Friday's Choice Cuts: Nightmare (aka Atmosfear) (1991: A Couple 'A Cowboys/J.W. Spears & Sons)

image from Bloody-Disgusting.com

Since I mentioned it earlier this week while covering Beyond the Gates I figured today's Choice Cut would be the Nightmare VCR board game (or if you're in other parts of the world it might be known as Atmosfear... which is weird because I definitely remember commercials for both as a kid).

As far as the board game portion goes, your goal is simple:  Collect keys and then make it to the center.  In the center are pieces that each player wrote their own "nightmare" on and you have to pick one and hope it isn't yours.  If you do this, and accomplish it all before the VHS is done, you win.  You'll have cards to play at specific times too which will require you to yell or do something in order to gain an advantage.  The fate cards are like "chance" in Monopoly where it might be good or bad.  Each of your characters are taken from religious, folk, or actual history.  For example, you could play as the blood countess Elizabeth Bathory, or the king of the Ghede in Vodou, Baron Samedi.  Of course they just have their name and list them as "vampire," or "zombie" so it's not getting too in depth there.

Now for the tape part.  This is the golden portion of the board game.  With the first game you get a random guy in shitty lighting and a potato sack hood as the "Gatekeeper."  He will assign you to do things, banish you to the black hole, free you from the black hole, or just make you do weird stuff before continuing.  As you get in the last 10-15 minutes of the game he gets fucking bat shit crazy with making weird noises and saying crazy stuff.  I can see why, if you were a kid, and you played this in the dark with some friends, you might piss your TMNT undies with this guy popping up randomly and screaming at you.  As an adult it's just hilarious but you'd be surprised how quickly people get into it.  You can actually check out the video on YouTube, or just watch some of it now here:

There are supposedly two sequels to it with booster tapes and then a reboot of sorts that came out in 2004.  As I mentioned, I have the second game (or the first booster) but I haven't played it yet.  I have watched some of the tape and it's pretty much the same thing only this time with Baron Samedi as the gatekeeper.

I lucked out and found this for $3 at a thrift store around 10 years ago.  I'm sure it could be in others as well because who really owns a VCR any more?  However, you can play this just via YouTube and there are pictures of the board and rules online so you could basically do your own.  Although if you want you could just put the video on at a party or make it into a drinking game.

Day 20: (Wes Craven's) New Nightmare (1994) 1h 52min

To the best of my knowledge this is one of, if not the first, "meta" horror films to exist.  Set in the "real world" the actors and individuals related to the Nightmare on Elm Street series play themselves.  There are a few exceptions such as the kid from Pet Cemetery playing Dylan (Heather's fake son) and of course Robert Englund reprising Freddy (although the credits say Freddy was played by Freddy Krueger) but overall the border between reality and film are blurred.  So much so that Wes Craven actually included the Heather stalker in the film which was an existing real life event Heather was dealing with at the time and gave him permission to include.

The premise of New Nightmare is similar to previous installments in the sense that film Wes states that all of the energy and fandom surrounding Freddy has caused him to manifest as an actual entity.  The films kept him going and that it's been so long since he's had that attention and focus he has come back to attack the original people involved.  Heather has tons of nightmares and signs of Freddy, Dylan is slowly becoming possessed by Freddy, Wes is haunted by nightmares which cause him to start a new script, and Robert's random beach scene paintings are forgotten for him to paint an awesome Freddy with souls painting.  Seriously, I want a print of that in my home.  I'd hang it right over the bed.  Not on the wall, but on the ceiling.  That's hot, right?  My fiancé isn't here to say otherwise, so it officially is.

We're also treated to a redesign on Freddy himself.  Personally, I'm in the middle of the road with how he looks in this.  The new biomech claw hand is a nice touch, but the head piece isn't as scary as the burned and melted face.  They bring back some of his more interesting moments too like the tongue in the phone and the elongated arms but I'm still middle of the road with him here.

This was actually the last Nightmare on Elm Street film with Robert, and the next to last time he would play Freddy.  Freddy vs. Jason actually takes the credit for the final Robert-as-Freddy moment... goin' out with a bang there, eh buddy?  For real though, I love Robert Englund.  So much so I own Dance of the Dead just because he was on the cover of it.

I only have one real criticism of this film and that would be the sound effects.  They continually use the same stock "pot breaking"  noise for everything from plates falling of the wall in an earthquake to a statue breaking in a cemetery.  Also, when Heather and Dylan are escaping Freddy's nightmare realm there is what I can only describe as a "chamber of farts" sound while they fly through the sky.

Overall, I give New Nightmare 3 Elm St. signs out of 5: