Patreon Requests Update and Scripts!

Happy New Year, everybody! I have an update to how patrons can request episodes. Previously, I instituted a "one per customer" rule so that I would not have a backlog lasting years. Now I have decided to amend this rule to "one per year" instead. If you paid for a requested episode in 2017 or earlier, you are now eligible to request another at the $30 per video pledge level. I've had a few inquiries about this lately, and based on the demand, I finally decided to pull the trigger on this.

Left Behind and the Translation of God is nearly done. Expect it later this month. 

Without further delay, here are some scripts to some of last year's episodes:

THE FOUNTAIN

 AUDIO 1
 Why do we have to die? It's a question with answers in biology and religion. Answers that are steeped in inevitability and answers that ring with hope or even defiance. Darren Aronofsky's 2006 film The Fountain confronts death and declares that it is not something to fear but to welcome – which is easier said than done. Tom, a neurosurgeon, is trying to develop a cure for his wife, Izzi. She is writing a book – The Fountain – as a way for her to deal with her impending death and her husband's quest to save her. In the book, Tom is a conquistador in search of the tree of life, and she is her Queen, betrothed to him if he finds it. He describes his foe, the inquisitor, as someone who must be cut out – much in the way that the Tom in the present day must cut out Izzi's cancer. Figuratively, she is the tree of life – the object of Tom's quest. A healthy Izzi. A rejuvenated, resurrected Izzi. Queen Isabella's dress has a tree pattern, and she stands behind a border with a similar shape. Izzi dies, and Tom comes to believe that death itself is only a sickness, and where this is a sickness, there is a cure.   
 We jump ahead over 500 years, and Tom is still alive – perhaps the last man in existence. Tom of the future travels to the past, suggesting Izzi's story may be a memory of a past life. Their lives repeating in similar variations throughout time. He travels through space with a tree to a nebula in hopes of resurrecting Izzi and being with her again.  Another way of looking at the film is that when Izzi asks Tom to finish her book after her death, the future segment could be this final chapter: Tom writing out his grief and accepting his wife's passing. However, the first interpretation that this is a singular story most closely fits the narrative and has the least contradictions because Tom is shown to remember the past. But could it be possible that both interpretations are true – even though they contradict one another? Maybe this film, that stretches across space and time, can also stretch across reality so much that neither is true or both are true. Also, maybe the search for a codified narrative is less important – even inconsequential – to the search for more spiritual meaning. Understanding the film is not about placing one scene after another or anything so mundane. The Fountain is not so much a puzzle as it is a prayer.   
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 AUDIO 2
 In The Fountain, we see existence as cyclical – a circle. The story itself is a circle. When Tom dies and the Tree is resurrected, it creates their universe. The universe loops itself. When Tom travels into the past, he is referred to as First Father. Earlier in the film, Izzi tells Tom the story of the First Father from a Mayan creation myth. He sacrificed himself to make the world, much as Tom dies at the end to create  the world. The Tree of Life bursts from the First Man's stomach, which has literally to Tom in the past and figuratively in the future as Tom's death allows the Tree of Life to live again. In the myth, The First Father's head became Xibalba, and Tom dies in Xibalba, leaving a piece of himself there. The universe is cyclical. Death is an act of creation. Izzi says that her book begins in Spain and also ends there. We see Tom's tattoos in a scene in the future. He tracks time with rings around his arm, much like the rings on a tree that show the passage of time. When Tom flies towards Xibalba, we see a series of concentric rings. The spaceship itself is a sphere. And of course, the wedding ring: the symbol of commitment.   
 Remember: Tom loses it twice in the film. First in the past and then in the present. Future Tom recovers the ring from Past Tom because it completes the circle. He earns the ring. In the past, Tom loses the ring as he drinks the sap from the Tree of Life, hoping to live forever. In the present, Tom loses the ring during surgery instead of spending time with Izzi. This surgery is an experiment in prolonging life. So, in both instances, Tom loses the ring as he searches for immortality. Finally, in the future, he is worthy of the ring because he recognizes that death is part of life. His acceptance, his epiphany, allows him to wear the ring. To complete the circle. Tom is the First Father but also the Last Man in the universe. “The Last Man” – as a matter of fact – was the working title to this film. As the credits roll, stars begin to appear, showing the creation of a new universe. The Wheel is a common shape in eastern religious beliefs. The Wheel of Becoming is an ancient Buddhist symbol of the process of existence. At its centers are desire, hatred and ignorance. Past Tom's desire for eternal life, Present Tom's desire to save Izzi and Future Tom's desire for eternal life for both of them. The color is repeated endlessly in the film, connecting desire, the Spanish conquest and even “fool's gold” – coveting something seemingly valuable only to discover it is not.   
