HALLOWEEN 2024 PHOTO BLOG: There’s a Third Time For Everything!
Featured Ray Gabriel Featured Ray Gabriel

HALLOWEEN 2024 PHOTO BLOG: There’s a Third Time For Everything!

If it wasn’t already fairly obvious, Halloween is a big deal here at the Dorkside. But even as someone who sure gets excited for this particular holiday, this year was perhaps the most excited I’ve ever been. Our daughter Alice turned 2 back in September, which means that she was 2 months old for her first Halloween and just over a year old for her second. This October 31st would be the first time where she could actively participate in the festivities, take in all of the costumes, walk up to doors for trick or treating, y’know really experience the whole thing. Our evening turned out to be a truly memorable one, transporting my wife and I back to as close to our own childhoods as we could possibly get.

Let’s take a look!

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A VERY SPECIAL HALLOWEEN 2024 BONUS: Freddy Night Videos
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A VERY SPECIAL HALLOWEEN 2024 BONUS: Freddy Night Videos

Oh hey, looks who’s back? Seems like you just can’t keep this guy down. As a bonus to the Friday Night Frights Nightmare on Elm St. marathon, I’ve compiled every music video I could find from the various installments in the series. There are 4 songs altogether and in my opinion the quality lands squarely in the 50/50 zone. I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Make tonight a Freddy night!

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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. (1984) “I’m Your Boyfriend Now, Nerd.”
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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. (1984) “I’m Your Boyfriend Now, Nerd.”

Well now, time sure does fly doesn’t it kids? We’ve finally arrived at the last installment of this year’s Friday Night Frights and we’re gonna wrap it all up with none other than the one that started it all: Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm St. The timing worked out perfectly as we’ve been counting down the mainline series from Freddy’s Dead leading up to the release of a special 4k blu ray which landed on my doorstep just the other day. That’s right, this year marks Mister Krueger’s 40th anniversary, the ruby anniversary if you will. And as I’m sure you all know, the ruby is a gem which is said to symbolize passion, loyalty, and devotion.

I’d say that sums up Freddy pretty well.

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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) “You Are All My Nerds Now.”
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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) “You Are All My Nerds Now.”

I have a theory that the first introduction you have to a long running film series typically will wind up becoming your favorite installment. It may not be the best one but it was your initial experience. This is the reason that Temple of Doom is my favorite Indy, Return of the Jedi my favorite Star War, E.T. my favorite E.T. and whatnot and so on and so forth, etc. What’s crazy is that as you get older, taste normally develops and totally shifts around, but not here though. No. A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy’s Revenge was my first taste of Freddy Krueger’s adventures and time has only poured concrete on it as the towering gold standard of the entire series for this particular fan.

Let’s do this thing.

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RETRO REVIEW: A Nightmare on Elm St. (NES, 1990) “Hey! You Forgot the Power Glove!”
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RETRO REVIEW: A Nightmare on Elm St. (NES, 1990) “Hey! You Forgot the Power Glove!”

I guess I couldn’t let our Dorkside’s 2024 Freddy ‘Fest (*tm) thing go by without bringing this up now could I? A Nightmare on Elm St. for the Nintendo Entertainment is a great, *cough* wonderful, *choke*…I mean, it’s a game that has been lumped in with LJN’s notorious track record of poor 8-bit releases based on movies. Only this one has the odd distinction of having been made by Rare; That’s right, the developers responsible for such stone cold classics as Donkey Kong Country, Goldeneye and the almighty Banjo-Kazooie are to blame for this one.

Please don’t make me play it again.

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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS (PODCAST) A Nightmare on Elm St. 3: Dream Warriors (1987) “Welcome to Prime Time, NERD!”
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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS (PODCAST) A Nightmare on Elm St. 3: Dream Warriors (1987) “Welcome to Prime Time, NERD!”

A Nightmare on Elm St. 3: Dream Warriors belongs to a highly exclusive cinematic club of quality third installments. And in this special podcast edition of Friday Night Frights, Rob and Ray are gonna break it on down! Please enjoy this oh so nerdy (not to mention oh so spooky) deep dive into Freddy’s Nightmares!

Click Here to Listen!

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HALLOWEEN 2024: Five Random Nightmare on Elm St. Trading Cards!
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HALLOWEEN 2024: Five Random Nightmare on Elm St. Trading Cards!

There’s this great little retro diner called the St. Francis Fountain located in San Francisco’s mission district (Try the Cilantro Chicken Soup, the best in the city). It’s like walking into another era with the decor primarily unchanged from what it must have looked like in the 50’s: Hat and coat racks attached to each booth and there’s an adorable little candy counter featuring vintage and sealed trading card packs (along with individual cards that can all be bought for dirt cheap). Well wouldn’t you know it, on a random recent misty afternoon outing we went in for lunch and they had a ton of Nightmare on Elm St. cards to wade through and I of course couldn’t help myself.

Let’s have a look at the only five singles I could find featuring Freddy himself (And yes, I love that three of them just so happened to come from part 2 and are in sequence!).

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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. 4: The Dream Master (1988) “You Can Check In, But You Can't Check Out!”
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FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. 4: The Dream Master (1988) “You Can Check In, But You Can't Check Out!”

If one were to rank all of these movies, I’d bet A Nightmare on Elm St. 4: The Dream Master would sit comfortably somewhere in the top 3 on most lists. Maybe even top 2. It’s arguably the most fun of them all, embracing a much more kinetic cinematic style, really cranking up the visuals and overflowing with an overall vision. It’s also just so 80’s, watching it now makes this one feel like the Freddy that comes to mind when you think about Freddy.

It’s kinda iconic.

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