Hollywood Monster Read online

  One of my favorite Rolling Stones songs is “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and that’s a sentiment you can apply to my world— it’s only film, but I like it, like it, yes, I do. Cinema can be taken too seriously; sometimes part of the fun of going to a movie is that it’s completely disposable. Most of the movies I’ve been a part of since A Nightmare on Elm Street are like celluloid comic books, enjoyable because of the immediacy of satisfaction. If there’s a K-Y-jelly-covered guy in your movie wearing a claw glove and a ratty red-and-green sweater, chances are you’re not going to see a piece of high art. But there’s a fair to middlin’ chance that you’ll have a blast.

  If only one of my movies survives the test of time, that’s wonderful, but if I can make you forget your problems for a minute or three, I’ve done my job. My goal as an actor, writer, or director is that you have a great time, then you go back to your life, hopefully in a better mood, ready for a night of peaceful sleep and sweet dreams.

  Or, better yet, a night of horrible sleep and brutal nightmares.

  APPENDIX 1

  ROBERT ENGLUND’S MUST–SEE MOVIES

  ON THE WATERFRONT

  Director - Elia Kazan

  Starring - Marlon Brando

  One of the greatest American movies ever made. Check out the scene when Brando picks up Eva Marie Saint’s glove.

  THE BAND WAGON

  Director - Vincente Minnelli

  Starring - Fred Astaire

  Terrific musical-theater spoof. The last dance number, a Mickey Spillane/Raymond Chandler detective story take-off with Cyd Charisse, is worth the price of admission by itself.

  ROMAN HOLIDAY

  Director - William Wyler

  Starring - Audrey Hepburn

  Classic contemporary fairy tale. You will fall in love with Rome and Audrey Hepburn in her debut. Makes me want to go out and buy a Vespa.

  EAST OF EDEN

  Director - Elia Kazan

  Starring - James Dean

  James Dean’s greatest physical performance. Check out the scene with his mother, and the stalled-merry-go-round exchange with Julie Harris.

  SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

  Director - Alexander Mackendrick

  Starring - Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis

  Wonderful performances. Gritty James Wong Howe location cinematography. You’ll never look at Tony Curtis the same way again.

  ANATOMY OF A MURDER

  Director - Otto Preminger

  Starring - James Stewart

  Extraordinary cast. Riveting story. Terrific courtroom scenes. Lee Remick in tight sweaters and Ray-Bans, George C. Scott’s debut.

  TOUCH OF EVIL

  Directed by and Starring - Orson Welles

  Kinky, strange, over-the-top film noir. Welles doubles fifties Venice, California, for a Mexican border town. Brilliant use of overlapping dialogue.

  THE FUGITIVE KIND

  Director - Sidney Lumet

  Starring - Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani

  Brando meets southern-Gothic Tennessee Williams again! I want his leather jacket. Watch Joanne Woodward’s spoiled-rich-girl turn.

  HUD

  Director - Martin Ritt

  Starring - Paul Newman, Patricia Neal

  Newman at his best.

  CHARADE

  Director - Stanley Donen

  Starring - Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn

  Sophisticated thriller, Paris locations, amazing supporting cast: Walter Matthau, George Kennedy, James Coburn.

  LORD JIM

  Director - Richard Brooks

  Starring - Peter O’Toole

  Classic boys’ adventure film. Exotic locations.

  THE PROFESSIONALS

  Director - Richard Brooks

  Starring - Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin

  Best example of heightened “purple prose.” I prefer it to The Magnificent Seven.

  IN COLD BLOOD

  Director - Richard Brooks

  Starring - Scott Wilson, Robert Blake

  Poetic, haunting serial-killer docudrama. Would make a good double bill with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

  TWO FOR THE ROAD

  Director - Stanley Donen

  Starring - Audrey Hepburn, Albert Finney

  Best dissection of a relationship on film. Funny and sad. And you get to travel the back roads of Europe in the sixties.

  CHARLEY VARRICK

  Director - Don Siegel

  Starring - Walter Matthau

  Brutal contemporary western.

  MURMUR OF THE HEART

  Director - Louis Malle

  Starring - Lea Massari

  Wise film about coming of age in a French middle-class family during the Vietnam era.

