’s too little, too late.

The driver stops the van, and the hitchhiker is half thrown out, and half jumps out. It’s hard to tell. Not sure if that’s bad direction or it it’s really supposed to be vague.

As the van starts moving again, the hitchhiker kicks the van and sticks his tongue out at Franklin.

Someone in the van says that’s the last hitchhiker he ever picks up. Yeah.

Not-Sally goes back to reading her astrology book. It seems that Sally’s information is, a) ruled by Saturn, which I guess is bad, and b) the thing reads “There are moments that we cannot believe that what is happening is really true. Pinch yourself and you may find out that it is.”

Through all this, Sally patches up Franklin’s cut.

The gang pulls up to a gas station, and the girls hop out. One dude gets up off a stool and washes their windshield, and another guy, who I guess is a pump jockey, comes out. The boys tell him to fill ‘er up, and he says he doesn’t have any gas, and probably won’t have any until “late this afternoon,” maybe not even until the next morning.

Franklin asks the pump jockey where the old Franklin place is.

Pump Jockey says that the guys don’t want to go “messing around” on someone else’s property, and Franklin explains that his dad owns it. The Jockey then says that the boys should stick around for a while, the gas truck should be by soon.

Um…

He also says he’s got some “good barbecue.”

The girls try to get a Coke out of the Coke machine.

One not-Franklin turns to the other not-Franklin and says, “Hey, we should ask if there’s another gas station nearby.” The not-Franklin with glasses says he’ll go ask Jockey about that.

Franklin and not-Franklin sit in the van. First Franklin cleans his nails with his knife some more. Then he pokes part of the interior of the van with his knife, which displeases not-Franklin. Then Franklin shows where some of the hitchhiker’s blood is on the knife.

Franklin wonders what the deal is with the guy who cut himself. How did the guy just, you know, cut himself? And also, did Franklin do something to make the guy mad?

The not-Franklin with glasses comes out of the gas station. He bought a tiny little sack of barbecue.

Everyone gets in the van, and Franklin says, roughly, “Hey we’re going to grandpa’s!” He also says that they can go swimming there, if they want to.

The van pulls out. We watch it drive away. Sally uses Franklin’s knife to open her soda. Franklin asks if “that guy” was trying to scare them by “blowing up” his picture.

Not-Franklin says that if they run out of gas, Franklin is towing them back to the gas station.

We get a super-long shot of the van parking next to the old abandoned house. Then we get another nice long shot while everyone gets out of the van.

Everyone notices that the hitchhiker left a mark on the side of the van, I’m guessing in his own blood. Franklin wonders if that guy is going to come back and find them. And also, where did his knife go?

Inside the house, Sally tells everyone that she got to stay there when she was eight, right after her grandmother died.

The house, by the by, is super-decrepit. So the girls and not-Franklins wander around and have a gay old time basically going, “Whoa, this old house sure is old. And beat-up, too!”

Outside, Franklin has a really, really, really hard time getting in, because the house is falling apart, and he’s in a wheelchair. So we get a whole long sequence of him trying to wheel himself in, pretty much in real time. Then he talks to the ceiling, making fun of the girls giggling, and blowing raspberries.

So you feel kind of torn, because you kind of want to feel sorry for him, and you kind of want to punch him in the throat.

This whole sequence takes, I swear, almost four minutes.

Finally, not-Sally and one of the not-Franklins (no glasses) come down and say they want to go swimming, so Franklin tells them there used to be a trail between two old sheds. That I guess are somewhere on the property.

The Happy Couple go bounding off.

Franklin finds something on the ground. I have no idea what it is. It looks like a little pillow that’s been cut open, with bird feathers sticking out of it. At the top of the doorway, there’s a little figure made out of bones.

Franklin calls up to Sally.

So, what? The bad guys just figured, well, let’s put some freaky stuff in this other house we don’t own just in case the people who own it drop by one day. That’ll freak them out, maybe, to no real end?

The Happy Couple scamper down the trail. They find the place where the swimmin’ hole is supposed to be, only it’s dried up. They see another house, though, and the Guy decides they should totally go there and give the people who live there some money for gas. Or maybe his guitar in trade.

The Girl thinks this is a stupid plan. I’m going to side with her.

They walk by a tree with a bunch of junk attached to it. Like a watch with a nail through it.

When they reach an area near the house, they find what looks like a bunch of camouflage netting. They look under it, and there are a bunch of cars hidden there.

They keep walking, towards what sounds like a really loud motor running. The motor has a barrel on it. No idea what’s going on there.

They walk on towards the house. Guy knocks on the door. No one answers. He kicks something on the porch. It’s a tooth.

He shows it to Girl. Girl wants to leave.

But no. Guy decides to open the door, and yell inside the house.

Girl goes to sit on the swing on the lawn.

Guy walks in, calling to see if anyone is home. There’s a doorway in front of him that leads to a hallway. There are maybe two dozen skulls hanging from that wall.

Guy decides to walk in anyway, because he hears what sounds like a pig squealing. And because he is astonishingly stupid.

He walks right up to the door. A guy with a mask over his face steps into the doorway. This is, of course, the famous Leatherface. Leatherface clocks Guy on the head with a hammer. Guy falls down, in some kind of seizure. So Leatherface clocks him on the head again.

Then Leatherface drags him through the doorway, and slides a large metal door shut.

Outside, the girl, who is called Pam, finally starts using the dead guy’s name: Kirk.

Glad they finally gave us a handle for the guy, now that he’s just so much lunch meat.

Now it’s her turn to walk up to the house. Calling Kirk’s name, over and over. She, too, opts to walk into the house uninvited. She sees the large metal door, so she doesn’t go that way. She turns into another room, trips, and ends up on the floor, surrounded by chickens in cages, bones, feathers, and entire couch decorated with human bones, and…

You know what? Just a whole bunch of human bones, in various configurations and piles. Instead of running away, like, right now, and going to her friends, and calling the cops, or anything really, she sits around long enough to get a nice, long look.

She starts making gagging noises, and screaming for Kirk, and then she finally runs.

The metal door opens. Leatherface steps out. She runs. He runs after her. She gets out the front door. He comes out right after her, grabs her, and hauls her bodily into in the house and into another room.

He hangs her on a meathook, while she screams and screams and screams.

Leatherface picks up a chainsaw and fires it up. Pam keeps on screaming. The camera alerts us to the fact that there’s a large metal washtub under Pam.

Kirk is on a nearby table. Leatherface takes the chainsaw and starts carving Kirk up while Pam hangs in the air, screaming.

And now, it’s back to the rest of the gang. Not-Franklin is telling Franklin “He’s gonna get you Franklin. He’s coming to get ya.” In reference to the symbol that’s still on the van, even though Franklin was charged with wiping it off.

Franklin keeps on babbling about the symbol. Sally says to not worry about it. Not-Franklin, who finally gets the name Jerry, keeps on verbally torturing Franklin about the hitchhiker.

Franklin asks Sally about his knife, as he finally remembers that he gave it to her. Sally goes into the van to look for it.

Jerry says he’s going to go look for Pam and Kirk. Franklin tells Jerry to go between the sheds and he’ll find them. I imagine he doesn’t realize he’s basically telling Jerry to step into the light.

Sally wants to go with Jerry, because she’s well aware just how little fun it is to hang out with Franklin, but Jerry figures it would be better if he went by himself. Not that he gives a reason.

So we get to watch Sally look around for the knife for about a second. Of course, she doesn’t check the front seat, which is where she was sitting. Try harder, Sally.

Franklin asks if Sally is mad at him. Sally says no. Franklin says he knows she is.

Jerry heads off, calling to Kirk.

Back at the van, Franklin and Sally talk about Saturn. And the hitchhiker. Again.

Jerry keeps on walking, yelling for Kirk from time to time. But not Pam.

Jerry finds the house o’ death, and goes to the front door. He keeps yelling into the house, asking if anyone is there. He sees an article of clothing hanging over the porch railing.

So what does he do? He goes in the house. Through the door ‘o doom. He hears a rattling in the ice chest. He opens it. There’s Pam. She looks unwell. Half-dead, you might say.

Jerry opens the ice chest. Pam is there. She pops up, all freaky-like. Jerry steps back. Leatherface runs into the room and hits Jerry in the head with a hammer. Then he stuffs Pam back in the ice chest and closes it.

All this activity has caused a mental taxation on Leatherface, so he runs to the back window and looks outside, trying to see just how many people are out there, if he’s going to need to purchase yet another freezer, etc.

He doesn’t see anyone, so he sits down and ponders just where he went wrong in life. Or maybe not. Tough to get into a guy’s head when he’s got a mask on his face.

Night falls. You can tell because of the really long establishing shot of the moon.

Franklin sits in front of the van. Sally has van lights on, and she’s hitting the horn.

She gives up and comes out, and Franklin says they must be lost. Franklin and Sally debate what to do. Franklin thinks they should go back to the gas station and get help.

Sally wants the flashlight, because she wants to go looking for everyone. Franklin doesn’t want to give it to her. He goes to honk the horn, and realizes that one of the missing people has the keys. He starts getting panicky.

Sally tries to take the flashlight from him. They tussle. Franklin says he’ll go with Sally, but he wants to hold onto the flashlight.

She says she can’t push him down the hill.

Sally says she’ll go without the flashlight, and Franklin says he’ll follow along, despite his chair problem.

How do things end up? With Sally trying to push Franklin, while Franklin tries to help wheel himself. They keep yelling names.

Eventually, they spot a light, and hey, there’s the sound of that motor running again. This is like watching cockroaches walking towards a roach motel.

They walk towards the light. In every sense of the word. My apologies for having to use that joke twice now. Franklin says he hears something, and tells Sally to stop.

Leartherface comes out of the shadows, and applies his chainsaw to Franklin’s torso.

Sally screams, and then realizes that screaming is not as effective as running.

Leatherface finishes chopping into Franklin, and then goes after Sally. They run, and run, and run. Leatherface stops, from time to time, to hack up something with his chainsaw.

Eventually Sally reaches Leatherface’s house. She tries the back porch door, which won’t open. Then she goes to the front, and goes in, locking the door behind her. She calls for help. She goes upstairs, to a back room, and finds the withered husks of two very old people. Grandma and Grandpa, I guess.

Leatherface, who I guess forgot his keys, uses his chainsaw to carve up the front door in a really disorganized fashion. In real time, he could probably be inside in maybe ten seconds, but no. He drags it out.

Kind of a drama queen, really.

As Sally heads back towards the stairs, Leatherface finally steps in the front door.

Sally runs back up the stairs, and jumps out the second-story window. She tries to get up, but she’s really slow about it.

Leatherface heads down the stairs.

Sally runs away from the house, screaming.

Leatherface chases after her.

At one point, Sally runs into a branch and falls down. Leatherface catches up to her. Sally regains her feet and runs again. Leatherface just keeps on chasing her.

Now, granted, I can see where they’re trying to keep the tension going, but there’s a slight flaw in their plan. They had five victims, and four of them are dead. So Sally is going to have to survive for a while if this movie is going to push past the hour mark.

Kind of kills the tension, eh? Now it’s just people running. They may as well toss the theme from “Chariot’s of Fire” onto the soundtrack for however long they’re going to drag this out, because they are, quite frankly, out of victims.

Eventually, Sally makes it to the gas station, even though Leatherface has been within arm’s length for the last 30 seconds or so.

She tries a couple of doors, and finally bursts into the gas station, where the Pump Jockey closes the door behind her, and then helps her to a sitting position.

He’s all, “Whoa!” and she’s all, “He killed…” and a lot of breathing.

Jockey says there’s no one outside now, and asks her what happened. She asks him to call the police, and he says there’s no phone, and that they’ll have to drive to the next town. He goes to get the truck. He leaves the door open.

Oddly, she doesn’t scream out, “TAKE A GUN,” or any other useful advice.

She sits. And sits. And sits. And looks at the cooking barbecue. On the radio, it’s all grave-robbing, all the time.

Finally, the truck pulls up. Jockey steps out of the truck, and produces a sack.

She’s all, “Wha?” and he’s all, “Don’t worry,” and she picks up a knife. He says, “Nobody’s gonna hurt ya,” but clearly he wants to put her in a sack, which is never good.

He drops the sack, and picks up a broom. He knocks the knife out of her hand, and then starts whacking her with the broom, over and over and over again.

Ah. “The Texas Broom Massacre.” Seeing as how they still have 20 minutes to go, I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the movie wasn’t his slow attempt to kill her using the business end of an old whisk broom.

I can see the posters now: “They swept their grisly murders under the rug.”

The broom handle breaks. He knocks her to the floor and knocks her out with the broken handle. He ties her hands with some rope, and sticks a rag in her mouth.

Next, he stuffs the upper half of her body into the sack, and slides her into the cab of his truck.

Sooo… why go through all that? Why not just have her get into the truck and drive to the location where the evil happens? By the time she thinks to run, it’ll be too late.

As he gets ready to drive away, he stops to turn off the lights at the gas station. He tells Sally that the cost of electricity it enough to drive a man out of business.

Jockey drives while Sally whimpers. From time to time he pokes her with the broom handle.

Finally, after about six years of driving and whacking and crazy talk, Jockey spots something. It’s the hitchhiker. He’s walking along with a sack and a dead possum.

Jockey gets out of the truck and starts whaling on the hitchhiker with the broom stick. He also yells at him, telling him that he needs to stay out of the graveyard. Hitchhiker says that no one saw him.

Jockey gets back in the truck and drives to the house. Hitchhiker jumps on the back so he doesn’t have to walk.

They get to the house, and Jockey and Hitchhiker pull Sally out of the van, and sort of carry her into the house.

Jockey is mad about what Leatherface did to the front door. So he goes and hits Leatherface, who is now dressed in women’s clothing, a bunch of times.

Hitchhiker, meanwhile, drops Sally in a chair and ties her down.

Jockey stops hitting Leatherface long enough to ask if any of the kids got away. Since they didn’t, Jockey stops hitting him. Then he remembers that Leatherface messed up the door, and goes on another whaling spree.

Jockey tells Hitchhiker to go upstairs and get Grandpa. Then he tells Sally to, “Take it easy,” and that they’ll fix her some supper in a few minutes.

Sally is, of course, freaking out. A lot. And screaming. As best she can through the dirty rag still tied in her mouth.

Hitchhiker and Leatherface bring Grandpa, who still looks pretty danged corpse-like, down the stairs and into the dining room.

Just so y’all know who up in here, we’ve got: Sally, tied to the chair. And Leatherface, and the Hitchhiker, and Grandpa, and Jockey, who keeps walking in and out of the room. I guess he’s making dinner.

Sally’s arm is untied, and Leatherface holds out her hand, cuts her finger, and gives the bleeding digit to Grandpa, who sucks on it like it’s a baby bottle.

Time passes. Shot of the house. Shot of the moon.

Back in the house. Sally is unconscious. She wakes up. There’s a plate of food in front of her. She screams.

So do all the other residents of the house.

Jockey tells them all to shut up. They do. Except Sally. She starts pleading for her life. She seems to think that Jockey can keep Hitchhiker and Leatherface from killing her.

Hitchhiker taunts Jockey, and says he’s “just a cook.” Jockey cops to it, and says he doesn’t enjoy killing. He can, he just doesn’t enjoy it.

So Sally alternates for a while between screaming and pleading, and Jockey and Hitchhiker alternate between just kind of sitting and taunting her. Also, freaky sounds play on the soundtrack.

Also-also, there are close-up shots of Sally’s eyes.

Jockey finally gets sick of all the screaming and says that Hitchhiker and Leatherface need to just kill her and get it over with.

Hitchhiker decides to “let Grandpa have some fun.” So they stick a hammer in his hand and try to guide his withered limbs through the process of killing Sally with a blow to the head.

Apparently, in his heyday, Grandpa was “The Best” at killing with a hammer.

In order to accomplish this killing, they have to untie Sally from the chair and have her kneel on the floor with her head over a large washtub.

And did I mention that Grandpa drops the hammer quite a few times before he finally hits Sally?

Through it all, Grandpa manages to land one blow. And Sally manages to get free of the Hitchhiker’s grasp. So she runs down the hall and jumps out yet another window.

She lands on the driveway, and stumbles away from the house.

Eventually, the Hitchhiker gives chase. Then Leatherface. Still dressed in his dinner-eating suit. Carrying a chainsaw.

Sally keeps on running, with the Hitchhiker just behind her. He finally grabs her when she reaches the road.

But wait. There’s a semi coming!

Sally gets out of the way. The hitchhiker does not, and he gets run down. A lot.

The driver, a large black man with an afro who has the words “Black Maria” written on his truck, pulls over and hops out.

Sally runs towards him. Leatherface is right behind. The driver rightfully figures out that being somewhere else, right now, is a GOOD IDEA.

He gets back into his truck, and helps a screaming, bloody Sally into the truck’s cab.

He slams the door. Leatherface tries to cut through the door, but the saw just can’t do it.

Sally and the driver hop out the door on the other side, and run away. The driver pauses to grab a large wrench.

You know, I’m torn. I want to taunt the guy for not just driving away, as fast as possible, but I recognize the trouble of trying to get an 18-wheeler up to speed. So I’m going to let it go.

Sally and the driver run. Leatherface chases them. The driver turns around and hits Leatherface in the face with the wrench. Leatherface falls. His saw cuts into his leg.

Leatherface gets up. The driver and Sally keep on running. Leatherface chases them.

A truck with an open bed drives by. The driver spins the truck out. Sally hops in the back. The driver keeps right on running.

The driver tries to start the truck, which has stalled. It won’t start. It won’t start… it WILL start!

The truck driver peels out, as Leatherface tries to follow on foot.

Sally sits in the bed of the truck, screaming and flipping out and kind of laughing.

Leatherface does a ballet-ish chainsaw dance.

No idea what happens to the truck driver. The next town is a long, long, long way away.

Freddy Vs. Jason

2010-04-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

Here’s a puzzler for you – this movie takes place after “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.” Which should mean that it’s a sequel to that movie.

The only problem is, it doesn’t really have anything to do with that movie at all. Not the tiniest little bit. There’s no ancient evil, no storyteller. Nothing.

So do we pretend that this movie follows part VI? I mean, I guess we could. Or rather, I guess we have no choice.

