The Reigning Horror Icons of the 80's

Halloween, I tell you. The more I have touched horror media, the more this holiday sticks into my mind, and during this year, specifically, I decided to hold a marathon surrounding two of horror cinema's largest franchises from the 80's, while I also watched two anthologies. It continues to be too bad for me personally that this holiday isn't celebrated nationally really over here.

There are a ton of movies surrounding this genre, and about 95% of them are absolutely horrible as far as average film qualities go. However, for about a roughly 20% of them in a whole as I predict, and I target horror fans then, they are worth watching, if you can forgive poor budgets, bad actors, cheap and predictable scares and many times stupid plots. And only about a mere 5% out there are truly recommendable for everyone, from critics to average joes, if you can handle the horror.

However, I won't talk anymore about the genre as a whole from now on. Instead, I would like to focus on three horror icons from the 80's that everyone is aware of if they have done basic research into these kind of films. I am talking about Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

I know that there are other horror franchises out there, and some of them just as large as these three in particular, but as the title said, these three were simply all over the 80's, presented with their strong debuts, and from those inceptions onward, they kept getting worse and worse until you found the deepest pits of the art of milking awful sequel movies. And believe my word then, because I have at last saw each and everyone one of them, including the latest remakes, and three dedicated documentaries towards each of them.

I won't be talking about every sequel, instead, I would like to summarize each franchise with a few paragraphs.

HALLOWEEN

On this date, since at the very least several centuries, Halloween is celebrated, which at first was entirely different in its concept of a holiday than it is in present time. The well known Halloween franchise touches upon both concepts during its course, but the movies are, more to the point, about an immortal serial killer named Michael Myers.

The original film never clearly stated Myers's motivation in detail for doing these homicidal acts. Instead, they decided to let it remain a mystery, which therefore buffed up the tension of the story. Halloween and its antagonist tend to focus on babysitters, their friends, foster parents and other innocent humans usually residing in the fictional place known as Haddonfield, where they are killed off one by one.

The franchise is if you ask me, pretty average. Not even the earlier titles had left me profoundly fascinated by its design, or its cinematography, or its use of sounds. Nevertheless, they are worth watching up until Halloween 4. After that, it can no longer be saved, because the writers kept using terrible scripts to advance the story, and Halloween 6 and Resurrection are the lowest ranks for sure.

Favorite title: Halloween II(1981)

FRIDAY THE 13TH

The well known formula of Friday the 13th is "sex and gore", centering on the deaths of countless drunk and horny teenagers throughout the massacre films. It is a pretty popular game to send death wishes towards the many stupid characters.

It started with the accidental drowning of a misformed kid named Jason Voorhees while the caretakers of Camp Crystal Lake were too busy having sex. Driven by a twisted kind of revenge, Mrs. Pamela Voorhees ignites the start of the franchise in the original film, at first killing the original residents, and then returning in 1980 to continue her murdering legacy.

After being decapitated to death, the now grown up Jason watched in horror how his mother died, which in turn makes him all too unforgiving in the countless sequels. He is at first a very strong man who kills teenagers without any sweat, but starting with part 6, he becomes a zombified Frankenstein wannabe monster that still continues to kill people around the lake until he starts doing so randomly, and the latest sequels, Part 9 and Jason X, completely wrecked the antagonist, the franchise and the traditions for me.

There is no doubt that Friday the 13th is guilty of the worst kinds of horror sequels possible for me, but at least the first trilogy of the franchise is entertaining, interesting and even scary.

Favorite title: Friday the 13th Part 2(1981)

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

Whatever you do, don't fall asleep. The female protagonist Nancy Thompson tells us about these golden words of advice in A Nightmare on Elm Street, trying to warn everyone from the frightful demonic entity known as Freddy Krueger, the man born out of a hundred crazy maniacs raping a nun.

The story of the premise, especially what the original already established is simply put an interesting take on the theme of dreams, combining that with horror and its dream similarity; nightmares. Pop up an evil villain from beyond, manipulating everyone’s dreams with deadly results and you’ve got Freddy’s motivation throughout the movies.

