Ace Frehley - In Memoriam

April 27th, 1951 - October 16th, 2025

On a long and heartfelt podcast tribute that Eddie Trunk posted the day after his dear friend Ace Frehley's death, he pointed out the fact that Ace himself would have found it hilarious that the one thing that would take him out was literally falling down.  After all, the man has an album and song called Trouble Walkin'.  What is even more amusing, (and just goes to show that the world works in confounding ways sometimes), is that Ace Frehley died this way after years of reckless rock star behavior and drug and alcohol abuse, and also the fact that he was the youngest of the original Kiss members, yet the first to check out.  I agree with Trunk; Ace would have laughed his ass off in that trademark cackle of his because after everything, his steadfast "spaced-out" clumsiness is what did him in.

 

So we now live in a world with no Ace Frehley, at least not in the physical sense.  Obviously like many other giants that we lost this year, (David Lynch, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Redford, Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, Val Kilmer, Gene Hackman, D'Angelo, Brent Hinds, Diane Keaton, George Foreman, David Johansen, etc), his work will endure, and it was a body of work that inspired gallons of guitar players and musicians.  As a founding member of one of the biggest rock bands of all time, Ace fulfilled a pivotal role.  He wrote a handful of Kiss classics, (or klassics I should say), and next to Gene Simmon's demon makeup, his Spaceman persona was arguably the most recognizable and tributed by fans, both at concert events and on Halloween.

 

By yours truly included.

One of the most fitting words that someone can use to attach to this legend is "character".  There are numerous famous stories pertaining to Ace's eccentric personality and behavior.  He showed up to his Kiss audition wearing two different colored sneakers.  He crashed his DeLorean into four cars during a high-speed chase up the Bronx River Parkway in 1983.  He rejected Bob Ezrin's schoolmaster production techniques on Destroyer and instead just fucked off and played poker with his buddies in lieu of recording guitar solos.  He refused to load in his own gear during the band's early days, too much of a rockstar even then to bother.  He showed up at the last minute to arena gigs where his future replacement Tommy Thayer was waiting in the wings, suited up in makeup and ready to hit the stage in case Ace was a no show.  Such fables only scratch the surface.

 

As is often the case though, wacky personalities can also be brilliant ones.  As a soloist, Ace Frehley was in a league of his own.  Along with Brian May, he is the most lyrical lead guitar player possibly in all of rock music.  Every one of his solos during his Kiss tenure, (and there is one in just about every single song), is singable, memorable, and a highlight.  Even when he fucks off in Gene Simmons' "Almost Human" and just makes weird background feedback noises, it fits such a sleazy and sinister track.  Like Neal Peart, Ace found it crucial to nail his parts on stage like they sound on the album, never wanting to disappoint people who knew them by heart and wanted to air guitar accordingly.  At the same time though, he would indulge himself and expand upon those leads on stage from their studio counterparts, as he did in the live versions of "She", "Rock and Roll All Nite", "Shock Me", and "New York Groove".

 

He also used such technical malfunctions as his guitar bellowing smoke to his advantage.

Ace's solo career was none too shabby either.  Obviously, his 1978 self-titled album that was released under the Kiss moniker is chock-full of bangers, as well as being wildly regarded as the finest of the four.  I many not agree with that assessment, (Paul Stanley's solo album remains my favorite Kiss record period), but there is no denying that Ace delivered the goods on it and furthermore proved to both himself and the record-buying public that he could front his own material with ease.  Post-Kiss, Frehley's Commit, the aforementioned Trouble Walkin', and his four albums that he did after the band's massive reunion streak are all full of more killer guitar solos and swaggering, enduring old man rock with various references to outer space, growing up in New York's boroughs, love, and just being a well-respected rock star.

 

The "well respected" part may seem like it took awhile to achieve as far as the mainstream rock media is concerned, who for decades delegated Kiss to a gimmicky "kid's group" that was not to be taken seriously.  Yet the truth is that Ace and his band were pioneers that have long held a special place in so many musician's hearts.  John 5, Dimebag Darrel, Sebastian Bach, Mike Portnoy, virtually every grunge-era musician, virtually every thrash metal musician, Slash, Lady Gaga, Trent Reznor, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Morello, Dave Grohl, the guys from Tool, even Garth Brooks; the list goes on and on as far as how many future musicians were and are massive Kiss fans.  One can make the argument that Ace was the stand-out musician in Kiss' original lineup; a non-virtuoso that nevertheless had an immediately identifiable style that rightfully puts him in the guitar god ranks along with any of his contemporaries, not to mention the oodles of axe-slingers that he inspired.

