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Welcome to the Hammer Factory. This month we dissect Paranoiac (1963).

While Hammer Studios has been in business since 1934, it was between 1955 and 1979 that it towered as one of the premier sources of edgy, gothic horror. On top of ushering the famous monsters of Universal’s horror heyday back into the public eye, resurrecting the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy in vivid color, the studio invited performers like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt and so many more to step into the genre limelight. Spanning a library housing over 300 films, Hammer Studios is a key part of horror history that until recently has been far too difficult to track down.

In late 2018, Shout Factory’s Scream Factory line began to focus on bringing Hammer’s titles to disc in the US, finally making many of the studio’s underseen gems available in packages that offered great visuals as well as insightful accompanying features. Over the course of this column, I will focus on these releases, gauging the films in context of the Hammer Studio story as well as analyzing the merits of the release. It’s time to highlight the power, impact and influence of Hammer Studios and ignite new conversation surrounding some forgotten classics.

From the very beginning, Hammer Studios had a tendency to hew closely to the tides of popular entertainment. In their early years their output revolved around producing “quota quickies”, low cost movies farmed from existing entertainment sources to fulfill British government mandated quotas in movie houses at the time. Some of their best work of that period, like The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and The Abominable Snowman (1957), were adapted from existing BBC teleplays, established properties with a built-in audience reimagined for the big screen.

The financial stability of such a model allowed for the studio’s more creative counterparts to craft something unique and entertaining with far less risk than the average wide release motion picture. And when Hammer turned to the stable of classic monsters for similar reinvention in the late 1950’s, the horror gothic they became so beloved and well known for was born anew. Not necessarily a wholly original creation, but a refreshed one that infused new life into hallowed and familiar properties that had sat comfortably within the pop culture zeitgeist for decades.

Still, the horror gothic was not the only money-maker that evolved from Hammer’s tendency to capitalize on genre trends. Jimmy Sangster, a foundational presence in Hammer and screenwriter of some of its most important works like The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958), was incredibly keen on suspense thrillers. Stemming from a love of the 1955 French psychological thriller Les Diaboliques and a fear of being typecast, he wrote Taste of Fear (1961), a story which veered away from classic horror and instead concerned itself with a wheelchair bound young woman haunted by the corpse of her father.

Released in the wake of Psycho (1960), Taste of Fear was seen as an imitation of Alfred Hitchock’s masterpiece. The comparison was more apt than even the public was aware of at the time, as Hitchcock himself had attempted to obtain the rights to the book that Les Diaboliques was based on for his own adaptation before embarking on Psycho. Regardless, Taste of Fear was extremely successful and ushered forth a long running series of suspense thrillers that the studio dubbed “mini-Hitchcocks”.

In the wake of Taste of Fear and the world-wide success of Psycho, both Hammer and Universal Studios, their distribution partner at the time, were hungry to produce more projects of a similar ilk. Amongst the possibilities was a Josephine Tey scribed novel Hammer had purchased the rights to nearly a decade before, a book called Brat Farrar. Concerning the story of an estranged son returning to his family home to claim an inheritance that would otherwise be distributed to his remaining two siblings, the story was ripe with the intrigue, murky morals and psychological uncertainties that had made Taste of Fear so successful.

Acclaimed Oscar-winning cinematographer and burgeoning director Freddie Francis was brought in to helm the project, having also worked with Hammer before as director of photography on Never Take Sweets From a Stranger (1960). However it was Francis’ beautifully haunting work on The Innocents (1961) that truly caught the eye of prolific Hammer producer Anthony Hinds and secured him as the perfect person to capture what would become the menacing black and white pallet of Paranoiac.

Further bolstering the behind-the-scenes talent was cinematographer Arthur Grant who had shot The Abominable Snowman and The Phantom of the Opera (1962), bringing Francis’ predominantly visual style to life with a sense of gravitas and sweeping unease that affords as much sleaze as it does class as the proceedings unfold. Along for the ride with Grant was famed Hammer set designer Bernard Robinson, who was able to transform Bray Studios time and time again into whatever location it was required to be. Add to that a renowned cast with the likes of Oliver Reed and Janette Scott, it’s no surprise that Paranoiac emerged as one of the best of Hammer’s “mini-Hitchcock” run.

