A Nightmare On Elm Street: Seven Film 4K Collection (1984 - 1994)

Warner Bros. have released a box set of the first seven NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films on 4K UHD. That's because Warners currently own New Line Cinema, which was the company that produced and released the films in the US back in the day. Meanwhile, here in the UK, the films were released by Palace Pictures through the Odeon circuit, with new Graham Humphreys artwork for most of the posters (oh the memories).

There's also a posh steelbook collection that includes the films on Blu-ray as well (the standard set doesn't) and the covers for those are shown below. Each film benefits immensely from the 4K upgrade on UHD, but be aware that there are only a couple of new extras and those are on disc seven. However if this is your favourite franchise you're definitely going to want the films in this format. Let's take a look at each individual disc:

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

"Who would have thought Wes Craven would turn out to be America's answer to Dario Argento?" said Cinefantastique magazine when this was released stateside in 1984. Certainly this film is one of the most 'Italian' American movies there is, not just in the amount of blood splashed around, but in terms of its emphasis on imagery and emotional impact. Where Craven is immensely clever (and there are a lot of reasons to applaud in this movie) is that he gets away with having his cake and eating it too, such that he's able to fit all the weird dreamlike imagery into a cohesive logical narrative. It all works so brilliantly that one could quite reasonably argue that this was the most impactful and, ultimately, the best horror film of the 1980s. 

Warners' 4K disc finally gives us the chance to see the full version we all watched in UK cinemas and on CBS/Fox's VHS tape release (which was transferred open frame and still gives the most picture information) back in the 1980s (previous Blu-rays have used the censored US cut).

Extras are the same as for the Blu-ray (and not in 4K) including two commentary tracks (stars Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon, DP Jacques Haitkin and Craven on one, a total of 15 people on the other) as well as 15 minutes of 'focus points' ie bits of footage and talking head snippets, three alternate endings, a 50 minute making of, 22 minutes on New Line Cinema and a 16 minute piece on nightmares.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Released to almost universal disdain from horror fans and critics alike, FREDDY'S REVENGE has developed a cult following over the years, mainly from 'gayest horror film ever' enthusiasts. That's not enough to make this in any way a good film, though, and those who loved the first were understandably disappointed at this generic horror sequel, in which Freddy has become a boogieman who just wants to randomly kill people but he can't so he has to use Mark Patton because the boy has moved into Nancy Thompson's house. Or something.

What always looked like a TV movie does look a lot better on Warners' 4K transfer. Again there are no new extras, just the four featurettes available on the Blu-ray about the publicity (6 minutes), Heroes and Villains (7 minutes) the Male Witch (3 minutes) and Psychosexual Circus (4 minutes)

A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

A huge hit on release, this one lays its cards on the table from the opening scene: dark photography and a return to the 'rubber reality' of Wes Craven's original where the line between dreams and reality is blurred, but never confusingly. Bigger and more impressive special effects cause this story of teen 'suicide attempts' to have an even bigger impact as Heather Langenkamp's Nancy returns from the original, now qualified in treating certain psychological conditions. Like in part 1, Langenkamp has to carry much of the film again here. Unlike in part 1, she's not quite as convincing, but the cavalcade of well-designed set-pieces, plus a returning Wes Craven to co-write the first draft of the screenplay, helped immensely to ensure this one's success.

ELM STREET 3's cinematography always looked rather dark and grainy. Warners' 4K greatly improves picture clarity without losing that grain and with zero picture noise even on high settings of brightness. Extras are the same as for the Blu-ray, ie 27 minutes of making of featurettes grouped together as 'Behind the Story' and a Dokken music video.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master (1988)

The most financially successful of the ELM STREET films is also the one that feels most like a 1970s EuroHorror in terms of style, thanks in great part to Finnish director Renny Harlin. Oh yes, this one skates dangerously close to not making a lot of sense, while at the same time delivering such a constant barrage of entertaining special effects pieces that it doesn't give you time to think about that while watching it. The survivors of DREAM WARRIORS are killed off and a script contrivance that's much better than the one used in FREDDY'S REVENGE allows the man of your dreams to go after even more victims. This was also the first series entry to be packed with pop songs (from the Chrysalis catalogue), now providing extra nostalgia value.

THE DREAM MASTER always looked a little bit foggy. Warners' 4K is a revelation and a big step up from the Blu-ray in terms of picture clarity and vividness of colour (the greens!). Pop in the Blu-ray and you'll see there's no comparison from the off. Extras are the same bunch of tiny behind the scenes featurettes: The Finnish Line (2 minutes), Krueger, Freddy Krueger (8 minutes), Hopeless Chest (4 minutes) and Let's Makeup (2 minutes). 