 

Me, Dimebag and Snake Sabo all have something in common - we like dressing up as this guy.

Yet now, Ace is gone, transported to that alien planet Jendell that he often times jokingly, (and possibly sincerely), believed to have actually spawned from.  For any longtime Kiss fans such as myself, this loss is a catastrophic one.  We also lost Eric Carr to cancer back in 1991, (the same day that Freddie Mercury checked-out, oddly enough), and Mark St. John whose time period in the band was all too brief died tragically after years of health issues and a prison beating in 2007.  One cannot compare the life or death of one person to another of course, but Ace's legacy is an enormous one that hits hard for those who adored his on and off-stage antics, incredible guitar playing skills, that unmistakable laugh, spaced-out demeanor, dedication and appreciate for his loyal fanbase, and the slew of material that he left behind which ranks as some of the best rock music ever produced.

 

Ace may not have had the world's greatest singing voice, his lyrics were often times embarrassing at best, and he had plenty of struggles throughout his life which he eventually overcame with many years of consistent sobriety under his belt by the end, but the man is so effortlessly loveable, singular, and ingenious that his passing is something that cannot be shaken off lightly.  As the title of his autobiography No Regrets implies, the man lived a life that he would never change.  It is only fitting then that we as fans should honor and champion that life.  Ace would probably not want it any other way.  He would not want us crying; he would want us to crash some cars, laugh our ass off, and make a whole lot of jovial noise in celebration.  Safe extraterrestrial travels Spaceman.  Now let us all bump "Rocket Ride" as it was meant to be bumped.

 

As fellow rock soldiers, we salute the one and only Ace Frehley.

David Lynch - In Memoriam

January 20th, 1946 - January 15th, 2025

David Lynch has died.  Often times, a loss comes with a bit of warning.  Lynch had opened up in August of 2024 about his emphysema diagnosis after roughly seven decades of indulging in a heavy smoke addiction.  His love for tobacco was made obvious in countless photos, on set footage, and interviews where he puffed away at the cancer sticks, stating at the time of his diagnosis, “I enjoyed smoking very much … but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and the price for me is emphysema.”.

This matter-of-fact attitude towards his ultimately fatal addiction says a lot about not only the man's lust for life, but also of the body of work that he left behind.  For someone who's cinematic oeuvre embraced the surreal as well as epitomized the type of immersive storytelling that viewer's had to do all the work in deciphering, (if "deciphering" was ever even the point), there is a direct communication of ideas that he enforced throughout his career.  Lynch was a man who was turned on by ideas, and ideas guided his films, his art, his music, his writing, and the overall way in which he presented himself as a public yet private figure.

 

Pictured: David Lynch presenting himself.

He was born in Missoula, Montana of all places, (which is also where Dana Carvey stems from), and he had that distinctly Midwestern cadence and temperament.  One can go down an endless rabbit hole watching interviews of people who have worked with him, regaling us with tales of his polite mannerisms, quirky sensibilities, and steadfast adherence to his own artistic ideas.  Lynch called the gathering of ideas "fishing", which was like tapping into a well of concepts that he was more easily able to access via his other lifelong addiction; transcendental meditation.

 

In 2005, he started the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, whose goal is to teach and spread information about such meditation techniques to as many people as possible.  There are countless long-form interviews out there where he spoke about his relationship with meditation and the benefits that it instilled in his own life, and even for those of us who are too lazy and/or scatterbrained to devote the necessary time in mastering the technique, (this author included), the man's dedication to such a positive and beneficial practice is one of the many things that remains so admirable about him.

 

I'll let the man explain it himself.