Paranoiac was a success for Hammer and led to a fruitful relationship between Freddie Francis and the studio. While Jimmy Sangster wrote this movie and others like it to avoid type casting, it was Paranoiac that solidified Francis as a director of horror. It may have been labeled derivative of Psycho and calcified the term “mini-Hitchcock” into the Hammer lexicon, but it also stood as a stark reminder that Hammer Studios was capable of a wide range of genre entertainment, spanning the spectrum of artistic style and doing so on a modest, controlled scale. Flowing with the tides of popular entertainment may not have seemed artistically attractive on paper, but the success and longevity of the resulting projects afforded by such a strategy were, and remain to this day, undeniable.

“Don’t come near me! I’m mad! I’m insane!”

Waves crash against the jutting edges of rock cutting jaggedly into the sea while gulls squawk and cry somewhere beyond the frame. Suddenly Elisabeth Lutyens’ intensely melancholic score urges the view to shift down the shoreline of stoney ledges, all the while shaping a danger that inextricably intermingles with the natural beauty of the place. It’s then that the image transitions to a churchyard, a grave, the final resting place of John and Mary Ashby and, it would seem, their son Antony, said to have died 3 years after them at age 15.

A Priest confirms as much in his address inside the chapel, professing their many kindnesses and remembering them 11 years on. Seated in the congregation is Harriet, John’s sister and caretaker of the surviving children, John and Mary’s youngest child Eleanor, now grown, and Simon, sitting at the organ smoking a cigarette, a look of dark indifference on his face as the Priest speaks to his undoubted emotional pain given his tremendous loss. As a hymnal begins a look of distressing uncertainty finds its way across Eleanor’s face. Her eyes lock on a figure in the doorway, someone she can scarcely see but instantly recognizes. She falls unconscious and the figure disappears, but when she awakens moments after, she knows precisely who it was she saw in the shadows: Antony has returned from the grave.

As is the case with many of Jimmy Sangster’s best scripts, Paranoiac wastes no time getting into the meat of its story and characters. With an efficiency that mirrors Hammer’s own tightly hewn production methods, the film introduces its players, their mannerisms and their weaknesses, powered by a visual energy indicative of the talents belonging to the people behind the camera, particularly Freddie Francis and Arthur Grant. It’s a film that never stops moving forward, allowing its characters to live and breathe while maintaining a healthy sense of dread and mistrust that permeates the narrative all the way through to its final, fiery moments.

The Ashby siblings are on the cusp of inheriting a large sum of money. Simon, played by Oliver Reed, is by all accounts an alcoholic and a degenerate. Reed turns in a startlingly unnerving performance, toeing the line between inebriated stupor and hyper-aware calculation that begets the unique sort of villainy required in a story about misplaced trust. He is easily one of the stand-outs in the film, providing some of the movie’s most disturbing sequences. One scene in particular where Reed’s visage can be seen smiling down at his victim through a veil of water is certain to linger long after the final frame fades.

Eleanor, on the other hand, could not be more different than Simon. In an elegant and nuanced performance from Janette Scott, Eleanor is in many ways a stunted child, a woman who held on to her innocence as a defense mechanism when she lost not only her loving parents but her closest confidant in her brother Anton. Moreover, Simon and their Aunt Harriet, played with a delicious sense of underhanded menace by Sheila Burrell, have weaponized Eleanor’s perceived fragility, convincing her that her mind is unstable.

It all comes to a head when Eleanor hears what she believes is her dead brother’s voice calling to her while she visits his grave. Believing herself insane as she was so accused by her surviving family, Eleanor rushes over to the rocky cliffside featured in the film’s opening moments to put an end to it all. There is a sense of something grander in the world as she approaches those giant monoliths of stone grating against the ever churning waves, of giving in to its vastness and escaping the confines of the social and financial mechanics of the bourgeois.

But before she can make her final leap, she’s snatched away from the rushing water and unforgiving stone. Once deposited again safely at home in her large manor, her savior reveals himself to be Tony Ashby, played with the appropriate amount of questionable charm by Alexander Davion, she and Simon’s estranged brother long thought dead returned. While Harriet and Simon are dramatically unconvinced, Eleanor embraces Tony right away, grateful to have her brother and best friend back in her world once more.

The film hinges on the dualities of its personalities, the stark contrast between truth and lies brought remarkably to life with Francis and Grant’s black and white photography. Whether it be picnics between Eleanor and Tony in the intermittent shade of a tree under the afternoon sun or Simon slinking into the sliver of light exposing the innards of a dusty bedroom, light and dark are constantly at play. The visuals offer a challenge to the viewer: to consider more than simply the actions on the screen, but the mentalities— imperative to a movie with the title Paranoiac.

