I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big horror movie fan. I didn’t grow up with horror movies because my parents pretty much banned me from watching all but the tamest of the tame. Not because we were a particularly religious household or anything like that, but because I had such a vivid imagination that I’d scare myself stupid about the smallest things. So, to prevent me from coming into their room in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t see anything too spooky when I was a kid. The fact that we didn’t have cable TV out in the country didn’t help, either. If I did watch a horror movie, it was on the Saturday Matinee on CBS, which means it was probably black-and-white, and probably edited for television to take out all the good parts.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of the big horror movies coming out and that I didn’t obsess over those salacious horror VHS covers when we’d rent movies. I also got the opportunity to watch some of the 80’s mainstays while over at a friend’s house for a sleepover. However, because I didn’t get to see these movies on repeat on HBO and Showtime, I don’t have the same nostalgia for Jason, Michael Myers, Chucky, and Freddy like so many of my Gen X-compadres.
But in the last 25 years, I’ve made up for my “innocent” years, watching most new release horror films, as well as catching up on the classics (and not-so-classics) that I missed during my formative years. Of course one series I’ve caught up on is the Nightmare on Elm Street, starring everyone’s favorite, sassy slasher, Freddy Krueger.
Now, I have to say, because I don’t have the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, I find the eight-film original series to be a pretty mixed bag. The first few films (1 through 3) and the last few films (A New Nightmare and Freddy vs Jason) stand out, but the middle of the series (4 – 6) are all just one big, messy movie in my head. If you put one on without telling me which one it was, I’m not sure I could tell you which was which.
Despite my mixed feelings on the series, I still appreciate them and I still dig Freddy as a character. So, when I found a seller on eBay that had a couple of cases of 3-D glasses from the theatrical showing of the sixth film in the franchise, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, released in 1991, there was no way I wasn’t going to buy a pair.
Freddy Vision
For the theatrical release of the film, the last 10 minutes were shot in 3-D, a gimmick they called “Freddy Vision”. Before the screening, the theater handed out pairs of 3-D glasses to audience members who were instructed to put them on at the same time one of the characters, final girl Maggie, puts on her 3-D glasses. Those last 10 minutes are filled with things flying at the audience that probably seemed really awkward when the 3-D effect was nixed for most home video releases; it has been available on a few releases, like the U.S. laserdisc. And, of course, it’s available on YouTube:
The glasses I got off eBay are one of the 11 million pairs produced by American Paper Optics and sent out to theaters back in 1991. The seller said he bought a couple boxes of unused glasses from a theater manager who’d had them in storage since the film’s theatrical run. The eBayer was selling them for $7 including shipping, which has probably netted him a nice profit, but also gave us horror nerds a cheap, fun conversation piece to have in our collections.
As if having something from Freddy’s Dead wasn’t retro-cool enough, you’ll notice that the glasses also advertise a couple of upcoming New Line Cinema releases, Suburban Commando, starring Hulk Hogan, Christer Lloyd, and Shelley Duvall, and House Party II, starring rappers Kid & Play, Martin Lawrence, and Tisha Campbell. These films weren’t classics by any means, but they’re a fun, guffaw-worthy addition to an already out-there collectible.
The Funeral Of Freddy
There were also a couple of Freddy-related promotions, like the Barq’s Root Beer “Freddy’s Dead Special”, which got you 30 cents off a six-pack or 2-liter! But the big one for fans of the franchise would be the “Freddy’s Dead Telephone Challenge” where, for only $1.95 for the first minute and $1.45 for each additional minute, you could answer some Elm Street trivia and qualify for a chance to attend Freddy Krueger’s funeral.
The funeral for Freddy Krueger was a real event that took place at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles in October 1991, about a month after the film’s release on September 13th.
Many of the cast and crew were present to pay their respects to a coffin draped in Freddy’s signature green and red sweater and hat, because, as the director, Rachel Talalay (at the center in the picture above with the short hair and blue shirt) unequivocally stated at the funeral, there was no chance Freddy was coming back from the dead. Three years later, Wes Craven returned to the franchise with a metatextual twist in A New Nightmare, arguably one of the best films in the series.
I’m not sure who, if anyone, actually won a spot on the guest list for the funeral by playing the “Freddy’s Dead Telephone Challenge”, but I’m sure New Line made a few extra million dollars by charging fans $1.95 for the first minute and $1.45 for every additional minute.
3-D Variations
As I was looking up these 3-D glasses, I found that there are actually a few different versions that were available in North America:
As you can see, the pair I have feature the House Party II and Suburban Commando ads, but there’s another pair that swaps out Commando for the Laurence Fishburne film, Deep Cover. I’m not sure if the different styles were regional or just a way for New Line to spread it’s marketing budget around by advertising a different film. There is also what appears to be an international version, with the “Right” and “Left” labels in various languages, minus any of the other advertising. Deep Cover was a staple film for me and my friends back in high school, but I’m fine with the version I have, so I don’t think it’s worth tracking down the variants.
Freddy Krueger Day
Along with my research, I also found that there is a little bit of controversy surrounding Freddy’s Dead that’s worth mentioning – September 13, 1991 is officially “Freddy Krueger Day” in Los Angeles. Then-mayor Tom Bradley made the declaration in honor of Freddy’s death, but, more importantly, as a thank you to New Line Cinema for shooting all of the six Elm Street films in Los Angeles, giving a boost to the local economy. Robert Englund, wearing his signature razorblade glove, was on-hand (no pun intended) to accept the award from the mayor’s aide outside of Mann’s Chinese Theater (Bradley couldn’t attend himself because he was at the grand opening of a sewage plant across town).
However, many social activists felt it was a bad look for a city whose violent crime rate had increased by 53% in the first half of that year to be celebrating a serial killer, even if it was a fictional one. The mayor blew off the barbs and Englund asked everyone to “separate crime reality from movie escapism” in order to have a little fun. I’m thinking about starting a petition to make September 13th a National Holiday now…
Get Your Own Pair!
If you’d like to get your own pair of Freddy’s Dead 3-D glasses, as of this post, the seller still has a few hundred available, but they are going pretty fast!