This also sheds light on his artistic output.  Lynch was just as interested in the darker subconscious of human beings as he was their emergence to a higher plateau of existence.  His film's juxtaposed beauty with gloom, just as his paintings would often times use raw meat or dead insects yet still turn out enticing instead of merely grotesque.  Life's full spectrum was what he regularly tapped into, and the way that it came out in his work was singular to only his delightfully warped train of thought.  David Lynch's movies are not for everyone nor will they ever be, but for those of us who can embrace if not comprehend his aggressively puzzling narratives and equally aggressive surreal motifs, there is so much strangeness and allure to delight in.

David Lynch only made ten full-length movies, one of which he disowned, (1984's Dune), one of which he did not write, (1999's The Straight Story), and one of which was a comparatively coherent biopic about the Elephant Man Joseph Merrick, (1980's apply titled The Elephant Man).  The rest of his filmography, (as well as arguably his crowning achievement in the Twin Peaks television series and 2017 continuation, plus many shorts), strictly adheres to a style that audience members and critics were dumbfounded by, leaving them no choice but to dub it "Lynchian" out of mere desperation.  Other movie-makers tap into Lynch's penchant for lava-like atmosphere, nonsensical set pieces, oddball hilarity, a type of sinister noir-like aesthetic, stories about supreme evil lurking within American suburbs, and his particular brand of evocative sex and brutal violence, yet they are all simply channeling one man's unprecedented vision.

 

Who of us can look at a white picket fence the same way again after seeing Blue Velvet?

He did so many things so uniquely that anyone who borrows something from ANY of them can be easily called out.  To Lynch though, there was no other way for him to present his ideas.  He often went long periods without producing any cinematic works, (largely because the finances were not so readily available to his often times challenging projects), but he never stopped fishing for those ideas and never stopped creating.  One could look at the output that he left behind as a puzzle that can be cracked, whether for mere comprehension's sake or to try and understand what made the man tick so authentically to his own clock.  After all, I have yet to met a single person who did not pull their hair out in frustration after experiencing Lost Highway, Erasherhead, or Mulholland Dr. for the first time.

 

Yet the more that you read about the man, the more you listen to him speak, and the more you consume his art, the more clear it is that he was operating on a level that none of us could ever reach.  Speaking for myself, David Lynch taught me how to watch movies.  His refusal to hold my hand along such peculiar treks was like a lightning bolt to someone, (like many of us), who was all too used to the common point A to point B method of storytelling.  Nothing was more invigorating for me than experiencing his films for the first time.  The only thing that comes close is experiencing them every time again after that.  Lynch makes you do the work.  Lynch makes you think for yourself.  Lynch makes you come to your own conclusions, and all of those conclusions are both equally wrong and equally correct.  Lynch makes you understand art, and in the process, makes you understand that life has so much more lurking in its shadows and its cherry pie than you ever thought possible.

We salute you too Mr. Lynch.

Neil Peart - In Memoriam

September 12th, 1952 - January 7th, 2020

Ten days into the new decade and the drumming world has already suffered about as huge of a loss as is humanly possible.  The Professor Neil Ellwood Peart is no more.  As I have previously discussed briefly on this blog before, Peart was to rock drumming what Eddie Van Halen was to rock guitar; a virtuoso with nigh a contemporary at the time who forever changed what could be both possible and accepted as far as hard rock skin-bashing is concerned.  Fusing intricate fills with highly inventive drums parts, a pristine kit sound, taste and finesse, and arguably the most precise execution out of anybody, Peart has long been one of the most cherished and impressive drummers who has ever breathed air.  His influence is vast enough to the point where it has become a cliche that even people who do not like Rush, (meaning people who do not like Geddy Lee's vocals), admit one and all that Neil at least was the goddamn man.

Beyond Peart's unanimously lauded drumming, he just seemed to be a gem of a human being.  He succumbed to a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer on Tuesday, January 7th of this year, but in his typical and fiercely private personal life, he kept his diagnosis completely out of the public, only notifying close family and friends.  This included his band mates and collaborators for over four decades, both Geddy Lee and Alex Liefeson who honored Peart's wishes in the respectful way that they always had.  Peart's passing at only sixty-seven years of age after less than only five years since the band wrapped up with their unofficial farewell R40 tour seems particularly unfair.  It was heavily hinted that Peart was the one who wanted to walk away from touring life once and for all to quietly retire and spend more time with his family.  Though it was sad for the rest of us to be told that he had lost all interest in ever sitting behind the kit again, it is nowhere near as sad as the reality that he can NEVER sit behind the kit again.