As the story progresses, its moralities grow ever murkier, seemingly to match the inner thoughts and motivations of the characters occupying its runtime. Tony is, quite obviously, not who he seems, but a grifter working with the son of the Ashby’s attorney in an effort to embezzle a third of the inheritance. All the while, Simon and Harriet’s certainty that Tony is not who he says he is grows disconcertingly iron-clad, and Harriet’s relationship with Tony sharpens with lascivious desire.

Peppered throughout the story are Tony’s late evening excursions to the nearby chapel, where loud organ music issues out into the darkness in the dead of night. These scenes play almost like tonal poems, dream sequences of sorts to personify the growing evil that lies behind the deceit driving the characters’ interactions. It’s here that Tony encounters a startlingly frightening knife-wielding, masked figure, a creation of the great Hammer effects artist Roy Ashton. Looking like some sort of hideously distorted, soiled porcelain face of a grinning child, the mask, though barely featured, stands out as one of the film’s most memorable terrors and an interesting precursor to the wave of slasher films that would hit a decade later.

Paranoiac is not without its larger set pieces as well. One sequence in particular involving a picnic lunch near the same cliffs seen at the start of the movie, depicts Tony’s frenzied attempt to save Eleanor from her vehicle as it loses control and nearly takes her over its stony edge. Freddie Francis’ work here is incredible, combining rear projection and on location elements to craft an altogether convincing and harrowing experience that ranks with some of the best action of its kind.

As more secrets are uncovered and the truth about Simon’s nighttime organ serenades are revealed, the collective worlds of the surviving members of the Ashby family crumble around them. There’s an emotional intensity to Eleanor’s illicit cries that she’s in love with Tony and that she is, in fact, crazy, that rattles on a visceral level, a symphony of gaslighting and manipulation far more frightening than any ghost or ghoul might be able to conjure. Although Tony does make the right decision in the end to come clean about his identity and his intentions, it’s difficult not to recognize that the movie is comprised of opportunists at best and murderous deviants at worst, all working to corrupt and destroy the innocence, embodied by Eleanor, that they were charged and empowered to protect.

Paranoiac explores the perils of wealth and grandeur, sowing a network of duplicity that entangles any soul who approaches it. Through Sangster’s whip-smart script, Francis’ eloquent vision and Grant’s incredible eye, Paranoiac envelops the viewer in its knotty world of foreboding doubt, aided by incredibly layered performances and its striking locales. From the movie’s opening scenes of jagged stone ledges to its appropriately fiery conclusion in the chapel, it’s a story driven by the paranoia self-imposed by its players. After all, what is privilege and excess, if not an assault on the ego and, subsequently, the soul.

This release comes equipped with a brand new 2K scan of the interpositive by Shout! Factory in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, replacing the previously available reframed studio master from Universal. The new transfer offers a far crisper image with improved contrast that compliments the black and white photography. The DTS-HD Master Mono track is loud, clear and clean, emphasizing the resounding score while maintaining dialogue and effects. A significant technical upgrade of what came before and a worthy addition to any fan’s collection.

Audio Commentary, by Bruce G. Hallenbeck

Hammer film historian Bruce Hallenbeck returns to provide a detailed analysis on the film, its inception, its production and the many talents involved in bringing Paranoiac to life.

Beginning with Jimmy Sangster’s interest in Les Diaboliques and how that inspired Taste of Fear, Hallenbeck tracks the Hammer “mini-Hitchock” and the impact such films had on the studio and its reputation. He covers the careers and livelihoods of major players in the film, such as Freddie Francis and the unfortunate rise and fall of Oliver Reed, as well as the moral corruption and ghoulish thematics that the movie seeks to mine. It’s a wonderfully engaging listen that sheds a great deal of light on the film while deepening the listeners understanding of all that went into making it.

Drink to Deception — Kim Newman on Crafting a Cunning Tale of Double Dealing (14:48)

Film historian Kim Newman provides his analysis of the production, serving like a bite-sized version of what’s delivered in the commentary from Newman’s unique point of view. He spends time on the build up to Paranoiac and how it was Hammer came to the story before plunging into the Brat Farrar property and its various interpretations, exploring Hammer’s as one that is thematically resonant and undervalued in their canon.

A Toast to Terror — Remembering Paranoiac (25:23)

Film historian Jonathan Rigby provides his take on Paranoiac, approaching it from the perspective of shifting gender roles both on the screen and off as well as the many various talents behind the scenes that made the film possible. He also delves further into the troubles the film had with the BBFC and the overbearing snobbery directed at Hammer from the ratings board at the time.

