Editorials
DIEting with Freddy! Mother-Daughter Relationships with Food & A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
The pursuit of perfection through children is a dangerous parenting method, one that can ultimately leave a child battling for their life. This is especially the case when it comes to food and the possible development of eating disorders. Weight for young people is a sensitive topic and should be treated as such within the family unit. While The Dream Child is one of the least watched in the franchise, it stands as a clear example of how parents manipulate their children through food control. Despite the fact that this film was released in 1989, it serves as an indicator of how much further we have to go to ensure parents today do not make these same mistakes.
The Elm Street franchise has dealt with parental abuse in its myriad forms. Sexual assault, physical abuse, neglect, manipulation, and control flood the series. In several cases, Freddy uses teens’ fear of their parents to murder them. Remember Carlos from Freddy’s Dead? Greta Gibson’s narrative, however, strikes a sensitive nerve in A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989). Like many young women, I grew up surrounded by diet culture in the home and at the grocery store. Prior to Third Wave feminism and the body positivity movement, we had been systematically raised with the mentality that thin is in and every other body is out. Priority was not given yet to young women’s mental and emotional health, who then brought toxic eating habits into adulthood, and sometimes, to their children. Generational trauma around food exists, and this trauma can manifest in eating disorders, self-harm, depression, and can lead to death. In The Dream Child, this is Greta’s fate, with her food demons personified in not only Freddy Krueger but her mother.
Trigger warning: eating disorders, parental abuse
A Window Into Complicated Mother-Daughter Dynamics
Mrs. Gibson is incredibly controlling of her daughter, particularly her eating habits. Within the first ten minutes of Dream Child, Greta is scolded mid-lick of a lollipop. Like a sniper, Mrs. Gibson spots her daughter. “Greta! That’s not what a cover girl puts in her body!” The mother-daughter dynamic is further explained in Greta’s final scene.
While at dinner, surrounded by ogling strangers, Greta becomes fed up with her mother’s omnipresent gaze and comments about her body. Greta’s friend had just been killed by Freddy Krueger. Still, it is business as usual for Mrs. Gibson, who is trying to land her daughter a modeling contract. “People are always mistaking us for sisters!” she tells a guest. Greta is treated as an extension of herself. “Greta certainly has the perfect body for modeling,” a sleazy guest states. When unreceptive to a subsequent modeling offer, Mrs. Gibson tells Greta to show gratitude. “One of my friends died yesterday, mother. Do you mind if I take a few hours off to remember him?” Greta asks. “But we’re having a party dear!” Suddenly, a dream sequence commences, and Greta is about to endure one of the most gruesome deaths in the Elm Street franchise.
The Devastating Impact of Diet Culture
Greta refuses food. The table gasps, and everyone turns to her in disbelief. “Aren’t you eating?” Mrs. Gibson asks with feigning concern. “I really don’t feel up to it.” “Really, dear, you ought to try something,” Mrs. Gibson politely demands in a way only a mother could. Greta is incensed, “You’re the one who’s always slapping my hand about my weight, mother.” “That’s why we diet, dear,” explains Mrs. Gibson, “so we can eat at social events and not upset the other guests.” Mrs. Gibson uses her daughter as an extension of youth and beauty. She has tethered herself to Greta, manipulating her eating patterns to suit her image – “That’s why we diet, dear.”
The Link Between Parental Control and Eating Disorders
In an article for Psychology Today (2017), author S.M. Schmitt explains that when mothers fear they cannot control their daughters’ behavior, their daughters’ eating habits show more restriction, and they exhibit greater dissatisfaction with body image. “This relationship was even stronger in mother-daughter pairs that are highly dependent on each other.” Greta and Mrs. Gibson seem to be the only ones in the household, with no other children or father. Greta is then at the mercy of her mother’s control, and perhaps much of Greta’s backstory was left on the cutting room floor. “Tell you what,” Greta fires back from across the table. “Why don’t I just eat the whole goddamn tray, go throw up, and come back for seconds, all right?” According to Eating Disorder HOPE, when mothers consistently comment on their daughter’s weight, these daughters are susceptible to extreme weight control behaviors such as self-induced vomiting.
Greta’s Tragic Fate and Freddy’s Role
Immediately after this exchange between Greta and her mother, I could not help but think of Karen Carpenter, particularly Todd Haynes’ Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987), an experimental short film depicting the rise and fall of Karen Carpenter, as a Barbie doll. Her death in 1983 after years of disordered eating brought widespread awareness of anorexia/bulimia. Greta has a room full of dolls, and she is effectively treated as one by her mother: unlike a child, a doll has no autonomy, and is whatever its owner wills it to be. Like Karen’s mother, Mrs. Gibson is severely manipulative and dominant over her daughter’s life, especially when it comes to food. I was surprised to learn that Greta, like Karen, originally suffered from bulimia. However, this was deemed too graphic for the film’s final cut. Instead of being force-fed, sliced open, and forced to eat the contents of her stomach, Greta’s porcelain doll is dissected in her place. Freddy forces its squishy insides into her mouth. “Bon appetite, Bitch. Filet-a-Barbie!” The force-feeding begins. Greta’s face becomes engorged with food as guests and Mrs. Gibson laugh. Mother chimes in between screams, “Don’t talk with your mouth full, dear.” We then see Greta, back in reality, choking. Her mother sees her convulsions across the table and looks irate. To her disbelief, Greta drops dead.
