Horror Classics: Candyman

This movie is so incredibly from the early '90s. I am pretty pumped. Let's do this!

Someone is whispering about blood under a bunch of bees. He's got a hook hand and wants to split you from your gut to your gullet. Now bees are attacking Chicago. Okay. Extremely young Virginia Madsen smokes and tells a story about a babysitter who invites over an old man Bad Boy to fuck her. But before they do, the teen says they should summon the Candyman in the mirror. They say his name four times as her date gropes her boobs. She stops him, saying, "No one ever got past four." She sends him downstairs, and then says "Candyman" one more time. She is killed and the baby too, and the boyfriend goes crazy. Some girl says her roommate's boyfriend knows him. VMads is like, "Okay." She goes to another room in the high school where some creep is telling another lady the babysitter roasted the kid. The ladies share cigarettes.

VMads walks into a large lecture hall where a dude talks about alligators in the sewer. He starts to talk about "modern oral folklore" (is that what they're calling it now? GET IT--ORAL?) and then a bell rings like it's high school. Apparently it's her husband and she interrupts "Stacey" who is a little flirty with the prof. His name his Trevor. VMads is pissed he's talking about urban legends this semester at the same time they're trying to collect data from the freshmen.

Later, at a real old computer with a blue screen, VMads transcribes her own interviews. At the sight of the computer, Isaac says, "He's a ghost and he writes to us." (Ghostwriter) There are lockers in the hall, so I keep thinking it's a high school, but it's clearly meant to be a college.The janitor lady overhears the interviews and knows about the Candyman. She calls her friend in from the hall to talk to the folklore ladies about someone they knew who was murdered by the Candyman in the Projects. VMads looks through microfilm at news stories of unsolved murders. She finds the story about the lady these women mentioned, Ruthie Jean, who was killed at Cabrini-Green. VMads has discovered that her swanky apartment building was originally built as a low-income housing project. She proves it to her pal by pointing out that there's no wall between her apartment and the next one, just two medicine cabinets, back to back. The Ruthie Jean story had a killer crawling through walls. They goad each other into repeating "Candyman" into the mirror. Only VMads says it the fifth time. VMads is sleeping. She hears a noise and asks if it's Trevor. There's no response but then he jumps on her in the dark and she screams until she realizes it's him. Fuck that guy.

Daytime: VMads' friend Bernadette has a bunch of mace and a taser in her purse as they return to Cabrini-Green. She thinks they're dressed like cops, which is bad since the neighborhood is held by gangs. They're going to write their thesis about everyday horrors being cast upon mythical creatures blahblahblah. Amazing multi-colored jackets on the youths that stare at them and then catcall them and ask them who they're going to see. The guys yell that they're police and they hear people running away. VMads takes a picture in the heavily-graffittied staircase. She takes one of some of the words: "Sweets to the Sweet." A woman with a vicious dog scares them off. They find the murder apartment. The door is ajar and apparently abandoned. Bernadette does not like what VMads is doing. Oh, I guess her character's name is Helen.

They go into the bathroom and open the cabinet. Helen takes a photo of the hole in the wall where the murderer came through. Helen's going to crawl through to the other side for some reason. She thinks it's abandoned and goes to explore. Oh man, film cameras. The '90s! Helen climbs through the hole in the wall. A face has been painted around it so that the hole is a mouth. There's some sweet keyboard music and Helen finds a stash of brightly-packaged candy. She finds a bloody razor blade inside one of them. Urban legend alert! She's run out of film and Bernadette says they have to go. The lady with the dog came to give them some shit about nosing around. Helen gives her her card and follows her back to her place where her baby is crying. VMads is giving me a strong early-seasons-of-The X-Files-Scully vibe. Anne-Marie is the neighbor's name. Her baby spits up on her. The lady knows they want to know about Ruthie Jean. Anne-Marie heard her screaming and called 911, but nobody came. She's scared of the Candyman.

Later at dinner with Trevor and some other douches. Helen and Bernadette chainsmoke. Academic Longhair calls them "beautiful graduate students." He wants to "review" their "data." Bernadette lets slip that they went to Cabrini Green. Longhair wrote a paper on Candyman TEN YEARS AGO, YOU STUPID GIRL. The legend is from 1890, he was the son of a slave and became a portrait painter. He knocked up a rich (white?) girl and was murdered at the command of the father. The mob sawed off his hand at Cabrini Green and threw the man to a hive of bees. He was stung to death, body burned, and ashes scattered on the land. So of course Helen goes back to the projects to take more pictures.

Anne-Marie isn't home, but Helen sees a kid in the hall and asks him about Ruthie Jean. He says he can't talk about it or Candyman will get her. He tells her she isn't safe alone there. She convinces him to show her "where Candyman is." They go outside where a bonfire is being constructed. The little boy says Candyman is in a public restroom outside. A little disabled boy was murdered there, horrifying a man who tried to intervene. The little boy was apparently castrated. "Better off dead," the kid tells Helen. She decides to go into the bathroom. Bad idea. Also, gross. "Sweets to the sweet" is written in what looks like shit on the wall and last stall. A shit arrow points down at the toilet, which is full of swarming bees. Outside, somebody comes up behind the boy Helen was talking to. The kid says "Candyman." Don't know if he's explaining or that guy IS Candyman. The guy has a long leather duster jacket and a hook. He's got youths with him and they surround her. "I hear you're looking for Candyman, bitch. Well, you found him." He has a funny accent. They beat her up.

I should clarify that Helen and her colleagues--besides Bernadette--are white and all the folks at Cabrini Green are black, so there's... kind of a lot going on here. A police lineup. Helen's eye is massively swollen shut. She identifies one of them. The cop says they knew he called Ruthie Jean and attacked the kid, but nobody at Cabrini Green would testify against him before because the police can't protect anybody living there. But now they have a white lady witness! Jake (the kid) says the Candyman is going to get him, but Helen says he wasn't real, just the name a bad man took. A while later, Trevor comes home to a fancy dinner. Her eye is just black now, hardly swollen anymore.