 AUDIO 3
 The rim of the wheel is divided into twelve that show birth, life, death and – appropriately for this film – reincarnation. Life coming from death. Death as an act of creation. Wheel iconography is common in Buddhism and Hinduism. Aronofsky has said that the shapes of the film show us the changing of society – and perhaps the progression of a single life. The past is a triangle – the pyramids. The present is full of squares – the uniformity of modernity. The future is the circle. This rebirth. This cycle. In the past, Spain is besieged by an inquisitor – a man who flagellates himself and condemns other to death for their apparent lack of devotion to the faith. He even condemns Queen Isabella for her apparent heresy. She believes that the Tree of Life exists in New Spain, meaning the Spanish colonies in the New World. The film rejects the inquisitor's worldview through his abhorrent behavior but also based on how Tom achieves inner peace and how he progresses through the story.   
 The Fountain takes a more esoteric and varied perspective on spirituality, a universalist approach, meaning one that encompasses many faiths. The Book of Genesis is referenced at the beginning of the film, but it is visually referenced again in less explicit terms later in the film when Tom meets a Mayan who guards the Tree of Life. Although the film does not mention this particular verse by name, this is a reference to the flaming sword that protects the Garden of Eden after the fall of man. There were two trees in the Garden of Eden. The more famous one is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve eat from it, and for this transgression, they are cast out of Eden. There is a second tree in the garden that receives less attention: The Tree of Life. It is suggested by the text that this expulsion from the garden was the reason human beings die. They no longer have access to the tree of life. Mayan mythology is connected to Judeo-Christian beliefs by having this man, who believes in the creation myth of the First Man mentioned before, is also the cherub with the flaming sword in Genesis. In some traditions, the guardian is Uriel, an archangel. This Mayan either is or represents Uriel.   
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 AUDIO 4
 At the beginning of his quest, the Queen tells Tom that when he discovers the Tree of Life, she will become his Eve, an overt reference to Genesis. However, it has another layer of meaning. Remember, Tom is not able to wear the ring in the past, thus not becoming Adam. He is able to wear it in the future at the very end. So, the Queen's words are prophetic. Only mean he truly connects to the tree at the end of the film does she become Eve, the first woman, and he can become Adam, the First Man, otherwise called the Mayan First Father. The tree is was based on Kabbalah's Sefirot, which depicts a kind of "map" of creation to understand how he created the world – again, another reference to creation from nothingness. The film tells us that the inquisitor's view of spirituality is both flawed and narrow whereas the universalist view holds greater truths. Tom is introduced to us through his eyes. He is shrouded in darkness. As the film progresses, he becomes closer and closer to the light. To his enlightenment. The film itself starts in darkness and ends with white credits.   
 Of his film, Aronofsky has said “The desire to live forever is deep in our culture. Every day people are looking for ways to extend life or feel younger. ... People are praying to be young and often denying that death is a part of life. ... But we've become so preoccupied with sustaining the physical that we often forget to nurture the spirit. So that's one of the central themes I wanted to deal with in the film: Does death make us human, and if we could live forever, would we lose our humanity?" Judeo-Christian beliefs are referenced in the film, and one tenet common in said beliefs is that death is God's limitation imposed on humanity, thus making it a fundamental trait of being human. However, the Book of Isaiah refers to a time in which God will swallow up death. Characters in the film refer to death as “the road to awe.” The answer to our everlasting questions.    
  AUDIO 5  
 Peter Matthiessen, a writer and a Buddhist priest once said that his ambition was to die the way a ripe fruit lets go of a tree. Death as creation –  the most prominent theme in The Fountain. Immortality is not a prerequisite for meaning or happiness. We are all going to die, and though that may be frightening, there is some solace that we are the lucky few who were able to live. The fact that it happened at all makes life valuable. In the film, Tom is too busy working on a nearly impossible cure for Izzi that he does not spend enough of her last moments with her. She wants him to come see the first snow of the season, but he says he is too busy. His intentions are good, but his goal is beyond his grasp. He does not accept that she is dying. Even after her death, Tom believes that death can be cured. The film does not answer why we must die. It instead only answers that we do and that an acceptance of this is necessary to living a full life.   

KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE

 AUDIO 1
 Kiki's Delivery Service is a 1989 animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Kiki, a thirteen year old witch, leaves home for the traditional one year to train and grow as a witch. She happens upon Koriko, a port city. While there, she earns money by creating a flying delivery service. Koriko has not seen a witch in a long time, and this makes Kiki's ability to fly completely unique to the city. She has trouble fitting in, stumbles in her deliveries from time to time, and this lack of confidence somehow removes her ability to fly or communicate with Jiji, her familiar. Eventually, a crisis strikes town: a derigible spirals out of control. Kiki is able to summon her flying powers to rescue her friend, Tombo. With her powers returned, her business flourishes, and she decides to remain in Koriko.   
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 AUDIO 2
 Kiki's Delivery Service drifts through the central concept of uncertainty. Uncertainty of the progressing world, uncertainty about growing up, uncertainty about traditionalism slamming into modernity. We face this right away. Kiki struggles with tradition vs. modernity in two ways: First, internally. She is a witch, and being a witch has certain responsibilities to tradition. Kiki decides to leave for her one year training – a tradition among her people – earlier than expected, defying her parents' expectations. Her reasoning is that the optimistic weather forecast claims that it would be the perfect time. Kiki struggles between her traditional witch upbringing and what she wants. Her mother insists that she wear a dark dress even though Kiki is more interested in the bright colors worn by children in the city. Second, externally. Kiki has difficulty assimilating into modern society. When she is approached by an enthusiastic boy, Tombo, she ignores him because he was not polite enough to introduce himself upon meeting her. Tombo remarks that this attitude is something that his grandparents might say. The people of the town largely trust her and are fascinated by her, but she interprets some of their stares and whispers as disapproval and mistrust.   
 Kiki represents traditionalism itself. Her sensibilities are antiquated, and as a witch, her entire life is a series of folk traditions. Kiki and Jiji comment on the crows, saying that they were once the subordinates of witches, but that was a long time ago. Kiki's time – the time of witches – is passing. Kiki's structured life as a witch living with her parents is immediately turned upside down when she leaves. The weather forecast on the radio said it would be clear, which prompted her to leave early, but not long after taking to the air, it begins to rain badly, forcing her to go to ground. Kiki is a witch, but that is just the narrative. The subtext is that Kiki is...tradition. She is the representative of tradition.   Kiki is the embodiment of earlier traditional thought coming into conflict with the uncertainty of the modern world. Her radio told her one thing. The world showed her another. She is accustomed to walking or flying wherever she wants. The world nearly runs her over on multiple occasions.   
 AUDIO 3
 She can fly, a trait unique to her people, and the world shows her the blimp. Although the time period is never explicitly given, certain events have the audience recall a time when modernity accelerated the real world: The Hindenberg Disaster in 1937. Tombo and his friends are all interested in aviation – a byproduct of the modern world, but they crash into this modernity in the form of the blimp. It takes Kiki, who thinks about the world in moral terms, to save Tombo and the town. Kiki must demonstrate how her folk traditions can have value in the modern world. The only time when contemporary society fails in the film, an older tradition must come to its aid. If there is a running theme in Miyazaki's films, it is his fascination and fear of the modern world. Technological progression and how to deal with it responsibly. This can be seen in a number of his films that challenge environmental problems, warfare and its effects on his homeland, and the growing role of women.
  The story of the film is that Kiki has moved from the country to the city to sell her labor, and this resembles – in a broader sense – populations moving from the farm to urban factories. The beginning of the industrialized world. Although Kiki may have difficulty assimilating into this new world – much in the way workers had to do this – she has no choice but to adapt. There is too many positives to the progression of society to believe that a previous epoch held a higher standard of living. This is kind of a myth that people who long days before civil rights movements and greater access to information like to peddle. Kiki knows better, and she is capable of creating her own business and integrating her ways into the ways of modern Koriko so that both she and the city benefit from their two cultures. Kiki's journey is called an “old custom” by her mother. She says that nobody leaves home that young anymore, a remark that suggests the witches' traditions are adapting to modern times too.    