As far as the Jason story goes, timeline-wise, this was made AFTER Jason X, but Jason X takes place in “the future” and this movie doesn’t, so I guess we don’t have to worry about that. This one just happens after Jason is killed (again) and his hockey mask is dragged under the earth by Freddy claws.

Which sounds like a cool idea, until you go, “Oh, so Jason died in Springfield, Ohio in that movie? No, wait, Freddy died in some other town. So maybe Jason made it there?”

And who was dreaming of Freddy, in order for that to happen? And if Freddy can suddenly enter the real world again… but wait, he was already brought into the real world and killed there, so WHOSE HAND IS THAT?

Sometimes, doing something that seems “cool” at the time trumps logic.

So here we go:

Here’s the film logo, with a little “Nightmare on Elm Street” music and a bit of kee-kee-kee ma-ma-ma.

And then we’re in the boiler room. A little girl is trying to sneak off somewhere, while Freddy sharpens his claws and gives us a whole lot of voice-over.

“My children. From the very beginning, it was the children who gave me my power. The Springwood Slasher. That’s what they called me.”

The unburned Freddy looks at the little girl, and holds up his claws. But we don’t get to see any actual cutting.

Freddy then takes a picture of the girl and sticks it into a scrapbook. He continues: “My reign of terror was legendary. Dozens of children would fall by my blades. Then the parents of Springwood came for me. Taking justice into their own hands. When I was alive, I might have been a little naughty. But after they killed me, I become something much, much worse. The stuff nightmares are made of.”

While this is all going on, we get shots of people throwing Molotov cocktails into Freddy’s boiler room building, and things going up in flames.

And then shots of Freddy’s “Super Evil Eyes.” They’ve upgraded his makeup a bit.

“The children still feared me, and their fear gave me the power to invade their dreams. And that’s when the fun really began! Until they figured out a way to forget about me. To erase me completely.”

While all this is going on, we get to watch a bunch of Freddy’s greatest hits. I’m going to do you a favor and skip some of the monologue, and pick it up here:

“I can’t come back if nobody remembers me! I can’t come back if nobody’s afraid! I had to search the bowels of hell. But I found someone, someone who’ll make ‘em remember. He may get the blood, but I’ll get the glory. And that fear is my ticket home.”

As Freddy wraps up three solid minutes of telling us his evil scheme, we get a shot of Jason’s hockey mask. We move in on the eye hole, where we can see a teenage girl.

And now we move to a dock, where the girl hears a noise and calls to some dude named Mike. Strangely, she’s not sure if it’s him or not. She removes her shirt in an effort to taunt him. Or enamor him. Or possibly to wake up all the teenage dudes wondering when Freddy is gonna shut up and let the movie roll.

She tells Mike she’s going in the water. Then she strips down and dives in. She hears another noise, and decides that, “It’s not funny any more.” She goes back on the dock, and puts on her shirt.

Without getting dressed the rest of the way, she looks around, until she spots Jason in the woods and figures it would be prudent to run away. Since she’s wearing an almost-buttoned shirt, the censors let this one go. After all, it’s like 42% less exploitative if the naked woman is almost wearing a shirt.

The girl runs, screams, trips, falls. Stands around looking for Jason. Backs up into something. It’s a tree. She walks around the tree, and turns around. There’s Jason, who jams his machete through her AND the tree.

Jason hears a voice. His mother.

The girl, who is mostly dead, but partially alive, says, “I should’ve been watching them, not drinking, not meeting a boy at the lake.” The girl becomes a boy, and the boy becomes another girl. They’re all fairly penitent.

Jason’s mom appears behind him, and she’s got something to say, too: “Jason. My special, special boy. Do you know what your gift is? No matter what they do to you, you cannot die. You can never die. You’ve just been sleeping, honey. But now the time has come to wake up. Mommy has something she wants you to do. I need you to go to Elm Street. The children have been very bad on Elm Street. Rise up, Jason. Your work isn’t finished!”

While mom is babbling, in some place or another, we get to watch Jason’s heart beating.

“Hear my voice and live again!”

Wherever Jason is, he opens his eyes, crawls out of his grave, and starts walking. Maybe to Elm Street. Maybe to a 7-11 to get a slurpee.

“Make them remember me Jason, make them remember what fear tastes like. I’ve been away from my children for far too long.”

On that last line, “mom” morphs into Freddy.

So, that would mean that for six of the last six-and-a-half minutes, Freddy’s been running his mouth. Hoo boy. That’s gonna get tiresome.

Another conundrum. Assuming Jason was buried anywhere remotely related to Crystal lake, he’s either in New Jersey or Connecticut, depending on which Jason movie you’re referencing.

I sincerely hope the next shot is of Jason hailing a taxi. Or standing in line at the airport. That dude’s got a long, long, long walk ahead of him if he’s headed to Ohio.

They throw the title of the movie at us, and we’re onto the next scene.

Which takes place at the Nancy house. Which… has a red door.

It seems that Wes Craven is the only man in the world who believes in the blue door. But you know what? Forget it. This movie already has no real reason to exist, beyond profit. Freddy is dead both in the movie world, and in the real world. And in the real world in the movie world.

Remember how I said we might as well forget “New Nightmare?” While you’re at it, you should probably forget “Freddy’s Dead,” seeing as how Freddy left Springwood in that movie. And was killed. And also got his power from dream demons.

Inside the house are three girls, who are playing a game that pretty much has no bearing on the plot, so forget about it.

The three girls are Kia, Lori, and Gibb. Kia is black, Lori is blonde, and Gibb is smoking and drinking. She opens a window, and tosses her cigarette into the night, where it bounces off Jason’s mask.

I wonder if Jason is tired after his walk?

Gibb gets ready to head out and buy more beer. She opens the door and, “Surprise!” It’s Gibb’s boyfriend, Trey. He brought beer. He also brought a dude named Blake.

Lori isn’t happy about this, but Kia points out that Lori needs a man. Apparently her boyfriend Will moved away, and never calls, or writes, or emails.

Lori looks over at Blake, who is taking a hit off his drink and scratching his man-bits.

Later, Blake compliments Lori on the feng shui of the house. Kia says Blake should check out Lori’s bedroom. Kia might be the worst friend ever.

Blake suggests to Gibb that he has a kink in his neck that needs massaging. Gibb says she needs more drinks before any massaging will happen, and Lori asks what Gibb sees in him. Apparently? Nothing.

Blake reminds Gibb that angering him is a bad idea, the two of them head upstairs.

Lori asks Blake to get them some beers, and then tells Kia that Blake sucks. Also there some exposition about how Lori’s mom is dead, and how her dad “needs” her.

In the kitchen, Blake gets some beers, and then sees that the back door is wide open. A gust of wind shuts it.

Jason-cam heads upstairs and gets ready to do some stabbin’. Gibb and Trey are having a grand time. Which is over about six seconds later. Gibb tries to cuddle, but Trey hates that kind of thing. So she goes to take a shower instead.

Trey grabs a beer, and Jason steps out of the shadows and stabs him a lot. Then he folds the bed, in order to demonstrate that he’s, like, totally still got it.

Gibb gets out of the shower, and steps in a puddle of blood. She touches it, decides not to consider trying to escape out a window, and steps into the next room, where she sees Trey, being all dead-like.

She starts screaming.

Moments later, everyone is out of the house, screaming and yelling and calling for help.

Luckily, a cop car arrives at that moment.

The cops overrun the house, and a young cop and an old cop walk through the house and out the door, while the young one goes, “It’s gotta be Freddy! It’s even the same house!” And the old one says, “Don’t say that name. We’ve got to keep it together!”

All the kids are taken down to the station and questioned.

Old Cop and Young Cop determine that the kids don’t know “anything,” and another cop, Stubbs brings Lori some coffee and says her dad will be there soon and that they don’t have a suspect.

Lori overheard Freddy’s name being said, but can’t think of it. She rests her head on the table and closes her eyes, and then comes up with it.

She opens her eyes, and looks up, and the cop shop is devoid of people. She walks through the empty building, following drops of blood that vanish as they hit the floor. She passes by a punch of signs that say, “MISSING” and have shots of kids on them.

She finds a young girl lying on the floor, and touches her on the shoulder. The girl turns to her. Her eyes have been clawed out. She tells Lori: “His name is Freddy Krueger, and he loves children, especially little girls. Freddy’s coming back. Soon he’ll be strong enough. It’s OK to be afraid. We were all afraid. Warn your friends. Warn everyone.”

Lori steps back and runs into the wall. The wall becomes the door to the Nancy house. Out on the lawn are a bunch of gravestones. Nearby, little girls do the Freddy chant incorrectly.

Grab your crucifix is replaced with “a,” and gonna stay up late is replaced with “try to.”

Freddy suddenly jumps out and basically yells boo.

Lori wakes up in the cop shop.

Over at Blake’s house, his dad gets up in his grill about how he was supposed to be watching his sister. He retorts that his best friend was just killed. Blake tells the air that he knows some guy named Freddy did this, and Blake is going to take Freddy out himself.

Something moves in the bushes, and Blake goes to investigate. He hears something move, and turns, and there’s a goat. And Freddy is down the street. A shadow Freddy springs out from Freddy-Freddy and tries to slash Blake, but nothing happens.

Blake leaves, as Freddy says, “Not strong enough yet. Well, I will be soon enough. Until then, I’ll let Jason have some fun.”

Man, do I miss the days when Freddy didn’t talk. I miss them so, so much.

Blake wakes up. His dad is sitting next to him. Blake touches his dad on the shoulder, and his head falls off. Blake stands up. Jason carves him up. Trey will not be avenged this night.

At the local mental hospital, a patient asks what his Hypnocil does. Well, well. Continuity. Didn’t see that coming.

Turns out they all have to take it.

The next dude comes up, and sees on the news that someone was killed in Lori’s house. This is, it turns out, the famous Will who Lori is deeply in love with, even though he never calls or writes.

The dude who asks about Hypnocil is Will’s friend, Mark. They discuss some stuff about nightmares, and how Will seems to think that Lori’s dad killed her mom. Which is how he ended up in an institution.

Oookay.

Mark realize that Will really cares about Lori, so he decides to act all crazy so the guard-dude will inject him with sleepy-time drugs. So that Mark can steal the dude’s keys for Will.

Oookay.

Will breaks out. Or rather, I guess he just unlocks the door and walks out, but never mind. He takes his very doped friend with him.

The next day, Lori’s dad gives her drugged orange juice. Or rather, he tries to, and says she should stay home, but she says she wants to see her friends.

So she heads off to school, without her drugged juice. Probably important note: When she falls asleep for a half-second, her dad develops Freddy-face.

At school, the girls convene and everyone learns that Blake and Trey are both dead. It seems people are thinking Blake went crazy. Kia insists that this is “messed up.” She should have insisted on “acting lessons.”

Inside the school, the kid named Linderman tells Lori he’s sorry about what happened, and offers to listen if she wants to talk. Kia tells him to put his hormones back in a box and let this go. This is, of course, the same Kia who insisted Lori should totally nail Blake the night before.

Two dudes in the hall pass out invites to a big party.

Lori chooses now to tell her friends all about Freddy and her bad dreams. Interesting choice, there, Lori.

As she explains, another dude appears in the hallway and sings the Freddy chant. Oh. It’s Mark. It seems he knows all about Freddy. He gives her, and the audience, all the exposition they missed at the beginning when they fell asleep during Freddy’s monologue.

Will appears at the other end of the hall, and tells Mark to stop scaring Lori. Lori is so surprised to see Will that she passes out. Will and Mark run.

Lori naps in the nurse’s office. Kia wants to know why Lori isn’t awake yet.

Kia and Gibb sit in the waiting room. Kia is reading a magazine about plastic surgery. Suddenly, Freddy sticks his claws out of the magazine, says, “Got your nose!” and yanks Kia’s CGI nose off.

Kia wakes up, unharmed.

Mark and Will, still in the hallways of the school, keep on wandering around.

A couple of cops spot them, and they run… to the library.

They check old newspaper records, and discover every mention of Freddy has been wiped out, including Mark’s brother’s suicide.

There’s more discussion, and a location move, so that the boys can explain to the audience yet again that anyone who remembers Freddy is moved to the mental hospital, because if no one fears Freddy then Freddy can’t return.

Which completely abandons all the ideas found in the movies from “Dream Warriors” on, which tout the idea any Elm Street kid being attacked by Freddy must have some sort of connection to a previous Freddy victim.

Remember? Kristy was the last of the Elm Street Kids, and she brought Alice into the fray, and then Alice’s baby started dragging other people in.

Mark tries to convince Will that they should leave before things get bad. Will says he must talk to Lori.

Mark tells Will he gets one night, and gives Will his really easy-to-spot van.

Out in some corn field: Rave! All the kids are there. Including Linderman. A bunch of dudes try to pour beer down his throat. Ah, teenage hijinks.

Linderman finds Lori and offers to get her a drink, and Kia arrives and is mean to Linderman again.

Off in the middle of somewhere-or-other, Jason picks up a rusty metal pipe.

Linderman verbally slaps back at Kia, but it’s sort of lame.

Elsewhere in the party, Freddy is now a topic of conversation. Which makes Gibb mad, so she throws beer on someone.

Will shows up, and reveals to Lori that he’s been writing to her while he was at Westin Hills, the mental hospital. And that he came to find her because he heard about the kid that was killed at her house.

Will wants to know where Lori’s dad was when the killing happened – she tells him he was out of town. She mentions Freddy, and then suddenly Kia shows up and decides they all need to do some dancing, at this random time when it would really be a much better idea to figure things out.

Also, Kia is now being “nice” to Linderman, so the plot doesn’t come to a screeching halt.

I’m searching for even a single reason to like Kia, and I’ve got nothing. Anyone want to jump in here?

Gibb goes wandering drunkenly through the corn field – and there’s Trey. Who is mighty dead, but still bossy as anything. Gibb follows him. She arrives at a silo, and walks on in. Not an awesome plan.

Inside, it looks boiler-room-y. She sees the shadow of Freddy. She tries to leave, but there’s no door.

Out in the real world, she’s passed out on the ground, and a raver is looking at her and thinking raver thoughts.

In the dream, Gibb wanders around the boiler room. And on a scaffolding. She trips and falls down to the first floor.

Outside the dream, raver-boy is kissing up on her. Bleah…

In the dream, Gibb gets up off the floor and hides in a locker. Cutting off all exit options. Genius.

Freddy pulls off the door and goes to strike, and blood suddenly flies out of Gibb and onto Freddy.

In the real world, Jason has just stuck his machete through both raver-boy and Gibb. Which means she died while being drunkenly molested the day after her boyfriend died. You know something? That’s just depressing. European art-film makers would consider filming something like that, and cut it because it was just too sad.

This is followed by Jason tossing raver-boy off his machete so he flies way, way, way off into the cornfield.

In the dream, Freddy is displeased that he lost his victim.

Back at the party, two dudes smoke pot. They turn around, and see Jason. They taunt him. Jason turns one dude’s head around on his neck. The other guy throws booze on Jason and sets fire to him.

Jason doesn’t care. He pulls out his machete and gives stalk.

He leaves a trail of fire in the corn as he walks.

Soon-to-be-dead dude runs back to the party. Nice work. Jason throws his machete and impales the guy. Then he goes into the party area and starts cutting people down. Everyone runs.

Lori and pals find Gibb on the way to running.

Moments later, they’re all in the van driving away. Everyone wants to know if that dude was Freddy, and Lori is all, “No, that’s someone else.”

Kia says they should call the police. Linderman just says he wants to go home.

So they drop off Kia at home. Uh… what?

Also, there’s some pot-smoking dude in the van. No idea who that guy is.

Hey people. Your best friend was just stabbed to death. CALL THE COPS.

After everyone else is dropped off, Will and Lori sit in the van and talk. Will tells Lori that he saw Lori’s dad kill her mom. Lori is all, “No,” but Will is all, “Yes!” and then Lori’s dad taps the window.

Lori and Will get out of the van, and there’s verbal and physical scuffling as Will claims that dad had him committed, and dad claims that Will is endangering Lori.

Finally, Lori stomps into the house, and dad follows. Lori wants a copy of mom’s death certificate or autopsy report. Dad says “this isn’t the time.”

Turns out dad does some consulting at Westin Hills.

Dad tells Lori to take some pills and get some sleep. Lori runs up to her room and locks the door. She escapes out a window. Dad breaks in, but Lori is already gone.

Lori walks away as a reasonable pace, and runs into Will. They get back in the van and go to find Mark.

Mark is sitting in his house, looking through drawers at an old photo of his brother. Suddenly he hears a voice call to him. He opens a door, and across the hall is another door with a light under it. And also mist.

Mark opens the door into the world’s largest bathroom. I swear, it’s the size of the entire second floor of my house.

He realizes that he needs to stay awake, so he opens the medicine cabinet and takes out something called Wake Aid. There’s only one pill. He’s about to take it, but first he closes the medicine cabinet, and there’s Freddy’s face.

He drops the pill. He turns around, and the previously empty bathtub now contains bloody water and Mark’s dead brother, who accuses Mark and everyone else of forgetting him.

Then Mark’s brother develops Freddy voice, so that Freddy can once again explain the plot to everyone. I’d type it all out again, but it’s just so painfully redundant. Essentially he says that he brought Jason back to kill some people so that Freddy would be remembered, only now Jason won’t stop killing people.

Of course, there is something like six billion people in the world. Why can’t Freddy share?

Blood pours across the floor, and little tendrils sprout and stick themselves into Mark’s feet. Then snakes start writhing around on the floor as well. Mark cries out that he wants someone to wake him up.

Outside, in the real world, Lori and Mark speed up to the curb and jump out of the van. Why all the urgency? They were driving at totally normal speeds a couple of minutes ago. What gives? It’s not like they knew Mark was under attack.

They run around the house, trying to find Mark. He’s asleep on his desk.

In the dream world, Freddy tells Mark to pass on a message. Mark says no. Freddy says he’ll have to pass on the message himself then. He throws Mark across the room and sets Mark on fire.

In the real world, Mark starts on fire. Will and Lori freak out. Mark begs for help. Then slashes appear on his face. He falls down. On his back, the words “Freddy’s Back” are burned into Mark’s back.