Helen goes back to work. Bernadette has some photos for her that apparently survived the attack. They're in slide form. Later, Helen is alone in the campus parking garage. Somebody in checkered pants and a sweet long pimp jacket walks towards her. "Helen," says a disembodied voice. She sees him standing across the parking lot. It's the real Candyman, bitch. "Do I know you?" He walks towards her and she's transfixed. He speaks without opening his mouth and she silently cries. She sees that the hook is crammed into his bloody stump. "Be my victim. I am the writing on the wall." Now we see bees. "Come with me." Helen wakes up and is all bloody. Anne-Marie's dog's head has been chopped off. Her baby is gone and there's blood everywhere. She chops Anne-Marie with the hatchet she's holding. Helen gets arrested. She cries as a lady cop orders her to take off her bloody clothes. She wants to shower. OMG.

Later she is in an interview room and the detective from her assault comes in and tells her she's been arrested and reads her her rights. Helen says she doesn't know where Anne-Marie's baby is. She wants to call her husband, but that bitch ain't home. He's off fucking Stacey. It's 3am. Helen smokes in her cell and flushes the butt. She has a vision of the baby with the Candyman. Trevor finally shows up. The press is crowded outside. They cover her in a jacket. On the news, they talk about Baby Anthony still being missing. She tells the lawyer she blacked out and doesn't remember anything. Trevor claims he was home last night, asleep. He's going to "stand by [her]" but he's got to go fuck his grad student now.

Helen drinks a delicious Budweiser and lights a cig. She decides to look at her slides from the apartment. These snapshots are very (suspiciously) artistically composed. In a shot of herself in the mirror, she sees a man in the background. She shuts off the projector and opens the curtains back up. She decides to go confront her own medicine cabinet. Suddenly a hook busts through. Helen runs outside and sees him in the hall. "Believe in me. Be my victim." She goes inside to call 911. He has the child, who will die in her place. She's destroyed his "congregation's" faith in him. I don't know why she has to come willingly, though.

Bernadette shows up with flowers. Helen tries to warn her away, but is incapacitated in the Candyman's presence. Bernadette comes in and Candyman kills her. Trevor finds Helen on the floor with a bloody knife. "Don't let him kill me, Trevor." She's been revived, handcuffed in her bed. She runs out and sees Bernadette in a pool of blood with some of the slides thrown on her body. "Why do you want to live?" says the Candyman. He claims being a legend is pretty sweet. Blood runs down the walls of the abandoned apartment and the baby cries. Helen leaves Trevor as she's wheeled into a psych ward. They've strapped her down. You're not going to get out of those restraints! Candyman floats above her and she screams that he's in the hospital room. They sedate her.

Fucking yes.

Back in the projects, Candyman hovers his hook over Baby Anthony and is maybe letting him suckle blood from his finger? Helen wakes up in the hospital and the orderly dude is a jerk to her. They're taking her to meet with someone named Dr. Burke. He looks like a psychologist. She's been in the hospital for a month while they stabilize her on thorazine. He's working for her defense. She's being charged with first-degree murder. He wants to know what happened in her apartment. She won't talk. He turns on surveillance footage of her screaming that the Candyman was there. Of course he's not on the video because of how he's a spectral presence and/or hallucination. She says she's not capable of doing what happened to Bernadette. Helen claims she can prove it and tries to call Candyman in the office mirror. He appears behind the psychologist and slices his back open. Oops! He slices her restraints, too, and she follows Candyman out the window. She then crawls in another room and steals a nurse's outfit after knocking her over. She uses the nurse's keys to open the elevator as cops run past. She wipes the blood off her face and runs back to her house.

She gets there and it's being painted pink. Stacey is there painting. Trevor tells her to get out. Stacey is scared. Fuck that bitch. "What's the matter, Trevor, scared of something? I hate the color scheme." She throws some pink paint at the wall. She tells Stacey to call the hospital and she cries. Fucking Trevor. Worthless piece of shit. "You were all I have left... It's over." She's gonna go to the Candyman now and help him with his congregation. He is way hotter than Trevor. TBH, she doesn't really have any options left. She can go back to the hospital and hope to get sentenced to a psychiatric facility forever. So she goes back to the projects and climbs through the ol' mirror.

Classic dead probably evil possibly past-life love Nice Guy move.

She finds a bunch of candles set up and some hooks hanging from a chain. She grabs one and crawls up into a hole in the ceiling. Another abandoned apartment, I guess. She finds an old mural of the Candyman before he got lynched back in the day. Candyman is sleeping on a table, apparently. Is she going to attack him? He wakes up as she tries to get him. She asks to exchange herself for the baby. She surrenders to him. He promises the pain will be "exquisite." He lifts up her skirt with the hook. He promises her immortality as bees come out of his mouth and his empty chest cavity. He open mouth kisses the bees into her. He goes and gets the baby who is apparently FINE, even after a month. Helen wakes up in the abandoned unit, also apparently fine, no bees to be found. Now there are candles everywhere and the words "It was always you, Helen" written over the mural. She sees her own face in the mural now. SHE WAS THE LOVER HE GOT LYNCHED FOR IN A PAST LIFE, I GUESS?

She goes outside into the bonfire junk pile, following the baby's cries. Jake wakes up somewhere and looks outside. He says, "He's here." Helen loses her hook as the residents come outside with gasoline and torches. She finds the baby in the pile. "I knew you'd come," Candyman says, covering her mouth as the fire rises around them and the crowd chants, "Burn him." Candyman claims they're already dead, but she wants to save the baby. She stabs him with a burning stick and tries to escape. She's on fire now, but manages to crawl out of the fire as he screams, "Come back to me!" Bystanders put her out as she hands Anne-Marie her baby. The Candyman screams and burns. How is he burning, isn't he a ghost? Bees burst out of the fire. Jake sees him in the fire.

Helen is buried. Trevor and Stacey and like two other people are at her graveside. It's the department douchebags. Suddenly Anne-Marie and her neighbors show up to the funeral. Trevor is confused about why there are a bunch of black people there. Jake has an adorable bowtie, and no family, apparently. He drops the hook into her grave.

#NeverForget the "murder by bees" subplot.