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  AUDIO 4  
  Nature and civilization interact with one another in the film rather than oppose each other. Oneness with nature has long been considered part of the Japanese national character, but by the 1980's when the film was released, parents were concerned that there children were being lost to the urban sprawl and development. In the film, these fears are assuaged by showing that tradition and progress are not necessarily enemies and that traditions need not be so unwavering and stubborn. A desire for a return to older ways is an impossibility. Time moves forward, not backward, and you can either change and find a new path or get lost in the maze of change. There is a lot going on in Kiki's Delivery Service. Miyazaki's critique of materialism, for example. Simple goods and the people who make them are depicted positively and people who buy expensive gifts are portrayed negatively – spoiled – but not mean-spirited. Few in the film are because Koriko is a kind of utopia. Not a functional utopia like those written in the past – a system that keeps everything in order – but a social utopia in which people are naturally kind to one another.  
 But more than anything, the film encourages young girls to think for themselves, find something they love and pursue it. Most of Miyazaki's most famous works feature a young girl as the protagonist, a nod to the changing roles of women and the importance of encouragement. Kiki's conversations with her friend the artist, Ursula, inform the audience to follow their talent. Kiki says that her primary skill is flying, which leads her to her own business. Kiki's loss of her power coincides with her lack of self-confidence, and the return of her power coincides with both her confidence and her desire to help others. The future is uncertain, but change should not be so frightening that we should hide from it. 

PAN'S LABYRINTH

 AUDIO 1
 Pan's Labyrinth is a 2006 fantasy film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. Five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, a woman named Carmen marries Vidal, a Captain in Francoist Spain. Ofelia, Carmen's daughter, is visited by a fairy who leads her to a faun. The faun claims that Ofelia is a princess and must complete a series of tasks in order to prove this. As she does this, a doctor and a servant assist the nearby resistance movement. Carmen dies during childbirth. The faun tells Ofelia to bring her infant brother to him, but shortly before she gives him up, she begins to mistrust the faun. Vidal murders Ofelia, and the resistance fighters murder Vidal. The baby is safe with Mercedes, the servant. The faun was only testing Ofelia's morals. She passed and rejoins the King and Queen is a mythical realm.  For the uninitiated, The Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939 was fought by its government – a newly liberal republic – and the Nationalists, a military backed by fascists and the Catholic Church. The Nationalists won, and in the wake of their victory, created a dictatorship that historians calls Francoist Spain, named after its ruler, Generalisimo Francisco Franco. After the Nationalist victory, many Republicans were imprisoned and at least 30,000 executed.    
  Though, some calculate the death toll as much higher. Many others were forced into performing labor for the Nationalist government. Franco had close ties with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the early days of World War II, providing the Axis Powers with material support and cooperation but claimed neutrality. Guillermo del Toro once spoke of how Pan's Labyrinth and his feelings on fascism intertwine: “One of the dangers of fascism and one of the dangers of true evil in our world—which I believe exists—is that it's very attractive. That it is incredibly attractive in a way that most people negate. Most people make their villains ugly and nasty and I think, no, fascism has a whole concept of design, and a whole concept of uniforms and set design that made it attractive to the weak-willed.” Ofelia's encounters with supernatural monsters parallels the figures within the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain. Early in the film, she meets a fairy in the forest. She encounters it several more times before she confirms its supernatural origins. The fairy – living in the woods – helping Ofelia – is akin to the resistance fighters living in the woods, hoping to save Spain. That makes Ofelia the spirit of Spain itself. The spirit of freedom.    
  AUDIO 2  
  The giant toad the Ofelia meets is something else beneath the surface as well. It lives underground and feeds on the insects. It is massive, but it preys on the small – growing larger and larger while the insects remain small. It is defeated when Ofelia stands up to it. The toad is...inequality. Either social or economic. Immediately after the toad scene is the dinner scene to parallel in realistic terms what just had supernaturally. The Captain speaks of rationing food for the people of Spain due to a post-war shortage and then eat a huge banquet. In the same way the toad is taking life underneath the tree, the Spanish upper class is devouring its resources. The Faun is what the director called the attractiveness – the temptation – of fascism itself. The Pale Man, perhaps the most iconic figure in the film, is the Catholic Church. Franco's regime often used religion to further its goals and to make the military dictatorship appear more attractive and benevolent. The government held on to socially conservative Roman Catholic values and reversed years of secularization by the republic. Franco even enacted The Law of Political Responsibility which effectively transformed the Catholic Church into an extralegal body, granting the Church policing powers similar to that of government leaders. Divorce, contraception and women's reproductive rights were outlawed. The Church even took control of the schools.    