A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 5: The Dream Child (1989)

Of course it all had to come crashing down at some point. While parts 2,3 and 4 were, if nothing else, all solid 'rock 'n' roll 1980s popcorn' movies, THE DREAM CHILD deserves points for trying to return to the darker tone of the original. Unfortunately none of it works. While there are a few attempts at bizarre dream deaths here the central theme of Alice being pregnant still feels wrong for this series, and the film as a whole takes itself much too seriously. The result is something that quickly becomes dirge-like and hard going. At least the 4K makes it look good, plus you get the option of the theatrical or uncut versions. Extras are as before, with 15 minutes of behind the scenes chat.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Debates as to which was the worst of the series were pretty much settled by the release of FREDDY'S DEAD, which tries hard to get the series back into entertainment mode but instead comes across as a rather silly series of sequences inspired by Warner Bros. cartoons. It's a ramshackle affair that, despite being the most expensive movie so far, looks very cheap, and even the 4K doesn't help much. The three demons that possess Freddy still look like muppets about to break into song. You do get the option to watch the film with its 15 minute climax in 3D if you so wish, although with the price of the box set you would think they could have given you more than one pair of anaglyph glasses. Extras here include a piece on the effects for the climax (3 minutes), director Rachel Talalay (3 minutes), 2 minutes of Robert Shaye admitting this was the end for Freddy, and 45 seconds of Clive Barker. 

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

A very different beast indeed from its predecessors, writer-director Wes Craven returned to New Line to make this piece on the nature and purpose of storytelling, building it around the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise and the character of Freddy. His masterstroke was to have actual cast members (Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, John Saxon and look carefully and you'll spot Tuesday Knight and Jsu Garcia / 'Nick Corri' as well) and New Line execs Robert Shaye and Sara Risher play fictionalised versions of themselves, as well as featuring Craven himself. It's arguably the second best film of the series although apparently it made the least money, which is a shame. 

NEW NIGHTMARE always looked crisp and rich and Warners' 4K honours that such that you won't see such as big a difference as with the other movies but the improved clarity is still there. There are two new extras which together consist of 16 minutes of directors Jack Sholder and Chuck Russell, NEW NIGHTMARE DP Mark Irwin and Robert Englund discussing the ELM STREET phenomenon, filmed for this release. Other extras are all archival and include everything on the previous NEW NIGHTMARE Blu-ray (five tiny featurettes featuring Wes Craven) and the Welcome to Prime Time (50 minutes) and Conclusion (17 minutes) extras that were on the previous Blu-ray sets bonus DVD, the only thing missing being the two episodes of Freddy's Nightmares that were previously included on that.

The A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 7 film 4K collection is out now from Warner Bros. It's available in a seven disc standard edition UHD set, and also a limited edition steelbook set of 7 UHD discs and 4 Blu-rays, if you can find it.

Swamp Thing (1982)

        Wes Craven's DC comics adaptation from his GODZILLA GOES TO PARIS phase (the period when he was so desperate for a movie he would have directed that if offered it, or so he told Fangoria) gets an uncut Blu-ray release in the UK from 88 Films.

And why, you may ask if you weren't around at the time, should something as innocuous as SWAMP THING have ever been cut? Well there are a few scenes of female toplessness that the US censors felt their audiences had to be protected from back in the early 1980s. Those of us living in Europe were considered hardier to such things and so it's the 93 minute European version you get here.

Made well before comic book movies became in and huge and had massive budgets thrown at them, SWAMP THING heralds from those dark days when comic book movies were treated with a fair amount of disdain and a frequently slapdash approach to their production. SWAMP THING suffers from a poor script that's basically: here's our hero, here's our villain, oh no the hero's been turned into a monster, the woman he loves is placed in peril three times by the same villain & he has to save her. 

This sounds rather better than it is. Some of the acting is extremely ropey because again, SWAMP THING is from the days where as long as you had secured a couple of good actors for the leads the bit parts seemed to be made up of friends, relatives and whoever was hanging around. Adrienne Barbeau is good as the put upon heroine, and this is probably the best role she ever had not having to play terrible jazz in a lighthouse while being besieged by ghost pirates. Louis Jourdan looks as if he's not quite sure why he's in this but gives every line his all. Ray Wise, as the pre-swamp thing Dr Alec Holland is the only one who really gets the comic book feel spot on in his performance but he's understandably not around for very long. Oh, and Harry Manfredini did the music so it's only appropriate that someone wields a machete during a chase at one point as it does all sound a bit FRIDAY THE 13TH.

88 Films' Blu-ray looks very good with some slight drops in quality occasionally (and not in the scenes that were cut, curiously). There's a Wes Craven commentary track, an interview with production designer Robb Wilson King, and Kim Newman provides an overview of Craven's career. If you get in early the limited edition comes with a slipcase, an A3 fold out version of the movie poster and a nice little booklet filled with stills, lobby card reproductions and poster art.