Later, Trevor is sad or something. Stacey wants to know if he's okay. God, that apartment is so pink. She wears no bra and a basically see-through shirt. She's pissed and he's hiding in the bathroom. Who could've predicted that this relationship wouldn't work out that well? He misses Helen. He cries against the medicine cabinet as Stacey angrily cuts meat in the kitchen. He says Helen's name five times into the mirror and a bald, burnt Helen shows up behind him. "What's the matter, Trevor, scared of something?" She guts him with a hook and really, really enjoys it. Stacey finds him even as she holds a giant kitchen knife. Now there's a sainthood painting of Helen in the abandoned apartment. Nice.

I thought that was going to be super-cheesy, but it was actually pretty good. Yea!

Horror Classics(?): Wes Craven's New Nightmare

So technically I'm skipping, like, all the Nightmare sequels, but this one is available on streaming and I've had a lot of energy booze and it's 3:00 a.m. and October and I think the premise kind of presages Scream 2's plot a little bit, so anyway here is a movie about a movie (A Nightmare on Elm Street) that I blogged a few years ago and so here we go, friends! Wes Craven's New Nightmare AKA A Nightmare on Elm Street 7 (1994): let's see what happens. 

Hands putting together parts on a robot hand. Fire and grates. Claws are attached to the fake Freddy hand. A cleaver chopping off the real hand, a lady covers a kid's face, blood spurts out of the wrist and a director calls for "more blood." The whole thing is being filmed, guys. It's a movie! Remote controller on the Freddy claw hand. Guy from on set puts the little kid on his shoulders and tells the lady it's "only make-believe." There's a dude on set who looks a lot like a very young Tony Hale, but IMDB does not confirm this suspicion. The lady doesn't like the Freddy hand, but dude says it "puts bread on our table." Uh-oh, it's ALIVE. Stabbing people and running around. It claws Buster's neck. Chaos on set. The lady is Heather and she's watching their kid. The hand claws a dude and the kid disappears. Heather screams but is suddenly waking up in bed during a massive earthquake. She hears the kid screaming from downstairs. She and the dude run down there and cover him with their bodies instead of moving him to a doorway like is safe.* 

Anyway, the quaking stops, the swing set outside slows and the waves in the pool begin to calm. The dude has some blood on his hand. Little Dylan is scared, but they're all going to be okay. This was a 5.3 aftershock. Heather wants to turn the news off. Dylan's molded a creepy face into his oatmeal. Five earthquakes recently. Something about some phone calls. Heather doesn't want to tell her husband the truth about her nightmares. He tries to reassure her that it was just a dream. He's going to be on a job for 48 hours. IT'LL BE FINE. Heather's got some kind of interview today. Suddenly some slashes in the wall. Like giant claw marks. Her '90s business suit is wonderful. She runs downstairs and her kid is watching a creepy horror movie. He screams as she unplugs the TV. He stops when the phone rings. This is Not Good so far, you guys! I was trying to figure out where I recognized Dylan from, and it turns out he was in Apollo 13 and also a bunch of Full House episodes as a kid in Michelle's preschool class. OF COURSE.** 

Heather answers the phone and a creepy whispery voice says, "One, two." She hangs up but it rings again and she answers it for some reason. "Freddy's comin' for you!" She tries to catch her husband, but he's already pulling away from the house. Inside, her son says, "Someone's coming." Another aftershock. Doorbell. The babysitter's here. She claims it was just a big truck driving by. The baby-sitter is a lady I apparently recognize from all of TV in the '90s. The phone rings again and Heather swears at the creep, but it's actually the limo driver outside. She hangs up, embarrassed. It's been half an hour in real time, but only 12 minutes in movie time because I keep pausing it and trying to look up where I recognize everybody from. I'm going to make a new drink and commit to letting some action unfold before I pause again.

Dylan tells his mom to stay home today. The babysitter has a huge sweater and calls the caller a "sick fuck." Babysitter says "Don't answer it." Good advice. The limo driver says they're going to be late. Dylan is wearing timberland boots inside for some reason. "I've got to go, " Heather says. "Forgive me?" Babysitter Julie says she'll inform the cops about the time of the creepy phone call, they're keeping a list. The limo driver is laughing while talking on a sweet '90s cell phone outside. Now he's staring at her from the rearview. He recognizes her from her role in the first Nightmare movie. She's annoyed. They rush Heather out of the car on set. The interviewer asks about the 10th anniversary of the film and fame. She says she wouldn't let her kid watch her movies. They bring out the guy who played the original Freddy to reunite with her. The audience is all dressed in Freddy sweaters and have "Freddy lives" signs. Who cheers for a child molester--even a fictional one? Heather is not pleased about it. 

After the show, Robert (the guy who plays Freddy) semi-apologizes for not telling her they were going to reunite on air. Heather gets a call on a giant fold-out cell phone. Some lady "A voice from the past" wants to meet with her. Heather's hair is beautiful. The offices she comes to are New Line Cinema. Heather meets Sarah, who's going to bring her in to see Bob. He's finishing a call. He's got a bunch of awards and Nightmare paraphernalia. Everyone keeps telling her how good she looks. A busty lady brings them coffee. Bob asks if she wants to be part of "The definitive Nightmare." Despite Freddy being killed off (wasn't he dead already in the first one?), "the fans" want more. HOW ARE WE ONLY 20 MINUTES IN I ALREADY DON'T CARE. "I guess evil never dies." Wes is coming back after ten years because he hasn't had any scary nightmares until now. Heather claims her kid's holding her back from doing horror. Heather asks about weird things happening since Wes has been working on the script. Bob won't answer his phone in front of her. 

The limo driver brings Heather home. She hears screaming from inside and goes in to find her son nightmaring. The babysitter wasn't able to wake him. He says some creepy shit about "never sleep again." He says "Rex saved me." Rex is a stuffed dinosaur with creepy slices in his side with stuffing sticking out. Heather calls Chase, WHO IS WORKING ON A FREDDY HAND PROTOTYPE, btws. Heather says Dylan's had some kind of an "episode." She says he was acting like Freddy. She's pissed Chase has been working on the new glove. Chase claims the phone calls have made her crazy. He's going to head home. He'll be home in 3 hours. Pan back to the work truck, the glove is GONE.

Back at home, Heather is reading Dylan a Hansel and Gretel story about WITCHES AND OVENS. Dylan has the story memorized. he recites the rest, creepily. "Time for sleep," Heather says before even finishing the book. Dylan insists she tell him how they got back home safe. Important because of his future horrible nightmares. He shows his mom how Rex, sewn together, keeps the creepy man with a claw down by the foot of the bed. Dylan tells Heather she should have a guard, too. She leaves him a dinosaur light on. Daddy's going to follow the breadcrumbs home. "If the birds don't eat them first," says Dylan. 

Chase is driving home in his big stupid truck, dozing. He turns up the radio and rolls down the window. STOP AND BUY SOME CAFFEINE. His '90s cellphone isn't getting reception. He dozes around a curve. Dude, PULL OVER. It's only 7:42. In the car seat, claws, poke through from underneath, and tap at his crotch. He scratches, and nothing's there. Then, the hand breaks through and slashes his chest. He drives off the road, bleeding. Heather wakes up on the couch. A nightmare? A NIGHTMARE? "Mommy's scared?" asks Dylan, standing creepily nearby. Rex woke him up, fighting. Doorbell. I'm glad heather's scrunchie matches her robe. I think it's the cops at the door. They are telling her that Chase fell asleep at the wheel and is DEAEAEAEAEAEAD. Heather wants to see his body and confirm it. 

Heather gets off the elevator at the coroner's office, I guess, where they just have bodies laying under sheets in the hall and you can hear ladies screaming. Heather wanders into an autopsy room. There would be receptionist or something, right? A dude leads her to Chase's body. Doesn't ask who she is or anything. He is dead as shit. She wants to see more than just his face. The dude says, "It was a bad wreck," but there are clear claw marks all the way up his torso. She vomits a little bit. 

Now it's the funeral. They lower the coffin into the ground. Julie is there helping comfort Dylan. The funeral is very, very windy. Birds do weird shit, an earthquake-y thing happens. Rex falls on the ground. The coffin falls strangely. Weird whispers. "Where's Dylan?" She sees Freddy pulling him down underneath her husband's body into a tunnel full of shiny orange fabric. Chase says, "Stay with me." Okay, she comes back, she just hit her head. Dylan's fine, the coffin never fell open. The priest wants them to "all get home safely." Robert offers help, but he's just creepy. 

In the middle of the night, Heather finds Dylan standing, watching TV. He's like in a trance, watching her younger self in the original Nightmare on Elm Street. She wakes him up in the kitchen and scares him. He sings a creepy "Freddy's coming for you" song. He says he heard it under his covers. Freddy's trying to get up into their world. Dylan should maybe not sleep alone for awhile. He gets a bloody nose. She treats him and also unplugs the TV. Later, Dylan is in bed with Heather. They're discussing the nature of God. He wants her to come with him into his dreams, but she thinks that's just a movies thing. She drinks coffee, and he shoves Rex down past his feet. 

BABY ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

A playground during the day. Heather tells some old man who is apparently John Saxon, but I don't think he's been introduced to us yet, about Dylan freaking out and being weird and he suggests a doctor and blahblahblah. Anyway, Dylan climbs to the top of the playground tower and is about to do something ill-advised, I am sure, but I paused it to try to figure out who that guy was. Okay, I guess he was in the original Nightmare as a cop dude. Will research more later. Pausing too much. Need movie to play more. It's 4:15 already and only 45 minutes into movie. "Dylan's fine, you're fine. You're hurting, but you're fine. You're definitely not crazy." HAHA, she has a crazy relative who died in an institution. She catches Dylan as he falls off the top of some playground structure. "God wouldn't take me," Dylan says. That's some fucked up shit. 

Later, Heather limps in front of her house after catching her son fall from two stories. Her jeans are terrible. In the mail she finds some creepy letter she's adding to a not-so-secret drawer. They look like bible pages with letters burned into them. Heather's got a huge cordless phone and calls Robert to complain. She says she's been getting Freddy nightmares. She says it's really not him, just more evil. Robert's painting some stuff I suspect is creepy. She asks about Wes's script. Nobody has seen anything. At Chase's funeral, Wes told Robert he's "'as far as Dylan trying to meet God,' whatever that means." WHAT NO BAD. She asks Robert about nightmares, but wants to talk in person. He says they can meet tomorrow, he's got to finish these creepy screaming Freddy paintings.

In the night, Dylan creepily wanders around. He's so short. LIKE A BABY. In Heather's bed. A bump under the sheets. Now it's a claw hand cutting through, approaching her face. A loud noise awakens her, and all she finds is strips of sheets. She goes to investigate the noises and hears some creepy singing. It's Dylan, singing a Freddy song. He's made a Freddy hand by taping knives to his fingers. BUT NOW IT'S MORNING? Heather falls out of bed, that wasn't real. But she does hear Dylan singing. He's singing, "Never sleep again." The house is trashed, the TV has static, she's limping from the other day. Dylan's clinging to Rex and has laid out the weird Bible pages in order. It's a message that says "ANSWER THE PHONE." Of course the phone now rings. She answers, like an IDIOT. A tongue comes out and touches her lip. CLASSIC. She throws the receiver down as Dylan foams at the mouth and collapses into a seizure. The phone receiver also foams. She holds Dylan as he flails. 

Now a doctor examines Dylan. She tells Heather that her horror movies will send an unstable child over the edge. JUDGY MUCH? The doctor mutters some shit about schizophrenia. Heather tells her son to come back to her. He wants Rex, but he's at home. He has to get better before they'll let him out, though. A nurse brings him a sleeping pill. He tucks it into his cheek, clearly. NEVER SLEEP AGAIN. Heather has to leave now. After they leave, Dylan pulls the pill out and puts it under his pillow. CORRECT. Heather goes out to her perfect Volvo station wagon and nearly hits another car. She drives by a section of freeway knocked out by the earthquake. She pounds Dunkin Donuts coffee while yawning and listening to radio people say that scientists are speculating about an unknown fault underneath Los Angeles. Heather is driving up into the hills and now I am making another drink who cares what time it is whatever.

