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defrogITEM: 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
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