You get the joke, right? Or perhaps you need Freddy to explain it, via monologue?

At the cop shop, the old cop looks through photos of the rave where everyone got all chopped up and such.

Stubbs comes in and says he knows who did the killing. He’s determined it’s a copycat of Jason. Interesting theory.

Old cop explains that it’s not, that they know who the killer is, and they solved the problem four years ago and they’ll solve it again.

I have no idea what that dude is talking about. None at all.

Walk through this with me.

“Freddy’s Dead” was released in 1991, with the statement that the event in the movie take place “ten years in the future.” That would be 2001, right?

“Freddy Vs. Jason” takes place in 2003.

I guess you could stretch things and say that 2000 is “kinda” ten years in the future and 2003 is “kinda” four years after 2000. With a lot of rounding. And math performed by toddlers.

But wait! There are more problems! All the teens from the van, including the stoner dude, are now back together in some location or another, talking about what they should do. They consider leaving, but they figure Freddy will follow them.

Except established cannon states that he can’t follow them. He can only travel using the mind of his daughter, who I guess is still alive and well somewhere. Of course, by that logic, Freddy shouldn’t be in Springwood any more. Perhaps when he was killed, he was sent back?

Stubbs arrives, and the kids figure they’re in trouble. But no. Stubbs is cool like that.

Stubbs also fills all the kids in on Jason’s backstory, since the screenwriters couldn’t figure out a way to get Freddy to do it. They abbreviate a bit, with Jason drowning at 11, and then saying someone “made the mistake” of killing his mother.

At any rate, Linderman says Jason is the real deal, and not a copycat.

And Lori, who is falling asleep in the corner, says that Freddy died by fire, Jason by water. “How can we use that?” she asks.

While we’re at it, Will once again explains that Freddy must have brought Jason back, but now Freddy can’t control Jason.

Thanks, dude. I didn’t get that the first fourteen times.

Everyone ignores Lori, who is clearly babbling just to hear herself talk. They decide they need to sacrifice a virgin to Freddy, and figure that Lori should be the one sacrificed.

I know the fire/water thing was stupid, but this seems extreme.

Lori’s dad appears, and goes to kiss Lori. Naturally, dad is actually Freddy. Lori fights back, and yanks off his ear.

In the real world, Lori’s friends wake her up, and she looks down at her hand and sees that she’s still holding Freddy’s ear.

She drops it, and the ear dissolves into maggots.

They realize they aren’t safe awake or asleep, and Lori says, “No, no, it’s our dreams.”

(Lori is sort of right and sort of wrong. If a killer is out there with a machete, he can pretty much attack you whether you’re awake or asleep. The ability to invade your dreams isn’t necessary.)

They figure out it’s the Hypnocil that’s been keeping the bad dreams at bay, and they look it up online. It still hasn’t been approved by the FDA. Really? It’s been about 20 years. You would think they would have gotten on that.

They decide to go back to Westin Hills, instead of calling Lori’s dad, who offered her pills less than three hours ago.

Or calling the rest of the cops in, since they would surely be happy to provide the meds as well.

Whatever. They go to Westin hills.

Linderman, Stubbs, and stoner-boy (I’d kill for a name on this guy… also, I want to know when he became friends with the rest of the group) go into the computer room, which is like something out of a 1960s sci-fi film. Stubbs leaves, and Linderman follows, but stoner-boy decides to stop for a j-break.

I’m not even joking.

A security guard goes to check out a door that’s being pounded on. The movie cuts away, and when it cuts back, the guard has been crushed by the door. Sorry about that, day-player-dude.

Will and Lori and Kia go to the D wing, where they find a bunch of people who wouldn’t stop dreaming. They’re all in comas from taking too much Hypnocil.

Lori’s dad’s name is at the bottom of their charts.

Stoner-boy continues to get baked. A freaky CGI caterpillar comes in with a bong, and blows smoke on stoner-boy. So stoner-boy follows the caterpillar. He goes into the next room, and sees all the victims sitting up and asking about Hypnocil.

They tell him where it is, and tell him to pour it down the drain. He says, “nay!” and looks up. The caterpillar falls off the ceiling and shoots down his throat.

By the by, he finally appears to have a name. Freeburg. Which is clearly a “Free Bird” pot-smoking kind of joke. So I’m going to keep calling him stoner-boy, since he’ll be dead soon anyway.

Stubbs and Linderman go to the “computer” room, and from there they can see stoner-boy dumping pills down the drain. They go to stop him, but there’s Jason, who chops into the computers and starts getting electrocuted.

Stubbs tells Linderman to run, but Jason grabs Stubbs and shares the electrocution love. Linderman picks up Stubbs’s gun. He runs.

Will, Kima, and Lori head up to the drug room, where they discover that all the Hypnocil is gone.

Stoner-boy fills up two syringes with a whole lot of tranquilizer.

Jason breaks down the door on Will, Kima, and Lori, and they run away. Past stoner-boy, who doesn’t move, because of course Freddy is in him.

Jason walks up to stoner-boy, who injects Jason. Jason cuts stoner-boy in half. Then falls on the ground, dead asleep.

And now, it’s the dream world, and Jason is in the boiler room, being berated by his mother, who once again explains that Jason didn’t know when to stop killing. In case you missed that.

Then “mom” turns into “Freddy.” Freddy taunts Jason. Jason cuts off Freddy’s arms, which then grow back. Because it’s the dream world. There’s a lot of fighting, while the audience yells out, “Finally! Jason on Freddy action! Only took the movie an hour and five minutes to get there!”

Freddy beats up Jason, but Jason refuses to die. A pipe breaks, and Jason shies away from the water pouring out of it. Freddy realizes that Jason is afraid of water.

(Wow. This plot point really sucks. More than usual. Jason has survived trapped underwater for months. He lives near a lake. Making him afraid of water is super-lame.)

In the real world, all the remaining kids have tied up Jason. They’re driving him to Crystal Lake. It’s nighttime, so they should get there, like, noon the next day or so.

In the dream world, Jason drops his machete, then falls on the floor. He’s a little boy now, still wearing a hockey mask, which makes no sense, since he didn’t have it as a boy. Freddy takes it off of him, then shows him his own mother’s severed head.

(Know what’s lame? The woman who played Jason’s mom in the first “Friday the 13th” is still alive, and she isn’t in this movie. I’m guessing they didn’t offer her enough money. What a waste.)

Freddy sticks a claw into Jason’s head to learn what he’s really scared of.

So now we’re in the dream version of Crystal Lake, and Jason is hauling a dead body through a watery marsh-type thing. There are corpses. Let’s just zip on past that.

In the van, they decide to knock Lori out, so she can pull Freddy into the real world. Never mind that pretty much anyone can do it. They’re going to send Lori. What a great plan.

They knock Lori out, with the instructions to wake her up in exactly 15 minutes. Because you can always time grabbing a dream killer down to the second.

Lori goes to sleep, and arrives in Crystal Lake. It’s daytime. A bunch of kids are chasing after kid Jason and taunting him with the words, “Freak Show!” There’s more taunting. They stick a bag over his head and push him towards the water.

Lori runs over to the counselors and asks if they’re going to help “The kid.” But they’re busy, having some adult time. Also, the male counselor is actually Freddy, and the female is dead. Well. That’s icky.

In the real world, Linderman injects Jason with more dope.

In the dream world, Jason falls into Crystal Lake, and Lori tries to pull him out of the water. Freddy pops up, and tries to drown kiddo Jason.

In the real world, water starts pouring out of Jason. He’s drowning. So Kia has to give him mouth-to-mouth. Because Will is driving and Linderman has asthma.

Or rather, she’s about to give it to him, but Jason wakes up. Linderman fires the gun he took from Stubbs. Will freaks and hits a something, and the van flies in the air.

Jason goes flying into the woods. He’s awake, so…

In the dream world, kid Jason vanishes, un-drowned. Freddy looks up at Lori and says, “You!” Lori’s watch goes off. She jumps on Freddy and pins him to the dock, yelling to be woken up.

She vanishes, and un-vanishes in front of the Nancy house.

In the real world, the boys try to wake up Lori. They’re right by Crystal Lake, and not dead after that really quite elaborate crash. Convenient.

They carry Lori into the camp.

In the dream, Lori sees Freddy killing her mom. Freddy killed mom? Whoa. What a surprise. Freddy says he always had a thing for the whores who live in this house. Sure. Makes sense.

No, no. Wait just a second here. How did Freddy kill mom? Doesn’t he only attack teenagers? Except for Nancy’s mom? For some reason?

At any rate, Freddy stabs Lori’s mom. I’m puzzled by something, here. Will saw dad kill mom. So I suppose Freddy took over dad, in order to kill mom? Or Will dreamed the whole thing?

Lori runs away, only she gets tripped, smacks into the wall, and falls over. Freddy kneels over and starts scratching her with his claws.

In the real world, Jason breaks into the cabin they’re all hiding in and knocks over a gas can, which ignites. Will gets sliced, but somehow they all manage to lives a minute or two. Though Kia gets knocked into a wall.

In the dream world, Freddy is still kneeling over Lori, saying things like, “I should warn you princess, the first time tends to get a little messy.” While pulling up her nightgown.

I feel deeply uncomfortable.

Linderman stabs Jason with a flag pole. Jason slaps Linderman into a wall, where he’s impaled on a shelf bracket. He goes down.

Will drags Lori out of the shack, only her hand hits some fire.

In the dreams, she grabs Freddy as she wakes up.

Freddy is just about to kill her, but then he realizes this isn’t the dream world any more.

The cabin is on fire and Jason is there.

Throw-down time.

Jason smashes Freddy through some windows, then takes him out the door and throws him on the roof of another building.

Will and Lori run off.

Kia and Linderman also get out, and Linderman tells Kia to go get help. He’ll be fine. Just a scratch. So Kia leaves, and Linderman dies alone.

Well. That was bleak. The nerd dies by himself.

Kia runs to the water, where she sees Lori and Will. Freddy also catches up to Lori and Will, and gets ready to do some damage.

He’s remarkably mobile for a dude who just got thrown through a building.

Kia screams, and Freddy decides to go after Kia instead of Will and Lori.

Kia accuses Freddy of running around in a Christmas sweater, and not being scary. And using the claws to compensate for something.

Freddy points behind Kia. Jason throws her into a tree. She dies.

Will tries to get Lori to leave via boat. Lori insists she isn’t leaving until she sees Freddy die, since he killed her mother.

Yeah. Never mind that there’s also a dude with a machete and no qualms with killing pretty much everyone also on the beach right now.

Jason and Freddy throw down some more. First there’s punching. Then there’s assaulting with construction materials.

Then they both end up on a dock, with Jason cutting Freddy up a lot.

The thing of it is? I’m not sure how Freddy is living through all this. The dude is human, out here in the real world. Most of his body should be mush right now.

No matter. They fight on the dock. Freddy cuts off Jason’s fingers and takes his machete, and starts attacking Jason with it.

Lori and Will find a gas pump and cover the dock with gas. The director sure is attached to Lori and the whole water/fire thing, huh? You can admit you totally forgot about that. It’s okay.

Freddy keeps slashing at Jason, even though he stated at the start of the film that he knows Jason can never actually die. He shoves his claws into Jason’s eyes. Then his guts.

Lori runs out with two pieces of wood that are on fire. She yells to Freddy, and throws the fire on the dock, and the nearby tanks which exist only for the purpose of exploding.

Freddy, distracted, allows Jason to jam a hand inside him, then rip his claw-arm off. Freddy jams Jason’s machete into Jason.

The explode-y tanks go boom. Will and Lori jump into the water to avoid being incinerated.

Freddy and Jason are thrown off the dock and into the water.

Lori and Will climb up on the dock.

They embrace. Then hear a noise and look up. Freddy is on the dock, walking towards them with Jason’s machete in hand. He’s about to start whacking ‘em, when Jason pops out of the water and impales Freddy with his own claw-hand-arm.

Jason falls back into the water.

Freddy falls to his knees.

Lori gets up and chops off Freddy’s head with Jason’s machete.

Freddy’s head and body fall into the water.

Lori gets a from-the-feet-to-the-face heroic woman shot. She watches Jason sink into the water, face-up. She drops his machete and it sinks after him.

Will comes up behind her. They help each other limp off down the beach. Everything is pretty much on fire. That’ll please the developers.

The next morning. Mist on Crystal Lake. Jason pops out of the water. Also bad for developers.

He’s got his machete in one hand, and Freddy’s head in the other. Freddy’s head turns to the camera and winks.

Looks like the only thing that can kill Freddy is a remake.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

2010-04-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ah, meta. It’s so full of meta-ness, with the… you know what? Let me start over.

So, Freddy was dead as of the last movie. It was, in fact, right there in the title. Which is all well and good, but the “final” chapter of any horror series is usually called that in hopes of getting people amped up for the super-special “return!” movie that comes right after.

In this case, however, it was kind of special, as the original writer and director, Wes Craven, came back to write and direct.

Then things take a weird turn, because of all the meta.

In this case, the gag is that Freddy, who is dead, is now trying to come off the silver screen and into the real world. So you’re watching a movie that is “no, seriously!” supposed to take place in the real world.

As a premise, it’s clever. In execution… well, let’s take a look, shall we?

We start off with a big, fat, callback-only-bigger moment, as a dude in a red and green sweater builds a mechanical hand, then attaches knives to it. Then chops his own hand off.

Then the scene changes a bit, so we can see that we’re on a movie set, being directed by Wes Craven, as a stand-in-Freddy shoves the mechanical hand onto his “stump.”

Nearby, Nancy is sitting around in her pajamas. Only she’s actually Heather, the actress who played Nancy. Because the film is meta. Are you following along?

Wes praises the guys who built the mechanical hand and executed the chop, and Heather’s husband offers to take their son, Dylan, who looks like he’s about six, on a tour to find scary movie props.

Heather, husband, and Dylan walk off the set, and now it’s possible to see all the cast and crew milling around, doing cast and crew-type things. Husband scares Dylan with the old reptile-hidden-in-the-popcorn box trick.

And the two guys who were operating the new Freddy hand get all crabby because the hand stopped working. They think it’s because of the fake blood. Husband gives them some fixin’ advice.

Husband goes to look at the hand, and Heather says she doesn’t like it. Husband says it puts food on their table, and goes to look closer. The hand claws him. One of the tech guys points out that the hand is “warm,” just like a real hand.

Then the hand jumps up and shoves itself into the throat of one of the tech guys. Things everywhere go haywire, with fire effects going off on the set. Husband smashes the radio control for the mechanical hand, but it’s too late. The thing has run off.

It attacks the other tech guy, and stabs him a lot.

Dylan calmly wanders away, and goes to sit on a bed. Two set guys, who for some reason don’t notice the screaming and thrashing going on nearby, walk by carrying a piece of set, and after they pass Dylan is gone.

The claw goes to attack husband. There’s a whole lot of screaming.

Heather wakes up. Yes, the whole thing was a dream about a movie set.

Husband is there, telling Heather to get up. It’s an earthquake, and it’s shaking the house.

They hear Dylan yelling downstairs, and they go to his room, jump on his bed, and hover over him, in an attempt to keep him safe.

The earthquake ends. Dylan sees that his dad has a cut on his hand. Heather wants to know where it came from. He says it came from a picture “or something” when it fell, and that it’s no big deal.

Later, the three of them semi-watch the news, which tells the audience that they had an “aftershock” of 5.3 on the Richter scale. Heather sees that Dylan has made a “face” in his oatmeal, though she doesn’t suss out that it looks like Freddy’s face.

Heather says she has to go, but that Julie will be staying with Dylan.

Heather talks to husband, whose name turns out to be Chase. Chase really does work in special effects. Heather uses this time to give us exposition explaining that there have been five earthquakes, plus she was getting harassing phone calls up until two weeks ago.

Chase asks if she’s still having nightmares, and Heather tells him an abbreviated version of all the things we just watched five minutes ago. Chase says that she was probably half-asleep, and saw Chase cut his fingers on the mirror, which she then “added” to her dream. In some way.

Chase says that if it will make her happy, he’ll skip his next job: Two days making soap bubbles for a detergent commercial. She sort of says, “No, okay, go” and then they kiss, and for a second there it looks like Dylan is going to get a sibling.

But no, the kiss ends and Chase heads off for 48 hours. In his words.

As Chase leaves, a series of cracks appear in the walls. Do they look like claw marks? Indeed they do.

Heather runs downstairs, and finds Dylan watching the original “Nightmare.” It’s the bit with Tina in the body bag, calling to Nancy. Heather says she doesn’t want Dylan watching that.

She unplugs the TV, and Dylan starts screaming. He stops when the phone rings.

Heather picks it up, and a voice says, “One, two.” Heather hangs up. The phone rings, she picks it up again, and the voice says, “Freddy’s coming for you.”

Heather hangs up the phone, runs to the front door, and tries to catch Chase before he leaves. But he’s already driving away in his truck.

Dylan says someone is coming, and there’s another aftershock.

There’s a knock at the door. It’s Julie, the nanny/babysitter-person. I know! How exciting is that?

Then the phone rings again, and Heather answers in a not-nice way, and of course it’s the limo guy. So Heather hangs up, goes to the door, and yells out to him that she’ll be there in just a minute.

Uh – he was on the phone. Why not just tell him then? I guess you could argue that she wanted to verify there was a guy actually there, but for all she knows her stalker is driving the limo.

Didn’t think of that, did you Heather?

Heather says she has a bad feeling, and her son tells her to stay home. But who listens to kids? Not desperate-for-work movie not-stars, I’ll tell you that.

Dylan walks off, and Julie and Heather talk about Heather’s “nerves,” and the phone calls, and the earthquakes, and then the phone rings again. Julie tells her not to answer it, but doesn’t offer to get the phone herself.

Heather picks up the phone. It’s the limo guy again, telling Heather they’re going to be late.

Dylan comes back. Heather says, “Dylan, I gotta go. Forgive me?” Dylan says bye, and gives Heather a hug.

Heather heads out, apologizing to Julie for her so-called nerves.

