A Nightmare on Elm Street part 1: Don't Fall Asleep!

This series is the one which inspired my shift in focus at this blog. I've written a bit about the Nightmare series over at Superhero Babylon. But, since in most people's view (not mine obviously) slasher movies have very little to do with heroism or Objectivism I've kept it brief for the most part. This means for instance when I reviewed the Nightmare remake I basically glossed over discussing Freddy. Let that sink in for a moment, I glossed over discussing FREDDY KREUGER, in a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET review.

(The only time this is ever acceptable is if you're talking about part four BTW.)

That being said I do have a lot to say about the whole series. Even more so now that I've recently seen the documentary Never Sleep Again: the Elm Street Legacy. But when you talk about something as big and influential as the Elm Street series there's no where really to start but the beginning.

Wes Craven had a few films under his belt when an article about young Cambodian refugees who were suffering intense nightmares began refusing to sleep at all costs in order to avoid them, with many of them dying in their sleep soon after caught his eye from the LA Times. This germinated in Craven's head alongside an odd experience where he was teased by an old drunk one evening as a young boy.

The end result of this was the story of a man out for revenge, with nearly infinite means to do so, and nearly infinite sadism to exploit this. The plot is pretty simple, a group of high school students find out they're all having variations of the same nightmare and one by one they begin to die in their sleep.

The supporting characters in this one are fairly weak and one dimensional, though each of them do have their moments. Tina is the first girl we see encounter the threat in her nightmares and coincidentally the first to die. I'm hard pressed to find a personality trait for her other than scared shitless, but through the early part of the film she's the filter through which we're introduced to every element of the story.

This includes her boyfriend Rod. He's a typical macho jerk (though I still find him pretty likeable). I'm hard pressed to find a personality trait for him other than horny, but toward the end of his story he does show some depth. Since he was the only person in the room when Tina died, he's considered the prime suspect. His time in prison is emotionally devastating and he winds up being the person who offers the bit of information that makes things click for the whole story. As an interesting aside, the actor Jsu Garcia (who's recently been cast in the Atlas Shrugged movie as Francisco D'Anconnia), said that the main reason he cried in the prison scene was because he was "under the influence" while filming.

Rounding out the supporting teenagers is Glen, who was the first role played by a young Johnny Depp. He's romantically involved, but doesn't have sex. So he's the last person killed in the film (he was watching Ms. Nude Universe after all). Seriously, stuff like this was studio/MPAA mandated back then, but I'll have more to say about this series and those tropes in later entries. But he remains the holdout skeptic of the group. It's clear he's having the nightmares as well, but he's much more dismissive of them. His only real foray into dealing with the nightmare problem is that he tells the heroine the one piece of information that saves her life.

In the minor antagonistic roles we have the adults of Elm Street. For the most part they're all screw ups carrying around the weight of the world, and not handling it very well. You have the divorced Thompsons: a hard, career focused cop for a father and an alcoholic train wreck of a mother. Their primary motivation is in ignoring that there is a problem, or at least the particular problem their children describe. Throughout the movie (and in fact the entire series itself) they only continually offer one solution to any children looking for support, "Just get some sleep, you'll feel better."

Who they're offering this particular advice to is the film's heroine Nancy. There are a lot of things that make her special but there's one thing in particular that sticks out. As I said earlier, the beginning of the film is all about Tina, completely focused on her and how she deals with these problems. The only problem is that about twenty minutes or so into the movie she's brutally murdered. A few scenes later before anyone else has died you see Nancy have her first encounter with Freddy. She falls asleep in class due to stress, exhaustion and boredom. In the early part of her dream she has her first encounter with something that will become very common to the series, she sees a vision of Tina begging for help.

This vision leads her through the dream world to her enemy's center of power. He spends a few moments psychologically torturing her, but right as he goes for the kill she intentionally burns herself on a hot pipe, jolting her awake and leaving her with a real burn. The reason this is so shocking is that, based on the pace of the film, if you don't know anything about this series, you expect her to die in her encounter. When she doesn't you begin to look at her in a new light.

She's the most active character trying to discover the secrets behind the man in her dreams. She continually offers more and more evidence to all the other characters as the film goes on to no avail. Eventually she simply discovers a potential weakness in her enemy and makes plans to exploit it, using a series of brutal booby traps. All the while, solemnly putting on her pajamas every night before bed like they're a suit of battle armor.

And who is this mysterious man who haunts the nightmares of the Elm Street teens? The man who a piece of evidence recovered from the dream world by Nancy referred to as "Fred Kreuger" and who identified himself as "Freddy." We're told that he's a local child serial killer who was lynched and burned alive by the parents of Elm street, and the story of who he was inspired inspired a jump rope song.

