Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Wes Craven
Starring: Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Robert Englund
Available On Video: VHS and DVD from New Line Home Video
Body Count: 4
Review: Almost all of the slasher films that came out after Halloween were pretty much the same thing. It started with Friday the 13th, and every film that came in the wake looked pretty much alike. Some teens, a killer, the end, the "surprise" set up for a sequel. There really was no variety.
That changed when Freddy Krueger moved into town. One of the first things that separated Freddy from the other slashers was that he spoke--quite frequently, in fact. Rather than giving his victims the silent treatment like Jason and Michael, Freddy taunted the kids he killed and cackled clever lines that only the audience could fully appreciate (it's hard to appreciate someone's humor when they're about to cut you into pieces with the glove of razors on their hand).
Nightmare on Elm Street begins with the construction of the glove that would bring Freddy to super-stardom. It then moves into the dreamworld, where Krueger terrorizes a pretty young girl named Tina. We soon learn that Tina is not the only one plagued by dreams of this strange guy with a dirty sweater and hat and knives on his fingers. Her friend Nancy and Nancy's boyfriend have also has similar nocturnal experiences.
To make things even more interesting, Nancy's parents know exactly who Nancy is talking about when she describes her dream stalker, but they refuse to believe her. That's because Nancy's mother and father were among those responsible for killing Freddy Krueger. They poured the gasoline on him. They let the match. So they know Freddy's dead....or is he?
Thanks to Nightmare and its ensuing sequels, Freddy became a household name, along with Robert Englund (the actor who played the killer) and director Wes Craven, who has gone on to become one of the most popular horror directors of all time (three of the top five highest-grossing horror films of all time were directed by Craven: Scream, Scream 2, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master).
Though it's not my favorite of the series, the original's power was never matched by any of the sequels that followed it. It remains to this day a true instant horror classic, and it's the film that truly defined the 1980s as the era of the slashers.
Trivia: Nightmare on Elm Street is actually based on real-life events. Craven got the idea for the film from a report he'd read about a teenage boy who had refused to sleep for an entire week, claiming he was afraid of having a nightmare. When he finally did fall asleep (after taking some sleeping pills his family had hidden in his food), the boy began screaming in the middle of the night. By the time his family reached him, the boy was dead.
Freddy was named after a grade school bully that bothered Craven when he was a child.
A Nightmare on Elm Street marks the film debut of Johnny Depp, who would later go on to star in 21 Jump Street and is currently filming the new Sleepy Hollow movie, with Tim Burton directing.
Read the Nightmare On Elm Street screenplay!
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