Heather goes to the limo. The driver lets her in, and they take off. Turns out he’s a fan, who recognizes Heather. Strangely, he doesn’t use the actual name of the movies. Or mention Freddy by name. Though he does say the first one is the best.

And of course, there’s the ever-popular meta-moment, when he calls her a star and she says she’s “hardly a star.” Tee-hee.

Heather gets there, almost late, and a PA races her into the studio, where a terrible, terrible, interviewer peppers her with questions about whether or not she’d let her son watch horror movies, and, “Is there going to be another sequel, and what’s more, is Freddy really dead?”

I realize this scene kinda-sorta has to happen in the movie, but honestly now, is there a reason she’s being interviewed? There doesn’t seem to be one. Why would some random interviewer just call her up and be all, “Hey, want to talk about those movies you haven’t been in for several years?”

Then things get strange. The interviewer asks if Heather would let her “co-star” baby-sit Dylan. Sadly, he doesn’t mean Johnny Depp. Though how awesome would that be?

Of course, the guy means Robert Englund, who then comes out onstage in full Freddy makeup while a bunch of people in the audience applaud and get super-excited over the whole thing. Strange, really, that everyone is dressed up for this “surprise” visitor. Maybe that’s the point.

Backstage after the show, Robert, no longer in full makeup, signs some autographs and has a lovely conversation with Heather where they joke about making a romantic comedy together. Possibly with a decapitation in it.

As Heather gets ready to go pretty much nowhere, unless there’s another limo that we can’t see, a PA hands her a phone and says it’s for her. It’s someone named Sara, from New Line Cinema. They have a “proposal” for Heather, but they have to tell her about it in person.

So the limo takes her over to New Line.

Heather goes to see Sara, who immediately hands her off to Bob. Bob is the producer of the Freddy movies. No, really. You can tell because he’s a really awful actor, even though he’s playing himself.

Bob tells Heather that Wes Craven (the writer and director of the movie we’re watching RIGHT NOW) called and said he had an idea to bring Freddy back, and that Heather is the star of the movie.

Heather says she’s flattered, but that she has a kid now. She’s not sure about doing horror. Bob says that kids love horror. It seems that if “Bob” has kids, Bob doesn’t like them very much.

Heather suddenly realizes something. She asks how long Wes has been working on the script. Bob says a couple months. Heather says, essentially, “Say, has anything strange been happening the last couple of months? Like strange phone calls?”

At which point, the phone starts to ring. Bob refuses to answer it, stating that they pay people to do that. Then he wonders why no one is picking up the phone. Maybe because you and Heather are the only people in your office, Bob. Just a thought.

Heather takes the limo home. As she steps out of the limo, she hears Dylan yelling from inside the house.

Dylan is lying on his bed, screaming. Julie is standing over him. Heather lifts up Dylan and he says, “Never sleep again.” In a freaky Donald Duck-type voice. Heather holds him, he wakes up, and Heather asks if he’s all right.

He says yes, “Rex saved me.” Rex is Dylan’s stuffed Tyrannosaurus Rex, which has a bunch of claw marks on it. It’s as if… well… you know, right? Meta!

Dylan asks if Rex is going to die, despite the fact that Rex is a stuffed animal. Heather promises that Rex won’t die. Something tells me that duct tape is going to get involved in this story.

Heather asks Julie to get the sewing kit. Julie and Dylan head off to do “surgery.” This is going to be bad.

Heather calls Chase, and says Dylan had an episode, and that he was “talking like Freddy.” She asks why Chase didn’t tell her he was working on a new Freddy glove, which is sitting in the foreground of the shot. And she tells Chase to come home.

Chase says okay and heads home. The camera, having moved around a bit, reveals that the glove has gone missing.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Chase’s friends, who were murdered in Heather’s dream? They didn’t show up for work today.

Later than night, Heather reads the story of Hansel and Gretel to Dylan. As a bedtime story. Which, as we all know, is exactly the kind of thing you want to read to a child who’s losing it.

Heather also seems to think this is a problem, as she stops reading and asks why Dylan wants to hear it, and warns him that it’s going to give him nightmares. Dylan, all smiles, says, “I like this story.”

Honestly, this kid freaks me out.

Heather gets to the part where Gretel pushes the witch into the fire, and then says she’s going to stop reading. So Dylan finishes the passage from memory, then demands that Heather finish the story by telling how the kids got home.

Heather claims that they got home by following bread crumbs, and that their father was so happy to see them he gave them a bunch of kisses. Which doesn’t make any sense, because if I remember the story right, the reason they got lost was that birds ate their crumbs. And that their stepmother was the reason they had to go into the woods in the first place.

Sooo… we’re missing a few details there, Wes.

Anyhow, Heather sees that Dylan has something under the covers, making a big lump. Turns out it’s Rex, who keeps “him” away from Dylan. Who?

“The mean old man with the claws.”

Rex, by the way, was sewn up with some really thick red thread. Or yarn. Or something. There’s going to be scarring, assuming the wound is not already horribly infected and Rex doesn’t die from blood poisoning.

Heather says, “There’s nothing down there,” and they slide to the end of the bed, revealing the floor. Dylan says, “It’s different when you’re gone.”

Heather tucks him in, revealing Dylan’s dinosaur lamp and dinosaur sheets. Dylan asks if dad is coming home. Heather says yes, and Dylan says that dad can follow the bread crumbs. If the birds don’t eat them first.

Er…

Out on the highway somewhere, Chase is driving home. He’s falling asleep, and swerves into the wrong lane for a second. So he opens the window. He tries to turn up the music, but his station fades out.

He searches for a new station, but no luck. So he starts singing “Losing My Religion” to himself.

Freddy 2.0 claws push up out of the car seat, and a single claw pokes Chase softly in the groin. Which is just strange. Chase scratches himself, and the claws vanish, with no trace of damage to the car seat.

Chase falls asleep again, the new Freddy hand shoots out of the seat, and stabs Chase in the chest.

Chase’s truck careens towards a wall.

Heather wakes up. She fell asleep on the couch. Dylan is in the living room, asking if mommy is scared. Heather says, “Mommy’s fine,” and that it was just a bad dream.

Heather tells Dylan to go back to sleep, and he says he’s not sleepy.

The doorbell rings, and Heather goes to answer it. The police are there. They ask if Chase is her husband. There was “an accident.” Chase is dead.

Dylan wanders off in the middle of this conversation.

Heather says she wants to see Chase’s body, even thought he cops don’t recommend it.

She heads to the morgue, and wanders the hallways with the dead bodies sitting on gurneys. Somewhere, a woman is freaking out and screaming.

As she walks past a room, she hears someone operating something noisy and mechanical. It sounds like a saw.

She goes into that room, and asks for Chase. One of the men on duty takes her to him. The dude lifts the sheet, and she sees his face. And also the scratches on his chest. She throws up on the floor.

She asks what made those scratches. She says it looks like he was clawed. The dude says that’s why they usually don’t show anything past the face. Heather leaves without signing her paperwork.

There’s a funeral. Everyone is there, including Robert Englund, and the “Nightmare” producers. Odd. Must be one of them dream sequences.

There’s an earthquake, and the coffin opens up. Heather looks around, and Dylan is gone. She looks in the casket, and Freddy is in the bottom of it, along with Dylan. He pulls Dylan down.

Heather goes into the coffin and reaches through the “hole” at the foot of the casket. She reaches down, and grabs Dylan, and pulls him back up, while “Freddy” vanishes down the silk-covered hole.

Heather pokes her head into the hole, and pulls Dylan out. Then the corpse of Chase wakes up, and asks Heather to stay with him.

At which point, the dude who played Nancy’s dad in the original “Nightmare” wakes Heather up and points to Dylan, who is just fine. He’s sitting next to Julie. It seems that Heather passed out.

The priest wraps up the ceremony by hoping that Chase rests in peace, and that they all get home safely.

Robert stops Heather and says he’ll do anything he can to help. Heather says thanks, then walks off just as Wes Craven walks up.

Later that night, Heather wakes up from sleeping, and sees her son is watching TV downstairs. He’s watching the original “Nightmare…” on an unplugged TV. It’s Nancy’s first encounter with Freddy.

Heather waves a hand in front of Dylan’s face, but he doesn’t see it. He starts sleepwalking instead. Heather follows him, and he wakes up, screaming.

She tells him he needs to go back to bed, and he says he can’t sleep. Then he starts doing the Freddy chant. Heather asks where Dylan heard the song, and he says he heard it under the covers. “Way down there, with The Man. The Mean Man.”

The Man is always trying to drag you down, eh Dylan?

Dylan says that the mean man is trying to get into “our world.” Then his nose starts bleeding.

Heather takes him into the bathroom and cleans him up, while the camera shows us that the TV is off and like, totally unplugged.

Later, in bed, Dylan asks where daddy is, and Heather says daddy is in Heaven with God. Dylan asks why God lets there be bad things, and Heather says she doesn’t know.

Dylan then asks if Heather can come with him in his dreams. Heather says that only happens in movies (ha-ha!) but that she’ll be here when he gets back, and she won’t let anyone get his toes.

Dylan goes to sleep. Heather lies in bed with him and drinks coffee.

The next day, Dylan and Heather go to the park, and she talks to “John,” the dude who played her dad in the first “Nightmare.” She’s worried she’s crazy, and he tells her that she isn’t. She’s just had six weeks of stalker-calls, and that’s making her see Freddy in her dreams.

While those two yammer on, not at all concerned for the safety of the children around them, Dylan climbs to the very tippy-top of a metal rocket. He’s like thirty or forty feet in the air, and reaching for the sky. He falls.

Heather and John see him and run for him at the last minute, and Heather catches him. She asks if he’s all right, and he says, “God wouldn’t take me.”

John says, “It’s unbelievable.” No idea what that’s in reference to. That Dylan didn’t kill himself? That God didn’t take Dylan?

The next day, Heather checks her mail. She has a mysterious letter, which, inside the envelope, has a mysterious… um… letter. It’s a letter E, seared onto a piece of newsprint. She throws it in a drawer with a bunch of other letters that she didn’t turn over to the cops.

Heather calls Robert. They chat about her stalker. And about Heather’s Freddy dreams. Heather says that this Freddy isn’t Robert. He’s darker, and more evil. Robert guesses this before Nancy says anything about it.

Heather asks if Wes has talked to him about the script. Robert says Wes won’t show it to anyone until it’s done. Robert says he asked Wes about it, and Wes said he had reached the part where “Dylan is trying to reach God.”

Freaky, eh? Eh?

Heather’s freaked, anyway.

She tells Robert that they need to talk, but not over the phone. She asks if she can go to Robert’s house. Robert, who has been painting this entire time, says there’s something he has to finish.

We get to see his painting, which looks like the screaming souls from the “Nightmare” movies.

He agrees to meet Heather early the next morning, and they hang up. At Robert’s place, the camera pans up and there’s someone standing over the souls – Super Evil Freddy.

That night, Heather tries to sleep while her lamps tip back and forth, back and forth.

Downstairs, Dylan paces in the kitchen.

The house groans.

Then it all stops, and Nancy sleeps. The camera pans to the foot of the bed. Freddy claws pop up, and slide up towards Nancy. The new Freddy arm comes out of the bed. Nancy stirs in her sleep.

Downstairs, a bunch of cutlery falls to the floor. Heather wakes up, and sees the slashed sheets.

Downstairs, she hears Dylan doing the Freddy chant. Heather goes down to see him. She walks towards him. His hand is behind his back. There are knives taped to it, in a rather Freddy-like fashion.

Dylan slashes at Heather. She stumbles and tries to avoid being hit.

Then she wakes up. It’s morning. Or daylight. It’s a little unclear.

She hears Dylan chanting “Never Sleep Again” downstairs. He keeps saying it, over and over. Heather walks to him, and sees the letter from before on the floor. They spell out, “Answer The Phone.”

The phone rings. Heather picks it up. The mouthpiece sprouts a tongue and licks her, and says, “I touched him.” Dylan foams at the mouth.

Then he falls down screaming.

Heather takes Dylan to a doctor. He’s going to stay at the hospital overnight, and they’re going to run a bunch of tests. As Heather gets ready to leave, the doctor asks if there’s anything else they should know. Anything Dylan said while he was still lucid. Any kind of trigger event.

Heather just goes right ahead and lies, and says no. I mean, why mention Rex, the torn-up dino? Or “Never sleep again?” Or the foaming at the mouth, or anything really. I mean, who would do that? Not good parents, or anything like that, right?

Surely not.

Heather goes to talk to a semi-catatonic Dylan, and the doctor tells another doctor that the early symptoms point to childhood schizophrenia.

Heather does a whole monologue about how Dylan needs to get better, and fight whatever is after him. In a series where I’ve frequently complained there’s no real drama, and family dynamics are often for poo, it’s a decent shot at making a family connection, if Dylan wasn’t staring ahead blankly and Heather was a slightly better actress and Wes was a slightly better writer.

Instead, it mostly serves as a way to let everyone know that Heather’s house is right across the freeway. Which I’m sure is going to be important. Points for trying Wes, though. I mean that. I think you’re an awesomely talented fellow when it comes to creeping people out, but your dialogue has always been pretty weak.

A nurse comes in and gives Dylan a pill to help him sleep. He takes it.

Dylan prepares to take a nap, and Heather heads out. Only Dylan didn’t actually swallow the pill. He takes it out of his mouth, and then closes his eyes as though he was going to sleep. I’m perplexed. He decided not to take the pill and then went to sleep anyway? Or maybe he’s faking sleep? How can you tell?

Nancy gets in her car and starts to drive away. She almost hits someone, and he yells at her to wake up. She admonishes herself not to lose it now.

Nancy drinks coffee, drives, and uses her car phone to call Robert. His answering machine says he’s out of town and will be gone for some time.

So much for that meeting, I guess.

Heather goes to see Wes instead. She asks where the script is going, and Wes says he’s just having the nightmare(s) and then putting them into the script as they come to him.

She asks for some kind of explanation, and he says:

“It’s about this entity. Whatever you want to call it. It’s old. It’s very old. It’s existed in different forms in different times. About the only thing that stays the same is what it lives for. The murder of innocents.”

Heather asks if the thing in the nightmare has any weaknesses. Wes says it can be captured sometimes. By storytellers, who “catch its essence.” Then it’s a prisoner in the story.

But when the story dies, because it gets watered down, or people forget about it, the evil is set free again.

Then the genie is out of the bottle and the evil is set free.

Heather wants to know what form the evil is going to take, and Wes says that the evil has decided that it likes being Freddy, and that it plans to cross over into our world. But first he has to get past a gatekeeper.

The gatekeeper? Heather.

Heather does the whole, “That was Nancy, not me.” And Wes does the whole, “You gave Nancy her strength.” And Heather does the whole, “You knew this was going on,” and Wes is all, “I didn’t know.” And Heather is all, “But then you did, you big jerk-face.”

Wes thinks the only way to stop “Freddy” is to make another movie. Heather is going to have to make a choice – whether or not she’s willing to play Nancy one last time.

CUT TO: Wes’s computer screen, with the dialogue: “Whether or not you’re willing to play Nancy one last time.”

I’m going to grant Wes something here:

We’re an hour in, we’re just getting what we’re really up against here, and he alllmost makes it plausible.

There’s just one problem – assuming all this storytelling hokum is true, they don’t just have to make one movie. They have to keep making them, pretty much forever. And they’ve got to keep Freddy scary in every single one of them.

But never mind. We’re too far into the series to talk about logic any more.

At any rate, the script also says, “Fad to Black,” which the screen does, and then it comes back up on a bunch of legal pads covered in notes, and books like “Chilton on Childhood Diseases.”

Just how long has Heather been working on all these notes, exactly?

Heather reads a passage, or we’re getting voiceover, I’m not sure, that says, essentially, that kids who appear to be suffering from schizophrenia are actually suffering from (duh-duh-duuuh) sleep deprivation. I know! Who saw that coming?

But wait – Heather wasn’t actually around for the schizophrenia conversation. The doctor was talking to another doctor. So what are we watching here, exactly? Just a happy coincidence?

We get some more voiceover, cut together with earlier scenes from the movie as Heather totally starts to put together the fact that her kid keeps talking about Freddy, and also Wes is writing about Freddy, and Robert Englund is having dreams about Freddy.

I really don’t know who this sequence is for. Did someone from the movie studio call up Wes and say, “Well, we think there are some people who just might not get it. People with that memory problem, where they can’t create new memories? That’s our target audience. We want to make sure those people can figure out what’s going on.”

Heather snaps out of flashback mode as the TV comes on by itself. She takes a remote and turns it off, and it turns itself back on again, just in time for Heather to see someone on the news announce the death of her husband’s special effects partners.

By “brutal slashing.”

There’s another earthquake. Heather gets up and runs to the doorway. The earthquake stops. Heather discovers that her coffee pot has been destroyed.

She hears a creaking, and looks up at the closet. Her clothes are there. Suddenly, Freddy pushes through them. He says, “Miss me?”

They sort of tussle, with Heather trying to keep away from his claw hand. Finally, he pushes her down and pins her to the bed. He calls her Nancy.

An aftershock starts, and Heather pushes him off of her, and he falls away, reaching out and scratching her arm with his new, updated claws.

The aftershock ends, Heather rolls off the bed and looks around, and then says, “Ow.” Because her arm is slashed.

Heather realizes that she needs to make sure Dylan is okay. So she goes to the hospital. Julie is there, because she had a bad dream and she’s also worried about Dylan. But they won’t let her in, because she’s not family.

Heather and Julie talk for a minute, and Dylan’s doctor, who I guess works 24 hours a day, says that he’s in an oxygen tent, but that he’s otherwise fine. She sees that Heather has some bad cuts, and guides Heather away to talk to her.

The doctor patches up Heather. Which is kind of remarkable, if you think about it. Didn’t ask for a Co-Pay, or an insurance card, or anything. Just stuck some gauze on her.

The doctor asks when Heather got the cuts, and Heather says she got them 15 minutes ago in the earthquake. The doctor says the wounds seem too fresh for that. It seems that the hospital didn’t experience an earthquake. The doctor also asks about Dylan, as a nurse overheard that he was afraid of “a man.”

Heather remembers that she was supposed to bring Rex to Dylan, and she lets slip that he’s afraid of Freddy.