One, two Freddy's coming for you
Three, Four better lock your door
Five, Six Grab your crucifix
Seven, Eight Better stay up late
Nine, Ten Never Sleep again

To be honest at this point in the series we're told very little about him. I credit Robert England with most of the development of this character. He spent a lot of time in this man's head, to the point that he could say with a fair amount of certainty what his motivation would be in every situation... but that was later in the series, in part one he was mostly throwing things against a wall to see what would stick. He doesn't seem to settle on the signature "Freddy voice" until late in the movie. This character isn't a "silent stalker" type like Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers. He has a voice and to some degree uses it, making sick jokes while he pursues his victims. This becomes very effective and menacing in later films, but at this point it's clearly still in the experimental phase.

One thing though is the rules are set. Freddy comes to you in your dreams, and if he kills you there, you die for real.

On the whole this is the single entry in the series that is most universally loved, but not necessarily every fan's favorite. What I mean by this, is that I don't think I've ever heard a Nightmare fan say that they didn't love the original, but most of them would name another entry in the series as their favorite.

It is the most purely horrific of the series, though in all honesty that doesn't carry as much weight with me as it would with others. It really plays on the idea of not being able to trust your perceptions, often something as little as a blink or a nod from a single character means that something terrible is about to happen.

But at the same time this movie was the first that really showed that a slasher movie with a final girl could be more than just "survival of the blandest." Nancy is a fully developed character with wit, intelligence, depth and ingenuity. I have to admit that the booby traps gimmick just doesn't quite do it for me the same way that the final confrontations from other films do, but you have to admire a girl who, when faced with a situation like this relies on her rational mind at its best.

Up next: Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

Past, present and future.

It's been a very long time since I've written anything here. There are two main reasons for this. One of which is that I became aware of the website "TvTropes." Since discovering it I've realized that it's done a great job of what I've tried to do here. There may be some cases where there are some Objectivist-specific may need discussed that would justify a blog like what this has been up until now, but not enough reason for me to continue doing this.

Secondly, I started this blog (and blogging in general) as a way of fighting off writers block. Shortly after I started this blog, my comic writing hit a very active period where I finished the first draft of the script for my first graphic novel (which is what I was stuck on to begin with). But I had tons of energy to apply to writing my script but I didn't really want to spare any (or at least as much) for blogging.

About a year later I'm at a point of writer's block again. My script needs some rewrites and I need to either get my art up to snuff or break down and find an artist, but I noticed I haven't been doing much writing for a while.

I still have Superhero Babylon where I try to regularly contribute. But even though we try to keep things open about what topics are fair game, there have been some topics there that it hasn't really felt right to go on about because of how things are set up over there.

Specifically I'm talking about Horror. I tend to focus on the more heroic aspects thereof when I do write about it, but sometimes it requires going into too much detail for a person who isn't already a fan or who has no intention of trying it out no matter how glowing of a review I write is willing to take.

When I started this blog with the title I chose someone kind of joked that it sounded like something that would focus on horror. Wasn't true at the time, but I think it will be now. So far I have one idea I'm ready to try out along those lines. I don't want to go into too much detail about what it is, but if all goes well I should be starting it soon.

I don't know how many people were following this back when I was writing regularly, but I figured it would be fair warning to let anyone who cared about this blog "Thanks, but I'm changing focus." I'm still going to remain as Objectivist as one can while writing about a genre of fiction that Rand herself by and large dismissed. If you're no longer interested in this, sorry to see you go. If you're new or old and willing to stay aboard welcome.

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics lecture.

I tend to assume a certain level of understanding of anyone reading anything which I write here. Scott McCloud had more to say about the nature of the medium of comics than perhaps anyone but Will Eisner. McCloud went on a lecture tour promoting the latest entry in his comics trilogy: Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, Making Comics. I have links for purchase of these books in the sidebar. But I attended one of these lectures and found it very informative and inspiring. One has been posted on YouTube and I thought it might be of interest.

One thing that changes everything

In my introductory essay I spoke of the idea of a story as a machine, where moving one part of the system could produce a drastically different end result. Ayn Rand discussed this in detail in a fiction writing class which was held in her living room that later became the basis of her book "The Art of Fiction." Her focus was on the idea that in order to achieve a certain end result a specific groundwork must be built in advance.

She used as an example the first meeting between Howard Roark and Peter Keating:

In the published novel Roark sticks to his principles and refuses to acknowledge his expulsion from architecture school setback or gauge his expulsion against Keating's graduation with honors from the same school. He shows a quiet confidence which can be mistaken for rudeness or arrogance while Keating seems entirely unsure of himself or his future.

In her rewritten excerpt Roark is much more polite. As a result of this Roark does compare his own expulsion to Keating's graduation and shows just a hint of fear about the fact that he may not come back from this setback. Keating's confrontational nature with Roark comes off as confidence against Roark's lack of strength in his conviction while in the other version it just underscores Keating's own insecurities against Roark's strong convictions.