Okay, so I wandered away for a few minutes and went to the bathroom and then took some selfies (I'm on Instagram now, guys) and now I'm just going to drink shots of soju until I can allow myself to just let the movie happen without stopping it every five minutes.*** Volvo is driving into the hills, where Heather is meeting with Wes. He writes down what he dreams every night. The scary thing, this ancient thing, Freddy, can only be defeated by storytellers making it too mundane or something. The Thing wants to cross over into reality. Wes says there's a gatekeeper who can stop him. Wes says it's got to be her. "That was Nancy, not me." "But you gave Nancy her strength." IT WAS A SCRIPT. Heather's mad he made it real. Wes says he thinks they have to make another movie to stop him and she will have to play Nancy one more time.

At home, Heather consults a pile of books about childhood psychological disorders. Apparently schizophrenic symptoms are similar to those demonstrated by children with severe sleep deprivation. Heather chugs some more coffee. Ew. GURL. Get yo-self a NOS. But to continue (STOP PAUSING THIS MOVIE, ME!)... Heather's TV turns on by itself. The news says two of the special effects techs from the Freddy project (the ones who got killed in the first dream) were killed. The glove is missing, supposedly a theft. Heather knows better. God, her hair is pretty. She experiences an earthquake-y thing. She looks around. Her coffee pot is broken. Freddy pops out of her closet, "Miss me?" He attacks her and they tussle around her bedroom. Another quake. Freddy's gone, her arm's bleeding. She rushes to the hospital in a denim shirt and ugly brown vest. Babysitter Julie also had a scary dream and is trying to get in to see Dylan.

The doctor says Dylan can't be visited right now. He was in an oxygen tank or something. The doctor sees that Heather's arm is bleeding. She insists on bandaging her arm. She judges her because the kid is scared of Freddy. Heather hasn't let him watch the movies, but "Every kid knows who Freddy is. He's like Santa Claus." I'll say that's true. I never saw any of the movies until a couple years ago, but I knew who Freddy was and was vaguely scared of him as a kid. Heather watches over Dylan in the oxygen tank thing. She dozes and suddenly Dylan is sitting up, telling her "I'm almost there" and vomiting black shit. The doctor pulls out her Freddy hand to slash him open. 

Heather is woken up screaming on Dylan's bed. He's been brought downstairs for testing. Julie's with him. The doctor tries to convince Heather to go home to sleep. Yeah, sure, like Julie's not a creep or something. Heather runs downstairs to find her kid and he asks if they can go find Rex now. I just got up to get some more soda to wash down soju. Okay. It's 5 a.m. and I am going to get through this. THERE'S SO MUCH MORE LEFT DEAR GOD. Heather's going to rush home to get Rex for him. She tells Julie not to let him sleep. Heather's got a gray streak in her hair. The doctor lady has called security on her. Some nurses are going to put the little boy to sleep. Julie doesn't want it. She punches the head nurse and threatens the other one with another random syringe. 

The doctor lady is interrogating Heather as to whether she's seen Freddy and is passing down craziness to her son. Something about foster care. Upstairs, Julie is trying to keep Dylan awake as the nurses bang at the door. Freddy is there. Heather yells about Dylan falling asleep. They hear Dylan screaming. An orderly has a key to the room and opens the door. Julie is in the air, being attacked. Dylan screams. Julie is on the floor. Oh, suddenly I am so drunk. This is good. I feel tingly, Mr. Dr. Lady Soju Friend. HIIIIIIIIII. One more shot before I restart? [EDITOR'S NOTE: Oh god, Lauren, you are so, so stupid.] Oh, there's still a half hour left and only 45 minutes until Isaac gets up for work. Play movie more now, drink more in a bit. Okay, good plan, us/me. 

Freddy is slashing at Julie, but only Dylan and she can see him walking on the wall. "Every play Skin the Cat?" he asks. He pulls Julie onto the ceiling and slashes at her. Dylan reaches for Julie. Freddy has apparently killed her by only slashing her on the back. Dylan screams for Rex. Heather shoves through to find Julie. Dylan is missing. The doctor says he's heavily sedated, but he can go anywhere in sleepwalkingness. She calls John on a car phone, I guess but spots Dylan walking up a hill. She did tell him home was just across the freeway, so he's trying to cross it. She of course is trying to stop him from down below, but falls after jumping the fence. OHMIGOD I am drunk now but must finish this movie before Isaac gets up for work. Otherwise it's sad. I think.

Freddy's in the moon. The Main Moon.

Dylan barely dodges cars on the freeway as a giant Freddy from the clouds snatches him. Heather screams for Kreuger to take her instead. Somehow, she gets hit only mildly. But Dylan sees a whole army of Freddies approaching the Freeway. Heather manages to get away, limping still. At home, the door is wide open. Does an 9 year-old have a house key? She runs into John. Dylan is there, okay? John pulls Heather away. Weird shit happens in the house, though. Quaking and stuff. John is morphing into his movie character. She wants him to call Robert. Okay, he was the douche dad. "Don't start losing it, like your mother. I love you sweetheart." She calls him daddy and Freddy is now real. Everything is back into the original movie now. Nancy's in white pajamas, searching for Dylan. The original movie is on TV, despite the set being unplugged. She finds Dylan's un-taken sleeping pills on the ground.

She finds Rex, completely gutted. Stuffing everywhere. TBH, I like the idea of sleep/sleep deprivation as the theme/motif. Heather follows a trail of sleeping pills and somehow swallows them all without water and goes under the sheets to find her son. He left her a trail. I like the idea of sleeping pills, so hard. But not this kind. She's sucked down a hallway/tube thing. It gets watery and eventually she's barfed out the mouth of a giant Freddy wall sculpture thing. I think she could have taken, like, ONE of the pills to get here, but that's just me. She took, like, five. She chases her son's cries through some weird hellish chambers or some shit. Her white pajama set is a slight variation from the white nightgown standard in this genre, but I suppose she's no longer the young, helpless virgin anymore. She finds a book whose pages are being blown. It's the SCRIPT OF THIS. "There was no movie... there was only... her life." Dylan finds her!