Ported over from the 2017 UK release of the film, this making-of documentary runs through a high level overview of Paranoiac’s production history. With interstitials shot at Bray Studios, archival interviews with major players and detailed production information regarding the effects and filming locations, the Wayne Kinsey hosted feature is fun and informative.

A dictionary sits open, revealing the word “paranoia” as a narrator defines it: “mental disease with delusions of fame, grandeur, persecution”. Then the word “paranoiac” is circled.

The narrator introduces the Ashby family, “whose beautiful life is darkened by shadow”. Oliver Reed’s Simon argues with his aunt. Reed’s indiscretions are put on full display as the narrator continues on about his, “twisted, greedy mind obsessed by inheritance”. Scenes of Eleanor screaming and the family squabbling continue as the characters are introduced as the narrator speaks of “a guarded secret too horrifying to share”. The car nearly falling off the cliff is displayed followed finally by the image of Oliver Reed peering eerily down through the water as the title card appears: Paranoiac.

Head shots of Oliver Reed, Janette Scott and additional cast members, production stills, candid production photographs, posters, lobby cards and international artwork pepper this slideshow encapsulating the production and its orchestrators.

Psycho marked a major shift in the tides of popular genre entertainment and while Jimmy Sangster may not have initially modeled his paranoid thriller musings specifically after Hitchcock’s hit, Hammer Studios saw a path to coalescence. There was often a symmetry running between Hammer’s output and what it was that genre fans the world over were watching, and with Paranoiac and the “mini-Hitchcock” the studio proved the value of that eerie harmony once again.

Shout! Factory’s Collector’s Edition Blu-ray arrives as a definitive version of the film, providing a significant upgrade in picture quality that emphasizes the gorgeous craftsmanship that director Freddie Francis and cinematographer Arthur Grant brought to the project. Bruce Hallenbeck’s new commentary is informative and fruitful and the inclusion of other respected Hammer historian’s Kim Newman and Jonathan Rigby’s perspectives provides viewers multiple avenues into the film’s thematics and context within Hammer’s rich history. Considering Paranoiac is one of Hammer’s best, perhaps most under-appreciated works, this release comes with the highest recommendation.

Hammer is most well known for its gothic horror, its vampires, man-made monsters and occult leaning exposes into atmosphere and the luridly macabre. During their reign the studio released more than 150 films, spanning multiple genres, creative voices and stylistic interpretations that show a versatility that the studio isn’t always thought to be associated with.

Freddie Francis often referred to Hammer Studios as “a magic box”, in reference to the straight-forward business-like way in which they prepared and executed films, on time and on budget. Still, he also acknowledged the other side of that coin, that when their machine was in place and running, they trusted those in any given position to do their job and to do it well. That is to say, their model included room for artistic vision, which is all too clear in a movie like Paranoiac, one of Hammer’s great thrillers.

Dealing with old manors, brooding psychopaths and psychosexual themes of incest and voyeurism, it may be difficult to see the difference between what is considered thriller and horror in the eyes of the studio behind such pictures. Perhaps the difference was in the packaging and the presentation, providing a viewer who might otherwise avoid a movie with Frankenstein or Dracula in the title an avenue into that most pervasive and subversive genre at its finest. Hitchcock had certainly figured out how to accomplish such a thing and, if Paranoiac was any indication, it seemed Hammer’s “mini-Hithcocks” had done so as well.

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Freddy Krueger was everywhere in the late 80s. It only made sense that he’d get his own show. But unlike Friday the 13 th : The Series, Freddy’s Nightmares would put its headlining star front-and-center. Introducing every episode and frequently participating in the plots, Freddy hosted a show that would explore the lives (and deaths) of the citizens of Springwood.

Much sleazier than its namesake film series and produced on a miniscule budget, every episode of Freddy’s Nightmares offered something interesting. Especially given that each episode was made up of TWO stories; the first twenty-minutes following one character’s “nightmare” and the second usually following a character who was present in the first story in a supporting role.

The two-tier approach actually makes the series a bit tricky to rank. Some episodes are good, some are…less good. But a lot of episodes have one half that is significantly better than the other which makes the subjective ruling of each episode’s merit even more dependent on taste.

With Freddy’s Nightmares now streaming on the Bloody Disgusting-powered SCREAMBOX streaming service, let’s get to the ranking of all 44 episodes of the 1980s anthology series!

44. The Bride Wore Red (Season 1, Episode 10)

A man thinks about cheating on his bride-to-be at his bachelor party and not much happens with that. Then, the bride explores her trust issues with men (caused by her adulterous father), but not much happens with that either. There’s some good nightmare imagery (scary masks!), it’s all stylishly shot and thankfully the bride is played by Diane Franklin so we care a little bit about what happens, but at the end of the day… not much really happens.