For such a beautiful thing as this to forever collect dust is a crime if ever there was one.

I started playing drums at the age of twelve, almost entirely because of John Bonham.  Yet Neil Peart was a name you cannot be ignorant to once you pick up a pair of sticks.  Probably because no one in my family was a huge Rush fan, they were one of the rare classic rock bands that I had to go and discover on my own.  Thankfully, the high school I went to in southern Illinois, (shout out to my fellow Red Bud alumni), was full of Rush fans from top to bottom.  So by the time that I was playing in my first house party band, Neil Peart's inevitable influence was already seeping in.

I have grown increasingly fond of not only Rush's music and Peart's masterful playing over all these years, but Peart as a human being.  I have always found it amusing that Peart's smiles while playing were few and far between as he always took his performance deadly seriously.  On the flip side of that though, I never saw a single second of any interview that he ever gave where he was not grinning from ear to ear while enthusiastically discussing all things music or just his overall passion for life.  After losing both his first teenage daughter to a car crash and ten months later, his first wife to another bout of cancer, Peart chose to temporarily retire and travel through North and Central America on his motorcycle for fourteen months.  He discussed in his book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road how spending all of that time with no goals, no plan, and no destination in mind where no one he ran into even recognized him ultimately mended the horrible emotional wounds that he had suffered.  He eventually came back to the band that had been his home with as much dedication and positivity as ever.  You do not have to be a drummer or even a musician to find that remarkable.

It may not be as cool as his drum kit, but a home on the road is a home all the same.

As a lover of his instrument, Peart was a beckon of drum admiration.  A huge big band fan, he was ultimately humbled by his performance at the Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship Concert in 1992 which showed that even amongst his top-notch abilities in his band of choice, he was in over his head when playing with dazzling jazz technicians like Omar Hakim and the like.  Unphased though, he chose not to skitter away with his tail in between his legs and instead he produced and performed on the tribute records Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich, (which continued to get Rich's big band even more work).  Then all of these years already into a successful career, he took lessons from Freddie Gruber to up his chops and re-approach his instrument even further.  Such dedication to his craft is the stuff that any musician anywhere can wholeheartedly admire and even though the man himself can pursue his passions no more, it is undoubtable that he will continue to inspire just as he always has.

Peart's life was up and down as well as far more than the typical rock star.  On that note, he hardly conducted himself as such.  He refused to do the all too standard band meet and greets near the end of Rush's touring cycle, but not due to any pretentious arrogance on his part; more because he was openly honest about how uncomfortable it made him to be fawned over and treated above just a normal, everyday person.  Even if Peart was far from a normal everyday person, he would never admit it or accept anyone telling him such nonsense.  Still, he never disrespected his fans who gave him such accolades either and remained thankful for all that he had through and through.  A class act all the way.

A class act with a bitchin' mullet to boot.

Kiss told funny stories about how lame Rush was on the road back in the excess, groupie-ridden days of the 1970s.  As you would expect then, they rarely if at all partook in such sleazy shenanigans.  Peart in particular was commonly found knee-deep in reading materials, always fueling his creativity as the band's lyricist as well as their percussionist, even when swarms of willing, naked ladies would have politely ran their fingers through that glorious mullet of his, amongst other things of course.  Yet who has time for that when you got all those Ayn Rand books to read?  2112 is not going to write itself after all.

It will be hard for so many to say goodbye to Neil Peart's physical form, but as is always the case, the man's work is going nowhere.  It shall remain here to fuel all of us in any creative endeavor that we may have.  On that note, I think it is best to leave with a quote from Peat's The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa, one of many where he sums up, (or scratches the surface more likely), of his intellectual, elegant, and above all else sincere take on life in general:  “I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty.  Art gives a spiritual depth to existence -- I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books.  And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation.  I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder.  I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.”

Peace be with thee Mr. Peart.

