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smokeybrand · 3 years

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Smokey brand Select: Cut My Life Into Pieces

Whelp, Halloween is upon soon and the horror flicks are dropping right into place. I’ve seen a few Nightmare and Jason retrospectives and Malignant is bamboozling people into thinking it’s great. All this bloody fan fare has been waxing nostalgic about the Eighties hey day of the Slasher and the brief Nineties resurgence. I love horror flicks and the Slasher sub-genre is one of my favorites so i figured, concerning it’s Spooky Season, maybe drop a lit of my favorites. I made one about my favorite Supernatural Horror films, too, so that one might pop up soon, too. This thing might be real Wes Craven heavy. He’s like the Dude of this genre. Also, you’ll notice a distinct lack of Friday the 13th films. Those movies suck balls. I’ve never really liked any of them.

10. Scream

Scream sneaks into this list as a distant ten. I enjoy the subversion in this film and, overall, it’s quite good. As a kid who came of age during the Nineties, this flick was a big deal. This as the triumphant return of the Slasher genre as a whole but also of Wes Craven, himself. Scream is great and I'd love it more if i hadn’t seen New Nightmare a few years before this came out. That movie did everything Scream does, but much better. Also, Freddy Kreuger was in that one. Ghostface is dope and Sydney Prescott is a top five Final Girl, but Scream will always be New Nightmare’s little brother to me.

9a. The Strangers

This movie bugged me the f*ck out. Admittedly, i leans much more toward Home Invasion horror but they get sloppy in the end. Everything up to that pint is an exercise in sheer tension. This movie ramps you up with an unrelenting dread and never let’s you relax. I was thoroughly surprised by how f*cking terrified i was of this film. that never happens for me. Movies don’t scare me. It takes a lot, and i mean that, to get a rise out of me but The Strangers was able to do so almost effortlessly. Just the thought of people coming and going, in and out of my house as they please, while I'm completely oblivious to it, makes me cringe on a guttural level. F*cking fantastic film.

9b. Hush

Hush does what The Strangers does, but amps it up to another level. Instead of being a young couple in the middle of nowhere, it’s a single, deaf, woman out in the muddle of nowhere. That premise, alone, is enough to catch my attention but the execution of this idea in cinematic form, was brilliant. I loved this movie. It as everything i thought it would be. This one is a Mike Flannagan outing and, as far as i am concerned, he’s golden. He wrote it with his wife, Kate Siegel, who happens to be the lead. It sucks they couldn’t get an actual hearing impaired person for the lead but i get it. Hush put Flannagan on the map and without it, we wouldn’t have his growing catalog of pure, horror, excellence.

8. Fear Street trilogy

I referenced this in the Scream entry, but I'm an Eighties kid who grew up in the Nineties. A huge part of my childhood was those R.L. Stine Goosebump books. I grew up with those and, when i got to Junior high, he had a more mature series ready for me: Fear Street. I read that first book and thought it was dope but never revisited the franchise. Imagine my surprise when Netflix adapted that story to film and make it super f*cking bloody! We got three, solid, modern, Slasher flicks and i loved very bloody minute of it. For me, these films eclipse some of the more, better known, classics of the genre. Literally did the summer camp massacre thing better than Friday the 13th, with 1978 and I'll take that sh*t to the grave! Plus, any time i get to see Sadie Sink and Gillian Jacobs do their thing, I'm pretty happy.

7. Halloween

This is a little bit of a cheat because i mean to of the three Halloweens: 1978 and 2018. The first Halloween doesn’t rewrite the Slasher formula and it’s not even the first, i think Black Christmas or Psycho takes that honor, but it does have Michael f*cking Myers. I saw Halloween for the first time after seeing Nightmare 3 and MTV Freddy so, going from that to the malevolent force that is Michael Myers was jarring as f*ck. Dude cut a bloody swath through his movie and then did even more in it’s 2018 sequel. Like, sh*t, man, Myers is a f*cking monster! But his sister, Laurie, is every bit his match. I love Jamie Lee Curtis in this role, almost anytime she plays it. Laurie is top-two Final Girl for me and gives other brilliant female characters like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor a run for their money.

6. Candyman

Listen, Candyman is arguably the worst film on this list. as a Slasher, it’s top tier but as a film? It’s adequate at best. Candyman isn’t terrible but it does nothing new. A lot of what it has going for it lies in the themes for me. I grew up Black and in the ghetto during the Nineties and this film deals with a lot of that. The backdrop of poverty and racial strife really hit home back then. Thy tried to do that with the new one released this year and it mostly works but not as well as the original. Plus, Candyman is Daniel Robitaille, portrayed with such roiling menace by Tony Todd. I’ll never forget how his voice thundered when he asked Helen to “Be my Victim?” That sh*t was dope. all the imagery as dope. The whole aesthetic was dope. The actual plot? Not so dope. Still, it left one hell of an impression and became one of my favorites.

