Some thoughts on Nightmare on Elm St. series. (1 Viewer)

[Matt Stone]

I'll take Craven's blandness over Englund's pompousness any day

 

[Adam Scott]

Indeed, Lyle; I dont remember the remix being all too terrible, but it was not a standout either, as should be expected considering the age of the materials for the master, probably, and the budget Craven was working with; in fact, none of the 5.1 surround mixes sound that great on ANY of the films in the set. None of them bowled me over.

As for the anamorphic remastering of the InfiniFilm release, thats good news, but I still would love to know if a DTS (ES?) audio track is going to be included...

 

[Daryl L]

I have the Nightmare on Elm Street boxset but when I saw that Mi Casa Multimedia is doing the "Restoration, Mixing and Mastering in 5.1, 6.1 and 2.0" on Nightmare on Elm Street for New Line Cinema I decided to get this new release. Mi Casa Multimedia's work always impresses me.

I agree the boxsets 5.1 mix on all but Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and Wes Craven's New Nightmare are kinda thin.

 

[Adam Scott]

"I have the Nightmare on Elm Street boxset but when I saw that Mi Casa Multimedia is doing the "Restoration, Mixing and Mastering in 5.1, 6.1 and 2.0" on Nightmare on Elm Street for New Line Cinema I decided to get this new release. Mi Casa Multimedia's work always impresses me."

Daryl,

Are you referring to this new InfiniFilm cut they are preparing to release? So it will have Mi Casa-supervised DTS audio (6.1 ES)?

"I agree the boxsets 5.1 mix on all but Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and Wes Craven's New Nightmare are kinda thin."

Yes -- THIN is the best way to describe the tracks. I'll have to watch the two you mentioned again to see if their surround mixes are any punchier than the rest; I believe you are right in that they are.

 

[Daryl L]

Well, as far as I know the Infnifilm release of Nightmare on Elm Street is the only version I've heard of that New Line Cinema is releasing at this time. If you go to Mi Casa Multimedia website you can see below "Now in Production" they have Nightmare on Elm Street listed. It doesn't list wether it's DTS or not. I don't know if it will have DTS or not (hope it will). If you look under "Our Work: Motion Pictures" you'll see the work they did on for instance Blade2 and Blade3 and the Lord of the Ring they don't mention DTS (only says 6.1) but they have DTS tracks.

Mi Casa Multimedia's work on dvd's are usually quite enveloping without the ambient sound being overly distracting from the picture. Heck, their 2.0 mix on LOTR's were done with a Lexicon processer for better L7 (logic7) processing which helps create a nice surround sound effect when using the 2.0 tracks (almost discrete directional effects).

The 5.1 mix on Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and Wes Craven's New Nightmare aren't a big improvement over the others but I feel they are a slightly fuller.

 

[BrettGallman]

I don't know, I like the 5.1 mix of Dream Child quite a bit. It sticks out in my mind for some reason. Other than that one, I usually listen to the original tracks rather than the remixes. If there is a DTS track on this new release, I'll definately give it a listen. And for the conspiracy theorists out there: this isn't being released to hype of any sort of new Freddy release. Freddy vs. Jason 2 is dead in the water, and there hasn't been any news on the Nightmare prequel in months.

 

[Adam Scott]

"Well, as far as I know the Infnifilm release of Nightmare on Elm Street is the only version I've heard of that New Line Cinema is releasing at this time. If you go to Mi Casa Multimedia website you can see below "Now in Production" they have Nightmare on Elm Street listed. It doesn't list wether it's DTS or not. I don't know if it will have DTS or not (hope it will). If you look under "Our Work: Motion Pictures" you'll see the work they did on for instance Blade2 and Blade3 and the Lord of the Ring they don't mention DTS (only says 6.1) but they have DTS tracks."

When I get a chance, I'll check out the site. I know their InfiniFilm releases (a la "Goldmember" and "Thirteen Days" and "Butterfly Effect") usually include pretty wild, aggressive DTS ES tracks.

"Mi Casa Multimedia's work on dvd's are usually quite enveloping without the ambient sound being overly distracting from the picture. Heck, their 2.0 mix on LOTR's were done with a Lexicon processer for better L7 (logic7) processing which helps create a nice surround sound effect when using the 2.0 tracks (almost discrete directional effects)."

Interesting.

"The 5.1 mix on Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and Wes Craven's New Nightmare aren't a big improvement over the others but I feel they are a slightly fuller."

Probably true; like I said, I havent watched them in awhile. The same thing happens on the "Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan" set, where the mono tracks of the first few films are horrendous, and then open up to decent stereo tracks as the series goes on, and then finally culminates with a halfway decent surround track on Jason Takes Manhattan. Still nothing spectacular in terms of audio. :rolleyes

 

[Adam Scott]

"I don't know, I like the 5.1 mix of Dream Child quite a bit. It sticks out in my mind for some reason."

I'll have to give this a listen Brett, when I get a chance, although I thought it was one of the weakest entries in the franchise....

"Other than that one, I usually listen to the original tracks rather than the remixes."

You mean you choose the "original stereo" track, if thats a choice, or the mono if its available, over any 5.1 redos? If so, I do the opposite.

"If there is a DTS track on this new release, I'll definately give it a listen."