 For this, Franco was made a member of the Supreme Order of Christ by Pope Pius XII. The Pale man is the Church – blind until it is awakened – and then monstrous. Refusing to give even a grape to Ofelia. In other words, refusing to flexible or reasonable. When Ofelia takes the grape from the Pale Man, the monster takes this as an insult punishable by death, even though it still has so much left on the table. When the people of Spain allowed secular life as a viable option, this, too, was deemed as “taking” from the Church's authority. The director confirmed this in an interview: “When I was researching the movie The Devil's Backbone, I found the absolutely horrifying—not only complicity—but participation of the Church in the entire fascist movement in Spain. The words that the priest speaks at the table in Pan's Labyrinth are taken verbatim from a speech a priest used to give to the Republican prisoners in a fascist concentration camp. ... The Pale Man represents the Church for me, y'know? [He] represents fascism and the Church eating the children when they have a perversely abundant banquet in front of them. There is almost a hunger to eat innocence. A hunger to eat purity.” In the text of the film, Ofelia is the lost princess of a magical realm, trying to reclaim her birthright that she did not know she had.    
  AUDIO 3  
  In the subtext of the film, she is the missing republic of Spain – washed away by the Nationalists – trying to regain her home. In the end, Ofelia sacrifices herself to save her baby brother. If Ofelia is the spirit of Spain, then the parallel here is that the soldiers of the Spanish Civil War may have died, but their children will see a better Spain one day. The Francoist regime ended in 1975. There are others references to the regime in the film. When Ofelia encounters the Pale Man, she sees a pile of shoes, a nod to the close ties between Francoist Spain and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. [14:15] Captain Vidal's room is encircled by these gears – these unmoving gears. Vidal's father's watch was purposefully broken on the moment of his death. Vidal spends the film trying to make it work out. Vidal lives among these gears – these machines – and he works tirelessly to make the gears in the watch work. The visual of the gears and Vidal's desire to fix the watch tell us a lot about his character.    He forces the world into cold, mechanical motion.  
 He is, as Charlie Chaplin once said of such people, a machine man with a machine mind. This is made clearer when Doctor Ferrero – secretly working for the resistance – explicitly says the central theme of the film. A prisoner asks Ferrero to die so that he will not be tortured anymore. The doctor disobeys Vidal and allows the prisoner to die. Vidal, furious that Ferrero would disobey, asks him why he did it. Ferrero says that obeying, simply for the sake of obeying, is something only a man like Vidal can do. Vidal, representing the military under Franco in general, is like the watch – a machine – but he is also broken inside. The film makes us think about choices. Making decisions about what we believe is right over what we are told to do. Obeying or disobeying, and knowing when to do one or the other. It is no coincidence that the film contains a labyrinth, a visual representation of being trapped, making decisions and learning which way to turn. More specifically, Pan's Labyrinth has us wonder about obeying our government when its actions are as monstrous as the creatures in this film.    
  AUDIO 4  
 In philosophy, this concept is often called Political Obligation, the moral duty to obey one's government. In 399 BC, an Athenian jury found ancient Greek philosopher Socrates guilty of corrupting the morals of the youth. For this, he was sentenced to be executed. According to Plato's account, Socrates' friends arranged his escape, but he refused to defy the state further, arguing that to defy the judgment against him would be to break his agreements and commitments to his country. Whether this happened the way Plato claimed or not isn't really the point. The point is that this is an extreme example of agreement to a “social contract” with the state. However, some argue that political obligation only exists when the government is worthy of said obligation –  through a democratically elected government, the good behavior of that government and the reciprocal good will of the government towards its people. Also, blind obligation to the government raises questions about where their authority is derived. If it comes from the people, then the people have an argument for their own disobedience.    