Random George A. Romero - In Memoriam

February 4th, 1940 - July 16th, 2017

Another undeniable horror icon has died, this time the father of the modern zombie film George A. Romero from lung cancer at the age of seventy-seven.  Romero directed seventeen feature length movies over just shy of five decades, nearly every one of them in the horror genre.  A Pittsburgh native who also attained Canadian citizenship later in life, Romero shot most of his work in and around his hometown, utilizing family and friends with help behind and onscreen on multiple occasions.  He was an independent filmmaker whose debut Night of the Living Dead unknowingly changed horror cinema permanently and remains one of the genres most paramount works.  Few horror movies are more important historically and fewer still are any better.  One of the only others that comes close is Romero's own sequel Dawn of the Dead, which is just as beloved and legendary still.  The man could have died from lung cancer having just made those two iconic films and his legacy would still be staggeringly important.

To get some of the negative honesty briefly out of the way though, Romero was far from a flawless filmmaker.  His last three works in the Dead franchise, (also the last three films he ever made), are unfortunately incredibly poor for various reasons.  Overdone, misguided, and confused, the director's usually present social commentary was a detriment to these last few movies, whereas it was an intellectually pleasing component to his earlier ones.  Also the zombie reassurance in popular culture was in full swing at this point, (playing a major role in Romero reviving said franchise to begin with no doubt), and certainly for me at least, I was also burned out on it which did not help any.

At least he kept Sex Machine around.  As he should.

I find occasional missteps earlier in Romero's filmography here or there as well, (I'm not a fan of The Crazies, per example), but he also made the masterpiece Martin and several other fun, gory romps throughout the years.  So even when not turning the horror film on its ass and forever redefining what the genre could do, in general and by average, he was damn good at what he did and he did a good, impressive amount.

Upon hearing of his passing to that great, big shopping mall full of the dead in the sky, I immediately set out to watch/re-watch some of his films I was less familiar with.  Essays have been written endlessly as to the significance and excellence of Night of and Dawn of the Dead, but I wanted to look at some of his early 80s-early 90s collaborations and adaptations that certainly merit discussion.  If not for their cultural significance, then just because they by-and-large were enjoyable horror movies.  Which ultimately was what George was most interested in giving us.  I appreciate that profoundly and fully recognize the man as one of the absolute finest horror filmmakers we will ever have.  Cheers good sir.  May you walk the earth once more and feast on human flesh at your leisure...

CREEPSHOW
(1982)
Overall: GREAT

Both a tribute to the horror books of EC Comics and therefore a pre-curser to the Tales from the Crypt HBO series which debuted seven years later, George Romero and Stephen King's joint effort Creepshow is good, nostalgic fun.  An equal level of wicked disturbingness and joy can be found particularly in the "Father's Day" and "Something to Tide You Over" segments, particularly the combination of drowning and being buried alive in the latter by Frank Drebin himself Leslie Nielsen.  The rest of the movie follows the anthology horror rule perfectly, as in some of the stories are stronger than others.  "The Crate" is the weakest since the monkey monster has not aged particularly well, (pretty much looking like a child in a Halloween costume), followed close by "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", but at least that one is wrapped up pretty quickly and has a hilarious country bumpkin performance from King himself.  The pace of the entire film is quite perfect, as Romero and King keep it equally silly and gruesome throughout, never venturing too far in either direction.  As a comedy, this easily seems like the most all-out fun Romero ever had making a movie.  Another horror rule also applies in that Creepshow was sequeled out, each time getting a little to a lot less memorable.  Certainly the best for first in this case.

MONKEY SHINES
(1988)
Overall: MEH

A fairly unfortunate and flawed adaptation of Michael Stewart's novel of the same name, Monkey Shines was George Romero's first non-independent film, thought he still shot it in Pennsylvania as usual.  The fact that it seems both overlong and rushed is in large part due to Orion studio's interference with the finished product, which supposedly cut nearly half of the footage Romero shot from his lengthy, more in depth script.  It is sadly noticeable, where several steps forward in the plot seem to spring up out of nowhere and numerous character arcs appear sloppy.  At the same time though, hardly anything really exciting happens for much of the film and when it finally does get to the final act, the camp value appears to be amped up more than it should.  Then again, the film does have kind of a silly premise, though still an interesting one.  But when your main "monster" is a tiny little helper monkey, it is rather a labored task to make it menacing.  The studio also forced Romero into a groan-worthy "happy ending", not at all the director's style.  To his credit though, Romero's original intention could have perhaps made the end product more compelling.  Plenty of interesting ideas work here without the tone being all over the place, so it is certainly worth a gander.