In an episode helmed by Robert Englund, two sets of scientists run into complications with their experiments; one has to deal with gangsters, the other with an animal rights activist. There are aliens and monkeys, but it just isn’t enough. Englund directs a much better episode in the first season.

42. Welcome To Springwood (Season 2, Episode 3)

We get two stories here that involve moving. The first sees a young couple realizing that their belongings have gotten mixed up with a serial killer’s. The second half is basically The Lake House (the Sandra Bullock movie) but not quite as entertaining. Everybody involved with this episode has done better work elsewhere.

Freddy’s Nightmares remakes The Omen which is cute, but first we have to sit through a guy dealing with his escaped-convict dad which is less cute. Biggest takeaway is that the main character is named Jack Burton and they say his full name throughout the episode which is crazy distracting.

A couple moves into the titular Loft. The wife Kim decides to make extra money by working on a 976 sex hotline, but a psycho begins killing women using her recordings as the modus operandi. This is fine, but the continuation where Kim becomes more and more like a character she’s writing loses steam fast.

More people go into the house from “Welcome to Springwood”. Is it haunted? No. But it IS filled with a bunch of weirdos. A bit slow moving, but half the characters end up getting thrown into a wall of spikes which earns the episode some points.

38. Mother’s Day (Season 1, Episode 8)

A boy throws a party at his new house, but its previous owner was one of Freddy Krueger’s last victims. Hijinks ensue, but unfortunately none of them have anything to do with Freddy. The second half follows a Radio Personality whose lackadaisical, mean-spirited advice comes back to bite her. Both segments are a bit too unfocused, forcing a Mother’s Day theme onto stories that don’t necessarily warrant them. Positives include a gnarly bit with a bear trap and the presence of the always charming Jill Whitlow.

An outlier for the series in that it’s set in the wilderness and it features a prominent non-Freddy monster (most of the villains in Freddy’s Nightmares are regular people). We spend a little bit too much time waiting for the characters to figure out what we know right away. None of it matters though, since the first half of the episode is a dream being shared between two marooned lovers who have to eat their dead coworkers to survive while waiting to be rescued. The second half is better than the first, but it never quite reaches being “good”.

36. Do Dreams Bleed? (Season 1, Episode 11)

Springwood has another serial killer on its hands (hilariously dubbed “The Springwood Chopper”). What could’ve been a very fun slasher-y episode mostly consists of everybody wondering if one kid who found a body is the killer (he isn’t). Dwight Little’s direction helps things, but it’s mostly just fine.

The series finale by default. Freddy’s Nightmares didn’t go out with a bang, but it doesn’t go out with a whimper either. The first half is the best as a woman enacts her years-planned revenge on the inmate who killed her father. The second half is the “just fine” story of a corrupt wannabe politician getting his comeuppance. Certainly not the best stuff, but engaging still.

34. Interior Loft- Later (Season 2, Episode 17)

Another couple moves into the loft, but they’re much more interesting than the last pair. An artist and his wife fake the artist’s death to make his work more valuable. Many twists follow, all of which work. In the second half, a fellow artist moves in with two girls and has trouble working his way out of his own web of lies. It plays out almost identically to the “Split Personality” Tales from the Crypt comic/episode. Huge improvement over the first “Loft”.

It’s the Brad Pitt episode. It’s hard to really take in anything else other than the novelty of Brad Pitt getting a burnt up, shriveled little hand and then later singing badly. Judging the episode on its own merits, it’s a bit on the confusing side in a not-so-fun way. The first segment ends with Brad Pitt looping back to the past and hitting his earlier self with a car, but then the second segment follows Brad Pitt and his wife dealing with marriage and baby problems as if that loop didn’t just happen. There’s some fun gory bits though and it has a VERY funny ending.

32. Silence Is Golden (Season 2, Episode 7)

A radio personality is tormented by a mime with mime powers. And in the second story the mime is just a normal guy (albeit a burglar) dealing with his own problems? Another case of Freddy’s Nightmares not making much sense. Still fun though and the first half is certainly memorable.

31. It’s A Miserable Life (Season 1, Episode 2)

A pretty basic episode elevated by Tom McLoughlin’s direction and an extremely solid cast (John Cameron Mitchell and Friday the 13th alums Lar Park Lincoln and Nancy McLoughlin). A teen working a dead end job gets shot and has weird dreams as he dies, then his girlfriend has to deal with Springwood’s nightmarish hospital. It all ends on a cool beat where her long-dead parents arrive to check her out, but things never get crazy enough to become memorable.

