A Nightmare On Elm Street Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Rating: Instant fav

Themes/Genres: Horror, Human vs Supernatural, Gore/Slasher

Main Characters: Nancy Thompson, Freddy Krueger

Ah the 80’s, a great period for music, fashion, and especially… slasher movies.  Some of the best classics came from the 80’s, including my lifetime favorite, A Nightmare on Elm Street.  A movie that came out before I was even born but, just like Guns n’ Roses and leg warmers, still had a huge impact on my life.  So why don’t we take a look at what made it the instant-classic it is?

Right from its initial release, A Nightmare on Elm Street was a box office hit.  Not only was it credited with completely revitalizing the horror genre, with huge impacts on the slasher genre specifically, it was an instant success, spawning several sequels, a TV series, a crossover with the other horror giant at the time Friday the 13^th, and a remake in 2010.  Even with some very 80’s campiness that certainly didn’t hold up over time, the movie still holds a 7.5/10 on IMDb and remains a favorite among many.

It’s certainly mine.  Until The Ring came out, Freddy was my personal, unchallenged horror movie favorite and will always hold the title of childhood favorite.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Nancy Thompson and a group of friends are hanging out one evening after they have a particularly frightening, and similar, dream one night.  What starts out as a normal night of 80's teen shenanigans, turns into a blood-soaked nightmare by the early hours of the morning when one of the girls is slaughtered mercilessly by an invisible man in front of her horrified boyfriend.  By morning, the police are after the boyfriend but it's clear to Nancy that there's more to the story, especially when she falls asleep in class and, following the bloody body of her dead friend, she meets the killer herself.

Nancy then has to try to solve the mysteries of the burned dream killer and find a way to defeat him before she and her remaining friends meet the same fate.  The line between reality and dreams becomes blurred but Nancy is determined to find the answers… because one, two, Freddy’s coming for you and if she doesn’t wake up screaming, she won’t wake up at all.

The music and sound effects in this movie are enough to send chills down people’s spines every time they hear for years to come, even coming with its own kid’s jump rope song for an extra little addition that you won’t realize the significance of until later on in the movie.  The theme song, itself, is beautifully crafted and the opening scene of the movie is a grand setup for the overall atmosphere of the movie.  It sets a movie that knows how to create suspense, something horror movie directors are still struggling to do even nowadays.

(Though the goat still confuses me.  Why goat?)

Then you meet the unfortunate victims of this setting.  Just an unsuspecting group of teenagers, one being the heroine of our story, Nancy Thompson.  She’s a relatively level-headed girl who just wants to help a friend feel better, but turns into a survivalist badass by the end of the movie, set on destroying the thing hunting her friends, even if she has to face down her own parents to do it.  Three, four, better lock your door.  When it becomes clear that her parents know a lot more than they’re letting on about the killer, she demands answers and looks for them however she can.  Even when she’s the only one of her friends left and everyone’s pegged her as crazy, she still keeps an eye on what has to be done and does it.

On the other hand of the situation there’s Fred Krueger, a serial killer turned supernatural dream killer.  A fucked up individual to start with only made stronger in death where sleep is his playground.  Those long, sharp claws will forever haunt the nightmares of the residents of Springwood, Ohio as well as the audience in front of the screen.  Five, six, grab your crucifix.

The film does its absolute best to blur the lines between reality and the dreams Freddy resides in to keep you guessing which is which.  It creates seamless transitions from reality to dream by keeping environments the same and the cuts natural, it isn’t until that dark figure in the distance shows up, stretching his clawed arms out that you realize it’s a dream.  Once the realization is made, though, the movie replaces your suspense with horrifying images of Freddy slicing his own body, no shortage of disgusting bugs none of us want to be near, and bloodied, talking corpses in clear body bags.  It’s a true nightmare that’s kept plenty up at night,  good thing that’s where you’ll want to be if you want to avoid Freddy in the first place.  Seven, eight, better stay up late.

In the end, Nancy finally confronts Freddy on her own turf after pulling him into the real world, facing the true reality of the situation and seems to come off on the winning side of it.  With Freddy’s defeat, she gets her friends and her mother back and life returns to normal… except for that weird fog.  The movie leads you to believe Nancy won, that Freddy’s been defeated, simply by the power of belief, an honestly lame ending if you ask me… but it psyches you out one last time in the best possible way.  You can’t kill Freddy.  He only lets you play longer.

A Nightmare on Elm Street lives up to its title and is a truly nightmare-inducing creation, I can’t recommend it enough to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet… somehow… it’s always going to be worth the few extra nights of lost sleep.

Nine, Ten… Never sleep again.