Freddy finds her, too. Snakes in water. She grabs one and throws it at his eye. "Fuck you!" Dylan is scared. Heather tries to stave him off with a I AM GOOGLING "FIRE THING ON A STICK" RIGHT NOW, what is it called? [Torch?] Anyway, it doesn't work. I am properly drunk now, obvs. One more shot? Okay, I've already made all the  bad choices and it's 5:40 a.m. Okay, I poured a lot of Sprite after that and had to do it in two goes. So it's clearly the end. The kid stabs Freddy in the leg. There are stones on the wall that the cardinal sins are carved into, I guess. Freddy throws Heather into the water. Dylan runs in his cozy-looking onesie. Somehow Heather is up on the rocks, not drowned. Freddy chases Dylan into a fireplace thing. Dylan is tiny and can sneak around stuff. He scratches the metal and wakes up Heather.

Her white PJs are soaked, but it's not real sexy. She races toward her son's screams, but the stairs turn into mush. Freddy says he's going to "eat up" Dylan, but Heather gets to him. There's also a snake? Freddy's tongue wraps around Heather because it has infinite length. Dylan gets out and tries to help. He manages to stab its end and the whole thing retracts. They close the fireplace thingy and Freddy faces fire, which is how that dude died in the first place. Terrible special effects of him turning into a demon/burning up. Explosions and running out of this ancient temple thing. Heather and Dylan jump into a pool of water as the whole thing explodes and they emerge out of the sheets of her bed. "We're saved, the witch is dead." 

Heather picks up a script that has a note from Wes about having the guts to play Nancy one last time. It's the story of what has happened. HOW ARE THERE STILL 9 MINUTES LEFT GOOD GOD. Heather reads Dylan the script, at his request/as the script dictates he will ask. Okay, I guess this is the end, but how can the credits possibly last so long? Is there a surprise? I'll let it play as I cry. JK, no tears. Just, you know, "whatever." I'm letting them play out, just in case. Still. FYI: credits still rolling at 1:46.

"Some parts of this motion picture were inspired by actual events. Others may be attributed to the overactive imagination of a five-year-old boy... The names of certain of the characters portrayed have been changed to protect the innocent. Certain incidents portrayed have been dramatized. With the exclusion of those courageous individuals who portrayed themselves, any similarity to the name, character or history of any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintentional. " GUYS WHAT EVEN IS THAT? I THINK IT'S A PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE NOTE!

MORAL OF THE STORY: Stop it. Put the glass down. More booze will not help. Maybe just turn the movie off? Anyway, my massive hangover is the price I paid to give this beautiful gift of a blog post to you, dear reader.


*Guys, I'm from the Pacific Northwest, I've been in a handful of minor earthquakes. I totes know what I'm talking about. 
**The guy who played the creepy kid Walter who kept trying to kiss Stephanie and was also in Jurassic Park as the kid who Sam Neill scares at the beginning was a counselor at a Mormon youth camp I went to in California way back in the day. He was very funny and charming, but I was not in his group, which was a tragedy. #EFY01 #NeverForget
***This was a terrible plan. I threw up a number of times and was pretty miserably hungover all day. 

Paranormal Classics: Interview with the Vampire

I've never seen Interview with a Vampire, so obvs we're remedying this now. This is going to be the '90sest thing that ever happened to me.

I think this movie might take place in San Francisco. I also think The Room borrowed some of those outdoor establishing shots. The pedestrians here are very ill-behaved. Ponytail Brad Pitt stares out a hotel window. Christian Slater is there to record his life story. Tape recorder, take a drink! PonyPitt was going to suck his blood earlier. PonyPitt turns the light on super-fast somehow and he's creepy looking. He hasn't been human for 200 years. His nails are too long. Slater's got a great "writer" vest and glasses. Slater believes him that he's a vampire.

1791: Pitt was 24, a plantation master in Louisiana. His wife and baby were dead. He was all depressed and drank at their grave. He was living recklessly because of the Sadz. He wanted to die. He wears good red pants. Tom Cruise in a shitty blond wig watches him. As a prostitute is about to blow him in an alley and her pimp tries to rob him, Pitt passes out and Cruise bites his neck and they fly into the air while they do it. Pitt is LOVING IT. "Do you still want this?" Cruise asks. Pitt says, "Enough." Cruise drops him into the Mississippi River. He ends up all sickly in bed where Cruise comes to visit him. The vampire teeth make them all look like they're wearing braces. Cruise offers to "pluck out the pain." HOT. Pitt watches his last sunrise. At his family's grave, Cruise comes to bite him up. This movie is super-gay so far. Pitt agrees to get vampy, so Cruise bites his own arm and drips it into Pitt's mouth. Then Pitt gets excited and starts to suck his wrist.

I think he's going through the Change now (menopause). "Your body's dying, pay no attention," says Cruise as he creepily watches. Cruise's shiny vest is the best. Pitt wakes up with pale, veiny skin and creepy blue eyes. An angel statue looks at him. In the present again, Pitt is not bothered by Slater's cigarettes, obvs because he can't die from secondhand cancer or whatever. Pitt likes crucifixes, stakes through the heart are like whatevs, but vampires do have to sleep in coffins sometimes, I guess. On his next night as a vampire, Pitt is super-hungry. He and Cruise share a lady in a way that is not homoerotic at all. Apparently she's not bothered that they're sucking her blood because they are so seductive. No one else notices. "You'll get used to killing," Cruise says. Thandie Newton, as a slave/servant, shows up. Pitt wants to eat her. Cruise catches a rat and pours Pitt a glass of blood. Cruise tells him living on animals is necessary sometimes, like when on a ship. Pitt doesn't want to kill people or something.

