A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

The A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is as personality-driven as its contemporaries are not. A reasonably competent stuntman stand in passes muster for most masked maniacs. But not so the Springwood Slasher, who’s as quick with a crack as he is with a scratch of a knifed glove.

So when Michael Bay and company decided to engage younger audiences, and to do so without Robert Englund – it raised many an eyebrow.

And the results speak for themselves, confirming suspicions and sinking this one to the bottom of series entries in terms of esteem.

But ironically, it’s not Englund’s absence that is what makes this entry in the canon shoot blanks, it’s the tonal shift from over-the-top death set pieces, to a more dour, dark and yes, serious approach to the subject matter.

It’s something nobody asked for.

After all, it’s crazy deaths, Vaudevillian quips, and fantasy dreamscapes that made the series so engaging to begin with. So, despite a game cast, which includes the solid Katie Cassidy (of Black Christmas / When a Stranger Calls retreads), things fall flatter than Illinois’ topography.

It also doesn’t help matters that it tries to capture lightning in a bottle twice, with a death that’s cribbed from the first film – and incidentally, one that even folks who’ve not seen A Nightmare on Elm Street are familiar with, given its A-lister star.

So, what we are left with is a movie absent any of the characteristics that made ALL the other entries entertaining in their own right, despite the silliness – a workmanlike, capable, but forgettable dud.

**3/4 (out of 5)

Check out the Really Awful Movies Podcast for a fuller discussion of 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Windy City Heat

There’s a long history of pop culture pranking…going back to the 1940s and Candid Camera, and it has existed or continues to exist through the likes of Pranked, Eric Andre, Impractical Jokers, and of course, a litany of TikTokers including Nelkboys, Mizzy and many others.

And Windy City Heat puts pranking front and centre, but as a full-length feature.

The 2003 Comedy Central production takes the idea of The Truman Show – an unwitting hero and everyone else either a confederate or accomplice – but makes it mockumentary-style instead.

Everyman Perry Caravello is a Chicagoan wannabe movie star who works at a print shop, and resembles the illegitimate son of Steven Wright and Sylvester Stallone. Caravello has a weirdly cherubic face and his shock of Andre the Giant hair, and is a strangely compelling, if ornery, petty character.

And he’s cast in a fake movie, one that’s legit enough to fool Caravello, who’s appeared as an extra in several productions.

The viewer then gets to witness the Dunning Kruger effect in action, as the inept Caravello, who fancies himself a method actor, is put through the paces as if he were a legitimate player: cast in the lead role of a sports PI by the name of Stone Fury.

And the producers – who include Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corolla – provide dressing rooms, a trailer, craft services, sycophantic set PA, a phony film agent.

In fact, like a real movie, they cater – no pun intended – to Perry’s every need, in a recurring gag, repeatedly bringing the actor food at inappropriate times.

The “director” is Bobcat Goldthwait, who uses a megaphone in casual conversation and who instructs Caravello to “dial back the Scott Baio and dial up the De Nero.”

Windy City Heat pushes Caravello to his limits – a satirical pulling back of the curtain to reveal the extent to which people are obsessed about breaking into the film business.

The producers push the envelope, knowing full well that not only is Caravello a dupe – he’s also a dope. His colleagues on set run the gamut of notable people/events through history: there are producers named John Quincy Adams and Nagasaki Hiroshima, and even a casting agent named Roman Polanski (played by Dane Cook).

And none of these famous name checks, ring a bell.

Caravello is a classic LOLCOW. He was, and continues to remain, oblivious, running a Twitch channel in which people just pay to watch his everyday life, a modern day geek shows, with viewers charging the equivalent of two bits a gander, or superchats, to gawk at the spectacle of an overbearing weirdo in a crappy apartment yelling at the internet.

Windy City Heat certainly has its detractors – those who say Caravello is in on it.

Kimmel claims the contrary, but also sank a bunch of money into this production, which was a complete flop and therefore has a vested interest in its resurgence.

That said, witnessing Caravello’s behaviour now, it’s definitely not outside the realm of possibility he’s a star-chaser.

See for yourself.

*** (out of 5)