5b. The Babysitter

Yo, i love this movie. It’s so f*cking ridiculous an makes next to no sense but it’s fun as f*ck. All these characters make the movie for me. More than that, it introduced me to Samara Weaving and I've been a fan of this chick eve since. She’s been in some interesting fare; Guns Akimbo, Bill and Ted Face the Music, Ready or Not (which one could argue deserves to be on this list), Mayhem, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, are all f*cking amazing films but it was The Babysitter that made me really start paying attention to her career. This movie is morbidly fun, darkly hilarious, and disturbingly wholesome. Like, i had the warm-and-fuzzes by the time those credits rolled and there was a substantial body count by then.

5a. Happy Death Day

I love this movie for almost all the same reasons that i love The Babysitter. It’s Groundhog’s Day meets Prom Night. It’s Palm Springs meets Urban Legend. The concept, in of itself, seems too simple to be interesting but the film in execution is surprisingly excellent. It has strong performances all around but this thing lives and dies by it’s lead, Tree Gelbman, portrayed by Jessica Roth. Believe me when i say, this move lives a life! Roth is exceptional in this role ans really makes the film. Her reaction to the absurdist nature of her bloody predicament is exactly how i would react to it, too. Just the idea of constantly repeating the day because some asshat keeps murdering you is enough to make me groan and Tree really groans a lot throughout this movie. By, like, her third death, she’s just so done with everything and proceeds to solve her own murder, eventually breaking the cycle, with so much f*ck apathy, it was like looking into a mirror.

4. Child’s Play

I love Chucky. This is some top tier murder movie, man. That first Child’s Play from the Eighties really did something special. Obviously, it’s problematic as f*ck nowadays because everyone is so soft but back then? This sh*t was rife for controversy. More than that, i love the technical aspect of this flick. As the movie progresses, Chucky becomes more and more human, which lends to his urgency in attaining a new, human, body. By the time the film ends, his little Good Guy body is actual flesh and blood. He missed his window to transfer and just wants to murder everything. Now, later entries lean heavy into the camp. Bride and Seed are not favorites but the two newer films, Curse and Cult, strike a good balance between the two tones. For my money, though, the first two Child’s Play films are peak Chucky. We’ll see which version we get in this new series.

3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

And we have finally gotten to the Nightmare films. Freddy Kreuger is one of my favorite film antagonists of all times. Just the concept of an intangible, immortal, child-molesting, murderer, leaving bodies behind after slaying kids in their dreams, is a lot. Dream Warriors was my first Slasher, ever, and i was immediately enthralled. There was so much going on this movie and i loved every second of it. Each Dream Warrior and their personal abilities, the way Freddy responded in kind, and all of the imaginative kills: This movie made for one hell of a watch for wee lil’ Smokey. This movie made me an instant fan pf Wes Craven and sent me down the Nightmare on Elm Street rabbit hole. Imagine my surprise when there were only, like, two films better than this one in the entire f*cking franchise and, technically, one wouldn’t come out for years after i saw this one.

2. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

New Nightmare f*cked me up when i saw it as a kid. Like, it legit scared me for some reason. That, alone, gets it on this list but, after watching it again as an adult, it would make this list based strictly on the brilliance of the writing. Wes wrote arguably the greatest meta script in film history with this one and ti have it come together so seamlessly on film the way it did was a real feat. Now, this thing has its problems, that climax is a little rough, but everything up to the final clash was pure brilliance. I love how confused reality became as the film played out, how the characters these actors played blended into their real life counterparts in the film. I love the strong performances from Heather Langenkamp as both herself and Nancy Thompson. But, the coup de grace is definitely Robert Englund as The Entity or “Freddy Kreuger”. See, the Freddy in New Nightmare is not the Freddy we know. It’s a demon that’s taken it’s form and he is every but the monster Freddy was in his first film. For me, that’s peak Fred Kreuger. While i will always respect this movie for it’s narrative discipline and excellent portrayal of my favorite Slasher antagonist, it’s not number one because the first Nightmare is the best Nightmare.

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street is the perfect Slasher film. absolutely amazing watch. Brilliant idea to build around. Fertile ground for imaginative and gory kills. And a f*cking Antagonist who is a relentless force of violence incarnate. Just the idea of Freddy Kreuger is terrifying. Like i aid before, my first foray into the Nightmare was Dream Warriors. That version of the character was kind of campy, way more marketable than i think he should be. Then i saw Halloween. Michael Myers is f*cking terrifying. Then i saw the first Nightmare and was surprised by how effortless that version of Freddy split the difference. This first version of Freddy Kreuger is every bit the nightmare Wes Craven wanted him to be and more. This thing is a classic for a reason. The visuals, alone, get it to the top of this list but the performances send it over the top. Plus, this is the first time we get to see the very best Final Girl in Slasher history, Nancy Thompson. Now, i prefer her character more in New Nightmare but I'd be lying if i said i didn’t completely fall in love with her in the first Nightmare. Heather Langenkamp was every bit the equal to Robert Englund and that energy carried forward through the entire franchise. No one ever really pressed Kreuger like Nancy and it shows.

Honorable Mentions: The Final Girls, Sleepaway Camp, My Bloody Valentine, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Maniac, Black Christmas, You’re Next, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Trick or Treat, Child’s Play 2, High Tension, May, Scream

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