There’s a creature on the wing of the plane! And it’s…My Dad? Robert Englund directs a solid episode about a man being haunted by the ghosts of passengers who died because of his father’s cheap planes. Then a stewardess goes out with a passenger which, given the show, doesn’t go well. Englund’s camera is energetic and the performances are all great. Notably, the stewardess is played by Lezlie Deane who features in both Freddy’s Dead and Robert Englund’s 976-Evil.

29. The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Season 1, Episode 20)

A guy gets a job working in a sewer but he’s afraid of the dark. A video store owner shakes hands on a deal he doesn’t intend to keep and gets stuck in a never-ending cycle of nightmares. Both segments have some creepy imagery and the second has a chilling ending. Dick Miller is here too! Good episode.

Every now and then an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares comes along that makes it abundantly clear that 80% of the crew would end up working on Tales from the Crypt. For a show about a spooky nightmare slasher, it more often plays like a Shock SuspenStories comic. In this episode, we get a Sardonicus-esque lottery ticket buried with a dead body and a duplicitous wife who digs up her husband to get it. That’s just the first half though and then the episode…keeps going. But when it’s on, it’s ON.

27. Easy Come, Easy Go (Season 2, Episode 14)

A sequel episode to “Lucky Stiff” that follows the same woman as more suitors present themselves and the bodies pile up. This episode lacks the first’s EC Comics graveyard atmosphere, but it’s more successful on the whole because both halves are good. Great ending too.

We get to see Freddy’s Nightmares remake The Stepford Wives! This is very cool. We also get to see a kid do poorly on his SATs and deal with that… which is less cool.

Here we have a slog of a segment paired with one of the most fun in the series. First we watch a young Kyle Chandler and a college professor cope with alcoholism, fathers, and their military futures/pasts. There’s neat stuff, but it takes too long to get to the predictable reveal. Then, we see a corrupt credit score manager (played with great enthusiasm by Karen Landry) get pulled into the world of her computer. It’s pretty wild; even more so because the computer provides the segment with a film noir voiceover narration. It’s crazy and fun and I really wish the first segment could’ve matched that energy.

A former hippie is saddened that the youth of the day only care about money and business. Then a girl realizes she might have been adopted and that her birth father might have been a bad man…who wore a brown hat and a striped sweater. The first segment is more pointed than usual, straight up comparing young Reaganites to Nazis. And the implication in the second that Freddy used to run around getting all sorts of women pregnant is a fun bit of world-building.

23. A Family Affair (Season 2, Episode 19)

This is an Afterschool Special by way of Freddy’s Nightmares and it’s surprisingly effective. A man has an affair and, in trying to cover it up, loses both his wife and lover. The second story sees him trying to reconcile with his son (a young and extremely sympathetic Morris Chestnut) whose mother’s death has turned him to drugs. Things end tragically and even Freddy seems somber in the end tag. It’s all a bit on the nose, but it’s still heartbreaking.

Sometimes, if the style is strong enough, a memorable plot isn’t required to make something special. In “Deadline” we get a teen writing obituaries who ends up falling down some stairs and a girl dealing with survivor’s guilt after her friends die in a car accident. Those are fine stories. But what stands out more than anything is the stunning slow-motion sequence of Page Hannah (from Creepshow 2) running out of a burning car. It’s BEAUTIFUL. And it’ll stick with me long past some of the other episodes that technically had better ideas and better scares.

Eva LaRue plays a babysitter whose insecurities about being (formerly) overweight manifest themselves into one of the few creature makeups of the series. It’s all for naught though, because this ends up being a little girl’s dream. Then that little girl’s father switches lives with a criminal when he wishes his life was more exciting. But as that criminal, he’s dating the grown-up version of his daughter? It’s incest-y, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it’s VERY Freddy’s Nightmares.

We get one great Freddy story and one fine one. A photographer’s subjects are killed by Freddy during photo shoots, but the pictures are coming out great. That’s awesome! Freddy frames a guy for murder and then frames an FBI agent the same way. That’s not as awesome… but it’s set on Halloween, so that’s nice.

19. Saturday Night Special (Season 1, Episode 6)

Lisa Gottlieb (director of Just One of the Guys) gives us an episode that deals with a man lying to get the girl of his dreams and a woman who undergoes transformative surgery (via chisel) because she never gets the opportunities her beautiful roommate does. Both segments are pretty tight and both have fantastic climaxes. Death by Zamboni is one for the books.