The boys go to New Orleans. Cruise is Lestat, he prefers to start his evening meal with young girls. Then a young man. He likes to drink blue bloods, if you know what I mean. Apparently vampires can read thoughts. Oh wait, only Lestat. They've got their sights set on a corrupt rich old lady and her foppish servant boyfriend. Pitt doesn't want to kill the lady, so he kills her barking poodles. Lestat is pissed and snaps her neck. They fight for a minute. Pitt has eaten all the chickens on his plantation and I think at least one slave is dead. So the slaves are putting on some kind of voodoo ritual now, I think? Pitt is interested that Lestat and his sire were both from Paris. Lestat says he had no choice. The slaves know what they are. "Forgive me if I have a lingering respect for life," says Pitt, whose name is Louis, I guess. Thandie is worried about him. He goes out riding and doesn't come to the slave quarters to fuck her anymore, there's death, and everyone's afraid. So is he. She wants his friend to go away. He bites her wrist and she starts to scream. Lestat has stirred up the slaves and they come to the house with pitchforks and torches. Pitt comes out carrying her body and tells them this place is cursed, he's the devil, and now they're free. Then he sets his own house on fire. He should let them take stuff to sell. Though they're in Louisiana, they'll probably just get picked up by a slave trader since it's not like he's making verifying documents for them.

Coffee table? More like COFFIN TABLE, amirite? Source.

Louis sets his wife's portrait on fire. Lestat shows up and is pissed because of how much he likes wealth. The slaves cheer as the mansion burns. Louis wakes up in a crypt. Louis claims there is no hell, but Louis is like, "I'm in it, like, all the time." In New Orleans, Louis watches Lestat get with/eat ladies. Louis bites one woman's boob through her clothes somehow and she is not upset, just turned on until she notices the blood. He bites her wrist to pour a glass for his bro. Don't these guys have, like, crazy laundry bills with all the blood stains? Louis doesn't want it and is upset the girl is still alive. Lestat puts her in the coffin they use as a coffee table, which is, I imagine, rather upsetting. Lestat keeps trying to convince Louis he's a killer. Finally, Lestat finishes her off. He mutters about the Dark Gift as Louis goes out to find some tasty rats to live on. That's some post-curse Angel shit. Some dudes with a body cart tell him there's a plague in this neighborhood and to avoid it.

Baby (like 10 or 12 year-old) Kirsten Dunst is mourning her mother's death in a house. She hugs Louis and asks for help. Her mom's body is rotting and gross and Louis decides to bite her. Lestat comes in and starts to laugh. He dances with the lady's corpse and sings an awesome jaunty Italian tune. Louis runs away into a sewer and cries. Killing gives him peace, but he doesn't want to kill. Apparently vampires feel pain more acutely? "God kills indiscriminately, and so shall we," says Lestat. God is a dick. Lestat has brought the little girl to their rooms. She's not dead. She's UNdead. Oh, not yet. Lestat feeds her from his wrist and she is HUNGRY AS FUCK. I bet this role was super-fun for little Kirsten. Suddenly she's not sickly and dirty, her hair is super-curly and she is pale as fuck. She wants some more blood. Lestat rings for a maid and gives her to the girl. He tells her to stop before the heart stops because it tastes better that way. He is doting on her. He tells her her mom and the maid have both gone to heaven. Louis is sad. She's their daughter now. "GAY DADS." -Isaac. She hugs Louis and now he's sucked in because of his dead daughter.

I took 10 years of piano lessons, so I feel this. Source.

She was a little spoiled child and a ruthless killer all in one. She starts to suck the blood from a seamstress' finger after she pricked it with a needle. She is named Claudia. She used to sleep in a coffin with Louis, snuggling. Then she wanted her own. Later, she'd wake up and come snuggle him. Claudia didn't know how to play the Game and would just kill them immediately, but Lestat taught her. A piano teacher smacks her hands with a dowel. A doll maker says his product is too expensive for her but she kills him and takes it anyway. She kills the piano teacher, breaking the main rule: never in the house. Louis thought she was a little girl, but Lestat wanted her to be like him, someone who enjoys the kill. They were happy for awhile. How awful to be prepubescent forever.

Lestat does not like the taste of Yankees. Too much "democratic flavor." Claudia watches a naked lady sing and groom herself through an open door. Claudia wants to be her. She's horrified Louis used to eat rats. She draws the naked lady. It has been thirty years. She's OVER dolls, Lestat. It's her birthday. She says she's like his doll. True. So many dolls. The pile was covering the naked Creole lady's body. She has a fit and cuts her own hair off. "Can't I change, like everybody else!?" It grows back immediately. She wants to know who did it. She slashes Lestat's face, but the cuts heal immediately. She wants to know how he did it, but tells her she would've died otherwise. Isaac: "She's so out of here when she turns 18." Me: "Eighteen twenty years ago." Louis tells her she'll never get old, but that also means she'll never grow up. She hates Lestat for doing this to her. Louis feels guilty and takes her to where he first found and attacked her. "You both did it," she says. "I took your life, he gave you another one," Louis rationalizes. Now she hates both her dads.

Louis wanders around muddy streets blahblahblah. He comes home, filthy, smelling of blood. "Locked together in hatred," Claudia says. She can't hate him, though. He's her whole family now. She wants to leave Lestat, but Louis think he won't let them go. Later, Lestat claims he's found a better vampire protege than her. She calls him the father of lies. But then she wants to make peace. She's brought him a present. He wants it to be a lady with boobs UNLIKE HER. Burn! Also, rude. Claudia's gotten some twin boys drunk for him. She'll get rid of the bodies and she says they're now at peace. He drinks some blood and is drugged. She killed them with laudanum, which apparently keeps the blood warm. Lestat is incapacitated and she slits his throat. Is this how a vampire dies? His face looks gross. Claudia's very pleased with herself, but Louis is Not. They put him in the swamp, weighed down. He's gonna get eaten by gators! Louis feels bad since Lestat was his Maker.

Back in the present, Christian wonders why Louis missed Lestat. "We were like two orphans learning to live again," Louis says of himself and Claudia. They book passage to Europe and Claudia researches their People. Louis goes to answer the door. There's no one there, but then a zombie-looking Lestat attacks him. He manages to get to the piano upstairs. Lestat stayed alive on the blood of gators, snakes, and toads. "Claudia, you've been a very, very naughty little girl." He attacks. Louis throws a lamp at him and he sets fire. STOP DROP AND ROLL, BRO. Louis and Claudia run away. They barely catch their ship. A fire spreads all over the French Quarter and they continue to fear him. Louis feels guilty, obvs. No rats on board, so they have to feed on the fellow passengers and crew. They make it to the Mediterranean. They search all over Europe looking for other vampires, but with no luck.