As is usually the case and as they say, garbage in, garbage out....meaning, there is only so much the engineers could probably do with the audio stems of the first Nightmare to recreate it for DTS or DTS ES, whatever;so I am not expecting a mind-bending alteration of the audio here. DTS is slapped on a lot of older films' soundtracks -- Dawn of the Dead DiviMax, Jaws, Airport....and the audio is still lacking and anemic. Sometimes I wonder why they bother. But, as you said, I will give it a listen and probably replace the original disc in the box for this new one.

"And for the conspiracy theorists out there: this isn't being released to hype of any sort of new Freddy release. Freddy vs. Jason 2 is dead in the water, and there hasn't been any news on the Nightmare prequel in months."

Jeez....Hollywood and these prequels and remakes!! Enough already!! Batman Begins, Exorcist: The Beginning....I didnt even know there was going to be a Nightmare PREQUEL....

But Im glad Freddy vs Jason 2 was red lighted for now; this was just getting stupid...:rolleyes

 

[BrettGallman]

Yep, I choose the original tracks when available because, as others have said, that's how I'm used to hearing the movie. That's not to say I won't listen to a remix track; in fact, I usually watch a movie with the remix track first, just to check it out. But then it's all original track from that point on.

And yep, there's supposedly a Freddy prequel coming. There's a thread over in the Movies section.

 

[Matt Stone]

Supposedly to be directed by John McNaughton. Haven't heard any new news in the last 3 months or so, so my guess is that it's not happening. It would be a little strange having re-makes/re-imaginings of Nightmare, Friday the 13th, and Halloween all coming out around the same time.

 

[Adam Scott]

Interesting; I always choose the surround track as the primary audio codec when demoing a disc.

I'll check that thread out on Freddy when I get a chance; in a nutshell, is it supposed to involve his history as the child molester/boiler room incidents?

 

[BrettGallman]

Yeah, before he got burned and all that stuff. Basically stuff we already know from the previous Nightmare films, especially Freddy's Dead. I'd rather have a straight up solo Nightmare film, considering there hasn't been one of those since the aforementioned Freddy's Dead.

 

[Adam Scott]

Agreed, Brett.

My feelings are, do we really need a prequel about Kreuger? We all know the story....parents torch him, he cuts himself with razors, he is beaten by the vagrant father, he is the son of 1000 maniacs....let these damn prequels rest already....just my two cents...

Guess we can thank Lucas for all this.....:rolleyes

 

[Matt Stone]

Agreed. Between remakes and prequels, it looks like we're never going to get any "original" ideas...especially in the horror genre.

 

[Adam Scott]

Yes Matt---totally agreed.

 

[BrettGallman]

Well, I'm not about to blame Lucas for it, because at least he had a story to tell with his prequels. The problem is that people are trying to cash in on the prequel thing with stories like this proposed Elm St. movie, wherein there is basically no story to tell. In this case, as we've said, we already know the story. Freddy's Dead is enough of a prequel to me. We got to see Freddy not only as a human serial killer, but as a kid, teen, etc.

 

[RogerH]

Are the transfers in the Nightmare Box Set the same as the standalone versions in the keepcase?

The reason why I'm wondering is the snapper cases in my set are not looking too good (IE falling apart) and I did see the keep case versions in the Wal-Mart bargain bin.

 

[Jack Johnson]

That's my understanging, with one exception (I think); Freddy's Dead doesn't include the 3D sequences encoded with the red/blue overlay process. Those passages are presented in the standard, 2d format. But then I'm not sure what you mean about snapper versus keep case, since the editions I got at Wal-Mart for five bucks were all in snappers.

Apart from that, I prefer the standalone editions (I have them all), as they offer both the enhanced for 16 by 9 widescreen transfer as well as the open matte versions of each film, and every one of the Nightmare films were strict matte jobs (no image loss in the "full screen" version). Mis-framed and not the director's vision, granted, but sometimes I like to reference the full camera negative. And they feel a little more immersive on a small, 4 by 3 television... Be advised, the only way to select screen format is to select "Play Movie" from the Main DVD menu; if you play from "special featues" menu, widescreen is the default option.

And this raises an interesting question: Why do studios persist in mis-representing the actual framing of the widscreen version in the selectable screen format menus, suggesting the full screen versions are more severly cropped than they actually are. Example: Each of the Nightmare films "wide" option is depicted as wider, when that's the version that's cropped (on the vertical)! My guess: getting into that whole, complicated, can-of-worms rigmarole about the various screen formats is a headache they don't wanna have to issue a pamphlet to get people straight on, so it's easier just to fudge the issue a little...



--Jack

 

[Adam Scott]

I'm just saying it seems like since Lucas started the Star Wars prequels, there has been an absolute wildfire-like desire by filmmakers to introduce the "backstory" to films in order to milk a franchise a bit more: case in point, Renny Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning; Batman Begins was more of a re-telling and reinvention of the franchise but it still smacks of an attempt at doing what Lucas did.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

There were BOXSET versions with the original poster artwork (this includes Freddy's Dead in 3d). At the same time other versions were released (snapper cases with new artwork) that were pretty much the same, except they included the actual trailer for each film on its respective disc (in the boxset they're all on the bonus disc) and had both wide/full screen versions of each film. Freddy's dead was only 2d on this version.

Later the individual releases were updated to keepcases (along with a lot of other new line catalogue titles) but the disc remained the same. The boxset still has the original snappers though.