The doctor accuses Heather of letting Dylan watch her movies, and Heather retorts that EVERY kid knows who Freddy is.

Heather leaves.

She goes to sit next to Dylan’s bed, and sure enough, there he is in an oxygen tent. Heather tries to shake off sleep, and manages to do it long enough for two nurses to come in and fiddle with his settings. One nurse asks the other how Dylan is doing, and the other one basically goes, “Eh.”

The nurses leave, and Heather continues to struggle to remain not-asleep.

She fails, then hears Dylan’s beep-beep-beep machine go beeeeeeeeeep and wakes up. Dylan is also awake. He opens the oxygen tent and tells Heather, in an increasingly deep voice, that he’s “almost there.”

So he either being taken over by Freddy, or puberty. Not much of a twist either way, y’know?

Then he spews black bile on Heather and goes into a seizure-type thing. So I’m going to guess we’re looking at puberty.

A truckload of nurses and the doctor come in, and the doctor says to give the kid anesthesia. A nurse says they don’t have any, and the doctor says she’s going in anyway. She raises her hand into frame, and of course it’s been modified with various surgical instruments to look like the Freddy glove.

Then the doctor “becomes” Freddy.

Nancy leaps from her chair onto the bed, and wakes up. The bed is empty. A few nurses and the doctor come in, and there’s hysterical babbling and “no, your son is fine, we took him for tests while you were asleep,” and then the doctor says Heather should go home, everything is fine.

Heather insists everything is NOT fine. Not sure if she’s talking about her kid or her career.

Heather limps down the hall, and they announce a “code yellow.” It looks like things are going to get exciting, but no. The doctor just catches up to her and asks some other staff member what’s up with Dylan.

The staff member says that Dylan is suffering from intense sleep deprivation, and stage-whispers to the doctor that she thinks Heather never lets the kid get a good night’s sleep. Sure. It’s Hollywood. They’re up all night doing coke.

Heather demands to see Dylan, and it almost gets tense, but Julie pops out of a door and says that someone wants to see Heather. That someone is Dylan, who wants to know if they can go get Rex now, because the bad man is getting closer.

Heather says that they can go get Rex right now. The doctor pops her head in and “insists” that Dylan stay in the hospital until they figure out what’s causing his episodes.

I have to concur, considering the fact that Rex has been just as useful as a crucifix when it comes to keeping Freddy away.

Also, somewhere along the line, Heather picked up the grey streak she had in the original “Nightmare.”

Heather sets Dylan back down on a bed and says she’s going to get Rex right now. Dylan asks her to hurry, because he’s sleepy.

Heather tells Julie not to let Dylan out of her sight, and keep him awake. Julie tells Heather that her hair is turning grey.

Heather walks out into the hallway, and three security men drag her into a room. The doctor prepares to lay into her.

Back with Dylan, Julie looks on as two nurses give Dylan a shot to knock him out. Julie punches one nurse out, and threatens the other one with a hypodermic full of who-knows what.

The other nurse runs away.

Back in the other room, the doctor asks Heather if there has been any recreational drug use in her family. Uh, duh? This is Hollywood, right? That’s like asking if someone who grew up in the 60s tried dope.

The doctor goes on to ask about mental disturbance in the family. Heather tries to storm out, but the security dude stops her.

Julie keeps on trying to keep Dylan awake.

Doc asks if Heather has been seeing Freddy. She starts talking about “treatments” and putting Dylan in foster care for a while.

Dylan closes his eyes, opens them, and sees Freddy standing behind Julie. He tells Julie to look behind her, but she doesn’t see anything. Which doesn’t stop Freddy from stabbing her with his claws and lifting her in the air.

Heather demands to be allowed to leave.

In Dylan’s room, the nurses break in just as Julie is dangled in the air, then dragged across the floor, up the wall, and onto the ceiling. There’s blood everywhere. Julie asks Dylan to help her.

Then she falls from the ceiling to the floor.

Dylan yells for his mom, and then for Rex. He runs away.

Heather sucker-elbows a nurse and finds a dead Julie on the floor. The doctor assures Heather that Dylan can’t get out of the hospital, because he’s been sedated. Heather reminds the doctor, loudly, that Dylan sleepwalks.

And she knows where he’s going. Freeway time!

Heather escapes to the parking garage, and goes driving after Dylan. She sees him climbing up onto the freeway. He starts to cross the freeway, but there are cars everywhere, so a massive Freddy in the sky uses his claws to hook Dylan into the air so he can dangle just about the high-speed traffic.

Not quite sure what Freddy’s end-game is here.

Heather runs across the freeway, and lots and lots of vehicles go screaming around, crashing into each other. Heather is hit by a car and goes flying. People pick her up and ask if she’s okay.

Meanwhile, Dylan has been set down by Freddy. He looks one way, and sees many, many, many Freddys (Freddies?) coming towards him, so he goes the opposite direction.

Heather sees that Dylan is gone and runs away from all the people who want to know if she has internal bleeding, and if Johnny Depp is just as nice a guy as he seems to be.

She gets to her house, and the door is open. She calls to Dylan, then gets a false-scare from her Nancy-dad, who is in the house.

So is Dylan. Heather hugs him, and tells her surrogate father that she knows who killed Chase. She tells him it was Freddy, and he doesn’t believe her.

John asks Heather to step outside for a moment, without Dylan.

They leave. Dylan hears a noise. In his bedroom, the bed starts to shake and smoke. Something grows under the sheets. A claw comes out.

I mean, obviously it’s Freddy under there. But wouldn’t it have been interesting if it wasn’t? If, say, Wes Craven suddenly popped out of the corner and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Rolling Stones!” and then the band kicked into “Satisfaction?”

Non-linear thinking like this may be why I’m not famous.

Outside, Heather talks to John, only he keeps calling her Nancy, and he doesn’t know who Robert Englund is, and he insists that Freddy is dead and that “Nancy” doesn’t want to “end up like her mother.”

Also, he’s got a badge and a gun.

Heather tells “not-John” “I love you too, Daddy,” and Freddy steps into Dylan’s bedroom and goes into prowl mode.

Outside, not-John turns on his flashing police light and drives away. The “Nightmare on Elm Street” music starts up. Nancy/Heather turns out, and her house has turned into the Nancy house, complete with (I simply cannot believe it) a blue door. Yes, really. Only took them six movies to get it right again.

Nancy/Heather runs into the house, while on the soundtrack, someone (sounds like it could be Dylan) does the Freddy chant.

Inside the Nancy/Heather house, Nancy/Heather is now dressed in her pajamas. She hears a voice, and grabs a knife from the kitchen. She watches the (still unplugged) TV as it shows the scene from part one wherein Nancy tells her dad to be ready to arrest Freddy once Nancy goes and gets him.

The TV fuzzes out.

Nancy/Heather spots a yellow pill on the floor. She picks it up. She looks at it. She says, for the audience’s benefit, that they’re Dylan’s sleeping pills, and we get a voiceover thing about Hansel and Gretel and the breadcrumbs. For the people who were making out during that part of the movie.

Heather goes into Dylan’s bedroom, where she finds Rex with his sides re-slashed, with stuffing all over the floor.

She goes to Dylan’s bed, and finds another pill. She moves the sheets around. Then she says, “Join you. You’ve given me a way to join you.”

She takes two sleeping pills, lifts up the bed sheet, and crawls under the sheets towards the foot of the bed.

Under the bed, there’s a long passage made of sheet. She slides down it. It becomes a long passage made of metal and ugly windows. Nancy/Heather keeps on sliding.

Eventually, she falls into a huge, cavernous room that looks an awful lot like the one from the start of the movie.

Dylan calls to her. She calls back. She moves around the set that probably cost about 1/5 of the budget of the movie, while we get little glimpses of Freddy, who says things like, “Almost there.”

She looks around, and spots a collection of pages on the ground. It’s a screenplay. She picks it up and starts reading. From the screenplay. Which says:

Heather (OS) (reading) The more she read, the more she realized what she had in her hands was nothing more or less than her life itself. That everything she had experienced and thought was bound within these pages. There was no movie. There was only… her… life…

Someone grabs Nancy/Heather. It’s Dylan. Who says, “It’s just me.”

Hey Dylan – if you want to grow up, you might want to consider not startling a hungry actress carrying a large knife.

Dylan and Nancy/Heather hug. She asks where Freddy is. Dylan said, “He had me, but then he let me go.”

Freddy grabs Nancy/Heather from behind. She drops Dylan. Freddy holds her over a puddle filled with snakes. Or eels. I really have no idea. Nancy/Heather grabs a snake and jams it into Freddy’s eye.

Freddy lets go of Nancy/Heather. He pulls the snake out of his eye. Nancy/Heather punches Freddy in the face, and he falls over.

More fighting ensues. Freddy holds Nancy/Heather against the wall and is about to start slashin’, except Dylan picks up the forgotten knife on the floor and stabs him in the back of the knee with it.

Freddy pulls it out, and gets ready to attack Dylan. But no, Nancy jumps on Freddy’s back. He throws her into a shallow pool of water.

Freddy runs after Dylan. Dylan runs away.

Nancy, who appeared unconscious but I guess wasn’t, drags herself up out of the pool. Off-camera. So we have no idea how she did it, since I thought she was unconscious.

Dylan runs from Freddy. This next part is annoying to explain, but I’m going to do it because I know it’s important to you.

Throughout the cavern are a bunch of what look like little fireplaces, with metal doors. What they really are, are square rooms with some flame in the middle of them from some source we can’t see. But there’s a metal door on the front of them.

Dylan goes into one of the rooms, and Freddy tries to reach him, only he can’t get his shoulders through the tiny doorway to the room.

So he starts stretching his arm. Slowly. To build tension. Because if he did it quick, how bleak would that ending be?

Nancy/Heather finally wakes up and grabs the knife off the floor, and goes running. She’s almost there, but she gets stuck on the stairs, which turn into goo, just like in the original “Nightmare.”

Freddy finally grabs Dylan, and instead of stabbing him to death, he says he’s going to eat Dylan up, and his head and mouth start expanding, like he’s a snake or something. Dylan screams.

Freddy stuffs Dylan’s head into his mouth.

But right in the nick of time, Nancy/Heather gets up the stairs and stabs Freddy. Dylan escapes. Nancy/Heather tells Dylan to get out of there, and lucky for him, the only thing blocking his path is a boa constrictor on a branch covering a little window-hole.

Meanwhile, Freddy, whose lower half is stuck outside the little square room, turns his upper half around and sticks his tongue out at Nancy/Heather. The tongue gets longer and longer, and wraps around Nancy/Heather. A lot.

Dylan comes around the corner, and grab’s the end of Freddy’s tongue, and tries to stab it with Nancy/Heather’s knife. He keeps missing. Freddy, in turn, sort of mugs. I’m not sure what they were going for, here. Is it supposed to be funny? Because it’s completely draining the tension out of the scene. Freddy is about one quip away from being a buffoon again, here.

Finally, Dylan succeeds in stabbing Freddy’s tongue. He yanks it back, which causes Freddy to end up with a forked tongue.

Freddy falls into the square room he previously couldn’t get into. Nancy/Heather and Dylan slam the door shut and pull some kind of lever, which causes the flames to shoot up in the air and consume Freddy.

Who starts on fire, and sprouts horns, so he looks like, you know, the devil. Then he explodes, and fire shoots up in the various ovens.

Not sure why Freddy didn’t just fry Dylan before. Also not sure why Freddy didn’t just run out the exact same hole Dylan just used to escape.

Nancy/Heather tells Dylan to run. They run. A series of things that are supposed to be ruins but are clearly models blow up real good. Fire ‘splodes everywhere.

Nancy/Heather and Dylan jump into the shallow pool, which is suddenly a lot deeper.

Everything goes BOOM!

Heather and Dylan fall out of the foot of Dylan’s bed.

There’s lots of smoke everywhere but nothing is on fire. They both recite part of Hansel and Gretel for the people who stopped caring about the metaphor over an hour ago.

Nancy looks down at the floor, and sees a screenplay there. There’s a note on it from Wes. “Heather – Thanks for having the guts to play Nancy one last time. At last Freddy’s back where he belongs. Regards, Wes.”

There is no P.S. like, “Sorry I killed your husband in the process. That was my bad.”

Or, “There are a bunch of cops at the door. Good luck trying to explain what happened without getting locked up for a good long while.”

Or, “Sorry the ending didn’t make a truckload of sense. I said I could write a movie around this concept without actually realizing that there would be, like, logistics and stuff to think about.”

Heather turns to the last page of the script, which has Dylan asking “Is it a story?” and her saying that it’s a story. Dylan asks her to read some of it.

So Heather turns to the first page and starts reading the start of the movie to us, with the whole Freddy claws being built thing.

The screen goes to black, and we get a strange little dance remix of the “Nightmare” theme. The nightmare is finally ov – oh, what was that? There’s another movie? That pretty much ignores this one?

Awesome.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare

2010-03-31T12:34:00.001-07:00

You’ve got to wonder if the whole “let’s put a quote at the head of the movie” thing came down as some sort of, “Let’s class this trash up,” edict, or if the writers just wanted to prove they learned something in college.

Either way, the one that starts The End for Freddy is: “Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep? To the very toes he is terrified, Because the ground gives way under him, And the Dream begins…” Friederich Nietzsche.

All spelling and capitalization courtesy of the dudes who character-generated it for the screen.

They also stick a quote from Freddy at the front of the film, but you know what? Forget it. I’m not taking their bait.

All right, now we’ve got a shot of a white-on-black outline of the United States, and we’re getting even more words. I guess I want to go ahead and give credit to the people who thought that most of the fans of these movies were literate.

(Oh, I kid. You know I kid.)

And we’ve got text: “Springwood, Ohio, Ten Years from Now. Mysterious killings and suicides wipe out entire population of children and teenagers. Remaining adults are experiencing mass psychosis. There is new evidence of one surviving teenager…”

(Whoa! Are we really going to get a post-apocalyptic Freddy film? Huh. I’m confused by the ambition.)

And now we’ve got a plane flying in the rain. Inside the plane, some young dude squirms. He asks the flight attendant for another seat, but she says they’re full up.

His light blows out. He looks at the window, and realizes that the water is on the inside of the window. For those of you who’ve never flown before, that’s bad.

A little girl peeks her head over the seat in front of the dude and says, “He’s going to make you help him. Because you’re the last.”

(Ya know, I suspect this movie is going to give me even more mythology fits.)

Our dude in action presses his Call button and asks to change seats again. He tells the woman next to him he’s afraid of heights.

The woman says something rude, and she gets sucked up through the top of the plane and into the sky.

Then our dude in non-action gets sucked down out of the plane and into a house. Yeah. He’s dreaming.

He gets up, and goes to the window. Which allows him to realize that his house is flying through the air. Like in, you know, “The Wizard of Oz.”

I don’t know want to know where this is going. I don’t. Can it be?

It can.

Here’s Freddy, riding on a broom, wearing a witch’s hat, and yelling, “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little soul, too.”

Hey everyone, remember when Freddy was scary? I’ll be generous, and say, maybe three movies ago? We’re four and a half minutes into this movie and I’m already prepared to hand this write-up over to Pepito, the Movie-Reviewing Bell Pepper.

The house crashes. Dude flies through the window. He’s on Elm Street. He wanders around the outside of the house for a bit, until he sees another house nearby. It’s Nancy’s house. Which still has a red door.

Dude runs. He jumps a fence. He lands on a hill and rolls down it. For like, a whole minute.

Now he’s running through a field. He does this for a while, until he finds a small booth. An evil dude uses his Freddy-clawed hand to push a ticket at the Dude.

“One ticket. Round trip. Hurry up boy. You don’t wanna miss the bus.”

Dude backs away from the ticket-selling booth, into the middle of the road. A bus hits him. Instead of killing him, the Dude sticks to the front of the bus, screaming, while Freddy, who is driving, laughs. Maniacally.

Pepito the Bell Pepper thinks this is stupid.

Freddy stops the bus, Dude flies through the air. He punches through the dark “night” out of the city limits of Springwood. It is light. He lands, and his head clunks on a rock.

Freddy gets out of the bus and walks up to the hole left by the dude, which is like something out of a Warner Brothers cartoon. The hole closes.

And Freddy says, “Now be a good little doggy, and go fetch.”

Dude wakes up from being on his rock-pillow. It’s still light out.

He has jeans and a t-shirt on, and that’s it. He checks his pockets, and comes away with some cash, some no-sleep pills, and an article about a missing Krueger woman.

He walks off down the road.

The movie then jumps over to Recovery House Youth Shelter. A dude in a suit is berating his son, Spencer. Dad wants to see changes when Spencer gets home in a week.

Spencer is non-plussed.

Dad gets all mad at someone who, I guess, works there. Her name is Maggie, and she tries to talk to Spencer, only another dude who works there enters the room and shows Maggie a pipe bomb he found in Spencer’s room.

He says he’s going to put it “downstairs, with the rest of the arsenal.” I’m sure we’ll see that bomb again.

Another girl, Tracy, comes running out of somewhere. Apparently, one of the other kids was trying to hit on her, and she freaked.

Outside, the cops find Dude, and figure he’s a junkie. So they decide to take him to the shelter.

Back at the shelter, we get to meet Carlos, who is watching Tracy kickbox a heavy bag. Like in boxing, I mean. You’ve got that, right? Right.

He kind of hits on Tracy, and Tracy gets ready to beat him mercilessly. He says he has a handicap, indicating his ear. Then he pulls off his hearing aid, and suddenly the movie has no sound. At all.

I suppose they’re trying to make a point, but if the dude was that deaf, a hearing aid wouldn’t be all that much help.

Spencer comes over, and makes Carlos put his hearing aid back in, saying, “Don’t tune out. Why don’t you talk back to her for once?”

Ah, but enough relationship nonsense. Time for some plot. Spencer gave some dude some money and the three of them plan to bust out by the end of the week.

Maggie goes to see the group home’s therapist, who has plans to use dream therapy to clean up Tracy’s problems. Maggie is also having a recurring dream, but I guess we’ll get to that later, since she notices a poster on the wall.

