LICENSE TO DRIVE (1988)

"I'm so dead, they're going to have to bury me twice."

Corey Haim isn't scared of no vampires or werewolves anymore!  Nope, his biggest fear now is failing his driver's license test and not being able to take out the supercute Heather Graham this Saturday night. His worst fears become reality though when he fails the test miserably and his parents ground him for lying about it. But then Heather calls asking about their date and yeah, you guessed it...he sneaks the car out to go pick her up. Things go good for about 10 seconds then everything goes from bad to worse, but in a highly entertaining way.

I love LICENSE TO DRIVE.  I've seen it hundreds of times and it's always a fun watch.  Often I'll just have it playing in the background as I'm doing chores around the crib.  Extremely fast pace that flies by, tons of great quotes ("Let's give her a cruise!!!"), Heather Graham at her hottest, Feldman casually slamming the shit out of his bicycle, the two Corey's at their peak, solid camerawork, great direction, seriously impressive cast, a tow truck screeching to a halt, a Leatherface sighting, great soundtrack.

LICENSE TO DRIVE is one of my absolute favorite 1980's movies.  It, no bullshit, ranks right up there with BACK TO THE FUTURE.  Mandatory viewing. If you need me, I'll be down at Archie's Atomic picking up some babes.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)

It's hard to believe, but once upon a time (long before the guitar gif, the video game scene, the 900 number, the Satanawful rap video, the cheesy one-liners, the sellout brand marketing or the soulless remake)...Fred Krueger was actually a serious character!

I'm sure you already know the story to this original horror classic (a child molester is cornered by a group of vigilante parents and burned alive..now, years later, the children are teenagers and he's back to haunt their dreams and kill them) and have seen it a dozen times, but what struck me the most while re-watching this film, for this review, is it's actually pretty dark and Freddy is kinda scary! I'm sure back in 1984 this movie was freaking mainstream audiences out!

That said, I'm still disappointed in Freddy's complete lack of sex drive, you would think that...since he was a fucking sex pervert...that maybe he'd still be trying to get his dick wet with some unwilling teenagers, but nope.  I'd love to see A SERBIAN FILM-style "reboot" of the ELM STREET franchise with Freddy being a total perv.

Anyway, even though it's kinda dated and the ending reminds me of HOME ALONE, I still love this movie and that's not just the nostalgic feeling of being raised in the 80's talking. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is a well made film and one of the most influential horror films of the 80's.

Required viewing for horror fans.

Part 2 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
Part 3 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Part 4 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
Part 5 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
Part 6 - Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Part 7 - Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Freddy vs Jason (2003)
Remake 1 - A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

That cat poster is dope.