Welcome To Prime Time: Ranking The A Nightmare On Elm Street Films

Okay, we've done it.  A month of Freddy.  I hope you've enjoyed a month-long retrospective dedicated to one of my favorite cinematic villains of all time.  If you can't tell from my profile picture on this blog...I'm kinda  big fan of this series.  This franchise is one, unlike its contemporaries, that actually gets to sort of have its own story play out without dodging entries or starting fresh multiple times within the original canon.  Unfortunately it winds up being the one that had the worst of the remakes.  

1, 2 Freddy's Comin' For You : Freddy's 10 Best Kills

Here we go...this needs no real introduction.  Its my 10 favorite or most memorable kills from the A Nightmare On Elm Street series.  These stuck with me one way or another.  Freddy doesn't have a huge roster of victims unlike Jason and Michael.  Since he tends to make an event of each victim, if he had those sort of numbers, his movies would be like 5 hours a piece.  I also tried to keep these from being just "Freddy stabs with the glove" kills.  A lot of these picks' placement tended to have the more elaborate effects and gross out factor win over.  Anywho, here we go, Top 10 Freddy kills

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

1991

Director: Rachel Talalay

Starring:  Robert England, Lisa Zane, Yaphet Kotto, Lezlie Deane, Ricky Dean Logan, Breckin Meyer, Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold and Johnny Depp

Rated: R

Might be your dream, but its my rules!

              ~Freddy Krueger

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare On Elm Street

1984

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Robert England, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Johnny Depp, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia (credited as "Nick Corri"), Charles Fleischer, Lin Shaye

Rated: R

One, two Freddy's coming for you

Three, Four better lock your door

Five, Six grab your crucifix

Seven, Eight gonna stay up late

Nine, Ten never sleep...again...

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1999

If you didn't have the word "The" in your title you were by default the winner of the 1999 Academy Awards.  This was an interesting year where my list is probably the most "pop friendly" of any of them so far.  At least to me.  This year is also notable as it contained what I consider the worst film I've ever plopped down money to see in a theater.  I'm speaking of Wing Commander.  A film my friends and I went to ONLY to see the trailer for The Phantom Menace.  See, back in the day you HAD to go to the theater to see the new trailers.  They weren't online weeks before they finally showed up on the silver screen.  They even turned the house lights back on after the trailer so people could leave if they wanted to.  We should have left.  After the movie, we all realized we wanted to ask the others if they wanted to leave, but were afraid someone might have been enjoying themselves.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1994

I remember following the 1994 Oscar race pretty closely.  It was a pretty high profile year from what I can remember.  And 12 year old Brandon had only seen Forrest Gump at the time of the race.  And little Brandon was really moved and affected by Forrest Gump.  Plus he was a Tom Hanks fan.  So, he was really rooting for that movie at the time and had a fantastic night watching that awards ceremony.  Well, in retrospect, older Brandon thinks the Oscars may have gotten this one pretty wrong.  But, its the one that's hot in the moment.  And sometimes, some movie are better off getting snubbed and not winning the award.  Movies that don't even get nominated become far more remembered and legendary more often than most Best Picture winners.  I still enjoy Forrest Gump, but I think maybe there was a better choice.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1990

We've hit the 90s!  This particular year had a lot of films I like and I had too weed this list down, but nothing was anything major.  Most of those were all fine films but nothing I'm was clinging to and driving my brain crazy when it come to decision making time.  One film on here wouldn't have made the list had it been made last year, but I quite frankly loved it so much that it knocked out plenty of competition.  Also, something that I remember enjoying quite a bit like Dick Tracy...I haven't seen in a long long time, so it lost out on my ignorance of not revisiting it in many years.  And I like Total Recall, but in comparison to the others it just hadn't been watched as much and I don't even own it on Blu-ray or DVD.  Same goes for Goodfellas.  Everybody should see Goodfellas...it just well...falls short when considering MY favorites (cuz like i've said, there's a difference between "best" and "favorite").

My 2013: My 2014 - 10 Films I'm Looking Forward To

So tomorrow 2013 will be over and we will be ringing in 2014.  While 2015 looks to be THE year to go to the movies (well, if you're a franchise person), 2014 will be no slouch.  There's already plenty of notable projects and I'm sure more will pop up as the year goes and we get some more trailers and extra buzz from screenings.  While 2015 has all the hype in the world, it also could be setting up for a big disappointment.  2014 on the other hand has the sort of "well, let's just get through this year so we can get to 2015" type feel with the movies, meaning its probably going to surprise and turn out to be pretty damn good in its own right.  Remember or summer 2011 was only the preface to summer 2012...and then 2011 wound up being the much better summer?  I'm not saying that will happen, I'm just saying let's not discount 2014 before its even begun.

Below are 10 films that are currently on my radar (there's more than 10 actually, but I have ten digits and its a nice clean cut off) going into 2014.