The Therapist says the things on the poster are “Dream Demons.” Or rather, an artistic rendering in stone of same-said demons. He expands. “Supposedly they roam the dreams of the living, until they find the most evil, twisted human imaginable. Then they give him the power to cross the line and turn our nightmares into reality.”

Uh-huh.

Other guy who works there says he needs Maggie to talk to Dude.

He’s suffering from amnesia.

She talks to the Dude. He does, indeed, have amnesia, and he knows that he’s staying up nights.

The only thing he remembers is that, wherever he’s from, he’s the last survivor.

He asks for some caffeine.

He feels like if he falls asleep, there’s going to be trouble.

Later that night, Maggie looks at the article Dude had in his pocket, noting the town: Springwood. And the water tower.

Also, Dude keeps himself awake by singing some variation of 100 Bottles of Beer on the wall.

Then we get a dream sequence, with a little girl, and a “Come to Daddy” that sounds pretty ominous.

There’s a scream.

In his bed, Dude is asleep. Water drips in his face from a pipe overhead. Then there’s blood on his face, from a stain overhead.

A little girl, the one we just saw, says, “Play with me!” And also, “I won’t tell.” But that’s in answer to him asking who he is.

Dude gets up from his bed, which now appears to be in… Nancy’s house? Some kind of house, anyway. He follows the little girl.

In the real world, he sleepwalks down the hall. And when he walks up the stairs in his dream, he walks up on thin air in the real world.

In an upstairs hallway, he goes into a white room and finds himself, sitting in a corner in a straightjacket. He tells himself to free himself. Or rather, his memory.

Dude screams and backs up, in what I guess is now the real world, as he knocks a security guard who was following him out a window. This makes the guard mad.

The next day, Maggie asks Dude was he was dreaming about. He says he remembers a water tower and a little girl.

The little girl had brown hair with red ribbons.

Maggie goes to talk to Psychiatrist, who says their dreams are related, and Maggie is afraid to learn what Dude will show her. Maggie gets all, “I don’t have a problem, and you’re a big stupid-head.”

Then she decides to take Dude on a trip back to Springwood, despite the fact that he doesn’t want to go.

They drive. Dude is sleeping in his seat. He wakes up, and sees the little girl in the middle of the road. Which Maggie clearly doesn’t see.

He yanks on the wheel, and they spin out, revealing that Spencer, Tracy, and Carlos have stowed away.

Maggie says they need to locate a phone and call Kelly, who I guess is the guy who keeps ordering Maggie around.

The gang keeps driving into town.

The Springwood Town Fair is on, based on the huge banner.

Whereas, based on the actual fair itself, they didn’t have any money to spend on extras.

Maggie tells the kids to go call Kelly, then get right back in the van and drive back to the shelter.

Which would leave Maggie and Dude just sitting around. I’m not sure I get this plan, exactly.

The kids grumble as they head out to find a phone. They wander along, noticing the single pie, with a cockroach running over it. And the smoking clown. And the one old dude riding the bumper cars by himself.

Dude looks around and goes, hey, there are no kids here…

Around that time, Spencer, Tracy and Carlos learn that the local pay phone doesn’t work. And then some freaky woman, and her freaky husband, accost the kids and ask if they want to come live with them. The freaky woman promises that this time she’ll hide them better so that “he” can’t get them.

The freaky husband reminds the freaky wife that kids bring danger. Some nearby bells ring in a tower, and the man blames the kids.

The kids, in turn, think that leaving would be a good thing. They go back to the van, and Maggie reminds them to get out of town. Dude hopes they make it.

Maggie decides she and Dude should go to the nearby school and ask what’s going on. She wants to know what’s going on with the bells.

I’m not sure how these things all relate.

The kids drive into the town, which appears pretty deserted. They drive by a statue with the inscription: The Children Shall Endure.

I’m thinking that probably won’t be all that important, but the director wanted to point the camera at the plate real hard, so I’m passing that information on to you. You’re welcome.

One of the kids finds a map in the back of the truck. Tracy, who is driving, says she doesn’t need one. She keeps driving. Then she passes by the statue again.

Maggie and Dude keep walking, until they stop to admire a chalk drawing of Freddy in the road. With the words, “One, Two Freddy’s coming for you…” written under it.

Then we go back to the kids, who drive past the statue a bunch more times. Tracy asks for the map. Carlos opens the map. It keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger in his hands. Isn’t that all freaky? No. Well, it’s all we’re getting. Pepito says, “Deal with it.”

Tracy yells at him again, and he wakes up.

Spencer says that Tracy screwed up twice now, so now he gets a try. By the by, he was smoking pot in an earlier scene. Just in case that’s important later.

Maggie and Dude get to the high school, and find, “3, 4, Better lock your door,” written on the wall.

They go inside, and find a cuh-ray-zay teacher sitting in his desk, teaching no one. Loudly. Maggie says not to disturb him.

He pulls down a chart, and the words, “5, 6, Grab your crucifix” are written on it. Along with the other information that was already there.

Maggie cracks open a scrapbook on a desk and finds a bunch of dead/missing kid stories taped inside. Freddy is mentioned, so I’m guessing that the stories date back to his original kid-killing days. Only the stories aren’t yellow or anything, so I guess they’re really well preserved?

Strange.

Lisa pulls the Krueger story out of her pocket and sticks it into a slot where part of a newspaper article has gone missing. It fits. She calls to Dude (she’s calling him John, which I’m guessing is a John Doe joke) and shows him her discovery.

This causes the crazy teacher to try to teach to Maggie and John. He says, in part: “Welcome to Freddy 101. Fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-three, Freddy sailed across the sea.”

John and Maggie look at the wall, which has a bunch of dead kids listed on it. Maggie is all, “Hey, these all happened in a ten year period.”

The teacher then points at the board and says that, “His kid was taken away from him.” He appears to be pointing at 1966. John and Maggie assume the teacher is talking about Freddy. I’m guessing not.

The kids, meanwhile, are still driving in a circle. And it’s dark now.

Tracy decides to walk. She wants a place to sleep. Carlos and Spencer follow.

Oh look. A street sign. Elm Street.

Tracy walks up to a house with a For Sale sign on it. And what appear to be lights blazing inside. But she still thinks the house is abandoned. Interesting theory.

She kicks the door in, and they all go inside. Then the “covering” rips off the outside of the house, revealing… that it’s Nancy’s house. Which has a red door again. Or still. Or something. I guess I’m supposed to be freaked out by this, but honestly, we’ve already established that Freddy can wipe out anyone in town, right? So what does it matter that they’re in Nancy’s house?

I’m equally intrigued by another issue. Do we assume that “John” is actually Jacob? He was the last of the “my dreams can bring Freddy back” line, right? Or have the rules changed again, so that anyone, at any time, can bring Freddy back?

Probably not, because only “kids” can do it, right? Teenagers?

You know? I give right up. They’re not even trying any more.

Inside, the house is the same old beat up Nancy house it’s always been. Carlos goes upstairs to sleep. He finds a dusty bed, and lies down on it.

Sheldon goes looking for a bathroom. Tracy follows him. Sheldon and Tracy discuss why John told them not to fall asleep.

Upstairs, Carlos wakes up, and walks down the hallway. Only he’s not in the house now. He’s in an apartment building. He meets him mom there. She threatens to clean out his ears. With a swab that’s about two feet long.

Carlos freaks out, asking his “mom” not to make him deaf.

Only now, of course, his mom is Freddy, and Freddy jams the thing in his ear. And then out the other. Carlos pulls the swab out. Then Freddy cuts of his ear, and we lose most of the sound again.

Freddy throws Carlos out on the fire escape, and Carlos rolls down it. He gets up. He keeps walking down. To the boiler room. Freddy runs up behind him, but of course Carlos can’t hear him.

Credit where it’s due – this is freaky.

Carlos screams that he wants his hearing back, and Freddy, from up on a catwalk somewhere, drops the hearing aid to Carlos. Carlos puts it on his remaining ear, and it turns into an instrument of torture, putting little claws into his ear.

Then, water dripping from a spigot becomes real loud. Carlos turns it off.

Freddy drops a pin, and Carlos catches it before it can hit the floor and be all loud.

Freddy drops lots of pins, and they land, and it’s all loud. But not, like, unbearably so. Or maybe the actor is just really good at demonstrating pain using his limited abilities.

Carlos looks around, and finds Freddy again. Freddy has a chalkboard. He drags his claws across the chalkboard. A lot. Until Carlos’s head blows up.

Freddy concludes with, “Nice hearing from you, Carlos.” Which is a really stupid way to end what has so far been the only suspenseful and funny sequence this movie has generated. What a waste.

Back in the real world, Tracy goes looking for Carlos, but he isn’t in bed any more. She does find his hearing aid.

Tracy runs to talk to Spencer, but Spencer is smoking pot and watching TV. Or rather, he’s looking at a TV with a busted picture tube.

Tracy says she’s going to go find Carlos.

But on the TV, in Spencer-vision, is Carlos, and a bunch of other… I’m not sure. I guess they’re probably souls.

Carlos tells Spencer not to fall asleep. Frankly, if Spencer is seeing Carlos, sleep has already occurred.

But it’s not like this movie believes in getting things remotely right, as Spencer closes his eyes and falls asleep. I was not aware that dope allowed you to see the dead.

John and Maggie go to the local orphanage. Strangely, there are lights on. And here comes the explanation. A crazy woman, who used to run the place. She says she remembers John. And Maggie. And a couple of invisible people.

They ask about Freddy, but the woman insists that she can’t share any identifying information.

Maggie finds a crayon drawing that says K. Krueger. John decides that he did the drawing, and that he’s Freddy’s kid, which is why Freddy is keeping him alive. Sure. That’s it.

They go outside. Tracy pulls up in the van. She says she lost Carlos and Spencer is baked. John says they need to get to them before Freddy does. He tells Tracy he’ll fill her in on Freddy on the way.

Back at Nancy’s house, Spencer wakes up and sees Johnny Depp doing a “this is your brain on drugs” commercial. Yes, really. Unless he’s supposed to be Nancy’s boyfriend, all grown up in the spirit world, trying to help Freddy’s next victim improve his life choices.

I guess that’s possible, as one would assume he escaped Freddy’s soul collection three movies back.

Freddy then smacks Depp in the face with a frying pan. He tells Spencer to trip out. The riff from Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida comes up. Trippy colors come out of the TV.

Then Spencer looks around, and he’s in the TV. Which turns off.

Maggie, John, and Tracy arrive at the house and discover that Spencer is missing. They decide to look for him. Good plan.

In some other place, Freddy is using a video game controller to move Spencer around in a video game that looks more like a really, really poorly rendered cartoon. Pepito is angered by this animation abomination.

Only, I guess Freddy isn’t operating Spencer, because Spencer is confronted by a cartoon version of his dad, who beats Spencer down with a racket. Spencer takes the racket and beats his dad to a pulp.

Then a bigger version of “dad” whacks Spencer off the screen and into an apple tree. He eats an apple, and “powers up.” (He yells, “Super Spencer,” for the slow people.)

Then he goes and kills his dad. Freddy intones, “Great graphics.”

Should I mention that at one point he also said, “Now I’m playing with power?” He did. The joke was probably mildly funny at the time, but anyone more than ten years younger than myself has no idea what it means today.

In some version of the real world, Maggie steps out of the cellar through the cellar doors. She looks around outside and sees the water tower from the picture.

Inside the house, Spencer punches his way out of the video game. He flies through the actual wall and into Nancy’s house, where he lands by John. Who says he “found” Spencer.

Of course, since Spencer is still dreaming, he’s still “in” the video game, where Freddy is stomping on his belly.

Tracy, Maggie, and Spencer all try to wake him up, but he’s “too wasted.”

Spencer then proceeds to act like a human cartoon in the real world. Bouncing in the air, punching through walls, walking/gliding around. And yeah, all your standard cartoon noises are playing in the background.

And once again? Not scary. Or funny.

John determines that the only way to get into Spencer’s dream is for Tracy to knock him out. Tracy doesn’t want to do it, so he slaps her in the face. She clocks him with a pipe, and he falls “into” a table and down into the dream world.

(Uh… Spencer is still walking around in the regular world, even as he’s being abused. Why not John?)

John “falls” into something that looks a little like the boiler room, but not really. Then Tracy appears, with the help of a bunch of dazzling Tinkerbell-esque lights. She tells John she used “concentration meditation.”

Too bad she couldn’t use that to get out of the city.

She looks over, and sees Freddy, sitting in his office, controller in hand. So she runs in, kicks the controller out of his hand and takes it from him.

Freddy looks over and laughs, and holds up his glove. Which has electronics attached to it. Why yes, there is a “Power Glove” joke, which, again, has aged about as well as a pound of raw hamburger left in the sun for 20 years.

The office door slams, locking Tracy and John out.

In the game, Spencer gets punched in the face, and then slapped around until he falls into a pit containing several copies of his “dad.”

In the real world, he climbs some stairs, and falls down them, to the floor, which is actually Freddy’s “throat.” Or it’s the umbilical cord again, from part 5. I have no clue. I bet the people who made this movie don’t either.

Freddy grins and declares that he beat his high score.

Remember when these movies used to be entertaining? Me neither.

In the real world, the TV jumps and fills with blood, which spills out onto the floor. No idea why. Spencer wasn’t anywhere near it.

Tracy does a ninja-dream-flip and confronts Freddy, who says, “Daddy’s waiting for you, little girl.”

She kicks him. He goes to slash her, only Maggie wakes her up.

Maggie asks Tracy what they should do, and after some yelling, they decide to take John, stuff him in the van, and get out of town. Because that plan worked awesome before.

They drive. John continues to be unconscious in the back.

John “wakes up.” He’s in a bedroom, in a nice house. He looks outside. It’s a nice day. He goes outside. It’s nice.

Then his house shoots up into outer space, with him still in the doorway.

He wakes up again. This time he says he’s not getting out of bed. The house starts on fire, so he jumps out a window. Since the house is still hanging in space, he starts to fall.

In the real world, the van approaches the town border.

In the dream, John sees this he has a Pull In Case of Emergency tag on his shirt. He pulls it, and the shirt turns into a parachute.

In the real world, John shoots out of the ceiling of the van.

In the dream world, John, shirtless, looks up his parachute. Freddy is inside.

Freddy slides down the straps of the parachute to confront John, and John says he knows why Freddy let him live.

Freddy asks John if John thinks Freddy is his daddy. It seems this is not the case. Freddy left John alive so that John could bring Freddy’s daughter back to him.

I’d register shock on my face if I could stop yawning long enough. Pepito would register shock if he had a face.

Freddy says that his daughter is going to take him to a whole new playground.

Freddy cuts the straps on the parachute, and John starts to plummet.

On the ground, Freddy wheels a bed of nails under the falling John. John lands, impaling himself horribly.

In the real world, John does a whole lot of bleeding. Maggie holds him. Tracy says they need to get out of town.

John dies. And vanishes. So that Maggie can do some really horrible “shocked” acting. I mean this honestly. It’s bad.

Freddy says, “It’s traveling time!” and vanishes from wherever he is.

In the real world, Freddy’s, uh… essence? Floods into Maggie’s head. Yes, folks, Maggie is Freddy’s daughter. I know you care about this. This is the culmination of everything we’ve been wanting to know about Freddy since the first movie.

Oh, no. Wait. I’m sorry. It’s just a bunch of random additional Freddy facts that no one really cares about.

Maggie and Tracy get back into the van, and drive out of Springwood. The “barrier” between Springwood and the rest of the world shatters.

Maggie and Tracy arrive back at the old homestead. Maggie tells Kelly, her boss, about John, Spencer and Carlos vanishing, and Kelly says those people never existed.

(Okay, that’s new. All the previous dead people were still quite dead and quite remembered in the other films. Except all the people who died in Part 2. But we’re pretending none of that ever happened.)

Tracy talks to dream-doc about them as well, and dream-doc says he can remember Carlos, because he can control his dreams. Well, good on you, dude.

Maggie goes to her desk and has a good cry. She remembers John telling her that, “It’s not a boy.” Maggie goes to see her mom.

Tracy beats up a heavy bag while listening to 80s rap. Dream-doc psycho-babbles at her.

Maggie finds her adoption papers. But her mom can’t tell her who she was adopted from. Apparently there are “rules” about contact.

Maggie goes for a walk in the rain. A newspaper headline says, “Nine, Ten, Never Sleep Again.”

Tracy goes to bed. Maggie goes to bed.

We get the little girl dream from the start of the movie again.

There’s a scream. A woman says, “I won’t tell.” She comes out of the cellar. Fred says, “We need to talk, Loretta.”

Fred is, of course, Freddy. Pre-burned and pre-claws and all that.

Oh, and we’re behind Nancy’s house, which I guess was also Freddy’s house.

Fred and Loretta get ready to talk, and Freddy tells the little girl to “go inside.” So she goes to the death cellar, and finds The Freddy Glove, and a bunch of “kid murderer” newspaper clippings.

Suddenly, the little girl is Maggie. Only she’s still in the little-girl dress. I’d say it’s probably the most disturbing thing in the movie, really.

And then, there’s Freddy, as we’ve come to know him. He refers to Maggie as “Katherine,” and holds up a drawing of the family, and says that she was “such a little artist.”

There’s some, “You’re not my father!” “Yes, I am!” back-and-forth, which should be sort of dramatic but comes off as flat. Freddy tells Maggie that “they” took her away from him, but Freddy made them pay.

He leads her out of the cellar, and they can see the shelter. Maggie says that this isn’t Springwood, and Freddy says, “Every town has an Elm Street.” Then an Elm Street sign, looking all creepy and dreamy, appears.

You know, if that was the end of the movie, it’d be a decent twist. But seeing as how the title of the movie is “Freddy’s Dead,” it’s hard to grab onto a sense of terror.

In the bathroom, Tracy washes her face. Only she turns around, and she’s back in her house. And there’s her dad. Her evil, evil, dad. Who’s supposed to be dead, according to Tracy.

Dad says, “Come on. Give daddy some honey. No one has to know.” Tracy turns to face “dad” and says, “You’re not by daddy. Then she grabs a coffee pot and beats him. A lot.

His face is smashed in. He gets up. And he’s Freddy.

Tracy and Freddy verbally and physically spar, and then Tracy sticks her hands on top of the stove to wake herself up.

