A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Review

 

I feel like this is the best the 1980s has to offer in terms of horror. Wes Craven has made himself the premier horror director with such hits as The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left and, Scream. Hell, he’s been dubbed the “Master of Horror.” With A Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s been considered one of his best and I declare it to be one of the best horror films in the 80s. SPOILERS will appear in the review.

1.      Story

For being an original movie, its premise is entirely unique. A young girl named Tina is chased by a hat wearing figure. She wakes up from the dream and tells her friends about it. Nancy played by Heather Langenkamp believes her and tells her that she’s been dreaming of the same person as well. Her boyfriend doesn’t played by Johnny Depp.

When Tina’s boyfriend Rod interrupts the get together in her house, is when we see just how terrifying Freddy is. Nancy thinks that Rod didn’t do it but, is promptly arrested by the police and her sheriff father played by John Saxon. Throughout the film, Nancy attempts to figure out who the killer is in the dreams and how to stop it.

The overall dream angle that the film went with is highly original. From what I could gather, Wes Craven read about a story that was covered in the LA Times. It said that a group of men that were refugees fleeing the South Asian countries like Vietnam were dying in the middle of the night. The only knock on those stories was they were never followed up. The new approach gave the slasher genre new synergy in terms of showing a new terrifying villain.

2.      Nancy

Nancy is the one that most people relate to. She reminds me of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978), just being the opposite of her friends. The overall vibe is that she doesn’t blow off what Tina experiences in her dreams. The moments where she is dreaming, and Freddy appears is just borderline creepy and weird.

The one shot that is my favorite is when she’s asleep, Freddy appears to warp reality and reach out of the wall to stare at Nancy. I love that shot and effect, since it’s just a wall of spandex fabric. It just shows just how far we’ve come in special effects, now everything has to be done in a computer.

When she is ultimately confronted by Freddy, she gets afraid but is ultimately prompted by the deaths of Tina and Rod to fight back. I love that she goes above and beyond to get a book about survival and setting up booby traps to stop the killer. It’s a first time I have seen that which, again reminds me of Laurie Strode when she fights back against Michael Myers.

3.      Freddy

If you had to make a choice between picking either Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees as the most intimidating killers in cinema. I would certainly pick Freddy. Played by Robert Englund he is the most intimidating villain and just the fact that you only see him in a dream or in this case nightmare makes him someone you really don’t want to see.

The whole background of him is just kept to a very minimum. When Nancy reveals to her mom the hat that she taken from Freddy during her dream, the mom completely tries to forget about the man. Ultimately, Nancy and us the audience are told about the background of Krueger. He was a child killer and the parents decided to burn down a building where he was as payback. From what can be inferred, Freddy is now back to get revenge.

The only time where we see a flashback of him is in the very beginning. We see that Freddy is assembling the iconic knife glove. It just works when we only need just a small bit of info of who exactly the killer is and to not have it elaborately drawn out. The sequels did that but I’ll talk about that in a little bit.

4.      Theme or What its Really About?

So what makes this one of the best Freddy Krueger film, since there only is three good ones but, this one takes the cake. Really, it’s just the themes that the film has that makes it really about something. What I mean by that is there are some movies where you follow the plot and that’s really it. Some films including this one has things where the theme is the central point of the film. By and large it is a slasher film, although it’s more than that.

It’s about the sins of the father. Meaning that when the character’s parents killed Krueger, the kids are unfairly punished. The actions of what the parents did caused Nancy’s friends and boyfriend to be killed since the killings are interpreted as payback. Another example is just growing up as a teenager with sex being the main thing. Though, when Freddy appears it happens when something sexual happens. It’s small but it’s something that I found out.

5.      Legacy or how to turn an intimidating icon to comic relief

Originally, the film was supposed to be a happy ending where Nancy and her friends drive off. The studio execs at New Line Cinema had other ideas by stating that they want a twist ending. Which had Nancy riding with her friends, but the car has control of itself and her mom being grabbed by Freddy. What followed was a nine-movie franchise which included a reboot. As well as a tv show with Freddy as a host.

They made Freddy from an intimidating villain to comic relief. Freddy would sometimes crack jokes or find hilarious ways to kill the teenagers in the dreams in the succeeding sequels. Wes Craven decided to make one more Freddy movie with New Nightmare. I will review that next year, but I believe that it was the first film to be a meta horror film. Meaning it’s self-aware.

Of course, Freddy ultimately fought Jason in their movie Freddy vs. Jason, it was cooky and silly which I think was the point and is a product of the early 2000s. For some reason, the character had to be rebooted in 2010. It’s a remake but wasn’t that good critically. I think that properties from the past should just be put to rest since if there’s an updated take, it would prompt curious viewers to find the superior take on the character.  

6.      Overall

A Nightmare on Elm Street is easily one of the best horror movies to come out when it did.  It saved New Line Cinema from going under financially and is universally regarded as Wes Craven’s best film. I think its simple approach and the killer is what makes the film beloved to anyone who wants to take a look at it. They’ll probably get bogged down by the quality in the sequels but can at least appreciate this one. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street gets a four out of five.