And despite that not every sequel was polished well, at the very least does each film have unique kinds of horror for you to find out. Because of the freedom the manipulation of dream killing has, the directors and their teams had free reign and fun to benefit from this rule the original made, thought out by Wes Craven. So basically each movie is enjoyable by itself, even if standard cinema qualities such as acting, cinematography or editing are poorly done. Speaking quite in general now though when talking about what made some of them below average. Anyway, there is no doubt for me that the franchise is very enjoyable, mainly because of the unique horror premise.

Favorite title: A Nightmare on Elm Street(1984)

Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is a popular TV series about a chemistry teacher gone bad by the time he hears of his dreadful news of having lung cancer. As if he is finally awake and alive now, Walter White leads a double life of a family man and a “cooker”, who eventually turns into a force of a drug producer along with his partner and former student of him, Jesse Pinkman, a professional but addictive drug dealer. Along the way, both of them must keep their personal lives stable with their hidden illegal work, while their partnership usually hangs on the edge because of the dangerous events happening, and because of their unmistaken differences.

The first season was just a warm-up, and the latter episodes of season 2 is where things started to get more thick and interesting. Some highlights of the series are in S2 a turtle with a severed head on its top walking around in the desert, then blowing up, killing policia, and Walter throwing a chemical on the ground and the building explodes partly in S1. The series continues to hold up well with Season 3, and Season 4 seems to be the best one yet.

It’s one of those series that doesn’t necessarily have a deep plot, but the direction of it and it's characters just continued to let me watch it. Character and plot development both are well done and most of the time, I wondered what would happen next. “Het kijkt lekker weg” I would say, in Dutch.
 

Rating: 8.0(Thanks to Season 4!)

Current State of Affairs for Nintendo

As a multinational corporation that has made many people happy especially in the last several decades, it continues to work hard, innovative and fulfilling towards their large group of costumers, stock holders and third parties.

Hardly anything of actual criticism can be said about Nintendo in present time, but sometimes the course of waiting inbetween quiet periods and exciting ones can be tiresome. Especially when we are talking about the latest generation available.

The Nintendo 3DS has yet to become a hot new handheld for me. Of course, this is it's first year, and look for example how many years the original Game Boy or the Nintendo DS had gotten out of their long life periods. From 1989 to 1998 and from 2004 to still ongoing.

But this is perhaps the first time since the Nintendo 64 days that I hold on to 1 game for so long, that it has been dissapointing so far that my 3DS has literrally been collecting dust since what, May 2011? It's true, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition wears off once you have beaten the game with every character and have seen enough of it's online mode that occassionally lags for me.

As pleasant as the free "Ambassador Program" is for early purchasers of the 3D handheld(which is equivalent with the price drop), as well as the recently available free The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition is with actual new content, it does not cloud the fact that the system still lacks killer AAA titles from anyone.

Due to a lack of worthy 3DS software currently in store, I have been forced to look elsewhere for great modern gaming, and thankfully that role has been fulfilled with titles such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Xenoblade Chronicles at the moment.

The lazy remakes of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and Star Fox 64 3D are ignored by me, not only because I played these about 12 years ago already, but most of all because there is no thrilling new content for us to experience. Seriously, if only Nintendo did the same procedure as they did with Metroid: Zero Misson or Super Mario 64 DS for example, then a lot more people would be willing to rebuy a part of their childhood games.

Promising future titles have been hinted and hyped at since E3 2010, and am I the only one that notices this? I know that they are coming, and it's good that we have been up to date with many of them, but it has been annoying me that because there is nothing worthy to play on the 3DS at the moment, I have been reading news for the same titles for far too long.

Finally, in the next month, Nintendo comes out with Super Mario Land 3D, which will be much needed in order for me to fire up my 3DS with pride once again. After that, Mario Kart 7 is next in December, and recently it has been announced by Capcom that Resident Evil: Revelations will be in Europe on January the 27th.

Good things are coming, but the wait has been long. And as for the Wii U, well, Nintendo said that the year 2011 was mainly for the 3DS, and that next year it will be focusing on their latest console. So, in a fair way, I don't have anything to add towards that system, as the news has been scarce about it anyway.

So yes, I know that Nintendo has nothing to be afraid of from whining people like me, but still, it doesn't hurt to give out comments once in a while for one of the most beloved companies out there in recent times. And Nintendo knows what they are doing. They have a gigantic schedule of different responsibilities and promises to make towards different kinds of gamer groups, and it takes time to please everyone.