Maggie runs into her room. Tracy’s hands are blistered. And Tracy needs to talk to “Doc.” That’s right, dream-doc? He’s called Doc. He doesn’t get an actual name, even though he’s a Very Important Character. Because this movie doesn’t care.

Elsewhere, Doc is wandering around looking for Tracy. He’s by the heavy bag. Tracy calls to him, claiming she’s in a locker.

Doc picks up a bat, and hears Tracy behind him. It’s Freddy. Doc beats him with a bat, then does the thing that annoys everyone about horror movies where the dude checks to see if Freddy is dead.

He’s not.

He says, “Stick and stones may break my bones, but nothing will ever kill me.”

And then, so help me, he starts naming off the ways they tried to kill him.

This is going to be awesome. (Note: He cuts off the fingers of his non-gloved hands to keep track as he goes. Ready?)

“First they tried burning me. Then they tried burying me. But this – this is my favorite. They even tried holy water. But I just keep on ticking, because they promised me that.”

Who promised? The dream people. “The ones that gave me this job. In dreams, I am forever.”

I’ll come back to all this in a second.

Doc yanks a portion off of Freddy’s sweater, and then, in the real world, Doc’s alarm clock wakes him up. He’s still got a portion of the sweater in his hand.

Maggie and Tracy arrive. Doc tells Maggie that Maggie can pull Freddy out of the dream. Maggie just has to go to sleep, and when she grabs Freddy, he’ll wake her up so she can yank him out. Then they can kill him in the real world.

(All right, this is what I was waiting for. ‘Cause you know what? Freddy failed to list some of his deaths. He totally forgot about dream control, and his mom capturing him, and about… oh, right. About the time he came into the real world and they killed him with the power of love. Which means the whole “bring him into the real world” thing has been done. And it didn’t kill him. At all. It didn’t even succeed within the confines of the very same movie in which they tried it. And while I’m at it, I should mention that they tried burying him and using holy water at the same time.)

He gives her some 3D glasses to remind everyone in the audience that part of the movie is in 3D, which is why they paid all that money to see a terrible, terrible movie in the theater.

Well, okay, actually he says something about how the glasses don’t mean anything in the world, but in the dream world, they can be whatever she wants them to be. So let’s roll with that.

Maggie lies down, and Doc counts down.

Maggie closes her eyes. She opens them. She’s still in Doc’s office, but she’s in the dream now.

And here we go. She puts on her glasses, they twinkle and vanish, and then she looks at her hand. And around the room. Because things are totally in 3D now, so they better put that to good use.

Since Doc told her to “get inside his brain,” she walks “into” the painting of the dream demons.

How to describe it? Imagine you tried to make a paper mache brain, and then stuck a camera inside it and wiggled it around. After a few seconds, have some 3D stuff pop up so people remember why they’re wearing ridiculous glasses.

And you’re good.

Maggie reappears in a white cement-and-brick hallway with beat-up columns in it. Various cables are strung along the ceiling, purple lighting popping on them. Maggie tries to open a metal door, and it makes an electric pop.

She tries another door. Same deal. She takes off her metal bracelet and throws it at a wire-filled electric box near the ceiling. She hits it dead-center on her first try and kills the deadly current.

She goes in a door.

Inside is a classroom. A little boy pulls a hamster out of a cage and crushes it with a small sledgehammer. The kids behind him start chanting, “Son of a hundred maniacs.”

Maggie tells the audience that we’re “in his memories.” And the audience feels sad that the hamster didn’t get crushed onscreen, in its full 3D glory. Pepito, in particular, was really looking forward to it.

There’s a flash, and now we’re in a basement, where a teenaged Freddy is cutting his tummy with a straight razor and laughing. There’s a drunken “Freddy!” from upstairs, and down comes a sloppy drunken guy carrying a beer and a belt. He says, “You’ve been a waste since I took you in. Now it’s time to take your medicine.”

He starts thrashing Freddy about the shoulders. Freddy says, “Thank you sir, may I have another?”

The drunk tries to beat him harder, but Freddy grabs the belt, tells the guy the secret of pain (If you just stop feeling it, you can start using it!) and then he stabs… I don’t know. It looks like he’s stabbing the air with the razor, because it probably looks awesome in 3D. But maybe he stabbed the dude, because the dude yells.

There’s a flash on the screen, and then we’re in the woods. People are yelling things like, “Child killer!” A Molotov cocktail is thrown.

Freddy stands inside the burning building. Three spirits that probably looked awesome in 3D but look sort of silly not in 3D zip around the Fredster. They look like little skulls with bone tails.

They tell him, “Freddy. We know what you want.” They tell him to “Open up. And you shall be forever.”

Then they zip into his chest.

And we get a little flash, and now we’re in Freddy’s cellar, with little Maggie. She comes out of the cellar, just in time to see Freddy choking the life out of her mother. She starts crying. Fred says mommy had to take her medicine for snooping in daddy’s special work. He asks her not to tell, and she says she won’t.

Older Maggie walks backward, back into the cellar.

(Dang, but Robert Englund is creepy in this scene. Moments like this are why I feel sad when they stick him on a skateboard.)

And now we’re… somewhere. Not really the cellar. Not really the boiler room. Just sort of a generic “scary” place. Freddy appears, and says that Maggie did tell. Maggie declares that Freddy killed her mother. She picks up a pipe and whacks him in the mouth with it, then grabs him from behind in a bear hug.

In the real world, Doc and Tracy see that Maggie is holding something and start waking Maggie up.

In the dream world, Freddy struggles. He grabs some pipes to hold onto. His head develops mysterious lumps. He screams.

Maggie wakes up. Freddy isn’t there.

Maggie figures he’s going to be coming eventually, and so they head downstairs to examine the arsenal that the kids have created. You remember, the one the cops were supposed to come pick up, but didn’t?

Of course you don’t remember. You were too busy being annoyed by the movie.

Maggie and Tracy pick up a couple of weapons and wave them at the camera, so we remember that this thing was shot in 3D.

Tracy and Doc wander off, so Maggie can sense something and walk to another part of the basement. She finds an unburned Freddy lying on the floor, bleeding from the face.

He tries to pass the blame. “You saw what they did to me when I was a kid. You saw.” He tells Maggie he loved her, and her mom, and that he tried to be good. “But when they took you from me, it wasn’t right.”

It almost looks like Maggie buys it, until she hits Freddy with a bat. She knocks his glove off, it flies across the room (3D!). Maggie picks up the glove, and Doc and Tracy come back from wherever they wandered off to.

But too late. Freddy crawls across the ceiling and closes the door, so Maggie can’t get out and Doc and Tracy can’t get in.

Oh, and Freddy has his hat back now. And he’s burned again. So I guess he still has super-powers even in the real world. Which is consistent with Part 2…

At any rate, Freddy tells Maggie that he didn’t need a glove to kill Maggie’s mom. He runs over and wraps his hand around Maggie’s throat, and Maggie appears to toss the bat away in shock, instead of hitting Freddy with it again.

I guess this is supposed to be dramatic or surprising, but it just makes Maggie look really, really, really stupid. Er. Stupid-er.

That’s right. She’s so dumb you want to violate the laws of grammar.

She head butts him to get him to let go. He falls back. Without bothering to put the glove on, she attempts to slash Freddy with it. Twice. He says he wants the glove back. They fall to the floor and tussle.

It’s really lame. I’d do a whole thing about how they both fight like girls, but if they really did, there would be hair-pulling, and there’s none of that. It’s like they ran out of money making everything in 3D, so they opted not to pay a fight choreographer.

Finally, Maggie bites Freddy in the nose. This makes him mad. So they tussle some more. Then Maggie breaks a bunch of Freddy’s fingers, and Freddy says, “I forgot how much it hurts to be human.”

He knocks her away. The glove falls out of her hand. She grabs it. Freddy gets up, stomps on her arm, and takes the glove. He pulls it onto his broken hand.

Tracy slides a bunch of weapons under the door to Maggie. These include ninja stars, ninja knives, a crowbar, and a small crossbow. Maggie throws all the objects into Freddy in a bunch of quick cuts. Not sure when she learned to use various forms of combat weaponry.

She goes over and takes the glove from Freddy, who is pinned to a post and a nearby wooden crate. Because of the knives and throwing stars and crossbow. I know it sounds stupid, but it looks even more stupid.

Freddy yanks some blades out of himself to demonstrate that he’s… I don’t know, really. A slow bleeder? He tells Maggie to put the glove on, because it’s in her blood.

Maggie puts it on.

Freddy says he’ll show her how to use it.

She jams it in his belly. Tracy throws Maggie the pipe bomb from earlier in the movie. Maggie jams that in his belly, and runs away.

Doc yanks the door out of the frame just in a nick of time, and everyone runs away. Except Freddy, who, despite having two free hands, doesn’t yank the pipe bomb out of his chest and throw it back at his assailants.

Instead, he says, “Kids.” You know. Because it’s funny. Then he explodes, and his head flies towards the screen in the 3D fashion, and then his head blows up, and the three dream demons come out and fly around in a 3D fashion.

Then they laugh and fly away.

(3D!)

In another hallway, Maggie’s 3D glasses do a twinkle thing, and appear again. The Doc takes them off.

And Maggie says: “Freddie’s dead.”

Wow. That was… That was awful, even by the standards of this entry.

The credits roll, with all the credits on the left, and film of the most “killer” moments of Freddy’s on the right. Ending with a shot of Freddy with the R.I.P. burned over him.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

2010-03-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

The longer this series goes on, the more I’m convinced there was no one behind the wheel. I realize that the magic of the serial killer movie is that the guy never really dies, and just keeps coming back again and again and again, but really now:

First movie – Freddy is stopped using dream methods. Which didn’t work, so okay.

Second movie – stopped with the power of love. Everyone pretends it never happened.

Third movie – bones buried in consecrated ground.

Fourth movie – saw himself in a mirror.

Now, you CAN argue that Freddy didn’t actually die any of those times. He was just temporarily stopped.

To which I say: Um. Why?

Did he just decide to take a break for a while? Kick back, let people think they had won? Did he need a little vacation?

Ugh.

You know what, let’s just go ahead and find out what ridiculous reason he has for coming back this time.

I’m going to note, for the people that care, that while the title of Nightmare 5 arrives on video boxes as, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child,” the actual movie makes no reference to the 5 in the title.

Just. You know. FYI.

After we get the title, we get a hand on some sort of moving flesh, but I really couldn’t tell you what flesh it was. A torso? I’ve got nothing.

Then we get a foot over some legs. Hands. Hair. This is all under a blue light, by the way.

Some more unidentified body parts. Creepy music. I guess maybe that was someone’s back?

Oh. Hey. Kissing. That one I know, at least. I think we’re watching Alice and Dan, but seriously, blue light.

Okay, whatever they were doing, they’re done now. So Alice gets out of bed and goes to take a shower. I guess she feels defiled. I have no idea.

As Alice showers, the water from the drain starts bubbling up. Then it starts bubbling up with brown water. Looks like someone upstairs flushed.

Alice tries to clear the drain. The water gets hot. The shower starts filling up. Now it’s just a big rectangle filled with water.

Alice pushes the door open, and leaps out. The water stays in place.

Alice lands on a cement floor. Things are looking boiler-room-area-ish.

No, wait. Now Alice is in a nun’s habit. Instead of naked. She keeps walking.

Ah. It’s an asylum. And there’s the man who would be Freddy, out of Freddy makeup.

Then things happen kind of quick. Two orderlies stand on a platform above all the crazy people. One of them is counting, and not doing a very good job.

Alice looks at her nametag. It says Amanda Krueger.

One orderly turns to another and says, “That’s enough. It’s a hundred.”

They leave. Alice screams, “No!”

But it’s too late. One nun. 100 maniacs. If you’ve been paying attention, you all know where this is going.

Alice screams and wakes up. Dan says something. No, wait. Not Dan. Freddy. Or I guess it would be Freddy’s dad, in the nun scenario. Alice freaks, the dream ends again, and this time, no Daddy-Freddy.

(I would like to point out that this kind of proves my point. Science dictates that Freddy only had one dad…)

Alice goes to take a shower, but it sort of freaks her out.

Then it’s graduation time. Someone is giving a speech. Dan, maybe? Is he the valedictorian? Really? Why do I doubt that?

Well, no. He appears to just be giving some kind of post-graduation speech to whoever wants to listen.

Then the movie tosses a bunch of new meat… no, sorry… uh… characters? Sure. Those. They toss a bunch of new characters at us. Greta, the “model.” Mark, the screw-up. Some other girl, who swims, so she’ll have keys so they can party later.

And there’s Dan and Alice. Alice is sad because her dad didn’t show up. No, wait, he did. He says he watched from under the bleachers, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed by his formerly drunken existence.

Everyone gathers together with their family members and takes a photo.

Oh yeah. Somewhere in there Dan and Alice talk for ten seconds about Alice having a bad dream, and about how if Alice doesn’t dream about Freddy, he can’t come back.

Plus, Dan presents Alice with two tickets to Paris. Apparently, it’s going to be a great summer.

Later, Dan and Alice make out in the parking lot, until Alice’s dad shows up. Dan says goodbye all polite-like. He jokes about having Alice back by “August.” Tee-hee.

Alice heads to work. She walks across the park to do so, and as she does, there are some kids jumping rope and (everyone knows where this is going, right?) doing the Freddy chant.

And screwing it up again. “Seven, eight BETTER stay up late?” What, someone couldn’t slip the screenwriter a copy of the last four movies? I mean, clearly they mentioned the whole hundred maniacs thing, you’d think this would be easy enough to remember.

The park gets dark. Alice follows the kids who were doing the chant as they run through the somewhat wooded area.

Alice finally catches up to one of rope-jumpers just as she recites some more revised verse, “Seven, eight, better stay awake. Nine, ten, he’s back again.”

The kid runs off, the camera spins around Alice, and now she’s looking at a large set of stairs, with a nun running up them.

The stairs lead to a massive gothic cathedral-like thing.

Alice heads up the steps, following the nun. She goes into the “castle.” She walks down a long corridor. She’s the only one there.

At the end of the hall, a freaky-looking baby carriage rolls by. Alice goes that way, but passes by the carriage and heads upstairs.

Suddenly she appears to “slip,” and then she’s lying on a gurney as an orderly wheels her down a hall.

A doctor looks at her, and tells her not to be afraid. The camera spins some more, and now Alice is no longer on the table. She’s standing among the various doctors and nurses and nuns, looking at Amanda Krueger, who’s about to give birth.

“We have a breach birth here. It’s backward. We’re going to have to turn it around,” says the doctor.

Amanda is freaking out. But you probably guessed that.

The doctor has Amanda push. There’s an icky noise. The doctor and the nun look at the “baby,” and get all freaky about it. The nun tries to convince Amanda that this is one of God’s creatures. Amanda disagrees.

The baby tumbles to the floor, and we finally get to see that it’s all angry-and-Freddy-looking.

It looks over at Alice, and moves towards her. Alice pushes her way out the door, and then back in. Everyone is gone.

Alice walks through the door. Now she’s in the church where she last fought Freddy.

The Freddy-baby is lying on his pile of clothes he left behind at the end of the last movie. He starts screaming. The church starts to explode and crumble. Freddy-baby crawls into his clothes and the clothes start to twist and expand.

Alice tries to avoid getting smushed by falling church.

A damaged Freddy stands up. Things explode. Freddy goes flying. So does Alice.

Alice gets up and walks through the church.

Freddy reaches down, and slips his glove back onto his hand.

He stands up, looking all backlit, and says, “It’s a boy!”

Alice says she locked Freddy up. Freddy says he found a key. I’d complain that nothing like that even remotely happened, but what’s the use?

The church doors open, and hey! A nun! The nun says, “Your birth was a curse on the whole of humanity.”

I was going to summarize the rest of what she says, but trust me, you’ll just want to read it: “I will not allow it to happen again. You brought me back to give you life. But now, I must take yours.”

Freddy says we’ll see.

She goes on, “I must be released from my earthly prison. Look for me in the tower.”

The doors close. Freddy tells Alice that Alice will never find her.

Alice runs through the doors… and into her old diner.

So… let’s recap for a moment. Alice has friends. Alice is with Dan. Freddy apparently brought his own mother “back” so that he could come back, only I guess his mom can kill him. And Alice has to find mom and release her from her earthly prison.

Oh, I’m sorry. It’s not her old diner. It’s just the diner. Someone taps Alice on the shoulder.

It’s Anne. Who we’re just meeting.

Alice is four hours late, and Anne is mad. Anne leaves. We will never see Anne again.

Alice makes a phone call.

Over at the pool, Yvonne has let everyone in the senior class in, and it’s party central. Yvonne dives while everyone else sits around drinking beer and talking about the fact that Dan’s parents are displeased with his decision to take Alice to Paris for the summer.

Oh, and Mark doesn’t like blood, and Greta is not happy that her mom is trying to run her life.

Some random guy lets Dan know that he has a phone call. Dan takes it. It’s Alice, who says that Freddy is back, that Alice saw him while she was awake, and he “must have dreamed himself up.”

You have got to be kidding me.

Dan gets in his truck and races to help Alice. He turns on the radio. The dude on the radio says he’s taking calls. Dan “blinks,” which I guess indicates he’s falling asleep. Only maybe he doesn’t have to.

Should I presume this is all going to make sense later? Probably not, right?

The person calling in to the station is Dan’s mom, who has some unsavory things to say about Dan and Alice. The other voice on the radio says that if Dan was his son, he’d kill him.

Is the voice Freddy? Naturally.

Dan’s seat belt gets all windy and starts jerking Dan around. His foot is forced down on the pedal, and the truck zips around out of his control. Freddy appears on the other side of the truck. He’s got his own steering wheel.

Freddy pulls off his own arm, attaches it to the truck, and uses it to buckle himself in.

The truck crashes. Dan flies through the windshield, and into… the poolhouse he was just in. Only no one is there.

A phone rings, and Dan runs away from it.

He runs back out to the parking lot, and looks for a vehicle to steal. First he considers a truck, then he changes his mind and takes a motorcycle.

Here’s a question for Dan. If he knows Freddy is around, he should also know he’s asleep. Rather than taking a vehicle to no useful end, why not try to WAKE HIMSELF UP?