Rand pointed out that the Roark of the rewritten version could not handle the stress of the later events of the book and would give up his struggle far too easily. This would effectively kill the story. But what about cases where a change like this wouldn't necessarily kill the story so much as create a new one.

David Morrell's novel First Blood stayed in developmental limbo for a long time with every major leading man in Hollywood turning down the role of Rambo. Ironically the character did not receive the first name of "John" until a young actor/screenwriter named Sylvester Stallone finally did take the role as well as take up the task of cleaning up the script which had become a mess by this point.

To be fair a number of factors kept this film from happening. The novel covers a cat and mouse game between a small town sherriff and a mentally unstable vagrant, but if the story really was that simple adaptation would be easy. Both men are portrayed as mirror images of each other both decorated veterans (Will Teasle receiving the second highest honor of Distinguished Service Cross, John Rambo receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor) with their biggest difference being how each did or didn't reintegrate into society. There is a big focus in the novel on the idea of fathers and sons, with a number of key elements of the story resting on this theme, but there is also a large focus on what goes on in a man's mind as opposed to what they make known to the rest of the world.

The way the novel was structured was so that it was up to the reader with whom they sympathized. A great deal of this was based largely on the aforementioned internal dialogue. Each man did questionable things but the internal monologue made each man's actions a bit more sympathetic. This is one of the hardest things to capture on film and as a result it would really only be likley to treat the film as one sided while the other side was drastically simplified.

As a result, the script that finally made the book filmable used a technique like the one from Rand's class. In the book Rambo had essentially made into an unstoppable killing machine by his time in Viet Nam and he winds up mercilessly killing a large number of innocent deputies and national guard members. Stallone's Rambo still understood enough to maim but not kill most men he encountered. It's hard to look at Stallone's Rambo as anything other than a hero when you can see how easy it would be to kill everyone in his path yet he uses enough restraint to avoid killing almost any innocents.

It's a slight shift to the character that changes the whole story. Rambo doesn't do anything drastic until after being provoked enough that anyone would respond. Instead of killing first and possibly never asking questions, he lashes out hard, but always makes it clear that all he really wants is to just be left alone. By the end of the story Rambo isn't just a wild animal who needs put down, he's a man who's had a hard life who deserves a real chance at redemption who will eventually get many.

If you have a singular goal for a work of fiction the initial groundwork is very important and something which needs to be done, and done in a very specific way, but there have been a number of largely commercial undertakings that show just what can happen when you're ready to see what happens when you change one small foundational point. Mark Steven Johnson's Daredevil film changed from a story of love and revenge to a story of a man brought to the breaking point by an all consuming feud. And if you're willing to brave the world of comparing theatrical cuts to directors cuts and scouring director commentary you can find dozens of other examples of such changes. Who knows sometimes using this technique can be the thing that turns a good story into a great one.

The Story is Key

I've read some recent reviews of Frank Miller's solo directorial debut the Spirit and it seems he should've spent another film or two working as an apprentice to really learn how to undertake working in this new medium for him. Another thing which I think may have been the problem with this film was the source material of a project like this. Eisner's run on his creation, the Spirit was marked by constant experimentation as well a range that ran all the way from the dramatic to the whimsical.

The previous adaptations of Miller's work were as good as they were because they had a strong story (or stories) working as their spine. In some cases the techniques which Miller had developed on the printed page after finally learning that "comics are more than just films on paper" fell flat on film, but the whole work itself was strong.

If you ask any fan of the Spirit they will tell you that the series' draw was the experimentation, like every installment was a clinic in storytelling in the comics medium. They also probably could not tell you which singular Spirit story they would call a "signature" story.

In a way this was probably the worst license to give Miller to "experiment with" however. Since there is no signature Spirit story offering Miller this film would be like one of the major publishing houses offering him someone like Spider-Man and simply saying "Make a movie."

The irony being that it would be substantially easier with a number of the major characters from Marvel or DC.

Spider-man has a fairly interesting origin story, even though it's a bit recycled since all major Marvel heroes share some variation on the same origin. But likewise the same could be said of each of his numerous interesting villains. On top of that there have been a number of great stories which could be mined to great benefit, such as: The death of Captain Stacy, the Death of Gwen Stacy, his courtship and marriage to Mary-Jane Watson, etc...

Batman has a laundry list of great stories, the origin of course which is a bit overused if for no other reason than being one of the first of its kind, each of his numerous villain's unique origins, but beyond that there have been a number of great stories which could be easily adapted, A Death in the Family, A lonely Place of Dying, The Killing Joke, Year One, The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Venom, Knightfall/Knightquest/Knight's End.

