Friday, June 25, 2010

BD impressions: A Nightmare on Elm Street

8:59 PM / BD Impressions / Comments9 Comments

BD Impressions
Blu-ray

I've said before that I find Wes Craven very inconsistent as a filmmaker, and while A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is regarded by a considerable number of people to be his finest achievement, I must admit I'm less sold on it. It has considerable merit, not least its compelling premise (A dead child killer who stalks people in their sleep? That's COOL!) and the fact that, before he turned into a figure of fun, Freddy Krueger was actually a pretty creepy individual. The dream sequences are imaginative - in fact, throughout the whole film Craven manages to create a dreamlike atmosphere. Nice musical score too, courtesy of Charles Bernstein. On the other hand, the characters don't do a whole lot for me, and the lead, Heather Langenkamp, is, to put it politely, uneven. That's not good when the bulk of the film rests on your shoulders, and while she rises to the occasion when it comes to screaming and running around in a state of terror, she stumbles through the dramatic scenes, some of the dialogue exchanges verging on painful.

It's definitely a landmark film, melding the slasher movie formula with supernatural horror, and delivering a true genre icon in the form of Krueger (though, given the later sequels, whether that's a good thing is somewhat debatable), but not a favourite of mine. Then again, I make no secret of the fact that the 80s US slasher movie craze more or less passed me by. Give me a good black-gloved Italian maniac over Michael, Freddy or Jason any day.

Image quality: Sterling work on this 1984 title, made all the more impressive when you consider just how much like a wax museum the Canadian release from Alliance Atlantis looked. Warner get something of a bum rap for their abuse of filters, but this one looks extremely film-like and sports an impressive amount of detail - far more than I would ever have expected of a title of this vintage and budget. I did come across one instance of digital clean-up gone wrong, at 00:10:42 when, at the start of a shot, prior to the actors moving into frame, the entire image (grain included) was frozen for around a second. It's a minor complaint, though, and on the whole I think Warner and New Line deserve a round of applause for treating this film properly. 9/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street
studio: New Line/Warner; country: USA; region code: ABC; codec: VC-1;
file size: 23.1 GB; average bit rate (including audio): 36.34 Mbit/sec

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9 Comments

1. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

I bought the DVD box set of this series a few years ago when I saw it super cheap, but for some reason have not watched beyond the first film. It's a fun little number, and I'm glad to hear the US Blu-ray received a nice transfer. I'm always on the lookout for more horror flicks represented accurately on Blu-ray, so I'll pick this up eventually.

(Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2010 at 1:07 AM)

2. Kram Sacul said:

These kind of releases further put to death the tired "it was made in the 1980s on a low budget/this is as good as it will ever look" BS excuse for shoddy ancient transfers.

(Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2010 at 8:10 PM)

3. ChuckZ said:

Is it weird that you and Chris put up screen caps from this movie at the same time?

(Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 5:44 AM)

4. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Chuck:

It's positively spooky, and proof that great minds think alike. :D

(Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 9:22 AM)

5. Kentai said:

The transfer is amazing on this one, and I'm glad I own it. But it's too bad the mono track is just a downmix of the "Infinifilm" 5.1 mix, and as such it's missing several minor foley effects (stingers and the like). I largely don't mind the 5.1 remix for ANOES, gaffes and all, but it just stupid really to throw in a mono track that isn't the "original" mono mix.

I think the only place to get the original flat mix would be the Elite THX Laserdisc, but as that was an "extended" cut thrown together without Craven's approval it's hardly ideal. I'd already considered buying that LD for 7 seconds of unsanctioned blood splatter, but the transfer and features on this release are so amazing I think this a missing stinger or two is something I can live without.

As for wither or not it's at the top of Wes' admittedly varied pile, it's by far his most fascinating and heady concept, and with the low budgets and poor actors Craven would typically work with those concepts are perhaps the biggest draw his films have. The presence of Englund as a monster who runs the gamut from Looney Toons shtick to pure, festering hatred gives the film's villain - and thus the fear behind him - much more credibility than the otherwise largely superior The Hills Have Eyes - though I do think I enjoy watching that film just a bit more in the end. Sorry Wes, I know you poured every memory of your terrifying father into Papa Jupe, but James Withworth just isn't the charismatic ghoul that Englund was.

Langenkamp and the rest of the teen crew certainly don't do much for me, but I guess their generic personalities and well kept hair fit right in with the 80s teen demographic, so it's a permissible compromise. I'm not convinced that a large cast of young people being picked off equates this film to a "slasher movie" though - I know, I'm probably splitting hairs, but Kreuger's dream rampages are so far removed from Jason or The Shape that comparing them starts to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Since Wes is on the brain, I'll spout off that Last House on the Left is the one Craven film that always drives me bonkers... there's a great and nasty contemporary drama film struggling to get out from under the self-imposed censorship and terrible comic relief cut-aways, but watching the film in its' original X-rated entirety it's just a mess! I'm not one to second guess most film makers, but I swear with some liberal cutting and restoration House could be the masterpiece everyone always seem to think it is.

I'm not convinced ANOES needs to be changed, so despite the boundless potential left on the cutting room floor of Craven's original terror film, it's still the winner.

(Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 at 8:06 PM)

6. Chris said:

It's not the least bit coincidental that I posted shots of these right after Michael did, since I saw his and said to myself: "self, why not do these too".

I'm in agreement that this is a great presentation on Blu and you really couldn't ask for much more. I haven't seen the Alliance Canada BD in motion, but from the shots floating around it seems like a pretty big step down in quality from the New Line edition.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 at 2:08 AM)

7. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

For Michael and anyone else who's seen this BD, did you have any issues with audio being out of sync? I'm watching it now, and at around the 0:22:08 mark (when Rod is speaking with Nancy behind the bushes just before he is arrested) and continuing until after the scene where Nancy speaks with Rod in jail, the audio is terribly out of sync, an issue that's not present on my DVD.

I did a search for it and came up with a thread on Blu-ray.com's forum, and according to this individual—

http://forum.blu-ray.com/3158412-post603.html

—it's possible it's an ADR issue. He even mentions the 1999 US DVD not having the problem, but that all other home video releases he's seen do have it, apparently. So could this just be an issue with dubbing and is inherent to the film, but for whatever reason was corrected for the DVD and nowhere else? Did anyone else notice it? Perhaps there's a batch of bad discs if anyone here isn't experiencing this problem.

(Posted on Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 7:54 AM)

8. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

Also, it's an issue I'm experiencing with both the surround track and mono track.

(Posted on Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 7:57 AM)

9. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Kentai:

I didn't realise the mono mix was also affected by the remix gaffes. I suppose I should count myself lucky that I don't know the film well enough to spot them. Still, a major bummer.


Christopher:

I must admit I didn't notice any sync issues when I watched the film, and I'm normally pretty sensitive to them (I find them glaring on the HD DVD of THE MATRIX, for example). I've gone back and had a look at the scene you mentioned, and I now see what you mean. I'm inclined to agree that ADR is the most likely culprit - the dialogue sounds noticeably cleaner than many of the other outdoor scenes (compare it with the conversation between John Saxon and Joseph Whipp at the start of Chapter 7)... In which case it sounds as if the 1999 DVD was corrected but not any of the other releases.

(Posted on Thursday, July 1, 2010 at 5:30 PM)

 
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