Ah well.

Dan drives. He goes fast. Things seem to be going well until every single cable and wire in the motorcycle starts stabbing themselves into Dan.

Except for the mess of cables that form into Freddy’s face. And then start shouting out various one liners that aren’t really all that funny. “Fuel injection! Power drive! Fast lane!”

Really. He uses all of those. And more.

Freddy concludes with, “Better not dream and drive!” as Dan and his stolen motorcycle go hurtling towards an oncoming vehicle.

In the diner, Alice goes to fill up a coffee cup. She turns as she hears Dan screaming, and the area behind her becomes what I guess is a giant throat as Freddy “swallows” Dan.

We get a short real-world shot of Dan, still in his truck, crashing into another vehicle.

Alice runs outside. The crash happened about a block from the diner. Alice runs to the two flaming vehicles. A man in an orange sweater and a hat jumps out and says that Dan came out of nowhere.

Alice looks over at the other truck, and there’s Dan, who’s pretty dead, except for when he sits up and asks, in Freddy’s voice, if Alice wants to make babies.

Elsewhere, Alice wakes up. Yvonne hugs her. He tells Alice that Dan is dead. Alice tells Yvonne that Freddy killed Dan. Alice’s dad arrives, and Alice also tells her dad that Freddy killed Dan.

A doctor in the room says that this kind of shock is very common “in women.” Why just women? Well, here’s the bombshell that was pretty much spoiled in the title of the movie: Alice is pregnant.

(Really, this whole movie is basically an anti-premarital coitus screed, when you think about it. “Don’t get it on young, or your unplanned baby may start entering dream states that end in unseemly deaths for your friends.”)

Alice is in a hospital, by the way. In case the doctor didn’t give it away.

Later, Alice attempts to sleep, which is kind of stupid if you think about it for even a second.

She sits up. There’s a young boy in the hallway. His name is Jacob. He says he’s sorry that Alice’s boyfriend got killed. Alice says she always loved the name Jacob. Jacob wanders off.

You know, I’m not going to say the other movies were intellectual treats, but this one is just insulting. You do realize that later in the movie they’re going to do a big reveal. Whoa, nelly! Jacob is Alice’s son! Freddy is using his dreams! Duuude!

I’m not saying it’s an un-clever premise. I’m just saying that trying to fake us out is sort of a downer. Expect more from us, movie!

And now we move over to Greta “the model,” who is looking at all of her porcelain dolls and crying over the big group photo they all took just a few hours ago. Guess she hit the one-hour photo place, since it’s like 5 hours later.

Greta’s mom tells her to get her beauty sleep, because I guess the death of her good friend shouldn’t weigh on her, like, TOO hard.

Greta puts her doll up on a shelf, and it falls off and the head shatters right on top of the photo.

The next morning, Yvonne walks Alice out of the hospital. Alice mentions Jacob, and asks if Yvonne visited her. Yvonne says that there are no kids on Alice’s floor, and no children’s ward.

That’s so STRANGE, huh? I wonder what THAT’S about?

Yvonne tells Alice to keep the dreaming thing just between the two of them.

One scene later, Alice lays out the history of Freddy to all her friends, including the “he uses my dreams to get his victims” part.

They point out that she wasn’t asleep, and that they’re all here for her. Oh, and they’re semi-congratulatory about the baby.

Later, Alice stands in her kitchen and cries. Her dad arrives home with groceries and says, “Buck up, little soldier.”

Okay, he doesn’t do that. He says he’s not disappointed in Alice about the baby, and that he hopes it’s a boy, because he’d love to hear the sound of boy-feet running around the house again.

It’s kind of Lifetime drama-y, but it may be the most heartfelt and kind-of-beautiful scene in all five of these movies.

I was going to lay out the next scene in a longer form, but I just can’t be bothered, because once again it’s so obviously a dream from the word “go” that you kind of want to claw your eyes out.

Long story short: Greta dreams that she’s at a big dinner party, where her shrew of a mom is insisting that she eat. Freddy traps Greta in a chair and proceeds to force-feed her until her face gets all huge and puffy.

Then there’s a strange intercut that shows that the force-feeding is happening in a “dream” world, but that Greta really is at a dinner party. Oookay.

At Alice’s house, Alice reaches into the fridge and discovers that all the food is rotting at high speed.

Greta pops out of the fridge. Alice tries to pull her all the way out. Freddy pulls Greta in and the door slams shut.

Back at the dinner party, it appears that Greta really was, like, totally at a dinner party. She stands up, coughs, and dies. This appears to make the partygoers upset. Bummer for them.

At her house, Alice opens the fridge again and sees that everything is back to normal.

Alice and Yvonne go to visit Mark at his job. He works at a warehouse. I guess. Actually, that gets pretty unclear. I’ll try to explain.

Here’s what happens, at any rate. Alice tells Yvonne and Mark that Freddy got Greta, again, even though Alice wasn’t asleep. Alice figures Greta fell asleep at the table and Freddy got her.

Yvonne points out that Alice’s only rule, that Alice must be asleep, is being violated, so Alice’s theory holds no water. Matt gets all angry and says that two people have died in the last two days, so he’s ready to listen to theories.

Yvonne heads to work.

And then I get confused, because Matt seems to take Alice into some back room somewhere, where he’s got a drawing board and a bunch of comics that he’s been drawing. So I’m thinking someone in Matt’s family owns the place, and lets Matt draw there, since they’ve got the space.

Except, there’s a place to sleep there. And Matt wanders over to it and falls asleep while Alice is making coffee. Never mind that he already knows that sleep is, like, a really bad thing.

While Mark sleeps, Alice sees that Mark has drawn Nancy’s house. Alice leans over, grabs a red marker, and makes a stick figure with the name “Alice” written over it.

On the page, Mark, who is drawn in pencil, walks into Nancy’s house.

Why Alice doesn’t try to WAKE MARK UP is left a mystery.

Instead, Alice closes her eyes, and when she opens them, she’s in front of Nancy’s house. The real one, not the drawing. Guess the animation was too expensive.

She starts to head up the stairs, but hears Mark calling to her. She runs to another room downstairs, and there’s Mark, in a hole in the floor, hanging in Freddy’s “throat.”

Alice tells Mark to run, and he does, until he sees blood, gets nauseated, passes out, hits the floor, and vanishes into thin air.

Alice looks back into the room behind her, and there’s Jacob. He’s looking away from her. He says hello. He tells Alice he’s been having bad dreams. He says he’s waiting for someone.

Jacob says some stuff, then we get THE BIG REVEAL. Jacob says, “I like you. Why don’t you like me?”

Only Alice doesn’t get it at first, because she is dumb. She asks who told Jacob that she didn’t like him. He says, “My friend with the funny hand.”

Jacob runs away. He heads up the stairs.

Alice follows him up the stairs, opens a door, and there’s Mark. On the floor. And I guess we’re back in the real world, though there isn’t anything that indicates that fact. She wraps Mark’s bleeding hands in cloth.

He tells Alice to go see Yvonne at the hospital, where Yvonne works. He then says he’s going to go find information on Freddy.

Alice goes to the hospital. She talks to Yvonne. Yvonne thinks Alice is nuts, still.

No matter. Yvonne still has the doctor come in and perform an ultrasound, which they attempt to wave away as not totally silly by using poor exposition. I’ll spare you.

The big, important factoid is, of course, that babies spend up to 70% of their day dreaming. There’s a fun fact to share at your next gathering. Fetuses are totally lazy!

Right. So. Alice keeps looking at her ultrasound, while Yvonne gets her file and the doctor wanders away from her. Suddenly, electric fuzziness oozes out of the ultrasound monitor, covering Alice.

Alice “slides” down Freddy’s throat, into… a womb, I guess. A tiny fetus floats around, being all fetus-y. Freddy’s face appears, and then tosses some souls down the kid’s food tube.

Alice wakes up, all freaked out. Or maybe she doesn’t wake up. Becomes self-aware? No idea.

The doctor assures her that the baby is in great shape. Oh, except the baby is “a little big” at this point.

Yvonne comes back, and Alice tells her that Freddy is feeding the baby souls. I don’t even know how that works.

Yvonne takes Alice home, and they keep on arguing about whether or not Freddy is real. Mark shows up, with a massive scrapbook o’ evidence. Yvonne opts to continue not believing, and leaves.

Alice says she knows now that Freddy is using the baby’s dreams. This took her 55 minutes of screen time, which means the audience has now had about 30 minutes of screaming, “Come on! Figure it out and move on!”

You know what would be a great ending, at this point? If Alice just stuck a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Boom. All done. No her, no baby, Freddy goes away forever and ever.

But they don’t talk about that. Nope. They talk about not having the baby. Which would almost work, except ALICE IS THE CONDUIT OF DOOM .

Alice says she can’t terminate her pregnancy. She continues, “He’s part of me and Dan. I want to keep him.”

Mark then takes a shotgun and blows Alice’s head off, thereby saving hundreds of lives, including his own.

No, wait. Sorry. He says, “Okay, then we’ll find another way.”

Mark deserves whatever death comes to him. I’m guessing he’s going to get cut up, a LOT. I’m really okay with that now.

Alice picks up a newspaper clipping that features Amanda Krueger. Alice realizes that she knows that face, but doesn’t bother to remember that she’s supposed to be looking for Amanda in “the tower.” She’s too busy not killing herself, which would end Freddy’s reign of terror.

Alice’s dad calls her downstairs. Dan’s parents are there. They want to adopt the baby and raise it. They think Alice might be too crazy to raise a kid. The doctor called them and said that Alice is talking like a nut.

Alice and Mark leave.

They go back to Mark’s place, wherever THAT is, and start talking about Amanda. It seems she “went crazy” after Freddy’s trial. She went to the asylum (the same one where she was left for a weekend and impregnated? Yeah, that’d make ME crazy, too.) and she hung herself there.

Except there was no body. So I have no idea why everyone assumes she hung herself…

No matter. The grave everyone knows and loves is empty. And Mark thinks that if Amanda did kill herself, then her soul is trapped in torment. He found it in a book called “Christian Mythology.”

Alice figures that Freddy killed her. She decides to go to sleep while Mark watches her.

She gets up on Mark’s bed and lies down, while Mark keeps reading the Mythology book. Yeah. That’ll keep him awake just great.

Yvonne goes to the pool. One of her friends says she missed practice. Yvonne asks if the pool is still open.

Why is Yvonne suited up if she doesn’t even know if the pool is open?

No matter. She gets into the hot tub, and slowly submerges herself.

Alice sleeps while Mark watches. He’s moved to reading comics. Much better plan.

In her dream, Alice runs down a hallway, calling to Amanda. There’s no answer. She climbs a bunch of wooden steps. At the top is a wall with no door.

Yvonne gets out of the hot tub and looks around. Freddy’s claws scratch on a metal pole nearby.

Yvonne gets up on the high board and prepares to dive, only the board rips apart and becomes a bunch of metal claws. Yvonne backs up, then leaps off the board into the pool. Only it’s all dream-logic-y, so she ends up trapped in the bottom of a round metal room with water on the bottom of it.

In Alice’s dream, she leans against the wall, everything tilts, and she rolls along the wall and through a metal door, which takes her wherever Yvonne is.

Yvonne isn’t there. But Freddy is. He does some taunting, and pulls Yvonne out of the water. Alice stabs him in the mouth with a metal pole, and he falls back.

Alice and Yvonne get out of the room, and Freddy won’t come out. He’s afraid of Amanda, so I guess the tower is off-limits. Or something. No clue.

Yvonne finally realizes that Alice isn’t crazy. Way to go, Yvonne.

Back at his place, Mark keeps on reading comic books. He opens one up, and it contains a bunch of drawings of different things we’ve seen in the movie. Including Mark, lying on the floor, reading a comic book.

Meta, dude!

Mark realizes this is A Very Bad Thing, and then he converts into a bunch of line drawings and vanishes into the comic.

Inside the comic, a bunch of pages float around. And Mark is just Mark again, with no pencils. Oh, I take it back. Everything is in shades of gray, except Mark. And the occasional object some teamster didn’t finish painting before shooting time.

Mark runs. Freddy chases him. On a skateboard. You know what’s scary? NOT Freddy on a skateboard, I can tell you that much.

(Okay, I need to stop for a second. Here’s the thing. Robert Englund, the man who plays Freddy, seems like the nicest man in the world. Really. The guy put up with a lot to play Freddy across two decades and eight movies. He’s a working actor, appearing in whatever pays the bills. He created the character of Freddy along with Wes Craven, and then watched as one director after another made his character look really, really, really stupid.

And yet, it seems like the man never said no.

Dress him in drag? Sure! Make him ride a skateboard? You bet! Awful one-liners? Okey-dokey doggy daddy!

Quite literally the only person in all the movies, the one who might have exhibited some sort of control over this iconic character, didn’t care that they stuck him in sunglasses and had him walk up the beach like he was in Miami Vice.

Robert, if you’re out there – I love you, man. I do. I hope to work with you some day, in some capacity.

But just once. Once! Couldn’t you have said: “Guys, I’m not going to ride the skateboard. Can’t you think of something scary?”)

Freddy is just about to slash Mark, when I guess he decides not to. Instead he vanishes, leaving Mark looking around, feeling all freaked out.

All the shelving (Is this supposed to be the warehouse?) crumbles to the ground.

Blood drips on his head.

Mark looks up. Freddy is up on some shelves, operating Greta’s dead body (soul?) like a puppet. Mark says to leave her alone.

Greta falls to the floor, where she shatters like a porcelain doll, leaving a smear of blood.

Freddy jumps down. Mark turns around. He’s now dressed up like the comic book character he’s spent most of the movie drawing. He shoots Freddy a bunch of times.

Freddy falls down. Then he laughs, and gets up, and now his sweater has a big old lightning bolt across it. And he looks all buff.

Mark shoots him a bunch more times, but the bullets just fly off of Freddy. Finally, Freddy slashes him, Mark turns into a paper cutout version of himself, and Freddy proceeds to slice him up unto confetti.

In the real world, Mark is all dead and cut up and bloody.

Alice wakes up and gives us a solid, “Mark! Nooo!”

Yvonne wakes up from her nap, which took place underwater in the whirlpool. And she gets out of the whirlpool.

Alice talks to a cop, who says she’s lucky she’s alive, because “nothing in that room was up to code.” Even the drawing board?

Alice says, “He needs me alive,” and the cop is all, “Wha?” and her dad says she’s just upset.

Yvonne arrives and wants to know where Mark went. Alice tells her that Freddy got him, and that they need to find Amanda.

Alice’s dad leads her away.

Alice tells Yvonne to find Amanda in the asylum.

Yvonne heads to the asylum. Which is strange, because the whole thing appears to be closed. Wasn’t it just the one wing that was supposed to be closed? Of course it was. But never mind.

Yvonne heads into the building.

Back home, Alice goes to sleep, which allows her to go to the asylum in, like, her mind. She does some Freddy taunting.

In the real world, Yvonne goes up the real wooden stairs and finds the door that was bricked over. She takes a metal pole she found on the ground and starts breaking in.

In her mind, Alice tricks Freddy into walking down a hallway. She takes the evil baby carriage and rams it into him, which causes various pointy parts to jam through him. She pushes him until he goes through a door and falls into the main crazy-person floor, where the 100 maniacs of legend start pulling parts of him off.

One of them tosses an arm on the floor, which turn into spiders. One of the spiders attacks Alice. Alice freaks.

She tries to stomp on various spiders.

Alice hears something. It’s Freddy. He’s talking to Jacob in the cathedral from the last movie. He takes Jacob’s hand.

Alice tells Jacob to run. He does. The various stairs get all M.C. Escher-y, and part of the floor becomes Alice’s diner. Dan walks out and calls to Jacob, only he’s actually Freddy and no one is fooled.

Finally, Alice and Jacob are reunited.

Alice asks where Freddy is, and Jacob says he’s hiding inside Alice.

You see what I’m saying? One shotgun, one shell, one Alice, problem solved? Yeah.

Alice tells Freddy he needs to get out, and Freddy starts climbing out of her, limb-by-limb. I’d say that it doesn’t really make much sense, but whatever. Who cares at this point?

In the real world, Yvonne breaks through the bricks and gets into the hidden room. There’s a woman in a nun’s habit there, with her back to Yvonne. Also some pigeons, so there was probably an easier way into the room. Like a window.

Yvonne goes to the nun, who is in a really, really, really white habit, which is impossible, since it’s also a rotted-to-the-bones corpse. Amanda turns, her bones get all spirit-like, and she says, “Thank you.” Then her bones turn to dust, I guess, because they just vanish.

Amanda goes to the big Alice/Freddy showdown, which, did I mention, takes place in a room that part M.C. Escher, part boiler room, and part whatever other kinds of freaky architecture they could dig up.

Amanda appears at the top of a set of stairs and calls to Jacob: “Alice will not triumph. Only you can help her now.”

Jacob turns around, looking more like Freddy, complete with some burn-y bits. He asks Freddy to leave Alice alone, concluding with, “Teach me?”

Freddy tosses Alice aside. Amanda tells Jacob to, “Unleash the power he has given you.” Jacob spits something at Freddy. Souls, maybe?

They shoot out, and through Freddy, and we get to watch a bunch of rubber-head-looking things yank on Freddy until… I dunno. He falls apart and turns back into the freaky-looking Freddy-baby thing.

Amanda picks up the Freddy-baby, and it vanishes in a flash of light. Into her womb.

Alice picks up Jacob-baby, and he also vanishes in a flash of light. Into her womb.

Amanda tells Alice to take her baby and leave. She goes up to a heavily backlit door, and a Freddy-arm punches through her belly and screams, “Let me out!” A lot.

Then a bunch of doors in front of Amanda close, and are blown out, and close, and are blown out, until one of them finally stays closed.

And then it’s months later, and Alice, her dad, Jacob Daniel and Yvonne are having a picnic. There some banter about how Jacob is keeping Alice up at night, but who cares. Where’s our final scare?

Ah, here we go. The camera pulls back, and there’s a girl jumping rope and humming the Freddy chant. The end.

Oh boy, more rap! I guess the good news is, Freddy isn’t the one doing it this time.