You may think that Superman would have a similar amount of great stories behind him but he suffers from a fate similar to Mickey Mouse in that he's almost more of a logo than a character. Most of his great stories are unique re-tellings of his origin or stories of his end. Though because his supporting cast and world is so well established if it is respected it is very easy to create a great story. Just remember that Lois and Clark/Superman always have a great back and forth like any screwball romantic comedy pair whether Lois knows the secret or not (but she is a great reporter so don't make her look stupid). The rest you could probably figure out.

But for something like a film it isn't something which should be done on the fly which based on what Miller says his comic writing style is like as well as reviews of the film seem to indicate has happened. Hopefully Miller will get a chance to learn from his mistake. One thing that anyone can learn from this is the importance of a strong story as the core of a great film, because there's only so much that be covered by a unique visual style and a great cast... which are luxuries which many filmmakers cannot afford.

That's such a Rip-Off.

"The Machinist" is a total rip-off of "Fight Club." I mean it features a lead character who suffers from insomnia whose subconscious creates a trickster character as a delusion who tries to control the actions of the actual person.

It's just like in comics when they copied that character who was an orphan who through a strange combination of events (possibly involving an animal) gained some phenomenal abilities which he would later go on to use to fight injustice maybe in response to some personal loss. I'm trying to remember whose story that was, Superman, Batman, Spider-man or all of the above.

J. Michael Straczynski, creator of the show Babylon 5 and author of a good run on Amazing Spider-Man, made a point when discussing plagiarism. He gave the basic plot to a story which went like this:

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy runs into opposition to love for girl. Boy Dies.

He then proceeded to ask if this was a summary of Romeo and Juliet or King
Kong, to which he answered yes.


An interesting thing about the progression of human knowledge is how it actually works. Every advance is an accomplishment and an achievement in and of itself, but once it happens it becomes a tool which can be employed by others.

Artist Micheal Newberry made a great point about this:

Innovation is a funny thing in art. An artist could easily lose their way by attempting to be innovative in everything they do and lose sight of what their core belief and soul are. On the other hand there are plenty of artists that remain true to themselves and yet use the tools of art that they were simply taught. I view art history more like a palette of colors to tweak, as one of many means to breath freshness into the work; but the end point always comes out of my soul.

There's also a well known saying that "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." And it's rarely on better display than in examples like the ones I listed above. But this requires further explanation.

A film like "The Machinist" was often dismissed as a simple derivative work of "Fight Club." It used a number of the same narrative tools of "Fight Club" this includes: an unreliable narrator, a trickster character who later turns out to be a product of said narrator's imagination, and insomnia as a plot device.

What made it different was the manner in which those devices were used. In "Fight Club" the plot is driven by the emergence of the lead character's frustrated ego in the form of a separate personality named Tyler Durden who tries to drag the man's behavior deeper into madness, terrorism and nihilism. The insomnia facilitates this development in both stories. In "The Machinist" the events are similar but the motivation is in reverse. The trickster delusion in the Machinist serves the opposite purpose. In the Machinist Trevor Reznik is both trying desperately to discover an underlying mystery that will explain his insomnia, but at the same time he's deathly afraid to discover the secret. His delusion serves the purpose of keeping him focused on reality and facing his metaphorical demons no matter how hard. But it's also fair to mention that "The Machinist" takes at least as much from the Roman Polanski film "Repulsion" (a film which is frequently copied in its own right) as it does from Fight Club.

In the course of using a number of the same story elements something completely new and different was created. This is how great art is supposed to work. You learn to understand what made everything in a story work, and then learn to use it as a tool of your own. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean that it's good, but the real secret is to learn how to use everything that's gone before you and add more than you took.

Introduction to Dissecting the Machine

Storytelling has really been my life. I started coming up with sets of characters and scenarios when I was very young and one of the big driving forces in my life has been the idea of doing this well and constantly learning to do it better. But the truth of the matter is that even if the drive comes naturally, the skill to use that drive does not.

At the end of the day I'm a "nuts and bolts" guy when it comes to aesthetics. I'll read a novel and compare it to the film adaptation to see where things were improved or worsened. I'll compare different adaptations of the same story. I watch different edits of the same film. I listen to director commentaries and watch deleted scenes and try to determine if they handled the tough decisions correctly.

I can watch a film or read a novel and see it like an engine and understand how moving different elements of the story or "pressure valves" can drastically affect the overall work. It can turn an unstoppable psychopath into a lovable loser who can't catch a break. It can turn a bold man who takes charge of his own life into a neurotic wreck who can't keep anything together.

Ultimately more so than any other form of art a story is a machine. The characters, setting, events and everything that goes into a story are little more than Gears, tools and pressure valves which make this machine run properly and perform the task it was built to do.

My goal here is to discuss the ideas behind how the machine itself works. To name, describe and discuss all the tools that make a good story and point out how they have been best applied in the past and can be applied in the future.