GREAT MOMENTS IN MARKETING: SLEEP DEP TORTURE FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

[defrog]

ITEM: Warner Bros has been promoting the upcoming remake/reboot of A Nightmare On Elm Street online with an interactive game called Keep Her Awake. The object: making sure a nubile blond teenager keeps herself awake so that Freddy Kreuger doesn’t kill her.

You get to select the manner in which she stays awake – to include cutting herself up with a knife or burning herself with a cigarette lighter.



All for yr entertainment.

Whee.

Horror movie fans might accuse me of not having a sense of humor, and I’ll fully admit that the torture-porn sub-genre of horror films (Saw, Hostel, etc) do absolutely nothing for me. I also realize that the “torture” (both in the films and this game) isn’t real.

But like Susanna Breslin and others, it’s hard for me to watch this and NOT think about the wider political discussion of justified torture, especially given the primary role of sleep deprivation as a staple tactic. Granted, the CIA doesn’t resort to knives and lighters to keep suspects awake (as far as we know). But the spirit is there. And they have been known to kill people that way.

I suppose what bugs me about this is that not nearly enough people are making that connection ... that we have somehow taken the torture debate and distilled it to a silly interactive online game to promote a Hollywood movie. Because why not? The last presidential admin did it and no one gave a fuck, so why should you?

But then I’m not really crazy about a remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street – a horror classic that, like Friday The 13th, did not need remaking – so I would say that, wouldn’t I?

NOTE: The game is now gone, and has been replaced with the official movie site + trailer. Which may mean Warner Bros may have gotten one unhappy phone call too many about this.

DISCLAIMER: Just so we’re clear, I am a fan of horror movies, though not as much as I used to be. And while I didn’t really care for the slasher genre (apart from the original Halloween film, which is still great and which no one ever really surpassed), I thought Freddy Kreuger was one of the great horror villains. He wore out his welcome after the first few films, but the concept is great.

Which is why I’m not big on a remake. Though if you have to do a remake, you could do worse than Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy. Still, I’m not interested.

Don’t fall asleep,

This is dF

Comments

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

oh for fucks sake

[dferguson.livejournal.com]

I liked the first SAW but after the next two I gave up on the series as it no longer made a lick of sense to me. And HOSTEL is without a doubt the most reprehensible movie I have ever seen. My wife bought the DVD for me as she saw Quentin Tarantino's name on the cover and mistakenly thought he directed it. Knowing how big a Tarantino fan, she didn't know what the movie was really about. HOSTEL is the only DVD I've ever thrown away.

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

On the topic of horror franchise sequels, they're almost never good. Halloween and Nightmare On Elm Street were both very good films with increasingly pointless sequels (though Freddy was the only slasher villain that had the potential for extra mileage anyway). Final Destination is the most contemporary example I can think of. And Romero's living dead films are the only exception I can think of (though even there, he never really topped Night Of The Living Dead, but the sequels were all right).

For the record, while we're at it, I never thought much of Friday the 13th – the first film is okay, but Mrs Voorhees was no The Shape/Michael Myers.

[dferguson.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be rewatching the entire NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series in preparation for a BiTD episode where Tom and I will also be reviewing the new NIGHTMARE with Jackie Earle Haley so look for that next month.

And just for the record, my favorite horror movie franchise are NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and PHANTASM. Like you, I never thought much of FRIDAY THE 13th.

[dinopollard.livejournal.com]

In defense of Hostel, it makes torture look really horrifying. The torture scenes in it are not something you cheer for, it's something that disturbs the shit out of you. I don't lie the term "torture porn" when applied to something like Hostel because I don't think it fits. I think something like 24 which glorifies torture and its outcomes is a far better candidate for torture porn.