After Greta’s death, Mark, who was in love with Greta, bluntly states “Well, maybe it was her mother who killed her… with all that Polly Perfect shit.”
Lessons from The Dream Child on Parenting and Eating Disorders
The pursuit of perfection through children is a dangerous parenting method, one that can ultimately leave a child battling for their life. This is especially the case when it comes to food and the possible development of eating disorders. Weight for young people is a sensitive topic and should be treated as such within the family unit. While The Dream Child is one of the least watched in the franchise, it stands as a clear example of how parents manipulate their children through food control. Despite the fact that this film was released in 1989, it serves as an indicator of how much further we have to go to ensure parents today do not make these same mistakes.
It could cost your child their life and happiness.
The United States spent most of this year celebrating its 250th anniversary. There have been parades, fireworks, and endless reminders of what the nation wants us to think are its founding ideals. Yet anniversaries are as much about what we choose to remember as they are about what we choose to forget. There is another anniversary this year. Five years ago this month, Candyman was released. The fact that both that film and America are sharing an anniversary this year may have been an accident, but that makes it no less significant.
Released amid another national reckoning over race, Nia DaCosta’s film asks a question that every celebration of America ought to confront: Is it possible to commemorate this nation without fully reckoning with the violence woven into its history? More than a sequel to a horror classic, Candyman is a meditation on the ghosts that haunt America because it has never fully reckoned with the past that created them.
How the Original Candyman Confronted America’s Racial History
The original Candyman understood this. Released in 1992 and set in the almost post-apocalyptic urban decay that was Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, Bernard Rose’s film arrived only months after the L.A. Race Riots, a moment when this country was coming to terms with the way the country’s relationship with Black folks was shaped by decades of segregation and racism.
Most audiences saw a supernatural slasher about a hook-handed killer summoned by saying his name five times into a mirror. But beneath the horror was a far more unsettling story. Candyman was about the lingering consequences of America’s racial history and the way white America has sometimes turned Black suffering into myth instead of confronting the systems that produced it.
The film’s true horror was never simply Candyman. It was the realization that monsters can be born from histories a nation refuses to face. That is exactly where the 2021 film expands the original’s vision.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Turns One Ghost Into Many
Bernard Rose’s Candyman explored the legacy of a single act of racist terror. Nia DaCosta’s film argues that the tragedy wasn’t confined to Daniel Robitaille, the man who became the monster. The 2021 film posits that Candyman is not one man but many.
Daniel Robitaille was lynched for loving a white woman. Sherman Fields takes on the mantle of the supernatural slasher because he was beaten to death by police after being falsely accused of harming a child. Anthony McCoy ultimately becomes part of the same legend. Their stories span generations, but they are connected by a nation that repeatedly produces the same injustice under different names at different points in history. The genius of the sequel is that it transforms Candyman from an individual ghost into a symbol of America’s recurring racial violence.
Candyman Shows How History Repeats Itself
History, the film suggests, is not something that happened once. It is something that keeps happening. That is why Candyman is one of my favorite films to teach in my Film and Philosophy course.
Students walk into class expecting a horror movie. They leave wrestling with questions about history, memory, and justice. We spend little time talking about jump scares or gore. (Because, let’s be honest, there is not much of that in the film.) Instead, we ask why some histories become legends while others are forgotten, what societies owe their victims, and whether a nation can ever move forward without honestly confronting the violence that shaped it.
The Horror of Remembering What America Wants to Forget
A good horror film reveals what we fear. What makes Candyman great is how it reveals what we would rather not remember. That is what haunted me the first time I saw it, long after the credits had rolled.
Five years after its release, Candyman remains one of the most unsettling movies in recent years because the history it confronts is not safely behind us. The original film understood that America’s racial violence could not simply be buried, while the 2021 film showed how easily that violence can be reproduced across generations.
Its Unquestionable Legacy in Horror
As America celebrates 250 years, Candyman reminds us that commemorating the nation’s founding requires remembering all this country’s history, including the parts that make the celebration uncomfortable.
We cannot exorcise a ghost by refusing to acknowledge why it exists. Perhaps that is the film’s most important lesson. The past does not haunt us because we remember it. It haunts us because we don’t.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
