A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Stars: John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Heather Lagenkamp, Amanda Wyss, Nick Corri, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund

Director: Wes Craven

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-90's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

We are getting toward the end of our month, with just three films left after this, so it's worth noting that while the 1980's were dominated by slasher/horror films, the apparent bonanza of films were based off of 3-4 movie monsters getting endless sequels.  One of these figures, of course, is Freddy Krueger, who is the titular villain in Wes Craven's original horror show, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and our villain today.  The late Craven was one of the grandmasters of horror, making not just Nightmare in the 1980's, but eventually he would revive the slasher genre in the 1990's with the Scream films.  Nightmare is honestly one of the films on this list that I was most scared to visit, at least before I started.  It's genuinely a terrifying concept-a serial killer who can kill you in your sleep, so no one can remain safe forever-but while my fears were allayed (it was scary, but I wasn't petrified throughout it), it's a good movie, one that uses its concept to the fullest effect & it's easy to see why this spawned a cavalcade of sequels.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie initially starts with Tina Gray (Wyss) having a very vivid dream about a burned man in a knit sweater & fedora trying to claw at her, attempting to kill her.  The film is so real, in fact, that she wakes up with her nightgown slashed, assuming she must have torn it in her dream.  The film continues, though, with Tina realizing that all of her friends have also been having dreams about this guy.  We realize that this man is in fact harming people when Tina dies after he kills her in a dream, her blood splattered in all directions, and eventually our protagonist Nancy (Lagenkamp) finds out from her alcoholic mother Marge (Blakley) that this man is named Fred Krueger (Englund), a child murderer who was let off on a technicality...so the parents of the city decided to burn him alive in a form of vigilante justice.  After all of Nancy's friends die, we learn that Freddy is after her mother, and nearly kills her, until Nancy finds a way to stop him, understanding that he is driven by his victim's fear...which works until the last scene, where an idyllic scene turns out to be just a dream, and Marge is lunged at from a window while Nancy is driven away in a locked car.

The movie doesn't always make sense.  The adults are, even for a horror movie, mind-numbingly stupid, to the point where Blakley (who gave a performance for the ages in Nashville) has been mercilessly mocked for this work at midnight movie screenings ever since.  I get that Gen X was a very different time, but come on-a police officer hears a young girl screaming from a window and doesn't even care?  It feels far-fetched, and the ending also feels a bit silly, as there's no indication until Nancy's last moments with him that Freddy is fueled by fear, but instead seems just like a byproduct of revenge.

But taking aside the silliness of the plot, the film works.  Freddy is genuinely terrifying, and as played by Englund, largely unknowable while still eliciting frights, which is how the best slasher villains come to life.  The sound, visual effects, & makeup work are iconic-at one point one of the characters has a bed violently erupt in blood, and while it's not exactly high-tech in the year of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, it's very effective work.  Plus, Englund's look cannot be denied-there's a reason that Freddy is still a Halloween costume mainstay nearly 40 years later.  The film also introduced the world to Johnny Depp in his film debut (I'm not getting into it-let's just say it's undeniable he's been a pretty big movie star so I can't mention his debut without saying something).  Depp got the part thanks to his buddy Nicolas Cage helping him get the audition, but you don't see the future marquee star much here.  He's hot (the men in this film are far more sexualized than the women which is a nice change of pace, the most pressing example being Depp in a crop-top jersey that surely was noticed by every closeted gay teenager watching this film behind cupped hands), but nothing particularly special here like what fellow superstar Jamie Lee Curtis would clearly demonstrated in Halloween.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Village of the Damned, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, The Amityville Horror, When a Stranger Calls, Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead, Poltergeist