  HAPPY NEW YEAR (LA BONNE ANNÉE)

  Director - Claude Lelouch

  Starring - Lino Ventura

  One of my favorite caper films. And a philosophical one at that.

  AND NOW MY LOVE (TOUTE UNE VIE)

  Director - Claude Lelouch

  Starring - Marthe Keller

  Best use of parallel story lines I’ve ever seen in the cinema.

  YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

  Director - Mel Brooks

  Starring - Gene Wilder

  My favorite comedy. Improves with age.

  1900 (NOVECENTO)

  Director - Bernardo Bertolucci

  Starring - Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu

  Epic film storytelling. Brilliant use of a single location as it changes with the seasons and the years. De Niro and Depardieu in the flower of their youth. Plus Dominique Sanda. And a Grand Guignol performance by Donald Sutherland.

  CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

  Director - Steven Spielberg

  Starring - Richard Dreyfuss

  Look for the slightly darker uncut version.

  NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS (LA NOTTE DI SAN LORENZO)

  Directors - Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani

  Starring - Omero Antonutti

  An Italian village survives Nazis at the end of World War II. An awkward shoot-out toward the end among family members and towns people divided over the war is as startling and real as anything I’ve seen in the cinema. Soul-wrenching, offhand violence.

  APPENDIX 1.5

  FREDDY KRUEGER’S

  MUST–SEE MOVIES

  20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

  Director - Richard Fleischer

  Starring - Kirk Douglas, James Mason

  The Nautilus, a giant squid, a neurotic James Mason: what else do you need? How about Kirk Douglas singing? The monster calamari’s sucker wounds on the sailors ruined my summer vacation.

  FORBIDDEN PLANET

  Director - Fred McLeod Wilcox

  Starring - Walter Pidgeon

  My classmates and I argued during recess about what the “Monster of the Id” was. It took us an entire semester to figure out it was a saber-toothed tiger. (There was no video or DVD back then, remember?) We were prisoners of our imagination. A Robby the Robot action figure is on the desk next to me as I write this blurb.

  THE BAD SEED

  Director - Mervyn LeRoy

  Starring - Patty McCormack

  I accidentally saw this movie instead of a cowboy flick at a kiddie matinee birthday party. I feared the sound of tap shoes and girls with pigtails for years.

  THE INNOCENTS

  Director - Jack Clayton

  Starring - Debra Kerr

  Perfect film adaptation from a literary source. Brilliant black-and-white cinematography and sophisticated sound mix. What happened to those children? Oooh.

  ROSEMARY’S BABY

  Director - Roman Polanski

  Starring - Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes

  Perfect movie. Stands the test of time. Cassavetes’s performance grows more layered each time I see it.

  THE EXORCIST

  Director - William Friedkin

  Starring - Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow

  Contemporary classic.

  S
ISTERS

  Director - Brian De Palma

  Starring - Margot Kidder, William Finley

  Best use of split screen to build suspense I’ve ever seen. My favorite mad doctor in the history of film.

  HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER

  Director - John McNaughton

  Starring - Michael Rooker

  Relentless. Unnerving use of documentary style to convey claustrophobic terror.

  THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE (EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO)

  Director - Guillermo del Toro

  Starring - Eduardo Noriega

  Beautiful, lyric, sad ghost story with political undertones. One of the kinkiest amputee-sex scenes since Romeo Is Bleeding.

  FRAILTY

  Directed by and Starring - Bill Paxton

  This film amazed me, fooled me, I never saw the ending coming. An underrated classic.

  MAY

  Director - Lucky McKee

  Starring - Angela Bettis

  Brilliant title performance, empathetic and scary at the same time. A kinky, twisted, contemporary, dysfunctional horror revenge tale set among the scruffy hills and struggling lives of East Hollywood. Don’t trust your vet. Bonus, Anna Faris as a hot lesbian.

  LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN)

  Director - Tomas Alfredson

  My favorite new take on the vampire myth. Hypnotic performances by the young leads. Forget your prejudice against subtitles and find this film!

  APPENDIX 2

  THE WIT AND WISDOM OF

  FREDDY KRUEGER

  (AKA, MY TWENTY-FIVE FAVORITE FREDDY QUOTES, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

  Welcome to prime time, bitch!

