Release Date: May 20th, 1993 (Cannes) Directed by: Renny Harlin Written by: Michael France, Sylvester Stallone, John Long (premise) Music by: Trevor Jones Cast: Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Leon, Paul Winfield, Ralph Waite, Bruce McGill
Pioneer, Canal+, Carolco Pictures, 113 Minutes
Review:
“Kill a few people, they call you a murderer. Kill a million and you’re a conqueror.” – Eric Qualen
This is one of my least favorite Sylvester Stallone films from his legendary run from the early ’80s through the mid-’90s. However, I still enjoy it because it’s Stallone and he has John Lithgow and Michael Rooker to work with in this.
The story is about a team of people that rescue mountain climbers. The two men on the team had a terrible falling out when one of them couldn’t save the other’s girlfriend and she fell to her death. However, they have to learn to work together again when a group of criminals crashes a plane and loses the money they stole in the mountain wilderness.
The two heroes are forced into being the criminals’ guides but once the money is located, the criminals try to take out Stallone. Stallone gets pissed and decides he needs to rescue the other guide, his former buddy, and to take out these criminals before they hurt more people.
The stunts in this are pretty impressive, especially considering the terrain and the environment. Sure, there are shots where it’s obviously not a real mountainside but they still had to get certain shots to make the film feel as real as possible.
There’s also a good amount of decent helicopter work in the film and the finale with the helicopter crashing and getting wrapped up by a cable ladder is pretty good.
Overall, this is exactly what you’d expect from a movie with Stallone on snowy mountain caps. It’s basically Die Hard on a mountain and that’s fine, as Die Hard created a formula that the action genre still tries to emulate.
Also known as: Die Hard 2 (simplified title), 58 Minutes (working title) Release Date: July 2nd, 1990 (Los Angeles premiere) Directed by: Renny Harlin Written by: Steven E. de Souza, Doug RIchardson Based on:58 Minutes by Walter Wagner, characters by Roderick Thorpe Music by: Michael Kamen Cast: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, Reginald VelJohnson, Franco Nero, William Sadler, John Amos, Dennis Franz, Art Evans, Fred Thompson, Tom Bower, Sheila McCarthy, Vondie Curtis-Hall, John Leguizamo, Robert Patrick, Mark Boone Junior, Colm Meaney, Robert Costanzo, Tony Ganios
Twentieth Century Fox, Gordon Company, Silver Pictures, 124 Minutes
Review:
“Oh man, I can’t fucking believe this. Another basement, another elevator. How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?” – John McClane
Why the fuck do people shit on this movie? It’s a solid action flick with a solid action star that also boasts one of the manliest casts ever assembled for a motion picture not named The Expendables.
I love this movie and while I can recognize that it isn’t a perfect masterpiece like its predecessor, it is still a fine motion picture that helped to make the original Die Hard Trilogy one of the greatest trilogies of all-time. That was all undone and fucked up once Hollywood went back to the cow to milk the tits off of the franchise years later but I still consider the first three Die Hards to be a trilogy and that’s that.
John McClane is back and honestly, that’s all you really need. However, they set this one at Christmas, once again, and then padded out the rest of the cast with some of the coolest male actors of the time: Franco Nero, William Sadler, John Amos, Dennis Franz, Art Evans, Fred Thompson, Tom Bower, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Robert Patrick, John Leguizamo, Mark Boone Junior and Colm Meaney. Not to mention that they also brought back Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton and Reginald VelJohnson in a cameo.
There is so much testosterone in this picture that it is hard to see the movie sometimes as it’ll spill over the top of the screen and ooze down the front of it. If that’s not what you’re looking for in an action flick circa 1990, then go watch Fried Green Tomatoes with your Aunt Millicent!
This film grabs you from the get go and doesn’t let go until the credits roll. It’s packed full of action and when shit isn’t blowing up or getting shot at, we’re treated to solid scenes between the solid cast and thus, there isn’t a dull moment in this entire picture.
I love the chemistry between just about everyone in this film. Bruce Willis, at least in this era, could work with anybody and bring the best out of them. While the guy has unparalleled charisma, it always seems to carry over and rub off on anyone he works with. I absolutely loved his banter with Dennis Franz and I also loved his camaraderie with Art Evans.
Looking at another tandem that’s great in this picture, I have to tip my hat to Bonnie Bedelia and William Atherton. This is their second time playing these characters that are at odds with one another but they work so well together that it kind of sucks that they never came back for any of the other films.
Look, it is hard to top perfection, which is what the first Die Hard was. But, man, this is a really good attempt at trying to follow it up and just give the fans more of what they wanted.
Rating: 9/10 Pairs well with: the other Die Hard movies, as well as other Bruce Willis action films of the era.