  If government rule comes from divine authority, as some have argued over the centuries, then it is more challenging to argue against absolute control of the government. Those in power are aware of this and have used “divine right” as justification for control. It is not relegated to Kings of the past, though. For example, how many modern American politicians have made the claim that they are running for office because God told them to? [Santorum, Walker] Or invaded a country because God told them to? Isn't this simply a claim of divine right under different phrasing? Obedience and disobedience reoccurs several times in the film. Ofelia is told what to do and to ignore her fairy tales, but she embarks on a magical quest that may or may not be real. At the end of the film, after being cornered by the resistance, Captain Vidal asks them to tell his infant son...something, but he is cut off by Mercedes. She defies him. Disobeys him. Vidal's son will never learn about him. Ofelia's final act is that of defiance. The faun frequently tells her to obey over the course of the film, but in the end, she refuses in order to save the baby. Ofelia – the spirit of Spanish freedom – defies the faun – the temptation of fascism, as the director puts it. This temptation happens time and time again. Social critic and essayist H.L. Mencken once said “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” But a military dictatorship or fascist government does not offer safety for all – only for some. And it is in this selfishness and fear that these dangerous ideas flourish – even to this day. 

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 

 AUDIO 1
 If you follow horror movie news – like I do – you may have noticed a common think piece topic that has spread in the past two or three years: the rise of the “art house” horror film and how the genre is finally becoming philosophical, culturally significant and psychological. These think pieces juxtapose seemingly embarrassing 70's and 80's slasher movie tropes with the likes of The Witch, It Follows and The Babadook. All fantastic movies, by the way – enough that I have covered them all on this channel. However, there are a few problems with some of the conclusions that these articles reach. First, horror movies have always been philosophical, culturally significant and psychological. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the earliest horror films to have survived to this day. It's an important work in German expressionism and gives a lot of insight into the German citizens' relationship with authority – particularly military authority – following World War I. Nosferatu, released in 1922, tells us a lot about how fear of the outsiders – the other – was part of Germany's national conversation.   
 The difference between horror in the latter 20th century and horror in the 21st century is accessibility. The “smartest” horror films are more easily found due to the way technology has progressed and the fact that the manner in which we watch movies has changed. We can also communicate about the genre – and all genres – more than before, and this has lead to the sudden realization among think piece writers that horror movies can have deep psychological and philosophical roots. The truth is that for every movie like It Follows that challenges our relationships, there was a movie with some of the same connective tissue like Possession, directed by Andrzej Zulawski in 1981. For every claustrophobic, psychological horror like The Invitation, there was an earlier claustrophobic, psychological horror like Alien in 1979. For every movie like Under the Skin that ponders both humanity and more explicitly femininity, there is an earlier movie with comparable themes like Carrie in 1976. And so forth and so on. That does not diminish great 21st century horror movies, but it is important to understand that horror has always been the stuff of intellectuals as much as it has been the stuff of the grind house crowd.
 AUDIO 2
 The other element that these think pieces get wrong is that only now are the tropes of the slasher genre being challenged. When non-horror fans think of horror, their imaginations usually turn towards iconic horror characters – Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger – all three of them the antagonists of slasher movie series that became so popular that when many people think horror, they are really only picturing slashers specifically. Comparing The Witch to, say, Jason Takes Manhattan allows for the writer of the thinkpiece to mistakenly see a clear trajectory of so-called “lesser horror” to the modern arthouse scene. Although, this ignores the fact that slasher movies can be psychological and brilliant, AND it ignores the fact that these tropes of the slasher genre were challenged far earlier than the dawn of the new century and even earlier than the post-modern deconstruction of the sub-genre in Wes Craven's popular 90's horror movie Scream.   
 In fact, a much earlier Wes Craven slasher film challenged a lot of what people have come to think of when they think about slasher movies, that being 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street. Yes, even only a few years into the popularization of the sub-genre, the slasher movie started to both evolve and question itself. In 1992, film studies professor Carol J. Clover released Men, Women, and Chain Saws – a book that helped define the slasher genre in the popular consciousness. A Nightmare on Elm Street meets her criteria, of course, but what is more fascinating is how each criterion in the film subverts the more common usage. Let's go through them one by one. [Killer] The first is The Killer. Clover defines the killer as someone whose murders are often mixed up in sex or close relationships with their mother. She is mostly right – there are a lot of examples of this. Unfortunately, in the section about The Killer's criteria in the book, A Nightmare on Elm Street receives only one sentence, and it's a shame because Freddy Krueger defies some of the expectations we have for slasher antagonists. He definitely meets the qualifications listed: he is a murderer and a child molester. But he deviates greatly from the other most famous villains of his sub-genre: Leatherface, Jason Voorhees and Michael Meyers are all largely silent, almost animalistic killers whereas Freddy is comical, personally vindictive and creative.    