Endings matter! Two fine segments are boosted tremendously by their endings: one a punchline, the other a twist. We follow a reporter with bad grammar looking for a hot story in Springwood and an amnesiac who pieces his life together with the help of his family. William Malone’s signature direction peeks through in a strobe-y birthing sequence (that features the Baby Freddy prop from Dream Child which had just come out the Summer before).

17. Prisoner Of Love (Season 2, Episode 21)

This one takes a bit to get going. Slowly building up the love affair between a chaplain and a prisoner on death-row and then two escape attempts (one of which goes horribly wrong). It all pays off in the second half with some pretty great scares. There are some stellar performances here and a great downer ending.

16. Rebel Without A Car (Season 1, Episode 9)

The first segment here is interesting because it’s a complete retread of the first segment in “It’s a Miserable Life”. A teen boy working at Beefy Boy Burgers feels trapped there and ends up dead. They even mention the kid from the other episode. What’s interesting is that it’s done way better here. The second segment tops them both though with a sorority that accepts a pledge just so they can make her life hell. She kills them all and it’s great. John Lafia of Child’s Play 2 fame directs this one and he directs it well.

15. Dream Come True (Season 2, Episode 1)

Season 2 Freddy is noticeably different from Season 1’s more jovial “I just wanna have fun” Freddy. In Season 2, he’s more deliberate. While he enjoys having a reputation, he often targets anybody who tries to prove his existence. He’s also more omnipresent. Although the residents are unaware, Springwood is under his control. Here he hunts down a psychiatrist who’s trying to publicly cure one of Freddy’s targets on the “Springwood Confidential” show, then he comes after a cameraman who’s trying to capture footage of Freddy. Both stories work well.

14. What You Don’t Know Can Kill You (Season 2, Episode 13)

A hypno-therapist can hypnotize anybody to do anything and he goes to great lengths to cover up a horrific crime. This is a good plot. The survivor of the first story is blamed for the murders and his girlfriend gives him plastic surgery to look like someone else. Unfortunately, that someone is set to be assassinated by the mafia. This is also a good plot. Two good plots make for a very good episode.

13. The Art Of Death (Season 1, Episode 18)

A young man’s drawings come true! A fun stock premise aided tremendously by Judd Omen’s incredibly peculiar performance as “The Phantom”. Following the format of “It’s a Miserable Life” (which seems to be the blueprint for many episodes), the second segment follows the love interest dealing with her trauma. Like “Rebel Without a Car” though, they’ve improved on the original significantly, using the character’s claustrophobia to good effect.

12. Dreams That Kill (Season 2, Episode 11)

A direct follow up to “Dream Come True”, this episode plays out largely the same way with Freddy tormenting the new host of “Springwood Confidential”. This segment has a creepier ending though and the second half is more interesting with a young man inheriting the talk show host’s dreams after an experimental brain surgery. This episode features the most shocking bit of violence in the show when Freddy uses his glove to rip out a man’s tonsils and then shoves his arm up the man’s anus. Absolutely insane they filmed that.

It turns out that being obsessed with Freddy Krueger doesn’t lead anywhere good. Who would’ve thought. One thing that’s blatantly obvious in the show that’s usually only subtext in the movies (outside of the remake) is that Freddy really was/is sexually attracted to some of these young girls. It’s a frightening (usually under-played) element so to show it so blatantly here is jarring. The ending, where we see Freddy make out with Caitlin at a Lover’s Lane-type location and then cut to her dead, mangled body back at home being zipped into a body bag is one of the most chilling moments in the entire franchise.

Two track rivals are faced with a pendant that makes their wishes come true in an episode that feels a lot more like an episode of Friday the 13th: The Series. Thankfully, Friday the 13th: The Series is very good and under Mick Garris’s direction we get an episode with a bit more scope than usual (Tracking Shots? Background Actors?!) And for a show with a lot of bonkers ideas and visuals, Lori Petty getting decapitated by a finish line ribbon is certainly one of the most bonkers.

9. Judy Miller, Come on Down (Season 1, Episode 5)

One of the cooler things about Freddy’s Nightmares is that the whole town exists in a sort-of nightmare world. Because of this, it can genuinely be hard to tell what’s real and what’s a dream (even more so than in the movies). The first half of “Judy Miller, Come on Down”, which features a horrifying gameshow, takes advantage of this and it makes for one of the very best segments of the show. The second half, where Judy’s future self warns her that she’s going to murder her husband, is perfectly fine but a bit of an afterthought.

