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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Don't Go To Sleep!
Directed By: Wes Craven
Starring: John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp, & Robert Englund
MPAA Rating: “R”
Starring: John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp, & Robert Englund
MPAA Rating: “R”
A Nightmare on Elm Street is now best remembered for introducing the quick-witted Freddie Krueger and starting a long line of sequels. However, what most people forget is that the Freddie Krueger that Wes Craven introduced is a brutal, terrifying monster that is not humorous or fun. It’s sad to see his face pressed onto lunch boxers, t-shirts, and even a television show. Krueger just isn’t scary anymore. Oh but he was in 1984 when Wes Craven first unleashed him onto the world. If Halloween (1978) reveled in suspense and Friday the 13th (1980) reveled in oversexed teens being massacred, then A Nightmare on Elm Street revels in slick visuals, horrifying special effects, and creativity. This movie will have you staying up late, afraid to go to sleep.
Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) is a beautiful young woman who is terrified when her best friend, Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss), is brutally slashed to death during a sleepover. Everyone assumes that the killer was Tina’s boyfriend, Rod (Nick Corri), who was in the room with her at the time, but insists that it was really an invisible assailant. Nancy’s nightmare continues when she discovers that she and all of her friends, including Tina, have been having nightmares about the same disfigured man who wears a red and green sweater and a glove with four blades for fingers. As Nancy’s friends begin to die, she comes to the realization that someone is killing them all in their dreams. That person is Freddie Krueger, a child killer who was brought to justice when a group of parents burnt him to death in a boiler room. Now, he wants revenge on the children of Elm Street!
What is there not to like about A Nightmare on Elm Street? It’s smart, directed with creativity, and one of the few films that still remains scary all these years later. This is the film that really jumpstarted the career of Wes Craven. After such films as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, Craven steps away from the lower-budgeted, point-and-shoot films of the seventies and really embraces eighties’ approach to style. The musical score (by Charles Bernstein), the novel use of shadows and sinister angles, and the exceptional special effects all show that, while Craven may have been able to tackle disturbing material earlier, he now understands how to do that and make it look good. A Nightmare on Elm Street is as visually-impressive as it is scary and creative. Craven takes a risk by tackling plenty of really difficult material for the time (i.e. the blood geyser) and yet it all looks great.
Heather Langenkamp may not be Jamie Lee Curtis, but she makes for a sympathetic heroine and the perfect opponent for Freddie Krueger. If he is the epitome of evil, she is the epitome of purity. The struggle between them is one that resembles those seen in Halloween and Friday the 13th, except Langenkamp’s character of Nancy cannot escape; she has to sleep some time, after all. Her situation is so desperate and that is what makes A Nightmare on Elm Street even more frightening. We all have to sleep and the film poses an intriguing question about this normal practice: how do we know that our dreams are fake? How do we know that, when we escape some source of terror in our dreams, we aren’t escaping actual death? A Nightmare on Elm Street poses this question and then runs with it to amazing results. You will never want to sleep again!
Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) is a beautiful young woman who is terrified when her best friend, Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss), is brutally slashed to death during a sleepover. Everyone assumes that the killer was Tina’s boyfriend, Rod (Nick Corri), who was in the room with her at the time, but insists that it was really an invisible assailant. Nancy’s nightmare continues when she discovers that she and all of her friends, including Tina, have been having nightmares about the same disfigured man who wears a red and green sweater and a glove with four blades for fingers. As Nancy’s friends begin to die, she comes to the realization that someone is killing them all in their dreams. That person is Freddie Krueger, a child killer who was brought to justice when a group of parents burnt him to death in a boiler room. Now, he wants revenge on the children of Elm Street!
What is there not to like about A Nightmare on Elm Street? It’s smart, directed with creativity, and one of the few films that still remains scary all these years later. This is the film that really jumpstarted the career of Wes Craven. After such films as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, Craven steps away from the lower-budgeted, point-and-shoot films of the seventies and really embraces eighties’ approach to style. The musical score (by Charles Bernstein), the novel use of shadows and sinister angles, and the exceptional special effects all show that, while Craven may have been able to tackle disturbing material earlier, he now understands how to do that and make it look good. A Nightmare on Elm Street is as visually-impressive as it is scary and creative. Craven takes a risk by tackling plenty of really difficult material for the time (i.e. the blood geyser) and yet it all looks great.
Heather Langenkamp may not be Jamie Lee Curtis, but she makes for a sympathetic heroine and the perfect opponent for Freddie Krueger. If he is the epitome of evil, she is the epitome of purity. The struggle between them is one that resembles those seen in Halloween and Friday the 13th, except Langenkamp’s character of Nancy cannot escape; she has to sleep some time, after all. Her situation is so desperate and that is what makes A Nightmare on Elm Street even more frightening. We all have to sleep and the film poses an intriguing question about this normal practice: how do we know that our dreams are fake? How do we know that, when we escape some source of terror in our dreams, we aren’t escaping actual death? A Nightmare on Elm Street poses this question and then runs with it to amazing results. You will never want to sleep again!
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