SHOCKtober Day 25

Over the last couple of years, I've really gotten a kick out of revisiting movies I haven't seen since Final Girl's nascent days, especially those movies I wasn't wild about the first time around. A few have remained firmly in the stinker pile. Even fewer have been added to the "I liked that? What the frig was I thinking?" pile. It's the "I didn't like that? What the frig was I thinking?" pile that far and away towers over the others now, though, and I love that. I ain't a-feared of changing my mind about a movie, especially if my new mind leans toward loving or, at the least, appreciating it.

I hope I get there someday about every Elm Street movie that isn't Part One or Part Three!

I do accept that even though it is a well-beloved franchise, the vast majority of the films that compose it are likely just not for me. That's okay! We all have movies that are critically and/or fan-acclaimed that we are not into, that we "don't" "get." But there is something in me--perhaps the part of me the digs the first entry, loves the third, and adores Nancy Thompson--that wants to embrace every installment of A Nightmare on Elm Street. (Side note, I think Wes Craven's New Nightmare is both rad and very good but in my brain place it isn't, like, a part of the franchise proper?) Well, who knows what the future holds.

Miss Cleo? Jeanne Dixon? Micki Dahne? Sylvia Browne? Dionne Warwick's Psychic Friends Network? Yes, all of them obviously, but you don't see them here with me right now, do you? That's because all but Ms Warwick are dead, but you get my point. (R.I.P. you con artist queens.)

Anyway, while chances are extremely high that I will never call A Nightmare on Elm Street my favorite franchise, it did give rise to one of my favorite characters...

MY BOOTLEG FREDDY KRUEGER CANDLE

Given to me years and years ago by a friend who would not tell me where he got it (so I assume a curse is involved somehow), this hunk of waxen perfection is a mainstay in my life. His beefy Twizzler worm lips and Chiclets teeth making that rictus of a grin! His eyes that I don't completely understand! I think he's so great and unlike the real Freddy Krueger, he will never burn.

No offense to Robert Englund, of course, but maybe if this candle starred in 2, 4, 5, 6...7? I don't even know how many Elm Streets there are!...then I would like them more already.