DistantJ

The ultimate boys' movie? I'd say so, but then that'd be denying it to any women who like to see powerful female characters who put every sleazy, heartless male character in the film in their place.

If I could sum up Showgirls in one sentence it would be "Not what you expect it to be". From the word go, Showgirls surprises you and refuses to play to any of the clichés. There are a number of scenes which will have you beginning to predict an ending which any other movie would have gone for, but this flick rejects the Hollywood templates and tells it's own, surprisingly compelling, story.

That's not to say that there aren't some hard to believe moments, most characters in the movie seem to have the mood swings of a person with bipolar disorder - the smallest unfortunate event sends the characters to tears while a little good news sends them into jumping, giggling madness. It's not necessarily a bad thing in the unusual, illogical world the film creates, but a lot of the time you're watching one-liner spouting cartoons rather than people you can believe and relate to. Like many cult classics, though, RoadHouse comes to mind for example, within a few scenes you'll be immersed in the world of offbeat, sassily- scripted wise crackers.

Of course, this paragraph is inevitable in this kind of movie, and my apologies to any females reading this who may find it sexist, but the real star of this movie is the large amount of female skin on show, and it most certainly delivers. While I don't believe any actor or actress should be cast for their body, Showgirls never fails to deliver some really stunning female figures. Usually, this isn't of importance to me but Showgirls makes a thing out of it's nudity in powerful and impressive dance routines which will fascinate and excite more than they will titillate; the bodies on show here are treated with an almost feminist level of respect, where the heroine's sexuality is shown as something awesome and powerful, to amaze, not to be whistled at by builders.

Indeed, contrary to what may be implied by the film's poster (or even the name), Showgirls portrays some strong, powerful and unpredictable women with deep and interesting histories, particularly the protagonist, whose character development outcome and ending you will not even begin to predict. Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley) takes no prisoners and for once a movie doesn't end in apologies and reunions.

Showgirls is incredibly daring. Much like the film's recurring theme, it gambles. Unfortunately not all gambles pay off and I believe this was completely slated by the mainstream critics, but if you're anything like me, this cult classic hits the jackpot.

2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street is a remake/re-imagining of Wes Craven's supernatural slasher classic about a group of teenagers being tormented by badly burned killer Fred Krueger in their dreams, with wounds inflicted in said nightmares manifesting themselves in the real world.

There's a good reason that (as of the writing of this review) this movie's average IMDb rating is smack-bang in the middle, a perfect 5/10. This is as much of a re-imagining and re- thinking of the series as Rob Zombie's Halloween was. Unlike the recent Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street has been taken back to the drawing board, to it's very basic premise, and re-thought for 2010.

To put it simply, we're not looking at the same movie with modern day effects here. We're looking at Wes Craven's idea coupled with today's growing concern about paedophiles as well as what we now know about dreams, insomnia and repressed memories. In fact, until the end of the movie, one might be lead to think that the characters are in fact being killed by their own repressed memories, and not some kind of supernatural dream-killer.

Fans of the original will remember the intentional ambiguity of Freddy's past, starting off as a child killer who got away with it, killed by angry town folk taking the law into their own hands, and becoming more and more bizarre as the series went on, involving the strange circumstances of his conception, and a lot of religious undertones. This time around, Krueger's past is made a little more clear, and this is what will make or break the movie for a lot of people. Many were upset by Rob Zombie's choice to explore Michael Myers' past in Halloween, as they felt that a mysterious, faceless enigma is scarier than somebody you know everything about.

I beg to differ... The slasher genre has slowly become a parody of itself, especially after the ingenious Scream quite literally stating all of the rules and clichés, and even if we can block out their knowledge of the 'rules', the killer still often becomes the protagonist in our minds as we become more interested in how they will pick off the next dumb, drunk teenager than who will survive.

This is where Freddy's backstory comes in. Once you know what he is (though still ambiguous through most of the movie, it does start to become pretty clear eventually), you will hate him, fear him, and most definitely root for the heroes of the picture. Freddy's backstory is more disturbing than the original version, and things which Craven may have intended, but never outright said, come to light here.

I will also tell you this - a newcomer to Freddy would probably do better watching this film than a hardcore fan of the original series. Firstly some of the strongest moments in this version are lifted straight out of the original, but more importantly the story is told in a completely different way. Surprisingly, this is not a teenage slasher flick. None of the stereotypes appear here - there's no token black guy, no cheerleader, no geeky do-gooder girl - and there are no house-parties or scenes of characters getting drunk and sleeping with one another. In fact, I don't recall any 'happy' scenes in at all, since we begin the movie with all of the characters already affected by these nightmares.

This, in the long run, leads the movie into much more of a mystery-horror like The Ring, where the primary concern of our remaining characters is staying alive and awake long enough to find out the truth and possibly shed some light on how to save themselves, rather than who is going to die next. On the down side, this does mean we have to spend the first twenty minutes trying to relate to the characters as they get stalked by night and attend funerals by day, and it can be difficult to pick which to try and follow as they are slowly picked off. It pays off once the cast has been nicely 'pruned' though as the few remaining characters really hold your attention and there are none of the "he just went in there on his own, I can tell he's going to die" moments.

So how is Freddy? Robert Englund kept in the role for such a long time that it does become hard to imagine anybody else with the striped sweater and finger-blades, but equally hard to imagine him becoming scary again after the 'wise-cracker' character he became. If you ask me, the only way to have truly brought back Freddy's terrifying nature from the original movie was to re- cast and re-design him, and that's exactly what has been done. Englund has been replaced by Jackie Earle Haley - that would be Rorschach from the brilliant Watchmen - and his make-up, rather than being based on Englund's look, is what, in anybody's imagination, a horribly burned murderer would look like. It will upset some fans, but will scare newcomers in the same way that Englund did in the 70s. Make-up aside, Jackie's acting is, as usual, brilliant, both as burn victim Freddy and as the past Fred Krueger.

I could go on all day about how anybody with an open mind should ignore all of the fan-boy hatred, but there is a 1,000 word limit here. 'Elm Street recreates a brilliant idea from the 70s in a way that is relevant to 2010 and once again scary and believable. Like I will say about Rob Zombie's take on Halloween, this is by far the scariest the series has been since the original movie, and the perfect way to keep such a brilliant idea alive. As such it's probably better for newcomers, but fans will smile at the number of references to the classics, with character names and lines from movies all across the series, even Freddy vs. Jason.

Another unfortunate film meeting "we hate the director because the internet told us to" preconceptions, 1968 Tunnel Rats is a complete success in what it sets out to do - create an overwhelming sense of fear and claustrophobia.

There are war movies, and there are horror movies. This is both. Yet, there is no Predator creature jumping around, no crazy virus, no hallucinations, no. The war is scary enough itself.

There's no patriotic propaganda here, neither is there any political anti-war message, the movie just shows us how scary life as a soldier could be. This is the kind of fear which is felt by real people, every day.

A highly recommended film if you like tension and suspense. More accessible than SEED, more mature than Alone in the Dark.