VeganMoFo: Nightmare On Elm Street
Gawd, little girls in white dresses are creepy. Maybe this is why Catholics scare me so much?
I don’t think there is a horror series that I love/loathe more than Nightmare On Elm Street. The loathing comes from the fact that Freddy was taken from terrifying, to scary yet funny, to a total fucking cartoon. After the fourth one, my enjoyment of the movies goes down faster than a $20 hooker. Just thinking of the power glove scene from Freddy’s Dead makes me want to cover my face in shame. I love it because I find most of the elements genuinely scary. The little girls, the boiler room, Robert Englund himself scares me, with or without the burn victim makeup.
Obviously the first film is the best, but for the purpose of this post i’m focusing on my personal favorite, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. I think it’s my favorite because it’s the first one that I was old enough to remember when it first came out on video, and we got to rent it. Freddy is still scary but a little funny and much more talkative (in the first film he is mostly just creeping around in the shadows, making you pee your pants). Also, this is the first movie where the writers seemed to realize, “Hey, these are dream deaths, we can kill these kids with anything in any way we want!” Thirdly, this movie explains a little bit of Freddy’s back story, and I loves me some back story. And finally, unlike most horror movies where there’s one person left standing, quite a few of the characters live to make it through to the next movie. Horror movie fans don’t often get recurring good guys/gals.
Plus this was still when movies had cool posters, instead of the cast awkwardly photoshopped together!
Freddy Krueger is a monster who used to be a child murderer, until a bunch of angry parents burned him alive. For some reason that’s not explained until the six movie (and it’s stupid as hell), Freddy is able to bounce around in people’s dreams and kill them, and he decides to get his revenge on the parents who burned him by murdering only their children. Pretty much never the adults themselves. In the first movie, a girl named Nancy defeats Freddy (and the second movie is about the family who moves into her house, none of those characters are even discussed again). In the third movie, the last of the Elm Street children are being terrorized by Freddy, and they all end up in the loony bin for various reasons related to being stalked by Freddy. And surprise, Nancy is the newest staff member and the only person who knows they’re telling the truth! The real nightmare is that they have to sit around and talk about their feelings.
Most of the people in this movie have a ton of bit parts and t.v. credits under their belt, but the stand-outs are a young Patricia Arquette (Medium, True Romance), Laurence (Larry) Fishburne (The Matrix, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), and Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon from the original. And duh, Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, always (eff that remake).
When Dream Warriors came out it was the height of Freddy-mania, so not only did this movie come with a PC game that was so hard I still haven’t beat it, but a bitchin’ soundtrack.
If Dokken isn’t your thing, the next movie had an even better song!
Onto the menu!
Entree: Broiled Blackened Tofu from Appetite For Reduction, recipe posted below.
Side: What would Freddy make if he were vegan? Well, with those hands…probably steamed vegetable ribbons. Also since this is a pretty light meal, add in some grilled bread.
Dessert: In this particular movie, the teens and Nancy take Hypnocil to suppress dream activity, AND they use hypnosis to induce a group dream. So the clear answer here is hypnosis cookies!
Broiled Blackened Tofu, posted with permission from Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Spice Blend:
2 1/2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
Several pinches of freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
Everything else:
1 block tofu (about 14 ounces, pressed if you prefer), sliced into eighths
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp soy sauce
On a dinner plate, mix together the spice blend and set aside.
Adjust the broiler (if necessary) so that the baking sheet will be around 6 inches away from the heat. Preheat the oven to broil. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Poke each slice of tofu with a fork three or four times, to let the flavors seep in.
Drizzle the olive oil and soy sauce on the far side of the baking sheet, in a puddle. You’ll be laying the tofu onto the sheet, so just make the “puddle” area off to one side. Dip each slice lightly into the sauce mixture, enough to lightly coat each side. Then dredge in the spice mixture, pressing firmly to make sure the spices will stick. Place the tofu on the baking sheet in a single layer. Spray the tops with a little cooking spray.
Place the tofu in the broiler and broil for about 12 minutes, flipping once about halfway through. Keep a close eye on it; broilers vary from oven to oven and you don’t want your tofu to burn! The tofu is done when it looks dark and black in some spots. Thus the blackened! You can slice each piece into lengthwise strips, if you like. That makes for a nice presentation with the blackened crust and stark white interior. Serve ASAP.
posted: 11 October 17
under: veganmofo