8. Freddy’s Tricks And Treats (Season 1, Episode 4)

Season 1’s Halloween episode is awesome. Mariska Hargitay is a med school student who’s tormented by Freddy while everybody else is out partying. We get lots of Freddy, lots of Dream World shenanigans, the boiler room, Halloween flavor, and some kooky effects; the first episode penned by Gilbert Adler and A.L. Katz is very much an ideal episode of the show.

The first segment is good. We get a funny reminder that you shouldn’t tell someone you love them when you don’t mean it. Second segment is GREAT. A guy has to work at a pizza parlor to raise money for a vacation with his friends, but he has to work with his cousin who may or may not be making the pizzas out of something…icky. Jeffrey Combs plays the cousin and he gives the role everything he’s got. Maybe the most re-watchable segment of Freddy’s Nightmares.

6. Dust To Dust (Season 2, Episode 20)

Far and away the funniest episode. The survivors of “Prime Cut” are now recovering cannibals. They even go to a group (apparently Springwood has dozens of recovering cannibals). They slip and eat a home intruder, but things go crazy when they realize he had been contaminated by an alien lifeform. Filled with great one-liners (“If God didn’t want us to eat people, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat”) and an insane second half that somehow contains a really solid Gloria Swanson impression, this is Freddy’s Nightmares taking a swing and knocking it out of the park.

5. The End Of The World (Season 1, Episode 12)

This episode is incredibly silly, incredibly clever, and justifies Freddy’s Nightmares’ format in spades. The first segment sees a teenage girl realizing that she can go into the past via her dreams and affect the present. Nice. That’s a good, solid idea. The kicker comes in the second segment when the U.S. Government sees the vast potential of this power and uses her to prevent nuclear war. What? That’s incredible. Freddy’s Nightmares often ran into trouble when one of its stories came to an end and the episode just…kept going. But this… THIS is why it’s a special show. Also, George Lazenby is here which is insane.

4. No More Mr. Nice Guy (Season 1, Episode 1)

Probably the only hot take of this ranking. Fans of the show might put the Tobe Hooper-helmed pilot at the #1 spot and there IS a lot of good in it. The first half gives us a semi-canon recounting of Freddy’s trial and death, complete with a great fire stunt. The second half then follows the police officer who lit Freddy on fire as he has strange dreams which culminate in a death by way of Freddy’s suped-up dentist glove. Hooper makes some neat directorial choices like always obscuring Freddy’s face while he’s alive and he successfully establishes the tone for the rest of the show. It’s genuinely great television. A couple of episodes just had a bit more going for them.

3. Do You Know Where Your Kids Are? (Season 2, Episode 10)

Freddy’s Nightmares does When a Stranger Calls! And it’s really good! The Omen-ripoff baby from “Bloodlines” has been adopted by a family that keeps her locked in the basement. We also find out that one of her birth parents is in a lunatic asylum and the other was a nun that killed herself (that sounds familiar). Lisa, the babysitter, doesn’t know any of this and becomes more and more uncomfortable as the night goes on. The second story builds on the first very well as we focus on Lisa’s mother. The best non-Freddy episode.

2. Sister’s Keeper (Season 1, Episode 7)

With a little finagling, this episode could’ve worked as a feature-length ANOES. The twin daughters of the man who killed Freddy are terrorized in their dreams. But when one of them gets hurt in their dreams, the other wakes up with the injuries. There’s A LOT to love here. Return of the Living Dead Part II’s Ken Wiederhorn brings a lot of style to the episode, Freddy hits Nightmare 3’s balance of silly/menacing, there’s a great take on the arm stretch gag from the first movie, and one of the girls’ friends is played by a future Pussycat Doll. It’s the series at its most iconic.

1. It’s My Party And You’ll Die if I Want You To

This episode is just pure fun. A woman pretends to be a medium for lost spirits but then Freddy possesses her so he can kill in the real world. Then in the second half, Freddy goes to his High School reunion to kill off the nineteen people who showed up (half of the 300+ person graduating class have died in mysterious accidents). There’s so much to love here. Gwen Banta’s performance as the woman who gets possessed is full-on dedicated camp and then there’s so much carnage: A throat is slit, arms are cut off, a still-beating heart is ripped out. The only survivor is a goofy nerd named Howard Nehamkin who was the only kid who hung out with Freddy in high school. The episode ends with Howard creating a successful movie series based on Freddy’s story.

This probably should have been the series finale. A fitting bookend to this wonderful and utterly bizarre series.

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