 AUDIO 3
 [Terrible Place] The next commonality of slasher films from the book is a Terrible Place. A haunted house, an isolated summer camp, etc. A Nightmare on Elm Street meets this criteria due to the dream world and specifically the image of the boiler room, but it also subverts expectations by having the vast majority of the film in a pleasant, idyllic town -- a boring, suburban neighborhood. The titular Elm Street gives the audience the feeling that this is actually not a “terrible place” but somewhere close. [Weapons] Next: Weapons. The book reminds us that slasher movie villains rarely use firearms, despite their efficacy. This is more for visual reasons and to heighten the fear in the audience. Knives and other sharp objects feel more primal, even though – realistically -- they are not as useful for a murderer. Freddy uses a claw to kill his victims, separating him other villains with more mundane, department store weapons like butcher knives and chain saws. Now, these are all deviations from the norm in which the subversion is aesthetic or creative.
 The next two slasher criteria deviations challenge the exploitative nature of the sub-genre – or at least the criticism of such exploitation. [Victims] Clover famously noted that sexual transgressors were most likely to die in a slasher film – and die early. This is true in A Nightmare on Elm Street, as the first victim, Tina, dies shortly after having sex with her boyfriend Rod. Although, Elm Street is a curious anomaly in the slasher sub-genre because of how little it shows in terms of sex. When Rod and Tina are together, we only see Rod's back from behind. No breasts. Nothing sexually graphic. It's also in a dark room. This famous scene is obviously sexually suggestive, but we never have a shot of Nancy naked. A Nightmare on Elm Street has more of a creeping, lurking sexuality – the threat of sex. Slasher movies tend to portray more women dying than men. There is understandable discomfort in this – seeing men brutalize women – but A Nightmare on Elm Street surprisingly only shows Tina's death. Subsequent deaths are men – unless you count this mannequin.   
 AUDIO 4
 [Shock] Shock. The slasher film, by nature, must be violent enough to shock the audience. … Yup. Fair enough. [Final Girl] Last but certainly not least, the final girl. Clover claimed that in these films, the viewer began with the perspective of the killer, but audience identification shifts somewhere in the film to the final girl. The implication is that the victims are disposable and that the only notable character is the villain until later in the film when the protagonist and antagonist face off one-on-one. While that is certainly true of many slashers, it does not seem to be true of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The characters are sympathetic – even Rod, who comes across like most crass teenage boys in the beginning, is deeply disturbed by Tina's death and terrified that he has been falsely accused. Glen, Nancy's boyfriend, is supportive and respectful. Nancy herself, the final girl, is clever, inventive and strong. She defeats Freddy by no longer allowing him to frighten her – by standing up to him. She does not win by cutting off his head of drowning him in toxic waste. She wins by pure will alone.
 Nancy is the final girl, but she is not ONLY the “final girl” – she is also the character with whom the audience should identify and relate. The shift never happens. We always identify with Nancy and never with Freddy. One could argue that he certainly becomes the true star of the film series in subsequent sequels, but in the original, we care about Nancy. Not Freddy. The shift does not occur. It does not need to. … In addition to all this, A Nightmare on Elm Street fulfills criteria for what the aforementioned think pieces want in modern horror. It is philosophical. While the seed of the film came from a newspaper article about nightmares and death, there is another more spiritual inspiration. Wes Craven, in the excellent documentary Never Sleep Again, confirmed that Freddy Krueger preying on the children of those who killed him is Biblical – a reference to The Book of Numbers, which states the God punishes not only the parents who sin but also their children and third and fourth generations. Craven was raised in a conservative Baptist home and attended Wheaton College, a Christian liberal arts college.   
 AUDIO 5
 Although Craven later rejected the faith he was raised in, he admits it creeps into his work. When a would-be victim sees Freddy, she prays “Please, God.” to which the murderer displays his claw, naming the violence she fears as God. To sum up, horror movies have always had a spark of intelligence, and slasher movies have been subverting popular expectations and challenging themselves since the early days of the sub-genre. Horror movies are going through a renaissance right now, but it's a renaissance more of popular opinion than of a sudden philosophical bent. The 80's and 90's had a lot of trash in the genre, but this “new era” does too. Don't misunderstand me. I am very happy that horror is getting a lot mainstream attention and thinkpiece articles that promote such great recent films. The more horror fans, the merrier. However, it's important to supplement this newfound interest in horror among film critics with some necessary history for context as well as appreciation and recognition of what horror has always been.