A Nightmare On Elm Street IV: The Dream Master (1988):
Release Date: August 19th, 1988 Directed by: Renny Harlin Written by: Brian Helgeland, Scott Pierce, William Kotzwinkle Based on: characters by Wes Craven, Bruce Wagner Music by: John Easdale, Craig Safan Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Danny Hassel, Tuesday Knight, Brooke Theiss, Andras Jones, Toy Newkirk, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Robert Shaye
New Line Cinema, Smart Egg Pictures, Heron Communications, 93 Minutes
Review:
The Dream Master is the most successful film of the original series of six. I believe it is because it took the formula of Dream Warriors and then upped the ante and shot it more like a 1980s MTV music video in a time when MTV ruled the world and teenagers’ minds.
It is a colorful film with great editing and visuals. It opened the door for director Renny Harlin to go on and have a pretty big film career.
While Dream Warriors is my favorite film of the series, this one is right behind it. The dream sequences are very imaginative even the few that are a bit cheesy. But, at this point, the franchise was serving up more cheese and laughs than utter dread. Sure, Freddy was still sinister and evil but he had fully become the character everyone was cheering for.
Robert Englund was stellar as usual and he had great chemistry with his new foil, Alice (played by Lisa Wilcox).
This film sees Alice gain the powers of her friends as they die. Whatever their talents are, she has them all by the end of the movie, giving her more ammunition when taking on Freddy. She also knows how to control her dreams in a way that others before her weren’t able to do. She is Krueger’s perfect nemesis. Ultimately, where Nancy is the godmother of all the Elm Street children, Alice is their unrelenting protector.
I love this movie. It was also the last of the good films in the series.
Rating: 7/10
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A Nightmare On Elm Street V: The Dream Child (1989):
Release Date: August 11th, 1989 Directed by: Stephen Hopkins Written by: Leslie Bohem, John Skipp, Craig Spector Based on: characters by Wes Craven, Bruce Wagner, William Kotzwinkle, Brian Helgeland Music by: Jay Ferguson Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Danny Hassel, Beatrice Boepple, Whit Hertford, Kelly Jo Minter, Erika Anderson, Nicholas Mele
New Line Cinema, Smart Egg Pictures, Heron Communications, 96 Minutes
Review:
Alice is back. This time she’s pregnant. Freddy wants the baby in an effort to resurrect himself. Essentially, we have the A Nightmare On Elm Street version of Rosemary’s Baby.
I was glad to see Alice and her boyfriend Dan return but overall, this film sucked.
There were a few good dream sequences, mainly the one where the kid gets sucked into the comic book. Also, the force feeding death to Greta was pretty well done and stomach churning – literally.
While this film tries to give Freddy Krueger more backstory, it chips away at the mystery too much. They revisit the nun mother plot from the third film and expand on it. All this ties it to the baby plot thread.
This film was also toned down in its color palate and just feels and looks really bland after the MTV-esque Dream Master.
It is mostly a sterile film with little to add to the series. Considering they got Alice back, they wasted an opportunity. Additionally, the writers completely disregarded the fact that she had the ability to get her friends’ skill sets. She ran around like a bad ass, which was fine, but she didn’t have the magic about her character that was there in the previous installment.
Rating: 5.5/10
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Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991):
Release Date: September 13th, 1991 Directed by: Rachel Talalay Written by: Michael DeLuca, Rachel Talalay Based on: characters by Wes Craven Music by: Brian May Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt, Lezlie Deane, Yaphet Kotto, Breckin Meyer, Ricky Dean Logan, Johnny Depp, Tom Arnold, Roseanne Barr, Alice Cooper, Robert Shaye
New Line Cinema, 89 Minutes
Review:
This is, by far, the worst film in the series. While Freddy’s Revenge was a weird piece of work, it had so many redeeming factors. This film, truly has none.
The mythos is completely fucked up, similar to what happened to Jason Voorhees around the same time with Jason Goes to Hell. Freddy now has a daughter, he is now cemented as a child molester – which was just implied before, he had a normal family with a nice house but murdered his wife in front of his daughter and none of it made much sense or added anything interesting.
The film fast forwards to ten years into the future where all the Elm Street kids are dead and Freddy needs the last kid to go out and lead others to him. The fact that Freddy just assumes that kids will make it back there, doesn’t make any sense either.
Also, there are barely any kids in this film. Only three of them die. There are also too many survivors in the end.
Most of the dream sequences are completely retarded. For instance, the one where the kid is trapped in the video game is more of a cartoon and looks nothing like video game graphics. Also, the game play makes no sense. It was clearly devised by someone who never played a game before.
The drug use parts were also written by someone who clearly never smoked weed. Weed doesn’t make you hallucinate like LSD. But in this movie it did. Sure, you could write that off as Freddy making the kid trip when he got drowsy but it still doesn’t make much sense given the scenario.
The film is capped off by an atrocious 3D sequence through Freddy’s brain. It serves no purpose to the story and just makes the film look more ridiculous when played back over twenty years later on a 2D screen.
I hate this movie. Freddy wasn’t killed by the heroine of this film, he was killed by shitty execution, shitty writing and a shitty director.
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Talking Pulp 
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