Wes Craven's SWAMP THING is out on Blu-ray from 88 Films on Monday 25th March 2019

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

After achieving huge international success with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984), Wes Craven did his best to push the self-destruct button on an already chequered career by directing the pretty poor made for TV movie CHILLER (1985) and the dreadful made for nothing better than the celluloid recycling bin DEADLY FRIEND (1986). Those of us who had lost faith (and indeed several friends to whom we had recommended these post ELM STREET disasters without checking out their awfulness first) were consequently somewhat relieved when THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW didn’t turn out to be as awful as THE HILLS HAVE EYES II (1984) or  SWAMP THING (1982) or MY SOUL TO TAKE (2010) or…

I’m probably being a bit unfair, but suffice to say with a Wes Craven film, you never know if you’re going to get cinematic gold like THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977) or SCREAM (1996) or, well, most of his other films. Anyway, THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW has just had a new DVD and Blu-ray release courtesy of Fabulous Films and it’s one of the movies on Craven’s filmography that’s definitely worth a look.

Anthropologist Bill Pullman gets sent to Haiti by horror legend Michael Gough to seek out the drug used for zombification, the quite reasonable rationale being that it could be used in anaesthesia, saving millions of lives and making millions of dollars for company boss Paul Guilfoyle. In his attempts to find the secret, Pullman ends up having a serious run in with local police chief and all-round voodoo villain Zakes Mokae, who hammers a nail through Pullman's scrotum to prove he means business and, when that doesn’t prove a sufficient deterrent, he gives Pullman a dose of the drug and arranges for him to be buried alive. Bill gets out, though, and ends up battling Mokae in a dreamworld face off.

THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW, while worth a look, is not an entirely satisfactory film. Based on a non-fiction account by anthropologist Wade Davis of his actual attempts to secure the 'zombie drug', the film feels as if it wants to be a docudrama but someone keeps poking at it with an exploitation stick. As a result we get some excellent nightmarish sequences, a sex scene, and climax that feels very ELM STREET indeed, but all these bits sit uneasily with the rest of the film. The opening suggests a troubled production, with voiceovers to cover the cracks in the editing, but fans of Craven’s (good) work should stick with it and they’ll be rewarded.

Fabulous Films offers THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but the print looks like it hasn’t been subject to any tidying up since the 1980s. I cannot believe there aren’t some amazing stories to tell about the location shooting and why the film came out feeling rather jumbled, but sadly there’s no commentary track or making of here, just a trailer. 

Fabulous Films released Wes Craven's 

THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW on Region 2 DVD 

and Region B Blu-ray on 20th April 2015

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Out of all his contemporaries (Cronenberg, Carpenter, Romero, et al) Wes Craven is the director with by far the most chequered career. For every HILLS HAVE EYES, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET or SCREAM there’s been some right ropey old rubbish like CHILLER, DEADLY FRIEND and most recently the frighteningly dreadful MY SOUL TO TAKE (2010). THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991) isn’t terrible Craven, but it’s nowhere near as good as the high points in his career either. Arrow Films have just released it on a lovely Blu-ray edition with plenty of extras, so if you’re a fan of this, now’s the time to pick it up.

Poindexter “Fool” Williams (Brandon Adams) is a young lad who lives with his family in a ghetto from which they are soon to be evicted by evil landlords the Robesons (Everett McGill and Wendy Robie). Encouraged by the rumour that the Robesons have a large cache of gold hidden somewhere about their crumbling, rambling property Leroy (Ving Rhames) convinces Fool to aid him and his equally dodgy chum Spenser (Jeremy Roberts) in breaking into the place and searching for the loot. Once inside Leroy and Spencer meet grisly ends and Fool discovers that the Robesons have a cellarful of ‘adopted’ children, the latest of which, Alice (A J Langer), has yet to be relegated to the place under the stairs for misbehaving.

A curious mixture of Craven’s recurrent theme of horror being just round the corner in your own neighbourhood and some over the top knockabout comedy, PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS feels less like a horror film and more like a kids’ adventure movie into which some gore scenes have been added. I first saw it on its original cinema release and it didn’t work for me then. Twenty two years hasn’t changed my opinion, but I do know there are a lot of people out there who love this film so I shall leave it to them to extol its virtues. 

Arrow have done their usual tip top job with the Blu-ray transfer and there is a decent collection of extras as well. First up is an audio commentary track from star Brandon Adams moderated by Calum Waddell. Adams is chatty and the track is worth a listen. Wes Craven talks for about twenty five minutes on the making of the movie in Fear, Freud and Class Warfare. In Behind Closed Doors actress A J Langer reflects on the making of the film and in Silent But Deadly actor Sean Whalen does the same. The final featurette on the disc is Under the Floorboards, in which screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick (creator of the FINAL DESTINATION series of films) talks about his changing attitudes to THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS as he has grown up, and the movie’s influence on horror cinema. There’s also a trailer and some original cover art to complete the package.

Wes Craven's THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS was released by Arrow Films on Blu-ray on 4th November 2013