Typically, I’ll wait until at least October 1st before going full nerd into the Halloween season but y’know what? It’s a misty morning here in the bay area, there’s a chill in the air and I now own C.H.U.D. II on VHS. Yes that’s right, It’s time to pull the giant tupperware box full of spooky decorations out of the closet.

It’s time to get my shit together.

And so more than ten years and an awesomely solid closer later, our old friend Mr. Craven decides he just has to poke his shriveled little pecker into the honey pot one more time. Ok I’ll admit, like a lot of people my age and older I was pretty excited to see this on opening weekend. As I mentioned before these movies were kind of like mini events when they were released at the tail end of the 20th century. This new entry promised “new rules” for a “new decade.” It was going to be fun to see what they’d cooked up and how they’d handle modern stuff like social media and the fact that newborns are issued cell phones fresh from the womb. And how about the way the horror landscape had shifted so incredibly since Scream 3? This movie’s got to deal with how those awful Saw movies had popularized torture porn, not to mention the whole found footage genre. I don’t know if it was my mood at the time or what, but I remember walking out of the theatre from this thing completely underwhelmed. But I’m giving it another shot today because for some reason this marathon sounded like a good idea. And even though we’re not gonna watch parts 5 and 6, I am nothing if not one stubborn completionist!

So let’s get it on Scream 4! Time to play a little ga-wait, wrong franchise.

Scream 3 was the first movie I ever watched illegally. Well, let me clarify that because I’d theater hopped and snuck into movies for years by that point. No, this one has the distinction of being the first movie I ever watched over something called the internet (while it was still in theaters no less). It was the year 2000 and I was 20 years old when a friend of mine asked if I had any desire to see the new Scream movie and I told her that I didn’t really feel like going out. It was then when she pointed at her computer screen and said that we didn’t need to because it was already downloading. My. Mind. Was. Blown. Now, I haven’t seen this movie since then but I do remember really liking it quite a bit. Even more so than the first one if I recall correctly. In any case, it can’t be any worse than part 2 right?

Right!?

As is the agreed upon, stone cold tradition of any successful horror movie: When you’ve got a hit, ya gotta fast track that sequel. Immediately following the box office success of the first installment, Scream 2 was greenlit and hit theaters the very next year. We may never know whether or not this was the plan all along but what we can say is tha-wait, what? Oh nevermind, the internet just told me that there was an outline ready for this thing before cameras even rolled on the original. Ok, well anyhoo out of all of the Screamses this is the one that I’m the least familiar with so this should be kind of fun.

Let’s hop right in!

Welcome back boys and ghouls to Friday Night Frights! Our annual October marathon of weekly watches centering on some kinda spooky theme. For this year’s series, I thought it’d be fun to mix it up a bit and liveblog a bunch of movies that I haven’t seen in quite some time. And with the 7th installment of the Scream franchise looming on the horizon (just in time for next year’s 30th anniversary of the original’s release), that sounded like as good of an idea as any to me. Only with one caveat: We’re sticking with the entries that Wes Craven directed himself before moving on up to that big Elm St. in the sky. That’s right, nothing past the OG core four.

So go pop some popcorn, turn off the lights and flip on that caller ID.

It’s time to watch some scary movies.

As far as the lights in our windows, odor of scented candles, toddler onesies and all of the black cats in the neighborhood are concerned, October 1st hit town around mid-August. But today it is official: We are now in full on Halloween time! So why don’t we go ahead and get this year’s ghoulish groove going shall we? Linked below is an ooky, spooky Spotify playlist that I’ve had under construction for the last few weeks. Included are some old decorative favorites of mine. ranging from the Ramones to Rockwell to Paul Williams. All together, I’m confident this collection of tunes will compliment any social event you can throw at it over the next few weeks!

Oh hey, looks who’s back? Seems like you just can’t keep this guy down. As a bonus to the Friday Night Frights Nightmare on Elm St. marathon, I’ve compiled every music video I could find from the various installments in the series. There are 4 songs altogether and in my opinion the quality lands squarely in the 50/50 zone. I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Make tonight a Freddy night!

I have a theory that the first introduction you have to a long running film series typically will wind up becoming your favorite installment. It may not be the best one but it was your initial experience. This is the reason that Temple of Doom is my favorite Indy, Return of the Jedi my favorite Star War, E.T. my favorite E.T. and whatnot and so on and so forth, etc. Well, that sure is what happened here: A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy’s Revenge was my first taste of Freddy Krueger’s adventures and time has only poured concrete on it as the towering gold standard of the entire series for this particular fan.

Let’s do this thing.

A Nightmare on Elm St. 3: Dream Warriors belongs to a highly exclusive cinematic club of quality third installments. And in this special podcast edition of Friday Night Frights, Rob and Ray are gonna break it on down! Please enjoy this oh so nerdy (not to mention oh so spooky) deep dive into Freddy’s Nightmares!

Click Here to Listen!

There’s this great little retro diner called the St. Francis Fountain located in San Francisco’s mission district (Try the Cilantro Chicken Soup, the best in the city). It’s like walking into another era with the decor primarily unchanged from what it must have looked like in the 50’s: Hat and coat racks attached to each booth and there’s an adorable little candy counter featuring vintage and sealed trading card packs (along with individual cards that can all be bought for dirt cheap). Well wouldn’t you know it, on a random recent misty afternoon outing we went in for lunch and they had a ton of Nightmare on Elm St. cards to wade through and I of course couldn’t help myself.

Let’s have a look at the only five singles I could find featuring Freddy himself (And yes, I love that three of them just so happened to come from part 2 and are in sequence!).

If one were to rank all of these movies, I’d bet A Nightmare on Elm St. 4: The Dream Master would sit comfortably somewhere in the top 3 on most lists. Maybe even top 2. It’s arguably the most fun of them all, embracing a much more kinetic cinematic style, really cranking up the visuals and overflowing with an overall vision. It’s also just so 80’s, watching it now makes this one feel like the Freddy that comes to mind when you think about Freddy.

It’s kinda iconic.

Released back in 1994, this October A Nightmare On Elm St. pinball officially crosses the 3 decade mark of having never been played by yours truly. While 2,000 tables are reported to have been built (presumably finding homes in arcades, bars, bowling alleys and strip clubs across the country), I’ve certainly never seen one in real life. Have you? How the hell has this Nightmare machine managed to slip by me over all of this time!?

And almost as important, how is Nightmare Machine not a band?

A Nightmare on Elm St. 5: The Dream Child is a tough one to write about because it is easily my least favorite and thus, least frequently viewed entry in the series. I’ve never been in the mood to watch one of these movies and been like, “Y’know what? I could really go for Part 5 right now.” But I did give it another shot recently and am going to do my best to be nice.

Please Freddy, can I reason with you and ask you to not kill me for this review?

Welcome to my Nightmare! You’ve guessed it, this year’s Friday Night Frights theme will be the mainline entries in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. In fact, expect to see a lot of Freddy’s toasted mug here at the Dorkside for a while. And though I’d originally planned on posting write ups following their cinematic chronological order, there’s a 4k disc of the original coming out toward the end of October I’m waiting on so we’re just gonna have to work our way backwards. There are now only 6 Fridays left until Halloween so we’d better get going, beginning with Freddy’s Dead The Final Nightmare.

It’s time for Freddy 101!