THE DARK HALF
(1993)
Overall: MEH

Somewhere in between some of the best and worst Stephen King film adaptations is George Romero's second collaboration with the ill-fated Orion Pictures in The Dark Half.  Yet again shot in Pennsylvania and written for the screen by Romero, Half was shelved for two years before Orion had the promotion budget to release it, where it more or less came and went without much of a bang.  Which kind of makes sense after watching it, regrettably.  Most of the problems lie in the story itself, (yay, another author protagonist!), which is not one of King's most original or interesting ideas.  Timothy Hutton's duel role is amusing, but it is difficult to decipher if he intended to do a spot-on Michael Keaton impression or not, which gives his bad guy performance perhaps an accidentally hilarious quality.  The movie is plenty gory, (which is something Romero is reliable at delivering, even without his trusted sidekick Tom Savini for this go-around), but it is also very dull in the scares department.  There are several "GOTCHA!" jumps and "people doing dumb shit in horror movies" moments, making it a bit too cliche of a vehicle for Romero.  Still, the director was long-past re-inventing the wheel at this point, so this is fundamentally an innocent, average horror outing with some redeemable moments.

Random Wes Craven - In Memoriam

August 2nd, 1939 - August 30th 2015

There are a number of filmmakers who have become known as pioneers in ushering in the "modern" age of the horror film.  George Romero could be considered the first to get his name on the map with Night of the Living Dead, which helped revolutionize gore, bleakness, and tone let alone single-handedly turning the zombie film completely on its ass forevermore.  Then before Tobe Hooper made the most disturbing exploitation movie yet conceived of at that point with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Ohio born and raised Wes Craven turned heads with his directorial debut Last House On the Left.   Others emerged like Dario Argento in Italy, David Cronenberg in Canada, and John Carpenter back in America that collectively made some of the most genre-defying and best horror films in the history of the medium.  All of these men to greater and lesser extents would continue to inspire countless filmmakers who either dabbled or straight-up dwelled in the genre since.   In good ways and bad as we all know.

Out of all the aforementioned, Wes Craven is possibly the most successful.   From a commercial standpoint, the Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream franchises are two of the genre's most enormous money makers and Craven spawned, continued to direct, write, and be creatively involved in both of them.  That alone makes him a person who is impossible to ignore in this field of scaring people at the movie theater.

Of course, Craven offered up quite a few non or minimally sequeled-out horror films over the course of four plus decades as well such as Deadly Blessing, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Shocker, The People Under the Stairs, Vampire In Brooklyn, Red Eye, and of course his very most terrifying Music of the Heart.  Now here is where I have to unfortunately play Debbie Downer.  After seeing many of these, (including the Screams and the Elm Streets), I am honestly only really a fan of one of them.  As in The Serpent and the Rainbow, which made my 100 Favorite Horror Films list.   Maybe because Craven did not write it and simply stuck to directing?

*Spoilers* It certainly does not have anything to do with anyone's testicles getting pounded into dust

I have always found Wes Craven's film output to be either somewhat or severely flawed.  Tone problems run amok in many of them and his earliest offerings suffer from, among other things, some terrible acting and very questionable direction choices.   I could write a series of articles about what is wrong with the atrocious Last House on the Left as it is one of the worst movies in the history of filmmaking.  Nightmare on Elm Street has a muddled ending and unfortunately it is impossible to take Freddie Kruger seriously after this.  I have made no shortage of proclamations that the slasher film is my least favorite horror sub-genre, ergo the Scream franchise which both poked fun at yet completely adhered to EVERY cliche in the slasher book never sat me well either.