Paris in 1870. They go out dancing. Amazing dresses for Claudia. Out walking one night, Louis encounters one of his own kind. Where? A dark alley/street, obvs. Such great top hats and capes to go with their tuxes. Gold waistcoats, YES. This other vampire starts dancing up an arch. He is silly. Sexy Antonio Banderas scolds him for playing. Armand (Banderas) gives Louis a card for Theatre des Vampires, whatever that means. He and Claudia go to see the show. The playful one is dressed as the Grim Reaper. "Vampires who pretend to be humans playing vampires." "How avant garde," Claudia says. A woman is brought to the stage. She's scared and tries to run, but dudes in sparkly black robes stop her. He takes her top off. He asks her if he should take someone else from the audience. A lady volunteers, but he just laughs it off. Armand shows up. Extra pale stage makeup on. She hugs him. What a weird show! BOOBS. "No pain," he whispers to her. He takes her skirt off and she faints as he feeds on her. "Monsters," says Louis. Armand looks as him as he feeds. This lady is super-skinny. The crowd of vampires feed on her as the curtain closes. The audience is awkwardly subdued as they file out. Like, I wonder what the reviews of this show are like.

Armand shows our friends backstage and down into some catacombs. It's pretty fancy. Armand has a living boy with bite marks. "Try him," Armand says. Louis does. Fucked up. Louis wants to know the source of "all this evil." Armand gives him shit for sympathizing with the woman onstage. "I know nothing of god or the devil," says Armand. He's 400 and says he's the oldest living vampire. He tells Louis to stop feeling some much. Playful vampire reads his mind that Louis' betrayed Lestat. Claudia is pissed. Armand wants Louis. Claudia doesn't want to let him go. TBH, it'd be pretty hard for a somebody who looks 11 to get around by herself.

OKAY?!?

Another night, another show where the playful dude plays Death. Louis goes to see Armand. He tells him Claudia is his daughter and she loves him. Apparently it's against the rules to make such a young vampire because they're helpless. Armand wants to know if he killed the one who made her. Louis won't send her away, even though she's in danger. Armand says very few vampires have the stamina for immortality. Armand wants him to be the spirit of this Age or something. Vampires are like theater because they are decadent and useless. Armand loves his tears. He calls him a vampire with a human soul. Okay, good job ripping this off, Joss Whedon. Armand knows Lestat and doesn't care if he's dead. Louis wants to be mentored by Armand SO HARD.

Lovely jewel tones here.

Louis gets home and there's a lady there with Claudia. She wants to be drunk. Claudia wants her own companion since he has Armand now. "Do it before you leave me!" The lady wants her own child who can't die, unlike her loser human daughter. She's got bite marks, but needs someone who can drink more, to the point of death. Louis does it. Louis says some shit about how they're even now. He says his last "human" breath is gone. The other vampires have come to get them. "It's time for justice, little one!" a Frenchpire yells. They're going to kill Claudia and trap Louis somewhere. Armand ignores his cries from his chambers. They lock Louis in a coffin, which they drag down some stairs. They lock Claudia and her new friend in some creepy chamber with no roof. The sunlight will eventually kill them. Can't they walk up the walls or something? The daylight will get to them at , like, noon. Louis screams for Claudia as they blister and smoke in the sun. Armand breaks Louis' coffin out of the wall. Armand claims he couldn't help Claudia. Louis finds the two women, petrified like some Pompeii victims, but with hair. He touches them and they crumble into a pile of ash that blows in his face, Big Lebowski-style. He is gonna be so pissed and not want to hang out with Armand.

The playful one, who I think is Christoph Waltz just smiles. Back in the present, Louis cries briefly before quickly going on with his story. He covers the theater in some red liquid. Gas? Booze? Something flammable, I'm sure. He throws it over all their coffins downstairs. He doesn't give a fuck if he's the only vampire left, they are dicks. He chops them with the very-sharp stage scythe as they try to escape. Flames, screams. Louis runs toward Waltz. He chops him up good and throws the scythe on him as the theater burns. Outside, the sun almost gets him through some clouds until Armand pulls up in a curtained carriage, driven by the boy he likes to taste. Armand was their leader, but he was, like, Over It. He says vampires should be "Powerful. Beautiful. And without regret." Louis is skeptical. Armand is touching Louis' face with his lips as he talks. So, so gay. Louis knows he let Claudia get killed so he's like, "No thanks, I will not be your vampire bro. Bropire."

Louis wandered for years blahblahblah. He went back to America and saw sunrises again on film. 1988 he went back to New Orleans. He smells death and tracks it down to a fancy mausoleum where he finds Lestat snuggled in a little blanket in the dark, Pakistan compound era Osama bin Laden-style. Lestat was like, back in the day "no one could refuse me" EWWWWWWW. A low-flying helicopter's lights scare Lestat. Lestat wants to get the band back together, but Louis' like, "No thanx." He leaves him all disfigured in that chair like a disappointed Mr. Rochester.

Back to the present, Slater is still taking notes. He's disappointed Louis is just "empty." Slater wants to be like him, to be his companion. "Do you like being food for the immortals?" he says as he holds him by his throat to the ceiling. Then Louis disappears. Slater grabs his "writer" props and runs to his stupid orange convertible and drives off, almost hitting a Ford Taurus (TAKE A DRINK). He drives across the Golden Gate Bridge and pops his new tape into his car's tape player. THE '90S! "This is good stuff," he mutters to himself, but Lestat is in his backseat and is going to eat him now. Is the car supposed to be moving still? Lestat feels better and rants about Louis' whining. He takes over the car and he's going to give Slater "the choice." What Isaac has told me is a shitty Rolling Stones cover, "Sympathy with the Devil" is on the radio. I am very satisfied with this ending.