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A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER – Craig Safan
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The fourth movie in the massively successful Nightmare on Elm Street horror franchise was A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master; it’s a direct continuation of the story from 1987’s Nightmare on Elm Street 3, in which the survivors of that film have been released from the psychiatric hospital, but still find themselves being stalked by the horribly disfigured child killer Freddy Krueger, who has the ability to murder people in their dreams. The film stars Lisa Wilcox, Danny Hassel, Tuesday Knight, and Robert Englund in his iconic role as Krueger, and was directed by Renny Harlin, who was helming his first major studio feature film following the success of his 1987 English-language debut, the low-budget horror movie Prison. The film was actually one of the best reviewed films of the series, with special praise being given to the surprisingly insightful screenplay by Brian Helgeland, and especially the special effects and design; the critic in the Los Angeles Times wrote at the time that the film was ‘by far the best of the series, a superior horror picture that balances wit and gore with imagination and intelligence’. Read more…
THE LAST STARFIGHTER – Craig Safan
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Last Starfighter was a popular science-fiction adventure film for kids, directed by Nick Castle. The film tells the story of Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), an average teenage boy living in a trailer park, who passes the time playing – and getting very good – at an arcade video game called Starfighter. One day, shortly after Alex breaks the all-time record points score of the game, he is approached by Centauri (Robert Preston), the ‘inventor of the game’. Before he knows what’s happening, Alex is whisked off into outer space, where he is recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war: it turns out that Starfighter was actually a training tool to find the best starship pilots in the galaxy, and Alex is now the last line of defense for the peace-loving people of our solar system against the threat of the evil Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada. The film was a major commercial success in 1984, and has the distinction of being one of the earliest films to use extensive CGI effects to depict its many starships and battle scenes. Not only that, but the film boasts a rousing score by the great Craig Safan, in what was one of the most significant box-office hits of his career. Read more…
WOLFEN: REJECTED SCORE – Craig Safan
MOVIE MUSIC UK CLASSICS
Original Review by Craig Lysy
Director Michael Wadleigh chose to adapt Whitley Strieber’s novel Wolfen to film, as he believed it afforded him an opportunity to infuse depth and intelligence into the horror genre. The story is a mytho-historical tale that reveals the existence of a hidden intelligent species called Wolfen that have co-existed with humans for centuries. After a city cop (Albert Finney) is assigned to solve a horrific set of violent murders, he gradually unravels the mystery that are the Wolfen who will now do anything to ensure their anonymity. Replete with Indian legend and folklore about wolf spirits, the story was heralded for its sophistication and effort to elevate the horror genre. Regretfully, the film ran seriously over budget and Wadleigh was fired and never allowed to complete his vision. The film was not a commercial success, however critics acknowledged it as an unusual and ambitious effort. Read more…
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