So sadly, I have personally never agreed with the label "master of horror" where Wes Craven is concerned.  I originally had the intention to watch a handful of the man's films that I had never seen and review them on this blog as a fitting tribute, as of course we all know he just succumbed to brain cancer at the age of seventy-six this past Sunday.  I have to be honest with my opinions though and not sugarcoat the results of this experiment.   So yes, I regret to inform that none of these films blew my mind as I hoped maybe they might.   Though who knows, I have re-watched movies for the second time years later only to find that I very much enjoyed them where I had not before.  So maybe there is hope for me to become a Freddie fan after all.  Despite my tastes though, Craven's legacy is certainly impressive and now that it is complete, I shall send him off as honestly as I can.   May the gods stop future remakes from tarnishing said legacy and may Craven still continue to give future generations the nightmares they, well, CRAVE!

THE HILLS HAVE EYES
(1977)
Overall: MEH

This was Wes Craven's five-years-later follow-up to Last House On the Left and both explore similar themes.  Basically meaning, a bunch of crazies pick off normal folk and then the normal folk eventually fight back.  The similarities do not necessarily end there, as several scenes in Hills seem to be there just to make you uncomfortable.  This is something Last House certainly attempted and has been recognized for ever since, but the difference of course is that said film is astonishingly awful while this one is an improvement in a few areas.  Five years working on miscellaneous projects seemed to have temporarily taught Craven a thing or two about tone, as Hills sticks to its gruesome one from beginning to end.  The acting is mostly sub-par, especially Robert Houston who performs like a reluctant teenager in a high school play.  Iconic, naturally horrific looking Michael Berryman makes his horror film debut here and though he sadly does not get much to do, he pretty much just needs to stand in front of the camera while motionless to creep you out.  The initial trailer-park break-in comes after perhaps a too long build up, but it is generally unnerving.  Ultimately, the movie has potential to be a mountain-man horror classic, but Craven was still in amateur terrain where the direction, (particularly with the actors) and pacing is concerned.

THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS
(1991)
Overall:  WOOF

Yikes.  Easily put, The People Under the Stairs is the worst Wes Craven movie ever made that is not called Last House On the Left.  The problems that plague most of Craven's work are practically beating you over the cranium with iron clad fists in this one.  The tone is outrageously off.  Social commentary, racial injustice, poverty, and child abuse are all heavily handled with an equally hefty dose of slapstick comedy, horrid dialogue, cartoonish overacting, and illogical acts taking place every sixteen or so seconds.  A little of any of these things and one can shrug it off and continue onwards.  Yet all the awful just never lets up, making you shake your head wondering just what in the hell Craven was trying to accomplish here.  Was it supposed to be one of those intentionally stupid popcorn horror flicks that a teenager-filled movie theater can laugh at while simultaneously yelling at the screen?  If so, then why have so many serious themes?  Was it instead meant to actually be a menacing and disturbing bit of celluloid that got under your skin?  Whether either or both of these things was attempted or not, the results brutally fail.  In addition, the movie is very tedious.  Lunatics run around screaming, threatening, shooting guns, and sicking their dog on people.  Kids hide in basements, then in walls, then in vents, then in the basement a few more times, then the walls several more times, then various rooms, then the roof, etc.  This takes up no joke over an hour of the hour and a half movie.  Messy, off the mark horror has rarely been done messier or more off than here.

MY SOUL TO TAKE
(2010)
Overall: MEH

What would turn out to be Wes Craven's penultimate feature film, My Soul To Take is unfortunately a lackluster way to almost go out on.  With a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, the general opinion here is that it is basically dullsville in celluloid form.  Being yet another slasher movie, having yet another cast made up of teenagers, and throwing in enough other cliches to clutter up the plot, it pretty much guarantee you will be watching it while leaning on one of your hands and occasionally yawning.  Because most teenage protagonists in movies are irritating at best anyway, you are practically rooting for the killer to pick them off here.  While this is usually played intentionally, in this setting that very killer is unintentionally sillier than both Freddie Kruger and Ghostface at their silliest.  Well, maybe not Freddie but still.  So basically, there is no one to either care about or get behind.  After so many successful horror works under his belt, (arguably more than any other director in the field), Craven just seems to be doing a teenage-slasher-with-a-schizophrenic-twist film by numbers here.  Maybe the all too familiar themes were just a safety net for the writer/director as he felt he could do this kind of stuff in his sleep.  Sadly, it certainly looks like he did just that.