  You’re all my children now!

  How sweet, fresh meat!

  No screaming while the bus is in motion!

  What’s with kids today?

  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but nothing will ever kill me!

  You forgot where you came from, kid, but I know where you’re going!

  I’ve always had a thing for the whores that live in this house.

  The only thing to fear is fear himself!

  I should warn you, princess, the first time tends to get a little messy.

  Now there’s a face only your mother could love!

  Your eyes say, “No, no.” But my mouth says, “Yes, yes.”

  This is God!

  Just because it’s a love story doesn’t mean it can’t have a decapitation or two.

  When you wake up, it’s back in the saddle again!

  I don’t believe in fairy tales.

  Why don’t you reach out and cut someone?

  You can check in, but you can’t check out!

  Wanna suck face?

  If the food don’t kill you, the service will!

  You’ve got the body, and I’ve got the brain!

  Kids. Always a disappointment.

  Better not dream and drive.

  This boy feels the need for speed!

  I am eternal!

  APPENDIX 3

  FREDDY’S

  FAVORITE KILLS

  For my number-one favorite kill, I almost went with Johnny Depp being eaten alive and then regurgitated by his own bed in A Nightmare on Elm Street, but the winner, by a finger blade’s width, has to be the death of that feisty Tina (Amanda Wyss), who put up such a fight while I thrashed her about on the ceiling of her bedroom. Freddy loves a worthy adversary, especially if it’s a nubile teenaged girl.

  A close second goes to my hearing-impaired victim Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan) in Nightmare 6. In these über–politically-correct times, it’s refreshing to remember what an equal-opportunity killer Freddy always was. Not only does he pump up the volume on the hearing aid from hell, but he also adds a nice Latino kid to his body count. Today they probably wouldn’t even let Freddy force-feed a fat kid junk food.

  Dream death number three is found in a sequence from Nightmare 3. Freddy plays puppet master with victim Phillip (Bradley Gregg), converting his arm and leg tendons into marionette strings, then cutting them in a Freddy meets Vertigo moment.

  The kiss of death Professor Freddy gives Sheila (Toy Newkirk) is great, but not as good as Al Pacino’s in The Godfather, so my fourth pick is Freddy turning Debbie (Brooke Theiss) into her worst nightmare, a cockroach, and crushing her in a Roach Motel. A classic Kafka/Krueger kill.

  For my final fave, you will have to check out Freddy vs. Jason playing at a Hell’s Octoplex near you. Here’s a hint: the hockey-puck guy and I double-team a member of Destiny’s Child. Yummy! Now where’s that Beyoncé …

  APPENDIX 4

  ROBERT ENGLUND’S

  INFINITE PLAYLIST

  “Naïve Medley” - Talking Heads

  “Waiting in Vain” - Bob Marley and the Wailers

  “(I Can’t Believe) I’m Still in Love with You” -Junior Walker & the All Stars

  “Under My Thumb” -Rolling Stones

  “Stupid Girl” - Rolling Stones

  “Spanish Harlem” - Aretha Franklin

  “Day Dreaming” - Aretha Franklin

  “Gimme a Little Sign” - Brenton Wood

  “Tighten Up” - Archie Bell & the Drells

  “Holding Back the Years” - Simply Red

  “1999” - Prince

  “Come Fly with Me” - Frank Sinatra

  “Come and Get These Memories” - Martha and the Vandellas

  “You Beat Me to the Punch” - Mary Wells

  “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” - Ella Fitzgerald

  “Fool in the Rain” - Led Zeppelin

  “Don’t Let Me Down” - The Beatles

  “Lu” - Laura Nyro

  “Carrie Anne” - The Hollies

  “Anna (Go to Him)” - The Beatles

  “Young Blood” - Rickie Lee Jones

  “I Won’t Grow Up” - Rickie Lee Jones

  “Sweet Home Alabama” - Lynyrd Skynard

  “Help Me” - Joni Mitchell

  “Someday, Someway” - Marshall Crenshaw

  “Jaded” - Aerosmith

  “Crystal Blue Persuasion” - Tommy James and the Shondells